make music then what...?

[jessejames]

I've heard "dogs rear hangers" once. Thought that was pretty cool.

[Shepherd_of_Anu]

You Brits have the silliest insults.

Hey!
Some of us have proper ones. Don't go tarnishing all of us with the same brush!

yeah, you stateside guys only have one; everything SUCKS

I am from Canada actually

I think derp is an English insult, I seem to recall now that it came up in a conversation a few months back with this girl from England. She was telling me about all kinds of outlandish colloquialisms she grew up with. It means a stupid person I believe.

i think its a web insult, never heard it in England before, but the range of dialects in England is huge, people from the south can hardly understand a broad North Eastern accent, when i went to Uni only 90 miles south of where i live, no-one could understand me, i had to adapt to the local dialect to have a conversation.
now ive got a bland average north english accent through moving around alot.

I have always found that to be kind of amazing. I have heard similar things from many people who come from England as well as other parts of the world. I have a family friend who was born in Italy, grew up here but when he goes back he can only talk to people from a certain area where his parents came from because it is a very particular dialect.

Here in Canada I could talk to someone pretty much from one side of the continent to the other and understand then unless they are from Newfoundland and drunk at the same time. It amazes me that in a land as small as the UK that a single language can be so diverse. I have to admit that on occasion I have heard English people talk and have had no idea what they were saying, even common words where so accented that it was hard to understand. Language is such a strange thing. This is paticularaly interesting when you consider that the UK has 2.5% of the land mass Canada does. If such great divisions in language were to occur one would think it would be related to the physical distance between the groups of people but apparently not.

I will have to inquire as to where that girl was from next time we talk.

[AK]

Not so where I live, it's pretty understandable English. No strong particular accent in this area. Not like the 'Queens English' but more undiluted like you'd hear from say a news reporter or something. Go further south west and it gets a little more 'farmer-like', up into Birmingham and it's a bit more distinctive. Pretty strange though considering you can go like 10 miles and notice the accent changing. Of course multiply that by 10 and it's totally different. There's a guy from Newcastle in our Pool team and I just don't know what he's saying half the time. "Hawaay lad, why-aye like man, ya nooo?" I'm like WTF are you on about!

[steevio]

not only that but there's acually three distinct languages on the UK mainland, English, Welsh, and Scottish Gaelic.

I live in Wales, although i'm from near Newcastle in North East England, and Welsh is spoken widely round here, it is the first language of many people in Ceredigion (west mid-wales) half of the schools are purely Welsh speaking.

alot depends on who invaded and where, Britain has been invaded by the Romans, the Celts, the Vikings, Angles, Saxons, Danes, Normans plus... and they all landed in different areas of Britain I could never understand my great grandmother who spoke broad Northumberland, which sounds very Scandinavian, many words are the same like Hyem which is 'home' in Danish and Norwegian as well as Geordie (north eastern/newcastle)

way off topic

[Shepherd_of_Anu]

I have always had a desire to learn Gaelic for some reason. I know there are several varieties but I find the sound pleasant. I am not good with languages but whenever I hear Gaelic singers I always feel a strange sense of rightness about it. I can't explain it, its just how I feel. I hope people keep it alive even if I can't help.

[tone-def]

You Brits have the silliest insults.

Hey!
Some of us have proper ones. Don't go tarnishing all of us with the same brush!

yeah, you stateside guys only have one; everything SUCKS

I am from Canada actually

I think derp is an English insult, I seem to recall now that it came up in a conversation a few months back with this girl from England. She was telling me about all kinds of outlandish colloquialisms she grew up with. It means a stupid person I believe.

i think its a web insult, never heard it in England before, but the range of dialects in England is huge, people from the south can hardly understand a broad North Eastern accent, when i went to Uni only 90 miles south of where i live, no-one could understand me, i had to adapt to the local dialect to have a conversation.
now ive got a bland average north english accent through moving around alot.

I have always found that to be kind of amazing. I have heard similar things from many people who come from England as well as other parts of the world. I have a family friend who was born in Italy, grew up here but when he goes back he can only talk to people from a certain area where his parents came from because it is a very particular dialect.

Here in Canada I could talk to someone pretty much from one side of the continent to the other and understand then unless they are from Newfoundland and drunk at the same time. It amazes me that in a land as small as the UK that a single language can be so diverse. I have to admit that on occasion I have heard English people talk and have had no idea what they were saying, even common words where so accented that it was hard to understand. Language is such a strange thing. This is paticularaly interesting when you consider that the UK has 2.5% of the land mass Canada does. If such great divisions in language were to occur one would think it would be related to the physical distance between the groups of people but apparently not.

I will have to inquire as to where that girl was from next time we talk.

Canada is still relatively new. maybe in another 1000 years things will be different. or maybe communication and transport technology will make us all have the same generic accent.

[steevio]

I have always had a desire to learn Gaelic for some reason. I know there are several varieties but I find the sound pleasant. I am not good with languages but whenever I hear Gaelic singers I always feel a strange sense of rightness about it. I can't explain it, its just how I feel. I hope people keep it alive even if I can't help.

maybe you've got gaelic / celtic roots ?

[simonb]

Off-topic I know but I think the thread's all the better for having veered off...

If we're talking about insults and accents then us Scots have a lot to say

I live in Glasgow and was brought up 30 miles away in central Scotland and the accents of the two places are pretty different, then the accents further east in Edinburgh and Fife have their own twangs too. Further northeast can get quite strange, then the west highlands and islands have a more singsong, Gaelic quality. It also kinda depends on class and so on (a shipbuilder from Glasgow and a farmer from 150 miles away in Aberdeenshire would have a pretty hard time understanding each other whereas two middle-class students from the same places wound sound more similar to each other and easier for someone from elsewhere to understand, although most could still percieve the east/west difference). My own accent's fairly nondescript but most people from, say, the south of England can immediately tell I'm Scottish and may or may not have a bit of trouble understanding... The amount of variation in accents is quite similar to in England and also Ireland (although I'm not that good at distinguishing Irish accents beyond the obvious northern and southern)

As for insults, oh where to begin