BuckinghamshireBoy

Yes, indeed I am from that place, but in Buckinghamshire we don't know stuff like that - or at least we didn't, back in my time - goodness knows what occurs there these days.

Just for a giggle, I wrote "SCHEDULE" on paper and asked OH and sis-in-law (both of Dutch mother tongue) to pronounce said word.

A controlled experiment, conducted in separate rooms, each unaware of the participation of their sibling.

OH - Skedule
SIL - Shedule

moneypenny20

I've always said skedyule because skool. I have never heard et. We speak proper in Hertfordshire!

S Folinsky

Senior moment on my part. Yes, the Finger Lakes are all XXXX Lake.

BristolUK

I've always said it as skedule, right back to my skooldays.

lizzyq

We had a timetable, saved any pronunciation issues

BuckinghamshireBoy

She be right, arr.

spouse of scouse

Nah, I just use his proper name. His accent's still strong so most people twig immediately that he's from the UK, and a few astute ones even get that he's a Scouser - mainly just other Scousers though

Ah I get you now, you were referring to our learned friend BB. Although I don't have quite the drawl that some Aussies do I've always thought my accent was straight-up Australian, until someone in a supermarket queue in Liverpool said 'you're not from around here are you, you're from the South'. And she didn't mean the southern hemisphere, she meant the south of England

It's thought to be a diminutive of 'dinkum' or 'fair dinkum'. Some info:
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/fair-dinkum.html

BuckinghamshireBoy

Coming back to this post I'd been thinking this morning about "sceptered isle" and whether I would prefer to use "sceptred Isle"; in conclusion I'm ambivalent.

I'm not that familiar with Richard II, so spent a while bumbling around Wikipedia, and after a very short time arrived at this article. Some interesting stuff in there.

Nutmegger

My pronunciation may not have "gone native," but my spelling obviously has!

robin1234

Here’s an interesting one. Is it “flu,” or “the flu?”

See this quote from an article in The Atlantic Magazine.

”We have so much COVID circulating here in Arizona,” says Erin Graf, the director of clinical microbiology at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona. “I would have thought that if people can get COVID, people can get [the] flu.”

You’ll notice that the editor inserted “the” in square brackets before “flu,” meaning that Erin Graf actually said “people can get flu,” but the editor thought it should be “the flu.”

Why “the flu,” but not “the COVID?” I think this is an American thing, as far as I know, British people don’t usually stick the definite article before the name of a disease .... ?

kimilseung

I would say, "a cold", and "the flu". Given how many variants of the flu there are, it does seem a tad silly.

robin1234

Yes, true.

I used to put an apostrophe before words like flu, phone and bus, but I’ve abandoned that affectation.

lizzyq

I would say "the 'flu", but "influenza" without the definite article.

sid nv

I think the definitive article would be appropriate when elaborating one's discomfort known as "shits". When one's stomach in in distress, a suitable prefix is desirable.

Lion in Winter

Isn't the article just the older English usage? I imagine to be Regency, somehow.