# Things you're shocked to find out some people don't know. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 10, 2010, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353 "2010-01-10T02:44:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 23
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2010, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/441 "2010-01-28T16:45:12Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > AFAIK, the Spanish spoken in Mexico is different from the Spanish spoken in Spain. Not enough to be considered an entirely different language, obviously, but there are distinctions. Possibly someone with more than my five words of the language can comment–is it comparable to, say, the difference between American English and British English? It’s certainly mutually intelligible. The differences are mostly in basic vocabulary (less frequently used vocabulary terms are generally the same) and in verb conjugation - Castilian Spanish has separate endings for second-person plural forms, _-is_, while Latin American Spanish uses the third-person plural verb ending for second-person plural verbs. Castilian also has more pronouns. Anyway, if you ask a Mexican what language he speaks, he sure as hell won’t say _Mexicano_. ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2010, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/442 "2010-01-28T16:49:24Z")
> [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](#): > > Oh, also, I am perennially amazed by people who think _arse_ rhymes with the General American pronunciation of _farce_. Yeah, people who pronounce words correctly are astounding. [Cite](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/arse) [Cite](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCSIwevuF1c) Are you also amazed by people who think bath rhymes with math? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2010, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/443 "2010-01-28T16:54:19Z")
The _r_ is silent. Trust me on this. Mel Gibson had it wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2010, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/444 "2010-01-28T17:11:15Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > The _r_ is silent. Trust me on this. The r is silent… _for some dialects_. It’s not silent in many dialects of American English. And IIRC, it wasn’t silent for my Scottish friend. Or do you think he speaks his own language wrong, too? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2010, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/445 "2010-01-28T17:15:46Z")
No, I don’t think you recall correctly. Nobody in America says arse, so it doesn’t matter what Merriam-Webster thinks its pronunciation is. ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2010, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/446 "2010-01-28T17:20:56Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > The _r_ is silent. Trust me on this. > > Mel Gibson had it wrong. The R is silent in a lot of English pronunciations. What is your point? ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2010, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/447 "2010-01-28T17:25:34Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > No, I don’t think you recall correctly. You’re wrong. The R is pronounced distinctly in Scotland, Ireland and Australia. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2010, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/448 "2010-01-28T17:38:00Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > No, I don’t think you recall correctly. Nobody in America says arse, so it doesn’t matter what Merriam-Webster thinks its pronunciation is. I’m quite sure I do recall correctly, and other people in this thread agree with me. And if people in America \*were \*to say arse, many of us would pronounce the r, unless our dialect also drops it (e.g., someone from Boston or some areas of the South). When you borrow a piece of vocabulary, you don’t always borrow the native pronunciation–you map it onto your own dialect. So I don’t yell at people for “mispronouncing” a word like “karate,” even though I know the American way is completely “wrong” in Japanese, because _that’s how you say the word in American English_. So, to sum up, yes, for an American, arse \*\*can \*\*rhyme with farce. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2010, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/449 "2010-01-28T20:48:14Z")
> [@matt\_mcl](#): > > Reminds me of one of the reasons I gave when Europeans asked me why I was so excited to be over there. I pointed out that say you’re in Berlin – you can get on a train and seven hours later, you can be in Denmark, or Poland, or the Czech Republic. I get on a train and seven hours later, I’m in Rimouski. I won’t even leave the province for another four hours. Well, it all depends. Some days, you can board a train in Paris and seven hours later… you’re damn well still in Paris 😃 ---
**Author:** ![MitzeKatze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ad7895/32.png) [@MitzeKatze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MitzeKatze)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2010, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/450 "2010-01-28T21:29:06Z")
I know I am a few days late and don’t mean to back-track the conversation or anything, but I wanted to add a data point re: full service gas stations. I just got back from having to stop at the same gas station I always use near home. It has both self service and full service lanes. When it is nice out or I am in a hurry I pump my own gas, but today is freaking cold…so it was full-service for me so that I could stay in my toasty car. For the privilege of having someone else get their hands cold, I paid (I think) a nickel per gallon more, it may have been a little less or a little more but not a significant amount. For the fill-up today I believe I paid about $1.00 more than if I self-served it. But that is a BP station and the prices are always a smidge higher than the QT down the street, so maybe they inflate both amounts a bit to make up for it. 😉 It is not unusual at BP stations through Kansas (and some in MO that I am aware of) to still have full service lanes available. Oh! And a gas station whose name escapes me right now right across from my son’s school is exclusively full service (and the gas prices are a few pennies higher) and no one is surprised by it. There are a whole lot fewer full service stations as before the self-serve days, but they do still exist and in numbers that make them if not routine, then at least not rare. (At least in the middle of the country. ;)) ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2010, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/451 "2010-01-28T22:39:51Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > I’m quite sure I do recall correctly, and other people in this thread agree with me. > > And if people in America \*were \*to say arse, many of us would pronounce the r, unless our dialect also drops it (e.g., someone from Boston or some areas of the South). When you borrow a piece of vocabulary, you don’t always borrow the native pronunciation–you map it onto your own dialect. So I don’t yell at people for “mispronouncing” a word like “karate,” even though I know the American way is completely “wrong” in Japanese, because _that’s how you say the word in American English_. > > So, to sum up, yes, for an American, arse \*\*can \*\*rhyme with farce. Hey, hey, hey. Let’s just discuss the real elephant in the thread. It is not that arse can rhyme with farce. It is that, no one says ‘arse’ in the U.s. except the kind of cornballs that are trying to sound all British. They think it is pronounced ‘arse’ and they are saying ‘arse’ because, god bless them, they actually think British stuff is cool. So, what folks are really saying is, "You know, when you say arse, trying to sound all British and stuff, you really don’t sound British, you just sound corny and silly.’ ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2010, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/452 "2010-01-28T22:48:08Z")
> [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > It is that, no one says ‘arse’ in the U.s. except the kind of cornballs that are trying to sound all British. I say, now you’re just taking the piss, old chap. Pip pip cheerio crisps lorry. ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2010, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/453 "2010-01-28T22:50:41Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > AFAIK, the Spanish spoken in Mexico is different from the Spanish spoken in Spain. Not enough to be considered an entirely different language, obviously, but there are distinctions. Possibly someone with more than my five words of the language can comment–is it comparable to, say, the difference between American English and British English? When I taught elementary school in Lynnwood, CA for reasons beyond me, the school district hired teachers from Spain and not from Mexico. Teacher: “Bika” for “bicicleta”? What’s going on here? You eat “lunche”!!! Students: Stuck up ignorant lisping foreigners. It didn’t go over that well. I also heard that Los Angeles USD hired teachers from Spain for the high school, who got quite a shock. First I assume there was a language difference they hadn’t expected, even with the native Spanish speakers, but AFAIK, the high schools in Europe have filtered out the neer-do-wells, lower IQs, and the academically uninterested. These were probably the types these teachers had been hired for, because the incidence of needing Spanish teaching was probably higher (not that there’s necessarily a correspondence, but the lower performing classes are much more likely to need other language help than the high performing classes.) ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2010, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/454 "2010-01-28T22:51:29Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > I say, now you’re just taking the piss, old chap. Pip pip cheerio crisps lorry. Haaa! Aaaannd, that’s every single British term I know. And ‘lift’ for elevater. That’s it. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2010, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/455 "2010-01-28T22:54:46Z")
> [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > Haaa! Aaaannd, that’s every single British term I know. And ‘lift’ for elevater. That’s it. Thank \*\*you \*\*for giving me an opportunity to bust out “pip pip cheerio crisps lorry” again. A fellow moderator on a site I used to be active on was English, and I used to say it to him not infrequently. ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2010, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/456 "2010-01-28T22:57:17Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > Thank \*\*you \*\*for giving me an opportunity to bust out “pip pip cheerio crisps lorry” again. A fellow moderator on a site I used to be active on was English, and I used to say it to him not infrequently. I’ve used it out loud already. That’s how fast I run off with funny shit. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2010, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/457 "2010-01-28T23:13:34Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > No, I don’t think you recall correctly. Nobody in America says arse, so it doesn’t matter what Merriam-Webster thinks its pronunciation is. He does recall correctly. Scottish accents are rhotic. Aussie ones aren’t, though, to correct a previous point. ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2010, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/458 "2010-01-28T23:23:05Z")
I use “arse” and I’m not trying to sound British. The real question is why do people who don’t pronounce the “r” in “arse” pronounce the r" in “farce.” ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2010, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/459 "2010-01-28T23:25:23Z")
Are you talking about the people who say ‘ass’ instead? I don’t know any arse-speaking person who doesn’t pronounce the ‘r’. But I can quite imagine people pronouncing farce without the ‘r’. “It was a right faaaace” ---
**Author:** ![CBEscapee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b19c9b/32.png) [@CBEscapee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CBEscapee)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2010, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353/460 "2010-01-29T00:15:54Z")
> [@Cardinal](#): > > When I taught elementary school in Lynnwood, CA for reasons beyond me, the school district hired teachers from Spain and not from Mexico. > > Teacher: “Bika” for “bicicleta”? What’s going on here? You eat “lunche”!!! > > Students: Stuck up ignorant lisping foreigners. > > It didn’t go over that well. The students were speaking the infamous “spanglish” dialect of Spanish. And they could have been from numerous different countries. This type of speech is uncommon in México but unfortunately very common in parts of the US. If we shorten “bicicleta” it is “bici” much in the same way bicycle is shortened to bike in English. “Lonche” in México is a type of sandwich similar to a sub sandwich and not the name for a meal. Vocabulary is probably the biggest language difference between México and Spain. Ours includes many words derived from the indigenous languages, especially Nahuatl. But grammatically, although there are a few differences, they both have proper rules which are followed. Ours is not a lessor or incorrect form. We are taught grammar and orthography since grade school. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353.md?page=22) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-shocked-to-find-out-some-people-dont-know/524353.md?page=24)