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DrEntropy

DrEntropy

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I've just got FiOS in the last week so this may NOT be so amusing to most but: BBC America has a spot running to insinuate the English accent requires "Closed Captioning" to be running in order that we here inna Colonies may be assured of understanding the dialogue... remarkable.


<span style='font-family: Microsoft Sans Serif'><span style='font-size: 17pt'><span style="color: #FF0000">RUTABAGA!!</span></span></span>
 
Well Doc-

A truer story cannot not be told.

My sweet wife Wendy was born and raised in the
dales of northern England. When I flew over to meet
her mum, Wendy had to translate her mum's English into
American so I could understand her.

But the odd things is her mum could understand most of
my American!

BTW: Her mum got quite a laugh at my attempts to understand
dale's accented English.

BTW2: They are NOT always rutabegas; they are also "swedes"
as in Sweden. Taste great mashed with equal portion of
carrots and bit of curry folded in.

d
 
Not hard to figure, really. Here in the VA mountains it's not unusual at all to encounter folks who speak a "foreign" language. Plenty of folks, especially northerners, have a real hard time understanding folks from way back in the "hollers" here.

And, I can barely understand Scottish brogue and some Irish dialects. Last time I was in Scotland ('05), I met plenty of folks whom I could not comprehend (usually after a few, wee drams of whiskey, I might add!).

Doc, I"m sure you know some country folk who "talk funny" down there, eh? /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/crazy.gif
 
Hello Vagt6,

"usually after a few, wee drams of whiskey, I might add!"

might I add that there is no 'E' in Whisky from Scotland.

Dr. Entrophy, I couldn't understand any of your original post?

Alec
 
What shows are they captioning on BBCA, Doc? I mean, I've very occasionally had a hard time understanding some of the thicker English accents (a chap from Yorkshire was memorably unintelligible!). But actors on television, especially when doing an accent or dialect, are usually trying to be understood.

Come to think of it, there's a brief scene in Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels in which a Sarf London bartender is translated, but I think that was because he was using rhyming slang, which is hard to understand by design.

Going in the opposite direction, Bill Bryson got his first job in journalism in England, based on the fact that he would probably be the only one who could reliably spell the word "Cincinnati".

-William
 
I make no comment! /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/jester.gif

Actually I should, as I have been asked to talk to people with a broad accent from Scotland, the north of England, and a Mancunian.
 
Aye, It be like readin' some-o- Robert W.Services' Poems abou' WWI. You've got to mentally give it a thick accent.
here's an excerp from "Bill The Bomber" exactly as it was written.

So there I lay all 'elpless like, and bloody sick at that,
And worryin' like anythink, because I'd lost me 'at
And thinkin' of me missis, and the partin' words she said:
"If you gets killed, write quick, ol' man, and tell me as you're dead."
 
Right you are. I can't believe I misspelled that, and I wasn't even drinking when I did it! /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/thirsty.gif
 
william said:
What shows are they captioning on BBCA, Doc?
Click to expand...
They're just -suggesting- to turn on the CC feature. I hope it's mostly tongue-in-cheek.

Steve said:
Actually I should, as I have been asked to talk to people with a broad accent from Scotland, the north of England, and a Mancunian.
Click to expand...

Translator?!? Does that pay well?? /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/devilgrin.gif
 
Steve said:
Actually I should, as I have been asked to talk to people with a broad accent from Scotland, the north of England, and a Mancunian.
Click to expand...

Translator?!? Does that pay well?? /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/devilgrin.gif

[/quote]

I can't resist! /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/devilgrin.gif
Ah cannae unerstaun whit yer a sayin Jimmy! /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/jester.gif

What about this Steve? Divent dunsh us wer Geordies!

Stuart. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/cheers.gif
 
ecurie_ecosse said:
Steve said:
Actually I should, as I have been asked to talk to people with a broad accent from Scotland, the north of England, and a Mancunian.
Click to expand...

Translator?!? Does that pay well?? /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/devilgrin.gif
Click to expand...

I can't resist! /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/devilgrin.gif
Ah cannae unerstaun whit yer a sayin Jimmy! /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/jester.gif

What about this Steve? Divent dunsh us wer Geordies!

Stuart. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/cheers.gif [/quote]

Well, at first glance I would suggest "Please don't confuse us with those chaps from Newcastle?"

So, am I close?
 
Close Steve, but the quotation covers all Geordies. And quite simply means "don't push us or else"

Stuart. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/cheers.gif
 
Banjo said:
Aye, It be like readin' some-o- Robert W.Services' Poems abou' WWI. You've got to mentally give it a thick accent.
here's an excerp from "Bill The Bomber" exactly as it was written.

So there I lay all 'elpless like, and bloody sick at that,
And worryin' like anythink, because I'd lost me 'at
And thinkin' of me missis, and the partin' words she said:
"If you gets killed, write quick, ol' man, and tell me as you're dead."
Click to expand...

I'd no problem reading it and understanding, but I couldn't figure out the proper accent. I settled on a Cockney accent, like Phil Daniels' when he narrates the song "Parklife" by Blur. I also made it "anyfink" and "finkin".

-William
 
Ever read anything by Irvine Welsh?

You have to enunciate it, otherwise you are totally lost - unless you are a Scot of course. even then I'm not so sure it scans...
 
William said:
Banjo said:
Aye, It be like readin' some-o- Robert W.Services' Poems abou' WWI. You've got to mentally give it a thick accent.
here's an excerp from "Bill The Bomber" exactly as it was written.

So there I lay all 'elpless like, and bloody sick at that,
And worryin' like anythink, because I'd lost me 'at
And thinkin' of me missis, and the partin' words she said:
"If you gets killed, write quick, ol' man, and tell me as you're dead."
Click to expand...

I'd no problem reading it and understanding, but I couldn't figure out the proper accent. I settled on a Cockney accent, like Phil Daniels' when he narrates the song "Parklife" by Blur. I also made it "anyfink" and "finkin".

-William
Click to expand...

North-country accent. Could be a dialect from the north midlands, Derby or suchlike. If you ever heard Stanley Holloway, that would fit it to a tee.......as in "Albert and the Lion".

Here:- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-ucFB6awSw
 
The really amusing part of it Doc., is the bit that states "well even Brits from different regions have trouble understanding each other!!!" /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/jester.gif
 
bugimike said:
The really amusing part of it Doc., is the bit that states "well even Brits from different regions have trouble understanding each other!!!" /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/jester.gif
Click to expand...

Not surprising though. Britain is so old, and accents and idiom developed long before travel was easy. I come from Gloucestershire, but the local accent is easily distinguished from a Bristol accent, just 30-odd miles down the River Severn.
The Thames Estuary generic accent is spreading, though, glottal stops 'n'all!
 
DrEntropy said:
"Closed Captioning" to be running in order that we here inna Colonies may be assured of understanding the dialogue... remarkable.
Click to expand...

My gir...ok, ex girlfriend's mother is Italian. I have a very hard time with foreign accents. Always have. We talked about that because I really had trouble understanding her mom - then she said "but you understand the brits!"

That made me laugh, I said "yeah, they're speaking English!"

I've never really had trouble with many accents from England. When I was a kid I spent some time in Yorkshire, never had trouble there either. Scotland and Wales - sometimes a little.
 
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