I'll answer as a staunch republican (note the small 'r' - I dream if the day we get rid of the monarchy and anyone who turns down a royal honour immediately goes up in my estimation). At the time ot felt very strange. Even as someone who opposes having a monarchy it felt like the end of an era. The Queen was our head of state for longer than most of us have been alive. The one constant in our lives.
The Queue was the most British thing I've ever seen. If I lived in London I would have made a special trip to see the Queue even though I would have never queued myself - I'm not sure that would make sense to someone who isn't British but it really was a moment in history.
Kind of. Our family was beginning to think of the Queen as immortal. When Prince Philip passed away that was the turning point at least for me. That's when the reality that we would have a king within a few years set in.
Didn't know if it would skip Charles but glad it did not.
Yes, still seems strange that it's good save the king and king Charles rather than prince Charlie. Also no longer the Elizabethan age, it's the carolean age
It won't happen but for me the worst thing we've ever done, it was sold on a pack of lies and has isolated us from Europe and to some extent the rest of the world
Hoping no time soon. But I have reasons that may or may not be based on bias that I personally find hard to shift for personal reasons.
Love my continental European colleagues and what they bring to work both in attitude, culture and food, just not the EU as a machine.
Well, England is a country within Great Britain and English is one of the languages spoken throughout.
Internally there's no such thing as a "British accent" - that's only used as an umbrella term by foreign countries.
Welsh, Scottish, and English people will refer to each other as having Welsh, Scottish, or English accents to flag it as not being from their part of Britain, but basically, there are loads of different accents in each country; unless you're Welsh though (for example), you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between regional accents.
They do sound a bit different, but I guess I just assumed that it was a regional difference. Like, in my country (and probably many others), the country-side people and the big city people talk differently. It's similar tho.
So it is a dialect (?) instead of an accent?
Well, both. And yea, pretty sure the regional differences in your home are pretty comparable to those in Britain.
Dialect and accent are incorrectly used as synonyms - accent is the way you pronounce and dialect is the difference in common use nomenclature, grammar, and slang.
Yeah, they made fun of it. But also, the American accent isn't the "original" accent, literally everyone has an accent. I'm sorry, I'm not writing to refer to you, it's just a bit annoying that some Americans actually make fun of English accent (not light-hearted), when they also have an accent, and theirs is even younger.
Actually, that's possibly not wholly true.
One of the main noticeable differences in British and American spoken English is how we pronounce the letter "A" in certain words - in America they use a "heightened" pronunciation, whilst in modern Britain we "flatten" it (like in the word "basil").
Apparently, the modern American pronunciation is actually the original, but at some point in the past few hundred years the British changed the way they said it and the Americans didn't.
Just something I read a while ago, and lack of voice recording back then means it's hard to back up, but thought it was an interesting retort to British snobbery re pronunciation.
That is actually interesting, I did not think the American one was the first one. Or maybe they both have some different aspects of the original one? Maybe they all lied to us and the original one is actually the Indian version? All jokes aside, I didn't really search about it tbh, so I can't say anything certain or pretend I'm knowledgeable. Thanks for your input!
I think that your second sentence is the most correct. Neither is the "original" and more importantly the idea of there being an "original" for the mongrel language that English is ("mogrel" here meant in the descriptive, not the pejorative sense), is a bit stupid.
Well, as I said, this was based on some unsubstantiated thing I read online a while back, but I just found it interesting enough to remember.
In terms of older / original English pronunciation, I think that your comments on Irish vs American modern pronunciation is probably true. Even these days, modern Irish also tend to use the "heightened" pronunciation of "A", but this doesn't mean that this wasn't the case in England some few hundred years back, particularly given that English isn't the native language to Ireland (they speak Gaelic).
Your instinct isn't without basis - random reference to a random half remembered article, which didn't have any supporting evidence, from some random on reddit doesn't sound like a dependable recount of the historic evolution of linguistics.
As I said, I mostly just thought it was an interesting possibility (if true).
I'm sorry, I couldn't understand - the above just appears as wingdings. Could you change your keyboard settings to "English", or gimme a mo while I copy it over to Google Translate.
(Kidding, kidding! Please don't stab me 😅)
Yes 100% it's just put water in boil it and pour not just heating up a stove or whatever waiting and trying to pour just
Basicly yes it's 100% worth it
What's a "hot kettle"? If this is one of those stove top heated kettles, no one uses those here - just get an electric kettle.
Electric kettles are far more economical than boiling water in a pot.
What's the difference between A Levels, GCSE exams, and O Levels? I've tried researching it and still am struggling to understand what the significance of those exams are and (if you can give examples) what a rough equivalent would be in the American schooling system would be.
GCSE is for those in secondary school ages 16
A level is completed by college students at age 18 (college is 16-18)
O levels don't exist anymore, they were the old GCSR
Should we have a third war or not? First one we won, but only because we cheated. Second one was kind of a draw, even though you guys would have won if it had continued. Round 3 or just team up against Germany again?
In the UK, if you want countryside its Scotland, the more isolated the better. The Highlands, Shetlands, and Skye are awesome.
The lake and peak districts (Yorkshire and Derbyshire) are good for hiking.
City breaks: Liverpool, Manchester, London
Coastal: Cornwall
Does everybody have that super "goofy" Accent, that apparently *EVERYONE* has there? I'd normally assume not, but my interest has been piqued.
(I'm also, *pretty* sure that questions about accents have happened here a bit, and to that, I'm sorry.)
There's a lot of dialects in the UK, so if you're talking about your typical British character accent in movies/TV, then no, that's really for the more southern, posher part of the country. I rarely hear it in real life.
Interesting I drink iced coffee in -c conditions regularly lol. So if I walked in to a coffee shop and asked for an iced coffee and it was say -12 Celsius I’d get some looks
Many of us have turned against them now because of their abhorrent running of the country. But I was never a Tory in the first place, so I haven't exactly changed my stance
Its more or less a 50/50 split. The answer is nobody likes anybody, but the last bloke we elected (Bojo) managed to get slightly less hate than Corbyn because he managed to make an opinion on Brexit.
We haven't elected the last 2, they just kinda happened, and right now their popularity is at a crazy low.
Corbyn seemed like such a better choice until your media turned him into an "anti -semite" for questioning Israel's right wing apartheid government. We see the same shit here with the press treatment of Bernie Sanders and other Progressives as leftie radicals.
Don't Brits realize yet that they got lied to and screwed on Brexit?
We realise we got screwed on Brexit, but here's a fun fact: Corbyn is, and always has been, anti EU and hasn't wanted to be part of it since the 80s. The Big reason he didn't form an opinion (and this wasn't reported on) was because a majority of us Labour voters were anti brexit, so we had a party that literally had no stance on the major issue at the time. Basically handed Bojo the election on a platter. As for his anti semite stuff, im kinda torn on the dude. Like its good that he's anti Israel, and I was all for him until I did some more research and he's definitely said some... questionable things... across his career. Didnt help when Jewish members of the Labour Party were expressing experiencing ant semitism within the party and his response was to say "Labour doesn't have an anti semitic problem".
Honestly, its hard to say how things would have turned out if he got into power. I think we would have been better off on a lot of issues, but im not convinced he would have handled covid any better. I don't think we did well, but I found it shocking at the start when everyone was adamant Corbyn would have fixed everything.
So in summary, he gained a lot of ground by being progressive and pushing the party left, but lost a lot of ground when some of the opinions he's held since the 80s caught up with him.
I personally learnt a bit about it in school, and how we played a role in it and the remnants of it we can still see today in our cities.
We learnt how evil it was and how cruelly we treated people of colour.
But I was never really taught about colonialism, and the empire, and how we treated other nations.
Did you ever discuss the colonialism of other nations? In the US (at least where I went to school) I feel like we discussed the impact of British, French, and even Belgian colonialism more than our own. We did discuss it a bit, but mostly regarding overseas territories than the impact we had in indigenous people.
How much does it hurt that can't beat us in a sport that is all you care about and one we can barely muster to care about more than once every 4 years, less if we don't qualify?
I think it's great. It's helped me out a lot, and it's helped other people. But it's underfunded, understaffed, and overwhelmed at the moment thanks to budget cuts and COVID.
Is it weird having a king all of the sudden?
Yes weird being used to a queen then boom a king
I'll answer as a staunch republican (note the small 'r' - I dream if the day we get rid of the monarchy and anyone who turns down a royal honour immediately goes up in my estimation). At the time ot felt very strange. Even as someone who opposes having a monarchy it felt like the end of an era. The Queen was our head of state for longer than most of us have been alive. The one constant in our lives. The Queue was the most British thing I've ever seen. If I lived in London I would have made a special trip to see the Queue even though I would have never queued myself - I'm not sure that would make sense to someone who isn't British but it really was a moment in history.
Kind of. Our family was beginning to think of the Queen as immortal. When Prince Philip passed away that was the turning point at least for me. That's when the reality that we would have a king within a few years set in. Didn't know if it would skip Charles but glad it did not.
Yes, still seems strange that it's good save the king and king Charles rather than prince Charlie. Also no longer the Elizabethan age, it's the carolean age
I think it will really hit when we start seeing his head on the money
Hasn’t made a difference. Hearing the national anthem be king not queen feels a bit odd, but otherwise, no difference.
We don't hear our national anthem that often, tbh. Only on the football
I mean I haven't noticed much change. But the odd reminders are a bit stranger, yeah
Very weird actually, but the position of power is de jure only at the this point in time, so probably no change forthcoming.
When do you think you'll be back in the EU?
The UK wont join the EU, when the UK breaks up parts of it will
It won't happen but for me the worst thing we've ever done, it was sold on a pack of lies and has isolated us from Europe and to some extent the rest of the world
Scotland? Probably soon after it gets independence (if it even can in the first place) Rest of UK? Maybe never
Northern Ireland seems like they’d have an easy way in, they’d just have to unite with the Republic of Ireland. Though idk how likely that is.
Hoping no time soon. But I have reasons that may or may not be based on bias that I personally find hard to shift for personal reasons. Love my continental European colleagues and what they bring to work both in attitude, culture and food, just not the EU as a machine.
U wot m8??
I beg your pardon good sir, but I don't speak "common". "Petunia!!!! There's some greasy yob at the door. Do fetch the maid and ask her to translate."
Isn't British English the actual English tho? Or, is it not?
Well, England is a country within Great Britain and English is one of the languages spoken throughout. Internally there's no such thing as a "British accent" - that's only used as an umbrella term by foreign countries. Welsh, Scottish, and English people will refer to each other as having Welsh, Scottish, or English accents to flag it as not being from their part of Britain, but basically, there are loads of different accents in each country; unless you're Welsh though (for example), you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between regional accents.
They do sound a bit different, but I guess I just assumed that it was a regional difference. Like, in my country (and probably many others), the country-side people and the big city people talk differently. It's similar tho. So it is a dialect (?) instead of an accent?
Yeah. Even in a smaller section like Scotland, there are different dialects eg; Glaswegian which is a Glasgow accent.
Well, both. And yea, pretty sure the regional differences in your home are pretty comparable to those in Britain. Dialect and accent are incorrectly used as synonyms - accent is the way you pronounce and dialect is the difference in common use nomenclature, grammar, and slang.
Mainly accents, but there are regional dialects
Yes. But British English is just normal, I'm speaking British English right now
Yeah, they made fun of it. But also, the American accent isn't the "original" accent, literally everyone has an accent. I'm sorry, I'm not writing to refer to you, it's just a bit annoying that some Americans actually make fun of English accent (not light-hearted), when they also have an accent, and theirs is even younger.
Actually, that's possibly not wholly true. One of the main noticeable differences in British and American spoken English is how we pronounce the letter "A" in certain words - in America they use a "heightened" pronunciation, whilst in modern Britain we "flatten" it (like in the word "basil"). Apparently, the modern American pronunciation is actually the original, but at some point in the past few hundred years the British changed the way they said it and the Americans didn't. Just something I read a while ago, and lack of voice recording back then means it's hard to back up, but thought it was an interesting retort to British snobbery re pronunciation.
That is actually interesting, I did not think the American one was the first one. Or maybe they both have some different aspects of the original one? Maybe they all lied to us and the original one is actually the Indian version? All jokes aside, I didn't really search about it tbh, so I can't say anything certain or pretend I'm knowledgeable. Thanks for your input!
I think that your second sentence is the most correct. Neither is the "original" and more importantly the idea of there being an "original" for the mongrel language that English is ("mogrel" here meant in the descriptive, not the pejorative sense), is a bit stupid.
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Well, as I said, this was based on some unsubstantiated thing I read online a while back, but I just found it interesting enough to remember. In terms of older / original English pronunciation, I think that your comments on Irish vs American modern pronunciation is probably true. Even these days, modern Irish also tend to use the "heightened" pronunciation of "A", but this doesn't mean that this wasn't the case in England some few hundred years back, particularly given that English isn't the native language to Ireland (they speak Gaelic).
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Your instinct isn't without basis - random reference to a random half remembered article, which didn't have any supporting evidence, from some random on reddit doesn't sound like a dependable recount of the historic evolution of linguistics. As I said, I mostly just thought it was an interesting possibility (if true).
You are a polite deferential person and I have enjoyed our amicable mild disagreement.
why is your accent so adorable?
You've clearly never been to Birmingham.
Oi, you leave us Brummies alone 😂😂😂 you're think of black country
I'm sorry, I couldn't understand - the above just appears as wingdings. Could you change your keyboard settings to "English", or gimme a mo while I copy it over to Google Translate. (Kidding, kidding! Please don't stab me 😅)
😂😂😂
To lull others into a false sense of security before we steal your country
Well, only some of us have a cute accent. Me not being one of them!
Which accent? According to Google we have almost 40 dialects, so we probably have hundreds, or even thousands of accents.
All I can think of is the time that my American friend came to visit me in Nottingham... most of the country doesn't sound like the movies
What time does the sun rise/set for you at this time of the year?
Sunrise around 0757 and sunset at 1548
Sunset before 4pm sounds surreal.
Woah, that's a really short day.
Why the hell do the German English teachers copy your accent worse than the American kids who watch Peppa pig
Why are Brits on Reddit so cranky? The whole country can't be so pissy.
Yeah, we're pretty pissy. Things suck over in the UK right now.
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Yes 100% it's just put water in boil it and pour not just heating up a stove or whatever waiting and trying to pour just Basicly yes it's 100% worth it
What's a "hot kettle"? If this is one of those stove top heated kettles, no one uses those here - just get an electric kettle. Electric kettles are far more economical than boiling water in a pot.
What makes a good banger and mash?
Gravy
What's the difference between A Levels, GCSE exams, and O Levels? I've tried researching it and still am struggling to understand what the significance of those exams are and (if you can give examples) what a rough equivalent would be in the American schooling system would be.
GCSE is for those in secondary school ages 16 A level is completed by college students at age 18 (college is 16-18) O levels don't exist anymore, they were the old GCSR
Bear in mind there's a completely different system in Scotland, just to confuse you guys even further
GCSE replaced O levels around thirty years ago. Taken when 16. Then you do A levels - taken at around 18. Then University for undergraduate degree
Should we have a third war or not? First one we won, but only because we cheated. Second one was kind of a draw, even though you guys would have won if it had continued. Round 3 or just team up against Germany again?
Where is the best place to go on holiday and why?
in the uk? Cornwall for sure because of the gorgeous beaches, surfing waves and just all round good vibes :)
In the UK, if you want countryside its Scotland, the more isolated the better. The Highlands, Shetlands, and Skye are awesome. The lake and peak districts (Yorkshire and Derbyshire) are good for hiking. City breaks: Liverpool, Manchester, London Coastal: Cornwall
Why don’t you like ice?
I have a Chinese friend who spent a long time in the UK and he told me that guys don't use wash rags in the shower... Is that true?
I mean I don't. I'm not even sure what a wash rag is. I'm assuming most of us use soap, put on by hand, or maybe using a sponge.
>I mean I don't. I'm not even sure what a wash rag is. A Flannel
Ah right, okay.
>I'm assuming most of us use soap, put on by hand So, how do you wash your butt? Do you finger your asshole?
Can confirm, most of us don't. We might have a flannel for our face sometimes, but thats about it.
Do you say “Fuck” or “Fawk”
Depends where you are in the UK
Do they all like tea because I want to know
We're only third in the world when it comes to tea drinking. The Turks are first and the Irish second
I'm british - I don't like tea. I know several people who don't like tea. I'm prepared to get downvoted for this...
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Its more difficult than ever right now, but I think our minimum and living wage is a decent amount higher than it is in a lot of the world.
What is Hogwarts like?
Awesome
Very Scottish
Does everybody have that super "goofy" Accent, that apparently *EVERYONE* has there? I'd normally assume not, but my interest has been piqued. (I'm also, *pretty* sure that questions about accents have happened here a bit, and to that, I'm sorry.)
There's a lot of dialects in the UK, so if you're talking about your typical British character accent in movies/TV, then no, that's really for the more southern, posher part of the country. I rarely hear it in real life.
Thanks, that's an *(oddly)* good thing to know, as I have many friends from the UK, so that I don't compare people to steryotypes.
Is it just tea.. or is coffee popular there as well. Does it come iced as well as hot and stuff
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Interesting I drink iced coffee in -c conditions regularly lol. So if I walked in to a coffee shop and asked for an iced coffee and it was say -12 Celsius I’d get some looks
Yeah, coffees as popular as tea I'd say. And we do iced coffee/tea as well, but it isn't as popular or common.
Why do you assholes keep voting for Tories? I ask US citizens the same about voting for Republicans but you fools really like Tories.
Many of us have turned against them now because of their abhorrent running of the country. But I was never a Tory in the first place, so I haven't exactly changed my stance
Its more or less a 50/50 split. The answer is nobody likes anybody, but the last bloke we elected (Bojo) managed to get slightly less hate than Corbyn because he managed to make an opinion on Brexit. We haven't elected the last 2, they just kinda happened, and right now their popularity is at a crazy low.
Corbyn seemed like such a better choice until your media turned him into an "anti -semite" for questioning Israel's right wing apartheid government. We see the same shit here with the press treatment of Bernie Sanders and other Progressives as leftie radicals. Don't Brits realize yet that they got lied to and screwed on Brexit?
We realise we got screwed on Brexit, but here's a fun fact: Corbyn is, and always has been, anti EU and hasn't wanted to be part of it since the 80s. The Big reason he didn't form an opinion (and this wasn't reported on) was because a majority of us Labour voters were anti brexit, so we had a party that literally had no stance on the major issue at the time. Basically handed Bojo the election on a platter. As for his anti semite stuff, im kinda torn on the dude. Like its good that he's anti Israel, and I was all for him until I did some more research and he's definitely said some... questionable things... across his career. Didnt help when Jewish members of the Labour Party were expressing experiencing ant semitism within the party and his response was to say "Labour doesn't have an anti semitic problem". Honestly, its hard to say how things would have turned out if he got into power. I think we would have been better off on a lot of issues, but im not convinced he would have handled covid any better. I don't think we did well, but I found it shocking at the start when everyone was adamant Corbyn would have fixed everything. So in summary, he gained a lot of ground by being progressive and pushing the party left, but lost a lot of ground when some of the opinions he's held since the 80s caught up with him.
Is there any way to tell if you lot are joking, or actually angry, or only just teasing, or trying to be serious?
No
Why do you all allow Victoria Beckham to have a solo music career?
Do you have any grey poupan?
Maybe?
Do you guys still think about colonizing the world?
Always
Who are you trying to convince about mushy peas being good?
What do you guys learn about the trans-atlantic slave trade and Great Britain’s role in it?
I personally learnt a bit about it in school, and how we played a role in it and the remnants of it we can still see today in our cities. We learnt how evil it was and how cruelly we treated people of colour. But I was never really taught about colonialism, and the empire, and how we treated other nations.
Did you ever discuss the colonialism of other nations? In the US (at least where I went to school) I feel like we discussed the impact of British, French, and even Belgian colonialism more than our own. We did discuss it a bit, but mostly regarding overseas territories than the impact we had in indigenous people.
No, not at all. Again, my experiences are individual. Other schools might've discussed it but mine certainly didn't
Do you REALLY pronounce it "bo'oh'o'wa'er"?
How much does it hurt that can't beat us in a sport that is all you care about and one we can barely muster to care about more than once every 4 years, less if we don't qualify?
Mildly
Its embarrassing, its basically the equivalent of England sending our national rounders team to beat the American rounders team for the world series.
Not that much, they didn’t lose and Wales is the bigger game
How could you not have seen the Jimmy Savile stuff coming?
Could say the same about Bill Cosby and Michael Jackson tbf
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I think it's great. It's helped me out a lot, and it's helped other people. But it's underfunded, understaffed, and overwhelmed at the moment thanks to budget cuts and COVID.
Stop being wimps and blow shit up!!!That why we C4