|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: |
Dec 16, 2013 - 2:11 PM
|
|
|
By: |
Jon Broxton
(Member)
|
I wish someone could find the old Willie Rushton sketch (Rushton, for Americans, was a satirist and comedian who used to work with Peter Cook and David Frost and Alan Bennett, Dudley Moore, etc.), the sketch where he's rehearsing that old song 'Let's Call the Whole Thing Off'. The piano starts up, and he sings, 'You say potato, and I say potato ... you say tomato ...' But he's never heard the song before, only is reading the lyrics. He doesn't get the context, and the words look the same on paper. And it doesn't make sense, so he has to keep stopping. You have to hear it to see how funny it is. I remember that sketch! I'm sitting here at my desk trying not to crack up, and my colleagues are all wondering what I'm doing
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: |
Dec 16, 2013 - 3:10 PM
|
|
|
By: |
MusicMad
(Member)
|
The date thing is just how it's always been done, here. However, I've never encountered any issue with mm/dd/yyyy format. Not once, so I don't understand why it matters? ... Because if you're sorting data, or checking lists of information which are date specific then it's so much easier if the date is written logically. I'm not computer literate and perhaps someone who is can advise accordingly but I bet that today's date, 16 Dec 13, is recognised as 131216 not as 131612 in the IT world. And it matters, here in the UK at least, as date notation in which the numbers could be read either way . e.g. 04 May, 10 Aug, etc. should be specific. It's always sensible to write the month in letters so as to avoid confusion. Mitch
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The date thing is just how it's always been done, here. However, I've never encountered any issue with mm/dd/yyyy format. Not once, so I don't understand why it matters? The Brit thing I never got was the word "schedule", with an "sh" sound rather than a "sk" sound, as we do in the US. You don't say shool for school, so why do it for schedule? Well that's drummed into every British schoolchild - "k before e, but not before oo".* What I want to know is why you still say "gotten", when we stopped saying it by and large hundreds of years ago. TG * I made that up That would be have gotten. You tried to get rid of the Germanic influence in the language, we did not.
|
|
|
|
|
Apart from all the quirks mentioned, one difference I really find irritating is the word route. You yanks say "rout," whereas, we brits pronounce it as "root." Can you imagine saying something like, "go to the root of the route." Or, "that military unit is routing somewhere along the route." Endless fun. I've never heard a single American say, Rout 66. Both are said in the US, with root, being the preference. When I was a kid and delivered newspapers, it was always a paper rout.
|
|
|
|
|
In America we walk on a sidewalk, while in Britain one walks on the pavement. But in America pavement usually means the surface of a paved road. I live in California, but am English. There's a street near where I live with a sign which reads "Park off pavement". For years I thought this meant "do not park on the sidewalk", until being told otherwise. I always thought the big difference between U.S. and U.K regarding streets was "on the street" (U.S.) versus "in the street." (U.K.) This was supposedly one of Alan Jay Lerner's great regrets about his lyrics for "My Fair Lady": that he had a British character sing "On the Street Where You Live" when, in British colloquial speech, it would be "In the Street Where You Live." You could argue that it was more practical to use "On," because the intended audience was mostly American, and the song was a big hit anyway, but it still bothered him afterward. --Perhaps the residual guilt of someone who'd been educated in a British boarding school in his youth.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: |
Dec 17, 2013 - 2:30 AM
|
|
|
By: |
Jehannum
(Member)
|
I wish someone could find the old Willie Rushton sketch (Rushton, for Americans, was a satirist and comedian who used to work with Peter Cook and David Frost and Alan Bennett, Dudley Moore, etc.), the sketch where he's rehearsing that old song 'Let's Call the Whole Thing Off'. The piano starts up, and he sings, 'You say potato, and I say potato ... you say tomato ...' But he's never heard the song before, only is reading the lyrics. He doesn't get the context, and the words look the same on paper. And it doesn't make sense, so he has to keep stopping. You have to hear it to see how funny it is. Sounds like a funny and clever sketch.
|
|
|
|
|
Sounds like a funny and clever sketch. Hey, Jehannum, there's another one Willie Rushton did live on stage in the same vein. He's singing that old musical number, 'I'm .. puttin' on my top hat ...' He appears on stage, in his underwear, with socks and suspenders, and as he sings each line of the song, he goes through the actions. Someone throws him a cane, somebody holds a jacket for him to put on, somebody helps him 'polishin' my nails ...' etc. until he's fully dressed. At the end of the song, he's fully acoutred in top hat, tails, cane, bow-tie etc., but he's got NO TROUSERS. He stops the music and says, 'Wait a minute... Where's the trousers? .. there's no trousers.' 'I dunno ...' 'Well there must be another verse ...' 'No, there's nothing here about trousers ...' You have to see that one ...
|
|
|
|
|
English people are English, except when England is losing at football, in which case they magically become British, if Scotland or Wales are doing well. This rarely happens. When Andy Murray lost the Wimbledon final in 2012, he was the losing Scottish finalist. When Andy Murray won the Wimbledon final in 2013, he was the winning British champion!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: |
Dec 17, 2013 - 10:28 AM
|
|
|
By: |
Mr Greg
(Member)
|
[Hey, Jehannum, there's another one Willie Rushton did live on stage in the same vein. He's singing that old musical number, 'I'm .. puttin' on my top hat ...' He appears on stage, in his underwear, with socks and suspenders, and as he sings each line of the song, he goes through the actions. Someone throws him a cane, somebody holds a jacket for him to put on, somebody helps him 'polishin' my nails ...' etc. until he's fully dressed. At the end of the song, he's fully acoutred in top hat, tails, cane, bow-tie etc., but he's got NO TROUSERS. He stops the music and says, 'Wait a minute... Where's the trousers? .. there's no trousers.' 'I dunno ...' 'Well there must be another verse ...' 'No, there's nothing here about trousers ...' You have to see that one ... That brings back memories....he did that sketch with Barry Cryer during their "Two Old Farts In The Night" tour, which I had the pleasure of seeing at Cheltenham Town Hall.....
|
|
|
|
|
.he did that sketch with Barry Cryer during their "Two Old Farts In The Night" tour, which I had the pleasure of seeing at Cheltenham Town Hall..... I honestly didn't know that. See how everything's linked? (See the synths thread on the other side ...) !!!!!!!
|
|
|
|
|
So, no one is tackling my school/schedule question? Except one rather inventive response
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
What's odd about it?
|
|
|
|
|
This thread is surely pants. Pants, what are pants?
|
|
|
|
|
So, no one is tackling my school/schedule question? Except one rather inventive response In the UK I've heard people use both. I dunno if the word has Germanic origins, since 'Sch' in German is 'sh'. I think it's all to do with accents, most of these things. In an English accent, 'bonk' sounds very descriptive, in an American accent it'd sound very uneasy... 'baaahnk' ... it'd lose it's onomatopoeia (in 'other' contexts ...). But against that, 'shag' would sound equally good in an American accent, yet you guys don't use that term. I gather 'screwing' is your thing. What's the origin of going to the 'John' instead of the 'loo' or the 'bog'? I think I understand 'head' or 'can'. Then there's that old 'labORRatry' versus 'LABBraTORy' thing. Why do you people say 'EYE -raq' or EYE-rann' or 'EYEtalian'? An American woman I knew said 'co-LEGG-iate' instead of 'coll-EEEJit' for 'collegiate' once. Is that common? I'd never heard it before. I think she may have got it just wrong.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|