You crazy yanks

I was a skim-through-De-Telegraaf /slow-noticeably-through-De-Volkskrant kind of guy I regret not persisting with study once I'd done enough to get a decent job - it becomes difficult to maintain motivation once the absolute need to learn has been satisfied. I was a bit of a New Yorker whose never gone up the Empire state when it comes to exploring Holland. I used to go down to the south west where many of equipment suppliers we used were located though (was it Valkenberg that had the only Dutch mountain?) I liked the 'zachte accent' but could see how fun could be made of it by the more cultured sounding (say themselves) Noord-Hollanders. Indeed, soft Dutch sounds very much like Irish countryside peoples English.- Could well be - although not so much via the current party but via a Hervormed Kerk-culture going back many years? I'm not inclined towards the politicization of Christs church and where that is done - legalism is sure to follow.The church has no business enforcing it's views on the world. Edited by iano, : No reason given.

I don't think that covers it. 'Betutteling' is more like trying to meddle in many relatively trivial matters of daily life by forbidding this and proscribing that, all the while treating people as incompetent to decide these things for themselves.When I said "straight from Kindergarten", I was thinking more of the possible origin of the word itself. It reminds me of the "tut-tut" sound people can make towards children when they disapprove of what the children do.Also, the word 'tut' is used for someone (usually a female^*) who spends an inordinate amount of time on unimportant things, especially regarding her own personal comfort and appearance.^{* When a man does this, he has "a keen eye for detail".}

A manager who simply has to micromanage (via setting rules for this and that) everything?

Something like that, yes, but with an attitude of "I know what's best for you."(Not in the sense of Diana Krall's "I only want what's the best thing for you and the best thing for you would be me", by the way.)Edited by Parasomnium, : added Diana Krall quote

As a Texan living in England, here's a few off the top of my head (some of these might only apply to my southern dialect):

• Controversy - yanks emphasise the first and third syllables, Brits the second.
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• Leisure - yanks say "lee-sure", Brits "leh-sure".
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• Privacy - yanks: pry-vacy, Brits: prih-vacy.
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• Route - yanks: r-out, Brits: root (like the root of a plant)
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• Disorientated - not pronounced differently, but yanks just say "disoriented".
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• Schedule - yanks (southern anyway) say "Sked-yool", Brits (Leicester anyway) say "Shed-yool".

We say Sked-yool in the north too, that's a pretty much all over pronunciation in the States. Both pronunciations are found here. It seems to me, the more rural you get, the more "root"s you find, while the more urban, the more "rout"s.

Briterican writes:

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Disorientated - not pronounced differently, but yanks just say "disoriented".

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That's because "disorientate" isn't a word.The verb is "orient." "-ate" is a suffix used to turn words that aren't verbs into verbs ("calibrate" is "caliber" + "-ate," for example.) Thus, "orientate" is redundant.And let's not forget "ad-ver-TISE-ment" vs. "ad-VER-tise-ment."I'm currently doing a play, Sherlock Holmes' Excellent Adventure, that requires British accents and we've decided to buck the guidance of our dialect coach and pronounce it "scone," rhyming with "cone," rather than rhyming with "con," though the latter is the preferred pronunciation.Nobody in the US would know what a "skahn" is.To paraphrase Steve Martin:They call a car's "hood" a "bonnet" and a "cookie" a "biscuit." It's like they have a different word for everything!

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

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Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

Well, that's the two opposite sides of the spectrum when it comes to newspapers around here. De Telegraaf being considered more on the right side and the Volkskrant being on the left side. Well only mountain, no. For one, you're probably thinking of Vaals (close to Valkenburg), which has the highest mountain. (still it's only 322 metres above sea level). The countryside around it is kinda "mountainous" (within that range of course, so it's probably not very "mountainous" to people used to more profound mountains). Still, the rest of the country is very flat compared to the south. Ah yes, the stuck up "Hollanders". Their beer sucks as well, so to them. Cool. Yes, that's probably it. It's not so much a "Christian" thing, but more a "some Christians" thing. Cool, then we can agree on that. Nor do I think anyone should push their views on anyonye else.

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I hunt for the truthI am the one Orgasmatron, the outstretched grasping hand
My image is of agony, my servants rape the land
Obsequious and arrogant, clandestine and vain
Two thousand years of misery, of torture in my name
Hypocrisy made paramount, paranoia the law
My name is called religion, sadistic, sacred whore.
-Lyrics by Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead

I'm hesitant to disagree, as I completely understand where you are coming from (and because I admire your intellectual prowess hehe), but...Disorientate - definition of disorientate by The Free Dictionary

Remember that UK accent can vary by a distance as short as a few miles. My pal from school days would say 'garn' when he rally meant 'gone' and this was true of the people from his town.My village (about 6 miles away) pronounced it 'gorn' (this was before it became a commuter village).So unless your coach is English I would take the advice as a crap shoot.That said I've always called one scone a 'skoan' and multiple scones 'skons'.Us crazy Brits!

Herb: Americans tend towards treating the 'h' as a silent letter like in 'hour' or 'honour' whereas Brits tend to pronounce it like in 'hello'.My step-mother (from New Orleans) once asked me over the phone to bring the 'mayo' to their house once (I was in NO at the same time, obviously). I had to get her to spell it out because I had no idea what she was asking.Speaking of pronouncing things differently. There's an old joke in New Orleans, which has its own unique accents (though the joke centres around the accents commonly found ninth ward and the like which has been uprooted somewhat over the past 5 years):

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What's the difference between Earl and Oil?

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Earl is what you put in your car and Oil is the guy that puts it there.

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All of these pronounciations are found in the UK. It is a common argument over which version of "scone" is the posh/common/northern/southern/etc, and in nearly fourty years I can simply say that there is aboslutely no agreement as to which is which!

Of course there is agreement! It's just that half the country are stubbornly refusing to accept it.

Nobody round my way likes that half: bastards.ABE: and when I say that, I say it 'bar-studs'.Edited by Larni, : bar-stud

Hi Mod, Yeah, Briterican knows that one. You should see the reproachful looks he gets in our D&D sessions any time his character tries to utilise magical 'erbs. Some thoughts on American English; I think that a lot of Brit's are necessarily scornful of Americanisms. Often this is unfair. Many US usages are actually British usages that died out over here, whilst persisting in America (Fall for Autumn for instance). It's pretty much guaranteed that any Brit complaining about US English will routinely use Americanisms without realising it; swamp, range and bluff (as terms for stretches of land) are all American in origin, but none receive the scorn that some Americanisms attract.I reccomend Bill Bryon's Made in America for a hugely enjoyable guide to American English.

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One that has been puzzling me; recently, whilst watching HBO's brilliant drama The Wire (an amazing piece of work, anyone who hasn't seen it; what are you doing here on this forum? Go watch The Wire immediately!) I noticed an odd pronunciation of the word permit (the noun, as in an official document which grants you permission to do something). The actors were pronouncing it per-MIT, with the emphasis on the second syllable. Is this an east coast usage? Briterican assures me that in Texas, the pronunciation is PER-mit, just as in the UK.Anyone?Mutate and Survive