Poppy girl

My mates laughed at this in the UK but it appears that saying "are you serious" is a yankie term

Garage or is it Gharage you know what I mean lol

Oh please!!

Cell not mobile.

dakota44

Can you folks just accept the fact that we made the language interesting?

The other thread on this topic has a lot of our phrasal verbs and it makes me laugh at how confused my Peruvian students are when they see them. It takes some explaining.

S Folinsky

Just returned from a trip to Costa Rica where they do not believe in street signs or numbered addresses -- hell on the pizza delivery guy I would think.

But their expression of distance -- 100 meters is used for one block, 200 meters for two blocks, and so on.

dakota44

The Spanish tended, in many areas in South America, to lay out streets in 100 meter lengths. So it makes sense in a way. But still a bit odd.

fatbrit

off of

Steerpike

"Skedule" (I work in project management and this is a daily or hourly word ...)

Christian

Controversy, innovative, mall, and khaki can leave most North Americans looking at one as if to say 'What the hell?' I've had to give over and pronounce them their way.

To a lesser extent, words like: aluminium, tomato, and lance can need to be modified, or some people just can't follow ... (and yet the locals here pronounce 'centre' and 'twenty' as 'cenner' and 'twunny'. )

(After so much time here, I'm certain I've picked up many North American words and phrases of which I'm no longer even aware).

kimilseung

Had not noticed this one, how do 'mericans say it?

MrEmjoy

Line, instead of queue. It's caused a lot of problems.

robin1234

Having lived in MA, I also use "wicked" as a universal adjective. Including "wicked bad."
I greet people, "Dude." or, "Yo." Or, "Hey."
But, I insist on pronouncing "Caribbean" the proper British way, and I think I've detected this being used more by Americans too..
I use soccer; as an informal abbreviation of "Association Football," it has been commonly used in Britain for a hundred years and more. I remember at school in the fifties and sixties, we said "soccer" or "football" interchangeably..

Egg and Cress

My ex-pat keeps trying to get me to say "gar-redge" (accent on the 1st syllable) instead of "gha-radjh" (accent on the 2nd syllable) - I just can't do it. Doesn't sound right coming out of an American mouth! And he won't say "gar-radjh".

kimilseung

There are the pronunciations that I prefer to hear in America, because they match better with how I say those words, and clash with the media pronunciation I hear in the UK, now I hear these words less, I cringe when I hear them from the UK. France is one example.

Egg and Cress

France? Do you mean the way it's said, or the way the French say things?

As for the media pronunciation - we've noticed many more British accents in our adverts here - even for very American products! Seems at least the advertising people recognize that Americans appreciate the British way of speaking. Of course "Jag-u-ar" is advertised by a Brit, and I've heard some Americans in our area saying it that way - now if we could just get the rest of us to understand that people of the Carib Islands are known as "Carib-be-ans" (accent on the 2nd syllable)!

kimilseung

The way the word is said

md95065

Aluminum

(but I still pronounce "solder" as "solder", not "sodder" ...)