When I went to London, I did have to ask what a secre tree was (any relation to the oak tree?). And a labora tree and an observa tree and a 'lie bree' and the 'straw bree'... :) Were I able to stay longer, perhaps I would have understood better.
And at least we pronounce the 'r' at the ends of words. :)
James
PS - note that this is a sarcastic e-mail. Don't take it that seriously.
-----Original Message----- From: wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Pawel Dembowski Sent: Monday, September 19, 2005 10:37 AM To: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia English English
Americans seem to want to believe that they speak English, and we speak British English in England (meaning Britain!). They are wrong. They speak
a
dialect of our language, called American-English, an offshoot from the
main
trunk if you will, which has evolved somewhat independently of English. American-English is an out and out dialect of English. How can English English be a dialect of English?
I presume you are referring to the dialect of the ruling classes.
American pronunciation is definitely more similar to 17th century English than British RP.