to think that Americans don't pronounce "Warrior" or "Aluminium" properly?

[giddypig]

"Woryer" and "Aloominum"

Just wrong!

No its okay, I get that. I just suck at spelling.

I've never got that about Sean the sheep (Scottish), I'm gobsmacked!

I remember a recent thread about Scottish boys names where people were saying Sorley sounded like sorely and I was convinced they were all taking the piss because to me it sounds absolutely nothing even remotely like that. I was convinced it was casual racism until people pointed out that southerners don't (or can't) pronounce 'r' properly.

My daughter was in US last year and she had difficulty ordering butter (burr)!

Vase: vayse or vahse

Vase: vayse or vahse

Or 'voz'

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08g5533

For anyone interested, this is a great edition of Word of Mouth (R4 programme about language) on Br v Am English and whether Br English is becoming Americanised. Lynne Murphy who appears is a real expert on this topic, which is really fascinating.

Butter should be easy to understand in the US from a British person speaking with a rhotic accent. One difference is that in the US, internal "t's" are often pronounced as "d's". (budder) One lingering aspect of my accent from my time living in Scotland is that I tend to say the "t" sound rather than a "d" sound.

You think it's bad just hearing it? Try using it.

I'm a web developer and when defining colours I must use color but in places that people will see I use colour so in places there are things like

color: ;

It gets muddled up at times and then stuff doesn't work but I refuse to use the American one unless I have too! The WWW was invented by a Scottish British man fgs .

Everyone says bin here and probably sin now I come to think of not. Home Counties

My SIL is American. She was raised in Boston but now lives in Charlotte N.C. She has quite a strong accent, but very different from her mum who says "ayg" to mean egg and other variations. It doesn't bother me, I'm from Liverpool. I don't think she understands half of what I say.

I've just remembered amusing a waiter by saying tomato not tomayto. It should rhyme with potato!!

Seneca Thanks for that. I have the Pioneer Woman, and the Barefoot Contessa's books on my Amazon list for Christmas, and wanted to know if half and half had a UK equivalent. I live in Belgium, but there is a shop here that sells UK products, so I can get single cream.

Peppermint sorry but you do sound terribly eager to distance yourself from "working class people"

Peppermint sorry but you do sound terribly eager to distance yourself from "working class people"

No, I don't. Simply using the term "working class" is not always a slight. If you read very carefully, you'll see the point I was making, which is that all of the "Americanisms" provided by previous posters were actually examples of a certain accent, and that American English is comprised of many accents.

If previous posters had provided stupid examples of words pronounced with upper middle class weather forecaster accents, I would have used that term. But none of them did.

My paternal great grandparents were so working class they didn't even speak English when they arrived in America. And I'm proud of them, and where I came from. '

And when they did learn English, they definitely said things like "EYE-talian" and "orrrrnge", and they continued to speak this way their whole lives. Noting that these are working class pronunciations from a specific region, and that most/all Americans do not pronounce words this way, is NOT a slight to the working class, or an attempt to distance myself from the working class. And I still think that anybody who asserts that all/most Americans have that accent is rather dim witted.

If we are speaking of class issues, I'll note that I know many, many Americans so eager to identify with their "working class" roots that they call themselves "Irish" or "Polish", or whatever their "working class" immigrant family members were, no matter how many generations ago these people arrived. This is something many Americans who were born in America like to do. There is a reason Saint Patrick's Day is such a huge deal on the East Coast of America.

Peppermint the fact that your grandparents didn't speak English does not automatically make them working class. It just shows they originated from a country where English was not the native tongue.

Peppermint the fact that your grandparents didn't speak English does not automatically make them working class. It just shows they originated from a country where English was not the native tongue.1

They were peasants in their native country, and arrived in America with no education, money, or resources. Actually, maybe they weren't even working class when they arrived. They had to work their way up to that.

In that part of America at that time, immigrants lived in neighborhoods made up of communities of people who all came from the same country. They helped new arrivals, but they were very, very working class. I mentioned the fact that my great grandparents did not speak English because there was a tremendous amount of prejudice among English speaking Americans against new immigrants who could not speak English at that time. Arriving in America as a non-English speaker then meant that you had a great hurdle to overcome, and rising above the working class (or into it) was very, very difficult, if not impossible.

You might be able to imagine how these segregated immigrant communities led to distinctive regional dialects of spoken English over time.

Wow this thread went from fun to serious very quickly!

Most of the tv programmes I watch are made in America with American actors (at the moment I'm not watching any uk tv shows at all!) the majority of the actors pronounce the words mentioned in this thread the way that op and pp have mentioned. I don't for one minute think that all Americans pronounce the words this way. Just like I don't say barth, glarss or parth. I'm from the north of England and I pronounce those words bath, glass and path with what I believe are flat vowels. Not everyone in the north pronounces the words this way but a lot of us do. I don't get offended when I'm watching tv and the American actors do 'British' accents because I'm almost certain that the majority of the world know that there are many accents in Britain and it's funny to point out the variations of dialects/accents.

When I was in NY with friends we met someone and introduced ourselves. One person is called 'Rob' and the American guy just couldn't get a grip on what he was actually saying. We had to say 'short for Robert' and then he went 'oh! Raaaaaaaab!' which was quite funny. Different vowel sounds I guess, much more similar to the Scottish way.

Such strong feelings on here. I wonder why accents bring it out in us?

Can I chuck a cat amongst the pigeons?

How do you all pronounce "Chile" and why do you think you're right?

(not to drip feed but this is one of the few words my American friends have expressed irritation with when I pronounced it the British way...)

Yours I have re-learned to pronounce Chile since moving to the Southern USA.

I pronounce Chile as chilly. I don't think I'm 'right' as such, I've just never given it much thought. Probably completely wrong. Is it supposed to be chill-ay?

American who lived in UK for a decade - first time I heard it pronounced "pie-ell-a" was on British food TV programs. LOL you guys have invaded Spain to retire and for holidays and you think "paella" has an "L" sound in it?!

Another one that drives me nuts is chorizo - "cho-ritz-o" instead of "cho-ree-so"

US place names - Las Vegas "lass vegas" instead of "lahs vegas"
Los Angeles "los an-gel-ees" instead of "los an-gel-es"

BillyBeerMonster Sat 13-May-17 09:57:30
Americans cannot seem to pronounce the letter U
Pooma - puma
Pootin - Putin

But it really is Pootin...

And I suspect that since the animal is a New World native, the Quechua word puma is most likely correctly pronounced in the New World.

Another one that drives me nuts is chorizo - "cho-ritz-o" instead of "cho-ree-so"

But isn't chorizo a word whose pronunciation differs all over the Spanish speaking world?

Yes, but there is no "t" sound in any of the Spanish pronunciations.

So Americans say 'herb' the french way because it's a french word', but 'taco' and every single other foreign word has to be said American style, 'tarco' as opposed to the Spanish way, which imo is closer to English tack-o.

Personally I think