I`ll second that.
Fluff
Looks like they finally snapped.
Yes and Democrat is pronounced “Go un down and gits on dat Welfare”.
Vote em all out I say.
Spot on … except over the last few decades, the BBC has dropped RP English as much as possible, on the grounds that it is elitist, spoken by upper-class twats, so a class accent rather than a local accent. So people who really knew their stuff on, for instance, classical music, who used to be the announcers for the proms were dropped in favour of people who, well, like, y’know, knew a bit about it but really preferred pop/jazz/rock, like, woteva … 'cos that would get those wot din’t go to toff skool to listen to the proms, yeah?
And so on.
In fact, were I of a suitable age, I’m pretty sure that if I applied for a job at the BBC, I’d be turned down on the basis of my accent … and my overeducated, formal, grammatically correct language (except when I make typos!)
Thanks, Keith … I’m a theoretical linguist, not a historical linguist, so I hadn’t realised that. To me, when someone says “East Midlands”, I think of somewhere like Nottingham, and … Mind you, I should think the accent now is probably far removed from the “East Midlands” of Chaucer’s time and thereabouts.
Jaysen, I’m maintaining the integrity of my persona, so I will remain “Xiamenese”, though, as I say, there is a source of incentive to push me into becoming “Fujianese”.
Mark
Good lord, a second bifurcation. First in gender and now species.
–Greg
Role Playing?
Translated as Standard Role Playing Engrish
“WTB Healer for 10 man ICC. Must have GS of 5.5K. Must not suck. Then g2g.”
“Roxxor healer LFG. 5.8K GS heals better with brownies”
“DPS LFG 12k/8k DPS can pwn brownies melt faces”
“WTB run through RFC will pay 5g and offer brownies”
Ever wonder how much Wock got beat up in high school? I think we can now answer that with some accuracy.
Coming to this discussion late, I’m actually surprised at the surprise at the difference in pronunciation of … that word. I often get annoyed hearing a BBC anchor men & women pronounce my president’s name like it rhymed with “Attack Alabama”. His name, as pronounced by him and the newscasters in America, sounds like “Bah-Rock Oh-Bomb-Uh”, not “Bare-Ack O-Bam-Uh”. If newscasters pronounce a very famous name so differently than the owner of said name, then it seems obvious to me that “impolite” words* (not heard often in movies or on television) are going to sound somewhat different depending on which side of the Atlantic a person learns his English on.
You all know that “fanny” in America refers to anyone’s Gluteus Maximus, and not to a woman’s vagina* right? It’s actually a polite child’s term for ass or butt, fairly close in usage to “wee-wee” (penis) and “boobies” in it’s sophistication.
- For whatever reason, I can’t bring myself to type the word we’re discussing. How odd that I’m feeling prudish among you lot.
Up until a few years ago (seems like few but really was quite a while) there was a candy store near my house called … Fanny Farmer Candy.
I always laughed at the sight of the herd of large people that would collect there on a regular basis. I was much thinner then. sigh
I have to say that I’ve never heard a BBC anchorman pronounce Barack Obama’s name in the way you describe, as “Ba-rack A-bam-ah”; I’ve only ever heard it pronounced the correct way (“Bah-rock Oh-bomb-uh”, as you point out); given the ubiquity of American culture on this island, and the amount of news-time given to US affairs (as opposed to European affairs, when we are supposed to be European), it’s rare that we end up mispronouncing American names. On the other hand, you guys can’t even pronounce “vehicle”. 
BBC broadcasts on NPR (US version of BBC) always get it wrong. Keeping in mind that I am not a “fanboy” of Mr President, I was quite surprised when a reporter with no discernible accent “reporting from Washington DC” pulled an “a-BAM-a” I would expect that from someone in Arkansas. The southerner in me makes this kind hicklish sound once it get below the Mason-Dixon for a few days.
What do we do wrong with vee-hick-el? I haven’t heard it otherwise.
We don’t say the “h” - it’s more like “veercle” here, although technically it’s “vee-ickle” but tends to get squashed together. Because it’s not a word you hear often, it always sounds strange when said a way you’re not used to. Although, talking of vehicles, I’m from an area where “bus” is pronounced the same as “buzz”, which caused all sorts of merriment when I first moved down south many years ago.
Vee-hick-uls perhaps contain too much al-u-min-ee-um for us to properly pronounce. It leaves us feeling knocked up.
You really need to start sharing what ever it is that you are using.
Start with: George B Shaw.
But on “vee’ickles”, outside of broadcast standard, that is how I’ve always heard it pronounced over here as well (perhaps even more slurred together? It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to remove the stress mark in that and just say “veeickle”), except in the case of “vehicular”, then ‘h’ is definitely pronounced, but that isn’t a word you hear often in standard conversation.
Maybe everyone else is too cool to let on but as an long time user of HP calculators - I even have a HP 41 simulator on my iphone - I appreciated that.