I often wondered

Krummhorn

Administrator
Staff member
ADMINISTRATOR
In the American English dictionary "enquire" is listed as a variant of "inquire" and treated being the same.

I do admire the UK translations ... Your English is lots more proper while we here across the pond seemed to have lost the proper pronunciations over the years and gotten lazy with our language.

Kh ♫
 

Dorsetmike

Member
There are a few words still in American usage that are now almost entirely missing from UK English, some in UK still use get and got, but gotten has almost disappeared. My parents and early schooling used to discourage use of "I've got" preferring I have" or "I own", getting was still acceptable but could be replaced depending on context, as in "I'm getting/becoming tired of ... ... " whereas "I'm getting a ... ... ... " was OK.

Pronunciation is more a question of regional dialects/accents but also class, these have tended to fade in UK since the beginnings of radio broadcasting and changes in schooling. One big loss is use of second person singular, thee and thou and the resultant loss of the associated parts of some verbs - I am, thou art, he is, etc. Regional accents and dialects can also be different between urban and rural areas of the same region, rural tend to be softer and slower, urban can be harsh and rapid, the "upper classes" would use far less dialect.
 
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JHC

Chief assistant to the assistant chief
There are no local dialects that I have heard in NZ apart from some in the south island role their Rs (pronounced ars) :grin:
My favorite English accent is geordie. Do they still talk out of the side of their mouths?

 

Dorsetmike

Member
I was once told that Geordie could be better understood by a person who speaks Flemish rather than English!

I probably understood about one word in three or four in that clip. It does tend to bear out my comment about urban accents in post #4 above.
 

JHC

Chief assistant to the assistant chief
I absolutely love regional accents but I agree they are tending to blend together, when I worked in the UK we had loads of fun trying to imitate them and a small town only 13 miles away had such a strange accent it was more like a different language altogether.
We used to go to their dance hall and were at a loss as to what the girls were talking about
 
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