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

Sorry didn't mean to offend
this gets important to me as your government seems to be the only one that matters anymore, at present I seem to be a lot more emotionally involved with US than British politics

, sorry if I gave the impression that you'd offended. Did I duck out with out saying good bye or something? I wasn't offended. I'll actually have to go back and look at the convo to see what you might be referring too.

I have heard somewhere of this phenonena of Brits being very involved in US politics. I'd noticed it on here but I thought that it was just my own bias or something. And the focus on US politics on the BBC World Service Radio seemed to have, again I thought it was because it was the version they sold to US stations but turns out it's not just that.. I think it's too. I don't like the seeming unbalance.

probably just me
I think its with our government being so closely allied to yours
I felt good during the Clinton years (despite his many faults)
heres hoping for ABB

Oh, and I'm not laughing at you either. Just laughing.

hey, sometimes I have to last at myself
so long as we're laughing that can't be bad

another thought
why can't we just have Jed Bartlett for President

*Googles "Jed Bartlett"*

I have heard good things about "West Wing" but I'm a bad American. I don't watch TV at all.

Hey, you live in Scottland right? Berwick-upon-Tweed is in Britain but I just heard the language spoken is more like Scottish. What kind of language is Scottish? It's not like English is it? Do you know anything about it?

apparently a majority of Americans would support Jed Bartlett
pity hes fictional
I'm giving up TV when my current license runs out as I haven't watched it in about 3 months but I do intend adding the West Wing to my DVD collection
It is intelligent and witty, the kind of TV we seem to have given up making in favour of 'Reality TV'

I live in Wales but grew up in Scotland
Most of Scotland speaks English but with a strong accent
Go back a generation or two and it was called Lollans
All the disticts of English-speaking Britain had virtually unintelligable dialects. Robbie Burns wrote in Lollans. I can give you samples if you like.
In the Highlands a minority speaks Scots Gaelic, a language similar to Irish, Welsh, and Breton.

A Wee Sang for St Andrews Day by Gavin Ewart

Wha dreams that I am nae a Scot,
Yon is a blastit Hottentot,
A rude neducatit clot-
In Southron speech-
Lang may his cods unsuit rot,
Craibs bite his breech!

May nae wlonk wink him wiher ee,
May mini-sarks his presence flee
An' houghmagandie sic as he
Ay strang avoid
His lume til that he comes to dee
A'unemployed

I canna thole sic wallidrags-
Auld Scots an' new my Musie brags,
She can blaw baith on tatan bags
Wi' canty mou';
The Saltire's on the best 'o flags
When I am fou!

What though I live by London's wa'?
I ken right well the waups that ca'
The hairts o'Scots, aye, ane an' a',
Baith rich an' puir;
I ken too Celtic an' fitba',
The burn an' muir.

Sae let nae daft presumptuous loon
Wha's plaid's a stiflin word-cocoon
Preach Lallans tae me, late an' soon.
There's mony a sang
In mony a tongue aneath the moon-
And nane is wrang!

So Lollans was germanic derived like other dialects English speaking Britain. I see. I'd like to see samples if you have them. The language I see in the poems at the Official Robert Burns site (http://www.robertburns.org/) appears to me to be very close to standard English, but maybe it's been translated or altered or I didn't look at enough of them. I googled Lollans and Lollan but as far as I could tell most of the entires were for last names. The language associated with the word appeared Scandinavian to me.

but when ever you get a chance on that though. I've go to now.

well you have 1 sample above which is a bit of a mixture of modern Scots dialect and Lollans/Lallans
the version of Robbie Burns I learnt at school had origial Scots (a half-way stage between English and Lollans)and English next to each other, I don't have a copy now. I couldn't read the original without a glossery (at least for the poems I don't know already)
would recommend (how could I resist) my favourite novel, Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon, which is written in English but with quite a few Lollans words in it

It is Germanic rather than Gaelic/Celtic though, debate continues on whether its a dialect of English or a seperate language

oops looks like its defnitely Lallans rather than lollans
however it seems to get called Scots now

try http://www.dsl.ac.uk/dsl/-2k-25Aug2004
Dictionary of the Scots Language

or http://www.lallans.co.uk/sls.html
the Scots Language Society

ist link doesn't work
try http://www.dsl.ac.uk/dsl/ instead

, i didn't see that poem you posted yesterday BEFORE I asked you for a sample. Thanks for that and those other posts and information!

I think that poem illustrates why modern Scots is really a dialect rather than a language. A lot of the words are English but with a strong accent, this being reflected in the spelling. I wouldn't say that if I was in a Scottish pub though

Hmm, I hope someday I have the opportunity to hear it in a Scottish pub for real...

Just saw you on line. Are you on 24/7 now??