johnwoo

and cars have wings.

Matt Sabre

I've had to move from 'garridge' to 'garaaarge'

Always makes me laugh when somebody is on the news speaking English in an accent but it is subtitled for the yanks.

johnwoo

You say garaaarge in Britain if you're posh.

I'm surprised so many British are unaware of the huge difference in the way people pronounce English words in different parts of the UK.
When I was stationed in Yorkshire, there were a problem with translation many time. I had passed the 'Buck' pub many time, but when I was to meet someone in the 'Book' I wasn't sure were it was.

robin1234

Talking about the British, I've just been reading about the Magic Roundabout in Hemel Hempstead. I really think they should consider building one or more of these in Boston, Massachusetts.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magi...emel_Hempstead)

moneypenny20

It's actually really easy to navigate. It's just looking at it on paper it's a bit omg My driving instructor used to make me use it when I was learning.

dc koop

So for instance you would expect an American who had never heard a Scotsman from Glasgow speaking English to be able to understand what the Scot was saying?

Ash UK/US

my kids... 10 & 12 often 'correct' my pronunciations because (to them) I don't speak correctly when I say words with the English/British tongue... the only exception to this is by youngest daughter Katie (10 years old)... she has no problem in telling you her name it Katie (K-A-Tee NOT K-A-Dee)... makes me laugh every time I hear her say it!!!

Matt Sabre

Oh do **** off.

I said it makes me laugh, it doesn't need to be dissected beyond that.

dc koop

Yeah you seem to be one of those Brits with a blown up sense of your own superiority, the type that gets the rest of us Brits a negative reputation among some Americans

Bob

Folks in MA drive like clunts enough as it is. I've already come close to being hit by a few cars and trucks coming the wrong way around a roundabout and this town has had them for years.

SultanOfSwing

As if we care what a few colonials think of us

Nah, you can get by saying things the way you've always said it, wherever you put the emphasis, a garage is always a car-hole. I'm a creature of habit and other than a tendency to say XX-thirty, instead of half-XX when telling the time, I haven't changed too much and people know what I am talking about. I do have to endure cooing about my accent, which gets a bit cringey and uncomfortable at times, but as long as I end up with my food the way I ordered it and my car repaired the way I need it to be, I'll deal with it.

dc koop

My experience is the question generally asked "where's that accent from"? But California being such a cosmopolitan place it doesn't arouse much more than a mild passing curiosity. Some have asked if I'm from Australia (Australia ? With a Yorkshire accent?) Ireland, Scotland and even Germany (fer Chrissakes).
My standard reply these days is "Texas" which always gets a laugh. I've long adapted to using American terminology for everything and being married to an American for so long has also had an influence. The accent remains though but now it's a kind of "Yanklais' for want of a better description

dc koop

Roundabouts are the devil's invention. Never liked em when I lived in the UK. Nearly got killed on one in the UK when an old lady hit my motorcycle as she drove round on the wrong side.

Why they'd ever want them in the US is a mystery since all streets in towns and cities run either north-south or east-west and four way stops work just fine.

The roundabout at the Arc de Triomph in Paris has to be the world's worst. I once saw some poor bewildered lady driver pulled over to the side tearfully explaining to a Gendarme that she had tried several times to get onto the Avenue Foch but each time had been cut off

SultanOfSwing

Nobody's guessed, incorrectly or otherwise, for a while, which is nice. I just get uncomfortable when I'm making a work phonecall and I have to spend five minutes listening to them asking about it when I have other things to be getting on with

Honestly, I don't really pay attention to what terminology I use, so it's probably split evenly enough between US and UK English. Either way, I get by so whatever I'm doing is working for me. Though when I do go back to NI, they all think I sound American.

If people would only take the time to learn how to use them properly, they really are a very efficient way of intersecting two reasonably busy roads. Also, you wouldn't have been hit on it either. I got hit (driving my mum's car of course) on one when the stupid bint at my 9 o'clock didn't appear to understand that indicating left just before an exit meant I was leaving the roundabout.

A 4-way stop I use regularly was replaced with one a few years back and the improvement was immediate.

dc koop

This sounds to me that the 4 way stop that was replaced was a problem place for drivers failing to give way to other drivers in order of precedence causing T-boning and other kinds of collisions in which case a roundabout would work better.

I haven't encountered any problems at stops so far. If a driver to my right arrives at his stop the same time as I do mine I always give him right of way across the intersection per the California drivers handbook.

I must admit I have some problems using roundabouts in the UK after driving here for 40 plus years. It's enough to have to cope with driving on the left and re-familiarizing myself with stick shifts. I've never been able to hit the right turn off first go. It keeps my wife amused as I do the circuit 2 or 3 times before I manage it. Course I couldn't get her behind the wheel of a car in the UK if I paid her a kings ransom and as for her navigational skills ... well thank God for the Tom Tom at least.