I'm halfway through An American Tragedy. I don't seem to have as much time to read lately and every time I pick up this book I wish I did. I don't know what Dreiser does, but he really knows how to put you in the scene, and then I don't want to leave.

The_Piper wrote:

Fallible wrote:I learnt both were OK too. But then I learnt 'learnt' was OK in this backward country.

That ones always looked odd too. Of course it's not proper over heya. Do you even pronounce it that way?

Yep. We do that with many 'ed' words. I mean...both endings are used. Even with the word 'used', we sometimes pronounce it 'yust' (eg. 'I yust to go there')', although it's not acceptable to spell it that way. You'd be crackt if you spelt it like that.

I got a good laugh today when I heard a British guy on YT pronounce Gigli "jiggly"

We iz uncouf, izzunit.

NamelessFaceless wrote:I'm halfway through An American Tragedy. I don't seem to have as much time to read lately and every time I pick up this book I wish I did. I don't know what Dreiser does, but he really knows how to put you in the scene, and then I don't want to leave.

Sounds good.

Fallible wrote:

The_Piper wrote:

Fallible wrote:I learnt both were OK too. But then I learnt 'learnt' was OK in this backward country.

That ones always looked odd too. Of course it's not proper over heya. Do you even pronounce it that way?

Yep. We do that with many 'ed' words. I mean...both endings are used. Even with the word 'used', we sometimes pronounce it 'yust' (eg. 'I yust to go there')', although it's not acceptable to spell it that way. You'd be crackt if you spelt it like that.

I got a good laugh today when I heard a British guy on YT pronounce Gigli "jiggly"

We iz uncouf, izzunit.

Oh yeah, we say useta. Cracked sounds a little like crackt too. But learned ends with the d sound, usually. Learntit though.

I'm reading Bohumil Hrabal's I Served the English King.

Fantastic read. So funny and touching. Hrabal is one of my favorite 20th century writers.

The_Piper wrote:

Fallible wrote:

The_Piper wrote:

Fallible wrote:I learnt both were OK too. But then I learnt 'learnt' was OK in this backward country.

That ones always looked odd too. Of course it's not proper over heya. Do you even pronounce it that way?

Yep. We do that with many 'ed' words. I mean...both endings are used. Even with the word 'used', we sometimes pronounce it 'yust' (eg. 'I yust to go there')', although it's not acceptable to spell it that way. You'd be crackt if you spelt it like that.

I got a good laugh today when I heard a British guy on YT pronounce Gigli "jiggly"

We iz uncouf, izzunit.

Oh yeah, we say useta. Cracked sounds a little like crackt too. But learned ends with the d sound, usually. Learntit though.

There is a proper rule on how to pronounce the 'ed' ending of English verbs.
If the base verb ends in a voiced consonant, ( E.g. B,G,J,L,M,N,R,V,W,) then the 'ed' is pronounced as a 'd'.
E.g
Hum = Hummed = /hummd/
Pull = Pulled = /Pulld/
Love = Loved = /Lovd/

If the base verb ends in an unvoiced consonant, (E.g. C, F, K,P, S, X) then the pronunciation is 't'.

E.g.
Jump = Jump = /Jumpt/
Piss = Pissed = /Pisst/
Huff = Huffed = /Hufft/

If the base verb ends in either a T or a D, then the 'ed' pronunciation is give as 'id'.

E.g.
Wait = Waited = /Waitid/
Pad = Padded = /Paddid/
Knot = Knotted = / Knottid/
Skid = Skidded = /Skiddid/

This is one of the times when the underlying logic of English spelling actually comes to the aid of users. One simple spelling rule for three different pronunciations of one concept. The spelling aligns with the concept not the pronunciation....

(Sorry no ipa on this computer.)

I just love it when you guys say 'whilst.'

The History of England volume 1 Foundation by Peter Ackroyd.
I've got up to the early 1400's and I'm shocked. I knew our history was bad but never realized it was this bad.
A king overtaxes the population to fight the Welsh/Scots/French/Irish (take your pick) and the Lords rebel. King pushed to one side while the Lordships take over. Lordships fall out among themselves. king gathers his faithful Lords, attacks the rebels, heads roll, King takes over again.
Repeat
Repeat
Repeat
etc.

American English / British English

you say vacation / we say holiday

you say sidewalk / we say pavement

you write it color / we write it colour

you write it labor / we write it labour

you pronounce it stat us / we pronounce it stay tus

you pronounce it lees ure / we pronounce it les ure

you call the season fall / we call the season autumn

you write the date 01 10 16 / we write the date 10 01 16

you say chips / we say crisps but our chips are fatter fries

you say ass / we say arse / our ass is a relative of the donkey

you say trunk / we say boot which is also footwear for both of us

you say fanny / we say arse / our fanny means cunt which we also use

our gang bangs are not the same / yours is group killing / ours is group sex

led zeppelin written as such to avoid you pronouncing it leed zeppelin instead

our fags / faggotts are the same but ours also means cigarette and meatball respectively

Tyre and tire

GF and I are always stumbling over different meanings....there is a store in Aus called Golden Casket which makes me laugh every time I see.
Casket in Canada is coffin ( as well as treasure chest but golden casket would be golden coffin,

We are doing The Guardian crosswords together
http://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/s ... k?page=145
and it gets hilarious at times - some items are common to Canada and UK, some Aus and UK and some foreign to both. Much laughter ensues

"Pants" and "thong" each mean different things in American and British English.

From Viz several years ago, on the American way of speaking.

"They call a slut a tramp, a tramp a bum, a bum a fanny and a fanny a pussy...."

I'm reading Eaters of the Dead (by Michael Crichton) I always find book of travels interesting and that makes this more interesting is it's taking place a millennium ago and telling life styles of Arabians, Turks and North Europeans

I feel lucky that I didn't watch it movie but I will as soon as I end the book.

don't get me started wrote:

The_Piper wrote:

Fallible wrote:

The_Piper wrote:
That ones always looked odd too. Of course it's not proper over heya. Do you even pronounce it that way?

Yep. We do that with many 'ed' words. I mean...both endings are used. Even with the word 'used', we sometimes pronounce it 'yust' (eg. 'I yust to go there')', although it's not acceptable to spell it that way. You'd be crackt if you spelt it like that.

I got a good laugh today when I heard a British guy on YT pronounce Gigli "jiggly"

We iz uncouf, izzunit.

Oh yeah, we say useta. Cracked sounds a little like crackt too. But learned ends with the d sound, usually. Learntit though.

There is a proper rule on how to pronounce the 'ed' ending of English verbs.
If the base verb ends in a voiced consonant, ( E.g. B,G,J,L,M,N,R,V,W,) then the 'ed' is pronounced as a 'd'.
E.g
Hum = Hummed = /hummd/
Pull = Pulled = /Pulld/
Love = Loved = /Lovd/

If the base verb ends in an unvoiced consonant, (E.g. C, F, K,P, S, X) then the pronunciation is 't'.

E.g.
Jump = Jump = /Jumpt/
Piss = Pissed = /Pisst/
Huff = Huffed = /Hufft/

If the base verb ends in either a T or a D, then the 'ed' pronunciation is give as 'id'.

E.g.
Wait = Waited = /Waitid/
Pad = Padded = /Paddid/
Knot = Knotted = / Knottid/
Skid = Skidded = /Skiddid/

This is one of the times when the underlying logic of English spelling actually comes to the aid of users. One simple spelling rule for three different pronunciations of one concept. The spelling aligns with the concept not the pronunciation....

(Sorry no ipa on this computer.)

I know it was a long time ago, but thanks for that.

I started on A Brief History of Time. I'm on page 22 or so. Don't laugh, but it's kind of confusing in places already. Especially some of the diagrams. I need a little teacher on the page to point to what's what. There's probably already an app that does that for ebooks.

Robin Hobbs Assassin trilogy. Finished Assassins Apprentice and now nearing end of Royal Assassin. If I hadn't been given them I'd never have even thought of buying them. They don't have the depth and complexity of LOTRings but strangely satisfying.

crazyfitter wrote:Robin Hobbs Assassin trilogy. Finished Assassins Apprentice and now nearing end of Royal Assassin. If I hadn't been given them I'd never have even thought of buying them. They don't have the depth and complexity of LOTRings but strangely satisfying.

The only fantasy I have enjoyed as an adult is ASoIaF. I only got as far as RotK with LotR, and I found even that painful. Thomas Covenant seemed mostly about emulating tolkien and I think it did a good job in as much as it was also painful.

I enjoyed the recent Wars of the Roses books and will definitely get the next one. It felt a bit like reading Martin but with the benefit that all those names refer to real historical figures.I am embarrassed to admit that I had never heard of Jack Cade. What an awesome mini story!

I'm reading Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon. Excellent and disturbing book. It's number 8 on Modern Library's list.

Koestler is remarkble...if you can find it ...try Act of Creation and Ghost in the Machine.. brilliant biology based masterworks on human creativity.

•••

Still reaping the Revenant spin offs about the North American fur trade and Hugh Glass / mountain men era.

Currently reading the Fur Trade Trilogy by R. G Robinson.

VazScep wrote:

I enjoyed the recent Wars of the Roses books and will definitely get the next one. It felt a bit like reading Martin but with the benefit that all those names refer to real historical figures.I am embarrassed to admit that I had never heard of Jack Cade. What an awesome mini story!

The History of England vol1 Foundation - Peter Ackroyd. I really enjoyed this book and its where I came across Jack Cade. It put a whole different perspective to my previous very woolly knowledge of our history. For example my knowledge of Henry viii revolved mainly around how many wives he had and why. The really interesting thing I learned was that he was our first undisputed king. No one died. No army rushed to sieze the treasury. Wow.