To demand that my son does not say "candy"?

[Heqet]

I rather suspect I am. He says "cayndy" in a very american accent. I HATE it. I snap that he is not american and the word is SWEETS, or CHOCOLATE

erm, depending on whether he is talking about sweets or chocolate

It drives me up the wall, this fake american accent.

This is the thread for WW3 folks

Can you wait till Feb 11th Kaloki as I'm bring the dcs back to the UK for a visit? That would still leave dh in the firing line, but he's a big boy!

the thread that surprised me most was the one about Hershey's threatened takeover of Cadbury's - one American got very sensitive over the "Hershey-bashing" and took it far too personally as an afront to all Americans!

Hehehe! Ok tadjennyp,

That's crazy ThumbleBells!

Oh for crying out loud. I love my countrymen and all but some of them should just chillax. If you're raised with Hershey's you probably like it, if you weren't you probably don't. I personally love Hershey's kisses, but then again I love trashy romance novels too. (Rubbishy romance novels?! )

oh it was crazy, yes! CheerfulYank, I think you're right - I mean a lot of non-UK Europeans openly deride UK chocolate as well because it hasn't enough cocoa content for their tastes - doesn't mean they are all anti-British (Well, not for that reason anyway!)

I only tried Hershey's stuff once and it wasn't to my taste. But then neither is Lindt chocolate, although I love dark/high cocoa content chocolate normally.

I think "trashy" romance/chicklit is fully entrenched in UK language now as well!

'CLARK for clerk?'

That's how it's pronounced in Scotland.

But I guess Jockos are just the big tut-tut as well .

Any place where people use 'serviette' for a napkin isn't really in a place to throw stones.

Haven't read thread too well, but have we had 9/11? My brain won't compute dates that way round - it looks like Nov 11th.

I can't get too worked up about American expressions though. Anyway..

Candy is Dandy
But liquor is quicker

So says wonderful Ogden Nash

No! Arrgh see..?! I meant Nov 9th of course..

expat Nah, I'm on the south coast, can't stand you Scots

In all honesty, I'm from Slough Sluff. Which means that I've grown up with well spoken Berkshire lot on one side and the Slough "massive" on the other side. It's funny how there can such big differences in language in such a small area!

Heqet - too many people being unable to spell Secondary, I'll warrant...

When I was growing up, serviette meant the paper kind and napkin was for the posh cloth that you used napkin rings with. No idea whether that was regional or if it was to do with my forces upbringing, expat. I loved living in Scotland as a child as I do living in Central Oregon now! Would that go some way towards forgiveness of my serviette/napkin faux pas?

(Of course, I wrote that without realising that this was ten PAGES LONG! So my reply was to Heqet on p1.... SORRY!!)

Bleu cheese.

Pronounced 'blue'

ARGH.

Awwww...I like this thread...no bashing detected at all...As an American, I fully expect and embrace my British friends to take the p** as much as possible...

I have to say though 'chillaxin' is just a vile, hideous word, and even seeing it here makes me ill...

I like the word serviette. It does make me laugh a little when Brits pronounce the 'h' in herb and the 't' in filet.

Yes re. playdates! (with cupcakes).

What about sleepover? When I was little, you came to stay the night.

"Can I get" has been normal in Scotland as far as I know since I was first here in the 1970s. Maybe a bit Glaswegian (there are other Scottishes).

How do you pronounce bleu cheese? I say bleu and blue the same way, I must admit. I don't say blue and blew the same though.

This thread led to an interesting discussion in the first grade (6 and 7 year olds) classroom that I work in today. The teacher was teaching them to spell "water" and saying "Well, most of us pronounce it more with a /d/ sound, so we say "wadder" " and I laughed and brought up this thread. The children were all amused by sweets instead of candy and rubbish instead of trash, and we found the UK on the globe and whatnot. I was happily surprised by most of them knowing where it was already.

I wouldn't say 'bleu cheese' at all, myself. Either blue cheese, or (erm...wracks brain for schoolgirl French) fromage bleu? It's like 'beef bourguignon' instead of 'boeuf bourgignon'.

Cup- how do you not pronounce blue and blew the same? (Baffled)

blue is more "bl-yoo" and blew is "bloo"...sort of. It's a very small difference, but it's there.

from this site

"The pronunciation (klärk), spelled clark and clerk, arose in the south of England during the 15th century and is today the Received Pronunciation of clerk in the United Kingdom."

It was previously clerc as in the French le clerc, but has been pronounced clark in the UK - not just Scotland - for centuries.

The Americans say it as it's spelled, with an "eh" sound.

Also, anyone "posh" (using RP) in the UK would say bloo for the blue and something akin to bl-yeuw for blew - the opposite to cheerfulyank's way.

Vive la difference! - but when in Rome...

(I grew up in a community with a US base and spent my teenage years dodging mix-ups with rubbers, getting off with, and many more UK sayings that the Americans found rude)

Oh, I'm soooo not posh Or, the US version of not posh, as we don't say that

I pronounce clerk as in, rhymes with smirk.

Clirk? . Said to rhyme with smirk, that sounds completely different to clerk in a Scottish accent. Suppose I'd need to know your accent to imagine it properly! It's amazing how some words rhyme in some accents but not in others.

Oh, BTW OP, YANBU!

I grew up among Americans, as I have said, but I was pulled firmly into check by my mum when I said anything wrong - whether than be with an American, Glaswegian, English or any other accent. Speak properly or not at all was her attitude.

But I did tend to mimic accents when I was 2-3, so it's a phase that passes.

chillaxin (shudder) makes me think of all the americanisms in the workplace, like "thinking outside of the box". If I hear that again, I'll scream. There are lots more but brain has gone mush after a night of nursing vomiting children.