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

Yeah, two syllables - like 'mirror'

It's certainly two syllables in the Irish accent.

Although...there's not really a good, agreed, linguistic definition of what a syllable is...

Hell, I know a syllable when I see one.

The Squirrel scene from 'Green Wing':

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ED7TAngJijI

In 'Picksburgh', the word 'mirror' also has one syllable...

(Love the squirrel lady.)

Depends on who's singing and when:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QuHK_uZiCY&feature=fvst

I'm in an altered state...I think I need medication...

(It occurs to me that Germans would have trouble with the 'rr' in 'squirrel'. A Rheinlaender might choke.)

As spanish speakers have trouble with the hard, anglo-saxon, 'J'

And English English speakers sometimes have trouble with the English -CH. As in Lock Lomond.

Since when was Germany in the Commonwealth?

As for the pronunciation of squirrel - it's the "l" that gives foreigners away. They put too much effort into it.

Could you introduce something more topical into a converation, like 'Quirral', from there to squirral is a short leap if the 's' is essential

I thought all Americans pronounced it 'skwirl''.



MMF

Oh and clearly the way to get people to use it is to make it a password.

Pontious Pilate might have had a pwoblem with sqiwwels too. And all kinds of nefawious acts of bwavado and dewwing-do.

>>Since when was Germany in the Commonwealth?

Bum. Well spotted.

To over-analyse my tortuous mental processes, I must have been putting a deceased Glaswegian comedian together with the 2014 games. Or something.

Not impossible, of course. There are now two Commonwealth nations which were not previously imperial possessions.

When I was a kid, we had some family friends called the "Mcdonalds" who used to send us presents at Christmas, though I don't think I ever met them. They were apparently friends of my Grandfather, who was a Doctor, and I think one of them may have been a former patient.

Years later, I asked my parents about the Mcdonalds, and apparently Mr McDonald was a Jewish refugee who joined the British army. The name "McDonald" was chosen because it would enable him to pretend to be Scottish if captured. This would, apparently, account for his accented English to the satisfaction of the Germans. Oy ve the noo, or something....

I've no idea if the story is true or not....

That's a great story. I wonder if it accounts for the large number of Jewish 'Gordons' in the US?