tornadoes?

In ,
hopitus typed:
On Apr 17, 5:28 pm, wrote:
hopitus wrote:

On Apr 17, 4:00 pm, Adrian wrote:

Actually, Tish is in Australia, but the storms have been reported
in the UK too. Purrs for all those affected.
Adrian

We live and learn. Thanks for educating me that Oz is "UK".

These days you can get an email account pretty much anywhere. The
address usually indicates the location of the person, but not always.
You would think that someone who has an AOL account was in the USA,
but anyone could get one no matter where they are.

I only became aware of fact that Burma is no longer Burma and
neither is Siam Siam

Burma became known to the rest of the world as Myanmar rather
recently, so I wouldn't be surprised that not everyone knows that.
But Siam hasn't been called Siam at least since I was born - which
as you know, was not all that recent an event.

Joyce
Well, let's not dwell on when we were born, but just say that when
that was
going on, I had not the slightest interest in rubies, Burmese or
otherwise. And
*nothing* was "lab-created" then, LOL.
I am really confused now about the UK stuff; I fail to understand why
anyone
here would want an ISP in the UK.

Tish's ISP is most certainly located in Australia, although it may well be
foreign owned. The fact that sh'es got a ".uk" tag at the end of her Yahoo
address means that when she signed up for a Yahoo e-mail addy years ago, for
some unknown and inexplicable reason, it gave her one with a '.uk' ending.
It could be that she inadvertently logged into www.yahoo.co.uk to do so, or
that Yahoo didn't recognise her ISP, or that Yahoo confused her ISP with one
owned by a UK company. Who knows? But I can assure everyone that Tish is an
Aussie who lives in Australia (just up the road from me, give or take) and
would most definitely have an ISP with at least a branch / office / reseller
in Australia.

Yowie

In ,
Joy typed:
"Judith Latham" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Wayne Mitchell wrote:
hopitus wrote:

At least, UK they speak something like what we do, but more
regal.

Much as I love to listen to some of the British dialects, I can't
think which of them could be described as "regal." Maybe "The
Queen's English," insofar as it exists anymore, could be so called
as a matter of definition. I would call Billy Connolly's
Irish-Glaswegian dialect heavenly, rather than regal. And the
largely unintelligible dialects I encounter when listening to
football broadcasters and analysts I would characterize as quite
the opposite of heavenly -- and certainly not regal. :-)

By the way, is there a single-word name that the British use to
characterize that particular Glaswegian dialect of Connolly's --
something cognate to "Cockney" or "Geordie"? How about the
Lancastrian dialect with it's intriguing vestigial "the" -- does it
have a name? I'd like to find a map of the UK showing the
common-named dialects, as opposed to showing just the regional
names such as "West Country" or "East Midlands."


I live in an area of England called "The Black Country" this in in
the west Midlands. It is near Birmingham but does not include
Birmingham. If you Google the Town of Dudley, West Mids. you will
be in the right area although in includes the towns of Tipton,
Oldbury, West Bromwich, Cradley, Cradley Heath, Lye, Stourbridge,
Brierley Hill Old Hill, Netherton among a few others. Now, the
difficulty with the dialects here is that it's different if you only
travel a couple of miles within the Black Country. Each town has
it's own dialect. when I married I moved from near Olbury to Lye
about 7 miles and I had difficulty understanding the locals.
Although there are so many dialects here, I don't think someone from
outside the area would notice, they would just find us all difficult
to understand. However, people here are upset if anyone says they
have a Birmingham (Brummy) accent as that is very different and much
harder than any Black Country one. I hope I haven't bored you too much
and made you wish you hadn't
asked. Judith

PS. No my accent is not regal.

--
Judith Latham
Stourbridge, West Midlands. UK.

I remember the first time I visited England, I was amazed at the
number of different "English accents". I'm quite sure that there are
more different accents in England than there are in the United
States, in spite of the difference in size of the two countries.
Interestingly, I didn't notice a great deal of difference in accents
in different parts of Australia, and I have visited all four coasts,
as well as the middle of the country.

Your ears are tuned differently (and no, I'm not joking about that). An
Aussie can hear the differences in accent across Australia, although its
unlikely that someone with a very different accent could (the difference in
accent is also not as distinct as we've had relatively uniform distribution
of migrants). Aussies and New Zealanders have absolutely no trouble telling
each other apart, but many other English speakers do. Its just that you can
distinguish a different range of sublte differences in vice and tone than I
can. For example, the Japanese have no problem *saying* 'l' and 'r' sounds,
but they have great difficulty in distinguishing the difference when
listening to an English speaker say them. And Polish speakers have trouble
saying the 'V' sound - they map it more as a 'w' sound, but english speakers
who have trouble with 'V' (mostly young kids) map it as a 'B' sound. Thus,
for a while, The Yowlet thought my name was "Bicky" and thought this was
hilarious, because he ate 'bickies'.

Yowie

On 18/04/2011 17:33, Jack Campin wrote:
There are thumping great atlases for this kind of stuff (separate
multi-volume ones for England and Scotland). Googling "isogloss"
will give you more references; an isogloss is a line marking the
areas where specific words are used, e.g. in Scotland we have two
words for "child" - "wain" in the west of Scotland and "bairn" in
the east. "Wain" or "wean" from old Scots, "wee 'un", "wee one":
"bairn" is from Norse and is also used in north-east England, compare
"barna" in Swedish.

Actually, it's barn in modern Swedish. Barna is an old form that occurs
in some compound words, like barnatro (tro=faith).

--
Marina, Miranda and Caliban.
In loving memory of Frank and Nikki.

On 19/04/2011 06:44, Yowie wrote:

Tish's ISP is most certainly located in Australia, although it may well be
foreign owned. The fact that sh'es got a ".uk" tag at the end of her Yahoo
address means that when she signed up for a Yahoo e-mail addy years ago, for
some unknown and inexplicable reason, it gave her one with a '.uk' ending.
It could be that she inadvertently logged into www.yahoo.co.uk to do so, or
that Yahoo didn't recognise her ISP, or that Yahoo confused her ISP with one
owned by a UK company. Who knows? But I can assure everyone that Tish is an
Aussie who lives in Australia (just up the road from me, give or take) and
would most definitely have an ISP with at least a branch / office / reseller
in Australia.

I have a UK yahoo address because I chose it when I wanted a throwaway
address for usenet. There was no yahoo.fi at that time. The nearest ones
were Sweden and the UK. I chose the UK.

--
Marina, Miranda and Caliban.
In loving memory of Frank and Nikki.

Yowie wrote:

Aussies and New Zealanders have absolutely no trouble telling
each other apart, but many other English speakers do.

I do. I also can't always tell Australian from British, depending on
the British accent - some sound a lot closer to Australian than others.
And then you have South African, which really throws me off.

Here's a question I've been wanting to ask lately - which do you
(Yowie) think sounds closer to the way you speak, British (any accent)
or American (any accent)? Ditto to any Brit who wants to answer - do
you think Australian accents sound more similar than American, or
vice versa?

From my perspective, it sounds to me like British, Australian, New
Zealander and South African accents all have something in common that
American accents don't have, though I'm not sure what it is. But I don't
know whether I hear it that way because I speak American English, so
it's more likely that I would group any accents that are not-mine together.
Or am I hearing a commonality that's really there?

For example, the Japanese have no problem *saying* 'l' and 'r' sounds,

Hmm... not so sure about that. I talk to several Japanese people during
my workday, and while not everyone has trouble with that difference in
their speech, some do.

but they have great difficulty in distinguishing the difference when
listening to an English speaker say them.

Whereas I have difficulty *saying* the sound from Japanese that's
somewhere between the l and r. My attempts to do so greatly amused
my first manager at this job.

Joyce

--
A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going
somewhere. -- Groucho Marx

"Yowie" wrote in message
...
In ,
Joy typed:
"Judith Latham" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Wayne Mitchell wrote:
hopitus wrote:

At least, UK they speak something like what we do, but more
regal.

Much as I love to listen to some of the British dialects, I can't
think which of them could be described as "regal." Maybe "The
Queen's English," insofar as it exists anymore, could be so called
as a matter of definition. I would call Billy Connolly's
Irish-Glaswegian dialect heavenly, rather than regal. And the
largely unintelligible dialects I encounter when listening to
football broadcasters and analysts I would characterize as quite
the opposite of heavenly -- and certainly not regal. :-)

By the way, is there a single-word name that the British use to
characterize that particular Glaswegian dialect of Connolly's --
something cognate to "Cockney" or "Geordie"? How about the
Lancastrian dialect with it's intriguing vestigial "the" -- does it
have a name? I'd like to find a map of the UK showing the
common-named dialects, as opposed to showing just the regional
names such as "West Country" or "East Midlands."


I live in an area of England called "The Black Country" this in in
the west Midlands. It is near Birmingham but does not include
Birmingham. If you Google the Town of Dudley, West Mids. you will
be in the right area although in includes the towns of Tipton,
Oldbury, West Bromwich, Cradley, Cradley Heath, Lye, Stourbridge,
Brierley Hill Old Hill, Netherton among a few others. Now, the
difficulty with the dialects here is that it's different if you only
travel a couple of miles within the Black Country. Each town has
it's own dialect. when I married I moved from near Olbury to Lye
about 7 miles and I had difficulty understanding the locals.
Although there are so many dialects here, I don't think someone from
outside the area would notice, they would just find us all difficult
to understand. However, people here are upset if anyone says they
have a Birmingham (Brummy) accent as that is very different and much
harder than any Black Country one. I hope I haven't bored you too much
and made you wish you hadn't
asked. Judith

PS. No my accent is not regal.

--
Judith Latham
Stourbridge, West Midlands. UK.

I remember the first time I visited England, I was amazed at the
number of different "English accents". I'm quite sure that there are
more different accents in England than there are in the United
States, in spite of the difference in size of the two countries.
Interestingly, I didn't notice a great deal of difference in accents
in different parts of Australia, and I have visited all four coasts,
as well as the middle of the country.

Your ears are tuned differently (and no, I'm not joking about that). An
Aussie can hear the differences in accent across Australia, although its
unlikely that someone with a very different accent could (the difference
in accent is also not as distinct as we've had relatively uniform
distribution of migrants). Aussies and New Zealanders have absolutely no
trouble telling each other apart, but many other English speakers do. Its
just that you can distinguish a different range of sublte differences in
vice and tone than I can. For example, the Japanese have no problem
*saying* 'l' and 'r' sounds, but they have great difficulty in
distinguishing the difference when listening to an English speaker say
them. And Polish speakers have trouble saying the 'V' sound - they map it
more as a 'w' sound, but english speakers who have trouble with 'V'
(mostly young kids) map it as a 'B' sound. Thus, for a while, The Yowlet
thought my name was "Bicky" and thought this was hilarious, because he ate
'bickies'.

Yowie

I do understand what you mean, but I think the differences in the Aussie
accents, and between Aussie and Kiwi, are more subtle than some of the
differences within England. The Aussie and Kiwi accents also sound close to
some of the British accents I've heard. In fact, it wasn't until my third
or fourth trip to Oz that I began (usually) to be able to tell that an
Aussie accent wasn't British. I think the way you put it is absolutely
right - my ears are tuned differently.

Joy

wrote in message
...
Yowie wrote:

Aussies and New Zealanders have absolutely no trouble telling
each other apart, but many other English speakers do.

I do. I also can't always tell Australian from British, depending on
the British accent - some sound a lot closer to Australian than others.
And then you have South African, which really throws me off.

Here's a question I've been wanting to ask lately - which do you
(Yowie) think sounds closer to the way you speak, British (any accent)
or American (any accent)? Ditto to any Brit who wants to answer - do
you think Australian accents sound more similar than American, or
vice versa?

From my perspective, it sounds to me like British, Australian, New
Zealander and South African accents all have something in common that
American accents don't have, though I'm not sure what it is. But I don't
know whether I hear it that way because I speak American English, so
it's more likely that I would group any accents that are not-mine
together.
Or am I hearing a commonality that's really there?

I'll be interested in the response from Brits or Aussies too, because my
reaction is the same as yours. Some Canadian accents also seem to me to
have a distinctive British flavor.

Joy

Joy wrote:

I'll be interested in the response from Brits or Aussies too, because my
reaction is the same as yours. Some Canadian accents also seem to me to
have a distinctive British flavor.

To me, Canadian accents sound very much like American (excluding Quebec,
of course) - well, except for that "ote and abote" thing.

Joyce

wrote in message
...
Joy wrote:

I'll be interested in the response from Brits or Aussies too, because my
reaction is the same as yours. Some Canadian accents also seem to me to
have a distinctive British flavor.

To me, Canadian accents sound very much like American (excluding Quebec,
of course) - well, except for that "ote and abote" thing.

Joyce

When my family and I traveled a bit into British Columbia many years ago, I
heard accents that sounded English, Scottish and Irish. However, we have a
Canadian in my Toastmasters club, and the only way you can tell he's
Canadian is that "ote and abote" thing.

Incidentally, the last time I was in Australia, I told my friend in Adelaide
that she had a Boston accent. She said "pahk the cah" exactly the same as
my minister, who is from Boston, does. ;-)

Joy

In ,
typed:
Yowie wrote:

Aussies and New Zealanders have absolutely no trouble telling
each other apart, but many other English speakers do.

I do. I also can't always tell Australian from British, depending on
the British accent - some sound a lot closer to Australian than
others. And then you have South African, which really throws me off.

Here's a question I've been wanting to ask lately - which do you
(Yowie) think sounds closer to the way you speak, British (any accent)
or American (any accent)? Ditto to any Brit who wants to answer - do
you think Australian accents sound more similar than American, or
vice versa?

From my perspective, it sounds to me like British, Australian, New
Zealander and South African accents all have something in common that
American accents don't have, though I'm not sure what it is. But I
don't know whether I hear it that way because I speak American
English, so
it's more likely that I would group any accents that are not-mine
together. Or am I hearing a commonality that's really there?

I think the New Zealanders accent sound more English and South African
accent sounds more American :-)

I don't tend to hear an Australian accent unless I'm watching a TV show that
is primarily in a different accent.

Oddly, in an English show, I quite like the sound of the Aussie accent.

In an American show, I think the Australian accent says godawful.

Yet, I don't actively notice that the show has a 'British' accent or an
'American' accent, unless its a regional accent from either of those
countries that I don't usually hear.

For example, on Time Team, the only accent I notice is Phil Harding's,
because its not the 'normal' British accent I'm used to.

And on American TV, I notice the likes of Fran Drescher's accent, but not,
for example, Oprah's, unless of course, Oprah comes to Australia, and then
its dead obvious.

Heck, I don't even notice my English relative's accents. My parents and my
Uncle, and my second cousins still in England sound 'normal' when they come
out to visit, but I do notice my Aunt's accent - she's from Lancaster, but
the rest of us are from around South-End-on-Sea, Essex (and the English
relatives that I know of are still there!).

Joel (and the ex, before him) reckons that when I go to my parent's place, I
always come back speaking in my 'native' English accent. Well, that is my
'first' accent, and that was the only accent I knew for the first (nearly) 5
years of my life, so its no surprise its still in my head, somewhere. But I
can't turn it on and off voluntarily - it only comes out when I'm with a
crowd that speaks it, or, and, so I am told, when I'm either talking in my
sleep and/or very VERY drunk. Who knows?

Yowie