Naked Science Forum
General Discussion & Feedback => Radio Show & Podcast Feedback => Topic started by: Eric A. Taylor on 18/02/2010 13:32:40
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Naked scientists, please please PLEASE explain that "lemonade" is 7-UP. Your podcast is not strictly in England. It's popular world wide, including the USA, which is not part of the British Empire, no matter how much you wish it was [;)]. Here "lemonade" is something very different.
Perhaps instead of saying simply "lemonade" you could say something like "lemonade, or 7-UP (or Sprite) for our American friends". If you have a problem with product name in your show maybe you can substitute "lemon-lime soda" for 7-UP.
I know what it is because I asked and was told (by you) but most Americans don't have a clue. I just imagine hundreds of thousands of Americans chucking raisins into their Country Time and wondering you their kitchen science isn't working.
We love you in America, please don't carry on as if we don't exist. It's not very nice.
And just because I'm here I'd like to add: Lindsey Vonn Rocks!!!!! (sorry just saw the "telly" and feeling stoked for her right now)
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As a sheepy I of course luff lemonade. Lemonade is my all time effervescent non-orange but lemon flavoured sparkly drink !
As far as I understand and know ...Sprite and 7up are lemon AND lime flavoured drinkypoos !...whereas lemonade is like...well...lemony !...over here it is traditionally a clear transparent fizzy water colour but ewe can also buy the cloudy traditional olde-worlde fashioned lemon coloured and in fact pinky coloured too !(which is also fizzy)
If I recall...in America Land Lemonade is a still drink yes ?...normally served by an old dear on a veranda in a jug with lemon slices floating in it !
By the way...we luff ewe in America too !!
YAYYYYYY !!
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As I am an English Make it Lady, I don't understand things Americans say sometimes, either. For example what does "feeling stoked for her" mean? Are you putting air into her fire by means of inserting a metal stick?
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Americans don't have a clue.
Don't you just love context? :-)
Anyway, since both 7 up and sprite are lemon and lime drinks what do Americans call fizzy drinks that are just lemon flavoured?
(Incidentally, if we agree to include explanations of English words will you agree to spell things like flavour correctly or, at least, to stop claiming that you speak (and write) English?)
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Since the Naked Scientists' show is broadcast on the BBC (which has Views about endorsement, or apparent endorsement, of a particular product), and since 7-Up is a brand name, whereas lemonade ain't, I think you're onto a loser here, Eric.
Of course, I also think that when Americans start explaining what they mean by "pants" (not what we mean) and other American usages in all radio, TV and film that is going to be viewed/listened to by people in Britain (and I guess Australia and other places) might then be the time to start talking about explaining everything people say on the British-manufactured media.
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As I am an English Make it Lady, I don't understand things Americans say sometimes, either. For example what does "feeling stoked for her" mean? Are you putting air into her fire by means of inserting a metal stick?
That's discussing!!!!!! "Stoked" a slang term that means very happy.
Americans don't have a clue.
Don't you just love context? :-)
Anyway, since both 7 up and sprite are lemon and lime drinks what do Americans call fizzy drinks that are just lemon flavoured?
(Incidentally, if we agree to include explanations of English words will you agree to spell things like flavour correctly or, at least, to stop claiming that you speak (and write) English?)
Noah Webster, who wrote the American Dictionary in the 1700's didn't like the English so deliberately changed the spelling of some words. to separate our language from the King's English. So both "flavor" and flavour are both spelled correctly.
Since the Naked Scientists' show is broadcast on the BBC (which has Views about endorsement, or apparent endorsement, of a particular product), and since 7-Up is a brand name, whereas lemonade ain't, I think you're onto a loser here, Eric.
Of course, I also think that when Americans start explaining what they mean by "pants" (not what we mean) and other American usages in all radio, TV and film that is going to be viewed/listened to by people in Britain (and I guess Australia and other places) might then be the time to start talking about explaining everything people say on the British-manufactured media.
A very good point. But because the USA is the best country in the world you have to do it our way. Sorry that's just the way it is ;).
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Mad. In America: Angry, in Britten: Crazy
Pissed. In America: angry (as in pissed off) or past tense of piss (to urinate (as in pissed on)) in Britten: drunk
Boot. In America: a high topped piece of footwear. In Britten: Where you put your bags in a car
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Noah Webster (October 16, 1758 – May 28, 1843) was an American lexicographer, textbook author, spelling reformer, word enthusiast, and editor. He has been called the “Father of American Scholarship and Education.” His “Blue-Backed Speller” books were used to teach spelling and reading to five generations of American children. In the United States, his name has become synonymous with dictionaries, especially the modern Merriam-Webster dictionary that was first published in 1828 as An American Dictionary of the English Language.
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Merriam–Webster, which was originally the G. & C. Merriam Company[1] of Springfield, Massachusetts, is an American company that publishes reference books, especially dictionaries that are descendants of Noah Webster’s An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828). Merriam–Webster is a subsidiary of Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
I didn't know that Encyclopaedia Britannica was an American company. I always thought it was British.
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If you start with English and deliberately change it then whatever you get isn't English.
Flavor might be "correct" according to Mr Webster, but it's not the correct English spelling.
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If you start with English and deliberately change it then whatever you get isn't English.
Flavor might be "correct" according to Mr Webster, but it's not the correct English spelling.
is too.....
BOTH are correct. By the way my spell checker wants to "correct" "flavour".
Languages all change over time. No one today says "thee" or "thine" but 100 years ago, your own great or great-great grandparents.
Look at Shakespeare. No one talks like that these days, and he lived just a few hundred years ago. Go back to the time of King Richard I and English is unintelligible to English speakers today. So is what British people spoke during the rain of Richard I English, or is English what British people speak today in the time of Queen Elizabeth II?
If one is unintelligible to the other can they both be English?
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Technically speaking, Shakespeare and the King James Bible are Modern English, although someone might feel inclined to call them "early" Modern English.
English is an extremely fluid language, even within England.
Just recently, in Middle English, various people used egg, eye and eai in reference to those globular foods-in-a-shell that chickens lay. Folks to the north used egg which finally won out over eye used in the south (~London) and eai in the east (I think).
Even pronunciation varies. Here in New England, we pronounce "egg" as they do in the South Midlands in England.
Yes, also in New England they do not properly pronounce the name of my home state. When I was working in Yellowstone NP a few summers ago on my name tag was my home state, so my name read "Eric, Oregon". I asked a guest where they were from and they said "Or-e-gone". Well if they were really from the PNW they wouldn't say that but I could not really call them liars. Turns out they were from Oregon, Iowa. So now OI say "Or-e-gin" is a state on the west coast. "Or-e-gone" is a town in Iowa.
There is a Scottish film I like called "Ratcatcher" but the dialog is very difficult to follow. I need the subtitles to understand what they say. I think that film is in English.......maybe it's Gallic?
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If you start with English and deliberately change it then whatever you get isn't English.
Flavor might be "correct" according to Mr Webster, but it's not the correct English spelling.
. No one today says "thee" or "thine" but 100 years ago, your own great or great-great grandparents.
If one is unintelligible to the other can they both be English?
Thee and thine are still in common enough usage to get into hit record lyrics
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/kaiserchiefs/ipredictariot.html
If one language is incomprehensible from the point of view of a speaker of the other language then they are not the same language.
Since this whole thread is about such an incomprehensibility, the two languages are not the same.
The language generally used in the US is not English and they should stop calling it English.
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If one language is incomprehensible from the point of view of a speaker of the other language then they are not the same language.
Since this whole thread is about such an incomprehensibility, the two languages are not the same.
The language generally used in the US is not English and they should stop calling it English.
Then I suppose that means people in Newcastle speak a different language from people in Kent. I wonder which one is "English"?
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There you go then. People in the North of England and people in the South of England are mutually unintellibible. Therefore, they must be speaking different languages.
We probably should not even go into what they speak in Scotland, although I have seen subtitles on Scottish films screened in the US.
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I was born in Surrey and I never had that much problem with understanding folk from Newcastle.
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Some evidence (not much I admit [;D])
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=25579.msg275058#msg275058
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Maybe trouble understanding regional accents has more to do with not being used to hearing them. Spend time exposed to them and that problem goes away. In 1986 we went to visit friends who live in Ireland. They had an 11 year old daughter and once at dinner her mother became very cross and said "Stop that it's very rude to the Taylor's!" The little girl was very confused. So were we. We hadn't realized she'd started speaking in an American accent. What's wild is she didn't realize it ether.
Given enough time and isolation would American English diverge completely from the "Queen's English" and become it's own language? If English English is "The Queen's English" should American English be called "The President's English?"