Monday, February 7, 2011

Speaking the lingo

A few people have commented on facebook lately about how I am now using American words instead of English words. Ive been thinking about this today, and yes there are a few words I have started using. I think this is for a few reasons, the first reason being other than Dave, everyone I spend my time with is American and secondly I volunteer with children three times a week and find I have to 'speak American' or they don't understand me!! At first I tried to stick with my English words and re-educate people, that has worked with a few slang words ;) but not the majority.

Some words that spring to mind that I do now use are:
trash/garbage instead of rubbish
shopping cart instead of shopping trolley
fawcet instead of tap
trunk instead of boot
leash instead of lead
sneakers instead of trainer
gas instead of petrol
I also pronounce a few words different, but purely to get by when holding a conversation, however I refuse to pronounce aluminium and bouy the American way as they sound so wrong!!

Those are just a few that spring to mind, for those of you in England don't worry I still have a very very strong English accent that I imagine is going to take a long time to lose, if at all.
One interesting thing that I was told the other week was that after a friend had recently been to visit for two weeks from England, apparently whilst she was here and just after she left my English accent became a lot stronger.
Therefore the moral of the story is all my English friends need to come visit to help me maintain my Englishness - you owe it to your country :)

No comments:

Post a Comment