Topic: Why can't British people learn to enunciate their words better?
+Anonymous A — 13.5 years ago #19,690
I wanted to watch the British version of the Office, but I can't stand more than five minutes of it. Most British people I have heard talk so fast and mumble at the same time. Who the hell know what they are trying to say. I tried putting the English subtitles on for the Office, but all I get is....
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"
I know that is not what everyone on the show is saying. I'm assuming anyway.
So maybe British shows on DVD could add a subtitle feature for the "For the unable to comprehend vocalized British dialogue impaired"
It would help.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"
I know that is not what everyone on the show is saying. I'm assuming anyway.
So maybe British shows on DVD could add a subtitle feature for the "For the unable to comprehend vocalized British dialogue impaired"
It would help.
+Anonymous B — 13.5 years ago, 12 minutes later[T] [B] #241,020
@OP
I take it you are a primitive American yet to fully evolve. Language will develop in the course of time. Meantime, simply accept that you are not yet ready for real comedy and make do with your colloquial spin off.
I take it you are a primitive American yet to fully evolve. Language will develop in the course of time. Meantime, simply accept that you are not yet ready for real comedy and make do with your colloquial spin off.
·Anonymous A (OP) — 13.5 years ago, 3 minutes later, 15 minutes after the original post[T] [B] #241,025
@previous (B)
I'm trying to get to the bottom of a problem that I have. You come into this thread with the intentions of not helping to solve the problem, but with the intentions of being an ass. If you have nothing, but lame insults to add contribute to the discussion.....move on.
I'm trying to get to the bottom of a problem that I have. You come into this thread with the intentions of not helping to solve the problem, but with the intentions of being an ass. If you have nothing, but lame insults to add contribute to the discussion.....move on.
·Anonymous B — 13.5 years ago, 6 minutes later, 22 minutes after the original post[T] [B] #241,031
@previous (A)
Learn to speak English if you wish to understand English dialogue. You will have exactly the same problem if you watch the French version, unless you speak French.
Understand that what you speak in the USA IS NOT English further more you need to understand English dialects.
Learn to speak English if you wish to understand English dialogue. You will have exactly the same problem if you watch the French version, unless you speak French.
Understand that what you speak in the USA IS NOT English further more you need to understand English dialects.
·Anonymous A (OP) — 13.5 years ago, 2 minutes later, 24 minutes after the original post[T] [B] #241,033
Typical Brit. LOL @ only being able to make 14 episodes before being cancelled.
·Anonymous B — 13.5 years ago, 6 minutes later, 30 minutes after the original post[T] [B] #241,044
·Anonymous A (OP) — 13.5 years ago, 2 minutes later, 33 minutes after the original post[T] [B] #241,046
Oh yeah? Well we gave the English a little lesson in SPELL-CHECKING!!! It's called the AMERICAN REVOLUTION! Now we spell words in English without unnecessary vowels like "U" in words such as "COLOR" or "ARMOR!" We spell words properly, such as "DEFENSE" and "ALUMINUM" and "SOCCER!"
+Anonymous C — 13.5 years ago, 6 minutes later, 39 minutes after the original post[T] [B] #241,052
@241,020 (B)@241,031 (B)
@241,044 (B)
<---
@OP
@241,025 (A)
@241,033 (A)
@previous (A)
> mad
(Edited 3 minutes later.)
·Anonymous B — 13.5 years ago, 2 minutes later, 42 minutes after the original post[T] [B] #241,055
@241,046 (A)
....and this is relevant to the spoken language, that you cannot understand, is it?
Your spelling is simply the result of basic linguistic illiteracy, by the way.
....and this is relevant to the spoken language, that you cannot understand, is it?
Your spelling is simply the result of basic linguistic illiteracy, by the way.
(Edited 49 seconds later.)
·Anonymous A (OP) — 13.5 years ago, 8 minutes later, 50 minutes after the original post[T] [B] #241,056
·Anonymous B — 13.5 years ago, 1 minute later, 51 minutes after the original post[T] [B] #241,057
@241,046 (A)
Any road me mucker, I mut climb the apple and pears and find me bread. I need me beauty sleep. I bid yer good night.
Any road me mucker, I mut climb the apple and pears and find me bread. I need me beauty sleep. I bid yer good night.
+fullmouthextraction !2CQezZ7g6I — 13.5 years ago, 2 hours later, 2 hours after the original post[T] [B] #241,230
I would just like to announce that there are dialects of both English and American that are easier and harder to understand than others. For example: I am from the US and I cannot understand some of the backwoods southern accents. I have to deal with these people on a daily basis and I will never understand 100% of what they are trying to tell me.
+Mark Twain with Syntax assist — 13.5 years ago, 17 minutes later, 3 hours after the original post[T] [B] #241,239
It is this prose that Ernest Hemingway had chiefly in mind when he said that "all modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn." Hemingway's own prose stems from it directly and consciously; so does the prose of the two modern writers who most influenced Hemingway's early style, Gertrude Stein and Sherwood Anderson (although neither of them could maintain the robust purity of their model); so, too, does the best of William Faulkner's prose, which, like Mark Twain's own, reinforces the colloquial tradition with the literary tradition. Indeed, it may be said that almost every contemporary American writer who deals conscientiously with the problems and possibility of prose must feel, directly or indirectly, the influence of Mark Twain. He is the master of the style that escapes the fixity of the printed page, that sounds in our ears with the immediacy of the heard voice, the very voice of unpretentious truth.
The Rules of Grammar
"I am almost sure by witness of my ear, but cannot be positive, for I know grammar by ear only, not by note, not by the rules. A generation ago I knew the rules-knew them by heart, word for word, though not their meanings-and I still know one of them: the one which says---but never mind, it will come back to me presently."
"Great books are weighed and measured by their style and matter, and not the trimmings and shadings of their grammar."
"The Queen's English"
"There is no such thing as the Queen's English. The property has gone into the hands of a joint stock company and we own the bulk of the shares."
"Adjectives"
As to the Adjective: when in doubt, strike it out."
"Verbosity"
"I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English-it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don't let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don't mean utterly, but kill most of them-then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice."
(Letter to D. W. Bowser, March 1880)"
"SPELLING"
"I don't see any use in having a uniform and arbitrary way of spelling words. We might as well make all clothes alike and cook all dishes alike. Sameness is tiresome; variety is pleasing. I have a correspondent whose letters are always a refreshment to me, there is such a breezy unfettered originality about his orthography. He always spells Kow with a large K. Now that is just as good as to spell it with a small one. It is better. It gives the imagination a broader field, a wider scope. It suggests to the mind a grand, vague, impressive new kind of a cow."
"I have had an aversion to good spelling for sixty years and more, merely for the reason that when I was a boy there was not a thing I could do creditably except spell according to the book. It was a poor and mean distinction and I early learned to disenjoy it. I suppose that this is because the ability to spell correctly is a talent, not an acquirement. There is some dignity about an acquirement, because it is a product of your own labor. It is wages earned, whereas to be able to do a thing merely by the grace of God and not by your own effort transfers the distinction to our heavenly home---where possibly it is a matter of pride and satisfaction but it leaves you naked and bankrupt."
"I never had any large respect for good spelling. That is my feeling yet. Before the spelling-book came with its arbitrary forms, men unconsciously revealed shades of their characters and also added enlightening shades of expression to what they wrote by their spelling, and so it is possible that the spelling-book has been a doubtful benevolence to us."
"...ours is a mongrel language which started with a child's vocabulary of three hundred words, and now consists of two hundred and twenty-five thousand; the whole lot, with the exception of the original and legitimate three hundred, borrowed, stolen, smouched from every unwatched language under the sun, the spelling of each individual word of the lot locating the source of the theft and preserving the memory of the revered crime."
ALL By Mark Twain.
The Rules of Grammar
"I am almost sure by witness of my ear, but cannot be positive, for I know grammar by ear only, not by note, not by the rules. A generation ago I knew the rules
"Great books are weighed and measured by their style and matter, and not the trimmings and shadings of their grammar."
"The Queen's English"
"There is no such thing as the Queen's English. The property has gone into the hands of a joint stock company and we own the bulk of the shares."
"Adjectives"
As to the Adjective: when in doubt, strike it out."
"Verbosity"
"I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English
(Letter to D. W. Bowser, March 1880)"
"SPELLING"
"I don't see any use in having a uniform and arbitrary way of spelling words. We might as well make all clothes alike and cook all dishes alike. Sameness is tiresome; variety is pleasing. I have a correspondent whose letters are always a refreshment to me, there is such a breezy unfettered originality about his orthography. He always spells Kow with a large K. Now that is just as good as to spell it with a small one. It is better. It gives the imagination a broader field, a wider scope. It suggests to the mind a grand, vague, impressive new kind of a cow."
"I have had an aversion to good spelling for sixty years and more, merely for the reason that when I was a boy there was not a thing I could do creditably except spell according to the book. It was a poor and mean distinction and I early learned to disenjoy it. I suppose that this is because the ability to spell correctly is a talent, not an acquirement. There is some dignity about an acquirement, because it is a product of your own labor. It is wages earned, whereas to be able to do a thing merely by the grace of God and not by your own effort transfers the distinction to our heavenly home---where possibly it is a matter of pride and satisfaction but it leaves you naked and bankrupt."
"I never had any large respect for good spelling. That is my feeling yet. Before the spelling-book came with its arbitrary forms, men unconsciously revealed shades of their characters and also added enlightening shades of expression to what they wrote by their spelling, and so it is possible that the spelling-book has been a doubtful benevolence to us."
"...ours is a mongrel language which started with a child's vocabulary of three hundred words, and now consists of two hundred and twenty-five thousand; the whole lot, with the exception of the original and legitimate three hundred, borrowed, stolen, smouched from every unwatched language under the sun, the spelling of each individual word of the lot locating the source of the theft and preserving the memory of the revered crime."
ALL By Mark Twain.
+Icarus !!kwaBAf77h — 13.5 years ago, 10 hours later, 13 hours after the original post[T] [B] #241,607
@previous (Mark Twain with Syntax assist )
> "Verbosity"
> "I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is > the way to write English---it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don't let > fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in.
Not a point you take to heart it would seem
> "Verbosity"
> "I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is > the way to write English---it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don't let > fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in.
Not a point you take to heart it would seem
(Edited 1 minute later.)
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