h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Way back somebody mentioned "Gwynned" and "English" in the same phrase. There is a lot of debate (some of it very heated) about what British is. Also what makes people English.

It appears to me that the English and the Protestants in Northern Ireland call themselves British without too much problem while the others call themselves Scottish (or Scots), Welsh and Irish (Not talking about the people from Eire - who would naturally call themselves Irish).

There are many words used in the UK by different groups which would not be understood in other parts of the UK. My mother was from Newcastle and local words would have included "spuggie" and "clarts" (sparrow and mud).

We even have reference in rhyming slang to words we no longer use in the south "Me old cock!" (meaning my old mate)has no rude reference but is short for "My old cock sparrow" and the word that rhymes with sparrow is marrow - which is still recognised in Newcastle by many people as meaning a partner. There is a separate thread on rhyming slang and I don't want to divert this one.

How embarassing to come back with a post written during a spell off-line only to find someone else has said the same thing in the meantime.
Well if the two of us came up with the same idea maybe it's not so far of the mark after all.

Is there a carpenter in the house? Isn't bleaching something you do to wood instead of varnishing?

One example of confusion: a friend of mine was in the US and heard a story about a groom turning up to a wedding drunk and the bride was pissed.

"I'll call into the office" Does that mean phone or attend in person?

Does anyone else remeber the old joke about "God said to Moses, 'Come forth!' but Moses came fifth and won a bag of peanuts."

Yes, The old joke sounds familiar to me, but still amusing.

As for "call into the office" - that little word 'into' implies movement and makes it a personal visit as far as I'm concerned. If I was making a phone call to my place of work I'd just "call the office".

"Called into the office" is poor construction in American English. We no longer use the word "call" as a personal visit anymore, probably because it was so popular with bourgeouis Southern plantation owners. The proper construction would be "called the office," and would signify that he picked up a phone. If he were to go to the office, it would be he "dropped by" or "stopped in" or something along those lines.

Yeah, I agree with GB. FWIW, though, I frequently say "I'll put a call into the office" or "I'll give him a call," both of which refer to using the telephone to communicate instead of a physical visit. Here in the USA, it's definitely more common to use "call" meaning a telephone call than a personal visit.

With regard to "bleachers," I sure seem to remember us having to roll out the bleachers in the indoor gymnasium before large school assemblies, basketball/volleyball games, pep rallies, concerts, etc. What I mean is, we called them "bleachers" even if they were indoors as well. They're still rock hard, steel-n-wood structures whereupon students were (indeed still are) forced to crowd into to hear the school principle speak for hours on end - the theory being that the seats are too uncomfortable to sleep in, which doesn't work when you're VERY crowded as you can then sleep on your neighbor's shoulder, assuming s/he's gone to sleep already him/herself. Sort of a cascading thing. Of course, at concerts and games we never sat down, and lemme tell you, those things can make a hella lotta noise when you get everyone stomping! All joking aside, I might be the only one thinking these things were called "bleachers" - it makes a helluva lotta sense that the word would have its roots in an outdoors setting where the wood got bleached by the sun (good thinking, whoever came up with that one first). We probably just called them bleachers after thinking that possibly having indoor basketball games with lights and things would be a nice change to getting rained on and stop the wind casually blowing the basketball into the next county.


- JD

Why do we say Maths and a Americans say Math?
Why do we say trousers and Americans say trouser?
Why do we say scissors and Americans say scissor?
And all the Z's instead of S's in words ending in ise (ize).
Are S's rationed that side of the Atlantic?

I don't know about other people, but everyone I know says "scissors" and "trousers". "Trouser" and "scissor" sound odd, like maybe the trousers only have one leg or the scissors one blade (which would make it more of an ineffective knife than a pair of scissors).

I think, generally, we Americans don't say "trouser" or "scissor." Note my usage of the adverb 'generally,' please. Heh.

I looked it up in our American Heritage Dictionary and 'scissor' is indeed a verb - 'to scissor' means what you might expect, "to cut or clip with scissors or shears." I've yet to ever hear a fellow American (USA) use this word as a verb (i.e. "scissor" instead of the noun "scissors.")

Lo and behold, the word "trouser" (which can also be spelled "trowser" according to my dictionary) is also defined! I was surprised to find this one. It is, of course, the same definition of what you would expect to find under "trousers" - pants/jeans/khakis/slacks ... these are all synonyms far more common for "trousers", and the only time I've EVER heard the word "trouser" is in the phrase "trouser legs." As I said, most USA Americans say "pants" (or jeans, or slacks, or khakis, etc) instead of "trousers." My Grandad used to use the word "trousers" a lot, but he was from Canada and was (of course) two generations older than I. I think that one's not too rare amongst some folks of the more elderly persuasion.

For all of that, I find it interesting that speakers of English (from the UK side of the pond) tend to pronounce words that end with an "a" as ending in "er." And, as if to compensate, the written word, "er" or "erm," is usually pronouced "uh" or "ah" some phonetic variation that would at least approximate the American pronunciation of words that end in "a." Example: most English people I've met pronounce "agenda" to rhyme with "gender" or "bender". In other words, I hear them say "ah-gen-der." Most people in the USA say "ah-gen-dah." There are more words that are treated with this same difference between our two cultures, such as "formula," the feminine name "Cynthia," and even the rock band "Metallica" ... all these words are pronounced ending with an "ah" sound here, and the English I've met usually put an "er" sound there. Some exceptions I've noted are words like "phenomena" and various Spanish words commonly borrowed like "Casablanca" (to use a famous one) - it seems to depend on where the word has its roots, or so I would guess. In a similar vein, I've read many an English novel (and quite a number of American ones as well) where what I would transcribe as "uh" or "uhm" for idiosyncratic speech interjections are frequently written as "er" or "erm." Bit odd, that. Or so I think, but my opinion is 100% Grade A Mad In The USA and not to be taken internally.

- JD

Did you mean Mad in the USA?
Anyway, thanks for putting me straight on the trouser/scissor thing.
I think you're fairly right about the "a" as "er" pronunciation. I think in practice the last "a" in agenda is pronounced like an "a" in "hat." Are you are saying that Americans pronounce it as the "ar" in bark? Have you had a lot of contact with Brits from one area?
I had to really think about what to use as an example because the pronunciation of the "a" inside a word says a lot about people in the UK.
In England southerners tend to pronounce bath as barth while for a northerners the "a" is flat like in cap.
The one exception of the pronunciation of rounded and flattened vowels is in the physical term "mass" which is always pronounced with a flat "a" unless the word has a capital M in which case it may be pronounced differently by southerners to indicate the Catholic service.

Confused - there's more...

I once read that the long 'a' (barth, glarss) was down to one of the King Georges. When the Hannoverian kings first came over to England they couldn't speak a word of English. When they eventually did learn to speak English, they used the long 'a' which is sometimes used in German. No one dared to contradict or mock them, so everybody at court ended up speaking that way. Eventually most of the nobility (except the ones that insisted on staying 'up North'), most of the burgeoning middle-classes (especially the southern ones), and finally most of the people from the South-East of England were using the long 'a'.

I switch between long and short 'a', pretty much at random. I'm a Midlander (North of London but South of Yorkshire), but have been brought up to 'speak properly' (whatever that means!).

Vestboy says: I think you're fairly right about the "a" as "er" pronunciation. I think in practice the last "a" in agenda is pronounced like an "a" in "hat." Are you are saying that Americans pronounce it as the "ar" in bark?

Actually, no. I was trying to convey that most Americans (there are ALWAYS exceptions!) seem to pronounce the "a" at the end of words like "agenda" and "metallica" as the "a" in "hat". The American pronunciation of "hat" that is.

Vestboy also says: Have you had a lot of contact with Brits from one area? I had to really think about what to use as an example because the pronunciation of the "a" inside a word says a lot about people in the UK.

Ah ha! I think this must be the crux of the matter. Nearly all the English I have actually talked to with any great length are from either any of a number of London communities. I don't personally know more than perhaps a half-dozen English people, at least that I actually speak with somewhat frequently. I think most are from the Southern regions, though one lady proudly admits to being from Liverpool. I've known a couple Australians (one from Brisbane, and one from the heartland outpost of Alice Springs) as well as a couple guys from New Zealand (South Island) - some I think I remember hearing the (to my American ears) strange way of pronouncing the ending "a" in some words. Some I know for a fact, did not (namely both Kiwis ). As far as famous people, I've heard a certain famous author who's from Cambridge speak - but I don't recall how Douglas Adams pronounced any of those types of words ending in "a". I recall a particular Monty Python member (Michael Palin) frequently using "er" (to my ears) instead of a medium-long "a" when he said "agenda" in "The Meaning of Life." I once heard an interview with David Gilmour (another Cambridge native)

Anyway, I'm sure you hit the nail on the head. After I posted it occurred to me that I've only ever heard it from someone with an English accent, never from someone with a Welsh, Irish, or Scottish accent. I think the only Englishman I've heard speak that I know was from Yorkshire was James Herriot (who, if I remember correctly, is really a Scot who moved to the Yorkshire area to practice vetrinary medicine). My only trip to England was a tour of all the major sites of London (including a 2-hour unplanned tour and schooling in the art of Getting Thoroughly Lost In The Underground and Learning to Curse British Rail Properly). I also played "Guess What I Just Said" with any number of cabby's. They obviously enjoy taking the piss out of us 'merkins whenever they get the chance. Heh.

All London accents aside, I imagine Britain is quite diverse with the accents of various regions, much like the USA is. The area is just more compressed. I guess that's very applicable to the pronunciation of the "a" at the end of various words. FWIW, a well-known and respected local rugby coach of ours is from Bath, and he pronounces the "a" in there the same way he does when he says "cap".


- JD

I remember watching a TV program about the pronunciation of languages drifting over time. Apparently, (at least in the US and UK) before long distance voice communications, when communities were relatively isolated, and particularly when there were a few leaders in an area who people tended to imitate, 'rotation of vowels' (or some similar phrase) happened quite often - vowel sound A gets replaced with sound B at the same time as sound B is replaced with sound C, C with D, etc. Even in the space of a generation, a great deal of change could happen.

There certainly is a massive variation in both pronunciation and dialect across the UK. I suppose (similar to the US), one large influence is the variation in origin and historic language of people in different areas of the country - Cornish, Celts, Gaels, Angles, Saxons, Norsemen, etc. Add in the natural drift over time mentioned above, and you get an awful lot of variety.

(Personally, being a good Northern lad, I pronounce my 'a's *properly* - after all, if we were really supposed to talk like southerners, we'd write 'glarse', instead of 'glass'. And don't even get me *started* on that synthetic royal-speak - 'hizes' indeed. )

How do you pronounce tomato?
Is the "a" pronounced like "may" or "maw"? Perhaps we could just pronounce it as "tommytoes". This would eliminate all confusion, and perhaps spark a new generation of h2g2 researchers to start their own type of vocabulary.
(A new language is created...)

I'm an American, and I've never heard anyone pronounce the final 'a' in agenda with a short a sound. Practicing it here before my keyboard, it sounds incredibly vulgar to my ears. The final a is pronounced just like the first a, which is as an 'uh' sound, thus: uh-JEN-duh.

I've known people from the South who end their words like agenda in an 'er' sound, too, but they knew it was wrong, and did it on purpose. For instance, the word 'tomato' sounds like 'mater.'

Did you hear about the English language student who committed suicide?
He was going throught the pronunciations of "ough"
cough pronounced coff
bough pronounced bau
rough pronounced ruff
thought pronounced thort
thorough pronounced thuhruh

He was going mad - so much to learn and no sense to it.

then one day while he was reading the newspaper he was heard to scream and was later found hanged.

At the inquest the Coroner scratched his head as he read the suicide note which mere said

"Les Miserables!!!!!!!!!!!"

Attached was the cut piece of newspaper which had the review

Les Miserables - Pronounced Success!

On the subject of 'ough', I am currently working with a man whose surname is 'Tougher', pronounced 'Tower'! If there is an English language student out there who ISN'T confused from time to time, I'd like to meet them!

Do you meet people who are confused _all_ of the time, too?