airboatr wrote:Years ago I played the lead roll in Charles Dickens "A Christmas Carol".
I could put a little bit of it up on youtube, so you can take pop shots at my interpretation of a British accent.
...or Not!
Go on, do it ! It can't be any worse than Dick Van Dyke's cockney chimney sweep in 'Morry Puppins'
Tomliner wrote:Anyone noticed how many young folk omit the letter 'T' in the middle of words such as letter,better,litre etc? This is certainly widespread in the UK and makes the speaker sound like an uneducated moron,but maybe it's cool. EricT
This is called a "glottal stop" and it has come from "estuary English" (originally from cockney) and spread around the country. It was sadly particularly prevalent amongst locals in the area where I came from.
I've just watched this video and I am amazed. How on earth can they call this "accurate English"? The woman actually seems to be teaching people to degrade their pronunciation. I work in an international company and British English is officially the written standard (although most of the non-native speakers unknowingly write AE). Americans should at least acknowledge that their's is a variant and not the standard!
The one that drives me mad is call centres, or in fact anyone who works with the public in an administration role, seems to need to make words bigger to make themselves sound efficient and bright. I deal with a lot of insurance company call centres, they're the worst for it;
Me; "So can you tell me if he was insured at the time in question?"
Moron; "If you could forward a request to ourselves, we'll deal with that and have it back to yourselves ( note; I have suddenly become plural, or schizophrenic) A S A P (for some reaosn ASAP, a phrase which takes as long to say as 'as soon as possible' anyway, is always very drawn out.
The other thing that makes me gip, is adding pointless bits to simple questions, I got told off by my wife for the following exchange in a restaurant;
"Hello sir, would you like any dessert with us at all while you're here tonight at all?"
"No thank you, but I'd like to pre-order one for another night whilst I'm not here...at all..."
You may think I'm harsh but this particular restaurant had made me have my third choice of meal as "I'm afraid we're out of that here tonight" came from the waitress twice and she then proceeded to drop cutlery at me and tut when my wife asked for another drink!
Does anyone remember the brilliantly funny Heineken advert featuring a parody of Eliza Doolittle's elocution lesson? It can be found on YouTube by searching for 'the water in Majorca'.Sorry I haven't worked out how to post the direct URL to it.Well worth watching EricT
Now at the age where I know I like girls but can't remember why!
The sole passenger, an American, on an aircraft which overran a runway on take off due to engine failure said on the news... "I knew there was a problem when the right hand engine entered a mode of non operation"
Garry
"In the world of virtual reality things are not always what they seem."
Tomliner wrote:Does anyone remember the brilliantly funny Heineken advert featuring a parody of Eliza Doolittle's elocution lesson? It can be found on YouTube by searching for 'the water in Majorca'.Sorry I haven't worked out how to post the direct URL to it.Well worth watching EricT
I lament the fact that no one seems to speak like the Sloanie in the chair any more. Even in the 1980s, people on TV were better spoken than they are now. What ever happened to this way of speaking?
Tomliner wrote:Does anyone remember the brilliantly funny Heineken advert featuring a parody of Eliza Doolittle's elocution lesson? It can be found on YouTube by searching for 'the water in Majorca'.Sorry I haven't worked out how to post the direct URL to it.Well worth watching EricT
Hi Eric
Right click on the player window, then left click "copy video URL"
EricT
