Re: [Lingo] British English

[Josh Glover <jmglov@example.com>]

On 2 February 2011 22:52, Jim Breen <jimbreen@example.com> wrote:

> Many years ago a friend who had worked for IBM in North Carolina
> said his son had been put in a remedial English class at school. On
> enquiring why, the anxious parents were told it was because of all the
> errors in his spelling and pronunciation (plough/plow, neighbour/neighbor,
> etc., not to mention the way he said tomato.)

Yeah, I had a problem with "tomato" in Ireland. After realising that
everyone pronounced it "toe-mah-toe" (most Americans say
"toe-may-toe", for those of you not in the know), I starting making an
effort to do the same, resulting in many laughs. One of my colleagues
repeated what it sounded like to him when I attempted "toe-mah-toe",
and it turned out that I was saying something like "toe-MAHHH-toe",
which made me sound like even more of a gaijin than if I'd just stuck
with the pronunciation that was natural for me. :)

As ever, one of the things I found most interesting about Irish
English was the slang. Words like knacker, skanger, gombeen... good
stuff!

Cheers,
Josh