What languages do you speak

[bigalpha]

British . . American

football . . soccer

not just a british thing, but a 'rest of the world' thing

[Evan G]

British . . . American

knock you up around 9 ... will stop by around 9

That almost got me in a big foot in mouth disorder. She was very cute too.

[Squirrel Girl]

British . . American

kit up . . get your gear ready (to go caving or diving or cave diving)

[Evan G]

Don't call your Fanny pack a "fanny pack" over in the UK, unless you want to be laught at.

[Teresa]

Spelling. color-colour honor-honour, etc. Draft = draught. (Which in British can also mean the game of checkers.) Noah Webster 'reformed' English spelling-- the reforms took in the States, not so in the UK. Lots of secondary 's' s which became 'z' in the USA-- example:
criticise vs criticize.

Or like Mark Twain said: "Two countries split by a common language." Add Aussie English and India English, and one can be fairly incommunicable in a short time. Astonishingly, traditional Appalachian and Ozark English (before TV came to the hills) had more in common with 17th century British than with American.

[zenas]

Thank you all, I see no big differences i suppose even in USA must be variations from one area to another.
Too bad your ancestors didn't choose greek as the official U.S. language.
If i'm well informed, the difference was only one vote

[Phil Winkler]

And I always heard that Winston Churchill said this, but perhaps he was repeating Shaw's quotation:

England and America are two countries separated by a common language.
George Bernard Shaw
Irish dramatist & socialist (1856 - 1950)

[ian mckenzie]

In Canada we generally have the same words and phrases as the US but usually use the UK spellings, altho US spelling is becoming more common. We also have our own little variations on English, eh? We have two official languages, and many English-speaking Canadians know more French than they realize, simply because our packaging on food and other commercial products is in both languages. Give me a month in France (please!) and I can find my way round alright. I piccked up a smattering of Spanish after 4 months in central America, but there's not much of that left now.

At dinner in the US, Churchill's English was once corrected by an American woman who informed him that, in polite company, one referred to the breast as 'white meat'. Churchill, who had won a Pulitzer for his writings, presented his hostess with a corsage the next day with a card that said 'I'd be honored if you'd wear this flower on your white meat'.

[graveleye]

I love to study dialects.. here in Georgia and throughout the south dialects change even from county to county, state to state. I can tell where a southerner is from fairly easily.. not always of course, but often enough. Some dialects are obvious... say the difference in how a Virginian talks to how someone from Augusta or middle Tennessee or south Georgia.. all similar, but very different as well.

ah luvs me the southern dialect

[Squirrel Girl]

and India English

A lakh is one hundred thousand (100,000)

[Squirrel Girl]

Too bad your ancestors didn't choose greek as the official U.S. language.

In a sense we did. Many of the roots of our words are greek. I have a Greek and Latin root book to help me with scientific names. It's lots of fun to find out what things mean.

[erebus]

What do they call a headlamp in the UK?

OK, what about the other kind of headlamp?

[zenas]

I understand what you mean...

Here is a speach from Xenofon Zolotas to an international conference in USA more than 40 years before.

Guess what: it's 99% in the greek language!!!

First Speach:

I always wished to address this Assembly in Greek, but realized that it would have been indeed "Greek" to all present in this room. I found out, however, that I could make my address in Greek which would still be English to everybody. With your permission, Mr. Chairman, l shall do it now, using with the exception of articles and prepositions, only Greek words.

Kyrie, I eulogize the archons of the Panethnic Numismatic Thesaurus and the Ecumenical Trapeza for the orthodoxy of their axioms methods and policies, although there is an episode of cacophony of the Trapeza with Hellas. With enthusiasm we dialogue and synagonize at the synods of our didymous Organizations in which polymorphous economic ideas and dogmas are analyzed and synthesized. Our critical problems such as the nomismatic plethora generate some agony and melancholy. This phenomenon is characteristic of our epoch. But, to my thesis we have the dynamism to program therapeutic practices as a prophylaxis from chaos and catastrophe. In parallel a panethnic unhypocritical economic synergy and harmonization in a democratic climate is basic. I apologize for my eccentric monologue. I emphasize my eucharistiria to you Kyrie, to the eugenic and generous American Ethnos and to the organizations and protagonists of the Amphictyony and the gastronomic symposia.

Second Speach:

Kyrie,
It is Zeus' anathema on our epoch and the heresy of our economic method and policies that we should agonize the Skylla of nomismatic plethora and the Charybdis of economic anaemia.


It is not my idiosyncracy to be ironic or sarcastic but my diagnosis would be that politicians are rather cryptoplethorists. Although they emphatically stigmatize nomismatic plethora, they energize it through their tactics and practices. Our policies should be based more on economic and less on political criteria. Our gnomon has to be a metron between economic strategic and philanthropic scopes.


In an epoch characterized by monopolies, oligopolies, monopolistic antagonism and polymorphous inelasticities, our policies have to be more orthological, but this should not be metamorphosed into plethorophobia, which is endemic among academic economists.


Nomismatic symmetry should not antagonize economic acme. A greater harmonization between the practices of the economic and nomismatic archons is basic.


Parallel to this we have to synchronize and harmonize more and more our economic and nomismatic policies panethnically. These scopes are more practicable now, when the prognostics of the political end economic barometer are halcyonic.


The history of our didimus organization on this sphere has been didactic and their gnostic practices will always be a tonic to the polyonymous and idiomorphous ethnical economies. The genesis of the programmed organization will dynamize these policies.


Therefore, I sympathize, although not without criticism one or two themes with the apostles and the hierarchy of our organs in their zeal to program orthodox economic and nomismatic policies.


I apologize for having tyranized you with my Hellenic phraseology. In my epilogue I emphasize my eulogy to the philoxenous aytochtons of this cosmopolitan metropolis and my encomium to you Kyrie, the stenographers.

Another speach from a greek doctor to an international medical congress:

«The hellenic orthopedic physicians have synchronized their dynamism and energy with the European Organization of Orthopedics and Traumatology to generate this symbiotic and not ephemeral synthesis of charismatic academic scholars and are enthusiastic with the atmosphere of euphoria and analogous ecstasy in Dodecanisa, Rodos.



Rodos is a graphic hellenic metropolitan center in the Aegean archipelagos, with myriads of archaeological and historical sites. Rodos is a geographical paradise of cryptic and chimerical icons of idyllic charm, amalgamated with hellenic gastronomy of moussaka, souvlaki, ouzo emporia and euphoria of the rhyme and rhythm of bouzouki, byzantine and Spanoudakis music.



A plethora of basic and didactic themes in the sphere of orthopedics and traumatology, such as trauma of the musculosceletal system, arthroscopic and arthoplasty surgery, pediatric orthopedics, polytrauma, podiatric surgery, carpus and dactylic surgery with traumatic and genetic anomalies, microsurgery, spondolopathies like scoliosis, kyphosis and spondylolisthesis, osteoporosis and pharmacologic and prophylactic therapeutic policies will be emphasized.



Diagnostic methods and etiological therapy of traumatic, non-physiological and pathological syndromes, therapeutic schemes and strategies will be analyzed and synthesized at this academic symposium on the basis of democratic climate and with the scope of a non-dogmatic and egocentric dialogue, which I prophesize will be an historic phenomenon and paradigm of dynamic synergy and harmony between polyethnic orthopedic physicians of the European Epirus.



To paraphrase, with the phobia and dilemma of being tautological, let me emphasize that the logistics and machinations in this academic symposium, will generate the scheme and type of our harmonic synergy and syndesmosis.



Pragmatically, it is my thesis and not hypothesis that the next phase and programmed orthopedic symposium in Helsinki, which I eulogize, will be as dynamic and with colossal kyros as in Rodos, Hellas.



I apologize for my eulogistic demagogy and if my etymological glossary is based on philosophic or symbolic metaphors and lexical hyperbole, please sympathize with me and apologize for the idiosyncrasy of zealous hellenic practicing orthopedic physician who is also fanatically enthusiastic about the giant anode of European propaedutics and academics in orthopedics and traumatology.»

And another english speach with greek words from the founder of Ariston University:

The scope of my lecture is to generate a dynamic dialogue on organizational and economic systems and techniques. Basically, my methodology is characterized by dialogue, a systematic phenomenon with every academician or epistimologist. I will systematically analyze the idiosyngracies and the characteristics of the organizational systems practiced today. The architecture of my analysis-strategy, is systematic and pragmatic, yet paradoxically is characterized by enthusiasm and synchronization between theory and practice. The harmonic synergy of mathematical models and statistical techniques, has generated theorems and axioms practiced in capitalistic economic systems. My philosophy is logical, ethical and practical and has erected organizational models that have generated economic euphoria.

The magic esthetics of my tactic, is the plethora of Hellenic terminology in my phraseology.

The genesis of tragic economic problems generated in an economy are not symptomatic, in fact they are cyclical and periodic phenomena. Such phenomena stigmatize and traumatize the economic euphoria of the agora. Economic systems basically symbolize the philosophy and ideology of the governing political party.

The chronic and pathetic egomania and megalomania of certain governors, monarchs or tyrants, their apathy for philanthropy, their enigmatic and problematic logic, generated gigantic economic crises, which stigmatized and traumatized their political career. Such practices generate phobia, panic and periodically paralysis of the socioeconomic system.

The agora, during the archaic periods, was characterized as the physical parameters where philosophers, scholars, economists and epistimologists analyzed the problems generated by the political system. The basic methodology was dialogue or rhetoric. Dialogue, in a diametric antithesis with the monologue, has magic, it is characterized by synthesis and analysis and a plethora of other lectic schemes.

[Sean Ryan]

I just got back from ten days in Ukraine. I've been to parts of the world where signs are in Spanish, Dutch and French, and have usually been able to figure out where the bathrooms are and pronounce something edible off a menu. But Ukrainian uses a whole different alphabet, Cyrillic. This was what it was like to be illiterate. I couldn't even tell which end of the menu was up.

[Squirrel Girl]

have usually been able to figure out where the bathrooms are

I remember going to a German restaurant as a kid and having to choose between Damen and Herren. I picked "Herren" because it had "her" in it. But fortunatetly an adult came out one of the doors before I made the mistake of walking into the men's room!