Dumb questions
- Thread starter Chronic
- Start date
After I've already said I'm in a serious relationship:
"So, i'm saying are you going to let me take you out or not?"
WTF? If that was the case I wouldn't have wasted our time explaining about my relationship, rolling my eyes at you and trying to walk faster in heels.
"We only had sex once, how did I get pregnant?"
Um, are you serious idiot? Yes they are.
And last but not least, heard this the other day from another tutor while we were tutoring sixth graders....
"What are you listening to?" - not dumb yet
*me listening to iPod*
*take off headphones*
"what?"
"What you listening to?"
"The killers" - Me
"Oh yeah, is that like them white peoples music?" -getting dumber
"What?" - look of annoyed disgust?
"Yeah them white peoples music ain't it?"-dumber
"How'd you find out about them white peoples music?, i mean, they don't play it on the radio station or nothing. Did you find it on wikipedia or something?" -full blown dumb question.
Yes, he was a tutor, poor kids.
"
"So, i'm saying are you going to let me take you out or not?"
WTF? If that was the case I wouldn't have wasted our time explaining about my relationship, rolling my eyes at you and trying to walk faster in heels.
"We only had sex once, how did I get pregnant?"
Um, are you serious idiot? Yes they are.
And last but not least, heard this the other day from another tutor while we were tutoring sixth graders....
"What are you listening to?" - not dumb yet
*me listening to iPod*
*take off headphones*
"what?"
"What you listening to?"
"The killers" - Me
"Oh yeah, is that like them white peoples music?" -getting dumber
"What?" - look of annoyed disgust?
"Yeah them white peoples music ain't it?"-dumber
"How'd you find out about them white peoples music?, i mean, they don't play it on the radio station or nothing. Did you find it on wikipedia or something?" -full blown dumb question.
Yes, he was a tutor, poor kids.
"
Well, how would you distinguish English pronunciation in Britain from that of the United States? If you agree that there is a distinction, that distinction is by default an accent. If we also agree that there is a default pronunciation of the English language, then any deviation from that pronunciation is an accent.
I think the whole problem with the "accent" debate is not really a matter of linguistics, but just that people living in the UK are very condescending towards the Americans.
"We don't have an accent, you're just pronouncing everything wrong". - Egotistical, pompous nonsense which I've seen fly on this board for years.
One thing that I do not excuse people of, and I've been at fault for doing this is, thinking that the whole of Britain has one "accent" when indeed there are many. But, pretty much everybody thinks this way. It's not necessarily that we don't acknowledge the different accents, but when we hear one, we damn right know it's from either Scotland, Ireland, England, or Wales.
I think the whole problem with the "accent" debate is not really a matter of linguistics, but just that people living in the UK are very condescending towards the Americans.
"We don't have an accent, you're just pronouncing everything wrong". - Egotistical, pompous nonsense which I've seen fly on this board for years.
One thing that I do not excuse people of, and I've been at fault for doing this is, thinking that the whole of Britain has one "accent" when indeed there are many. But, pretty much everybody thinks this way. It's not necessarily that we don't acknowledge the different accents, but when we hear one, we damn right know it's from either Scotland, Ireland, England, or Wales.
You can't really say "American" or "British" accent, since BE and AE are languages, not regional dialects. You can have a New York accent but not an American accent. The question was only stupid because the guy thought Americans didn't have an accent while British people do. BE is the default, AE is a derivative so if one of the two is an accent, it's American English.
Just the stereotype American that doesn't really know anything of the world other than American (I said stereotype, no America bashing
).
Basically, if you speak perfect AE or BE you don't have an accent. If you look in the dictionary you'll see the correct way to pronounce it (which differs depending on whether it's an American or British dictionary). Any other pronounciation is an accent. So if you're speaking correct BE you'll sound British. My accent is a lot closer to American and I felt like a damn fool pronouncing words in correct BE.
Oh and you don't need to tell me about people being condescending towards accents
I live in Belgium, where they also speak Dutch, and I got comments about my "accent" all my life. It's even more frustrating when Belgian Dutch isn't even an official language and it sounds like a retarded version of real Dutch. I SOUND FUNNY BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT USED TO DUTCH, YOU SOUND FUNNY BECAUSE YOU SOUND LIKE A RETARD. I'm going to phone some Belgian friends and mock their accent now.
Just the stereotype American that doesn't really know anything of the world other than American (I said stereotype, no America bashing
).Basically, if you speak perfect AE or BE you don't have an accent. If you look in the dictionary you'll see the correct way to pronounce it (which differs depending on whether it's an American or British dictionary). Any other pronounciation is an accent. So if you're speaking correct BE you'll sound British. My accent is a lot closer to American and I felt like a damn fool pronouncing words in correct BE.
Oh and you don't need to tell me about people being condescending towards accents
I live in Belgium, where they also speak Dutch, and I got comments about my "accent" all my life. It's even more frustrating when Belgian Dutch isn't even an official language and it sounds like a retarded version of real Dutch. I SOUND FUNNY BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT USED TO DUTCH, YOU SOUND FUNNY BECAUSE YOU SOUND LIKE A RETARD. I'm going to phone some Belgian friends and mock their accent now.I see and I agree for the most part. However, in broad terms, if an Australian notices an American speaking in Australia in public, it is not too far-off to label his pronunciation as an American accent. In this case, the phrase "American accent" would be simply a distinction rather than a technical and specific comparison.
A Norwegian wouldn't be able to distinguish a New York accent from a Boston accent, but the Norwegian would be almost positive that the person is American rather than Australian or British. How? By a way of pronunciation. If an accent is a way of pronunciation, then what do we have?
lol agreed.
I don't think there's such a thing as perfect American English. There is standardized English when it comes to grammar and syntax, but there is no standardized way of pronunciation, I would argue.
If we go by what Wiki says, only 2% of people in Britain speak BE correctly.
I don't think we're differing significantly here, I'm just used to a more loose definition of an accent.
LOL. In my country, people are classified by the way they speak. There are the villagers and there are the normal people. The villagers are made fun of.
I always thought you lived in the Netherlands. Is weed legal in Belgium?
A Norwegian wouldn't be able to distinguish a New York accent from a Boston accent, but the Norwegian would be almost positive that the person is American rather than Australian or British. How? By a way of pronunciation. If an accent is a way of pronunciation, then what do we have?
lol agreed.
I don't think there's such a thing as perfect American English. There is standardized English when it comes to grammar and syntax, but there is no standardized way of pronunciation, I would argue.
If we go by what Wiki says, only 2% of people in Britain speak BE correctly.
I don't think we're differing significantly here, I'm just used to a more loose definition of an accent.
Oh and you don't need to tell me about people being condescending towards accents I live in Belgium, where they also speak Dutch, and I got comments about my "accent" all my life. It's even more frustrating when Belgian Dutch isn't even an official language and it sounds like a retarded version of real Dutch. I SOUND FUNNY BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT USED TO DUTCH, YOU SOUND FUNNY BECAUSE YOU SOUND LIKE A RETARD. I'm going to phone some Belgian friends and mock their accent now.
I live in Belgium, where they also speak Dutch, and I got comments about my "accent" all my life. It's even more frustrating when Belgian Dutch isn't even an official language and it sounds like a retarded version of real Dutch. I SOUND FUNNY BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT USED TO DUTCH, YOU SOUND FUNNY BECAUSE YOU SOUND LIKE A RETARD. I'm going to phone some Belgian friends and mock their accent now.
I always thought you lived in the Netherlands. Is weed legal in Belgium?
Yeah. It's technically wrong but it's fine colloquially. Of course I always say "American accent" or "British accent".
*whips out the dictionary* (an actual one, not a fucking website)
Accent: 1 a way of pronouncing the words of a language that shows which country, area or social class a person comes from (the rest of the definitions don't apply)
Basically a (good) linguist will be able to tell where the average person comes from (city/state) based on the way they talk. If you speak perfect American English they can't, they'll just be able to say "America". And if it turns out it's actually a foreigner that speaks perfect American English they'd be wrong! :woah:
There is definitely a correct way to pronounce things. Pronouncation of the word 'accent':
/ˈæksənt/
That's the phonetic translation (every word in the dictionary has a phonetic translation behind it). Each symbol has only one correct way of being pronounced in that particular language. If the phonetic translation of the way you say 'accent' doesn't match the one I posted you're saying it wrong.
I think the phonetic translation of American and British English words is the same but the pronounciation of the symbol differs (not entirely sure). A British person is supposed to say 'hat' and an American is supposed to say 'haaat'. It's not an accent, it's the correct way to pronounce it. Because I was studying British English and my accent is closer to American I basically had to say all the words different whenever we had phonetics class.
The 2% figure definitely sounds correct. Usually the only people that actually speak the language correctly are linguists.
Like you said I think we're on the same page, just arguing semantics.
That's probably because I don't want to be associated with Belgium
I was born in the Netherlands and I have a Dutch nationality but I moved to Belgium when I was around 6 (lived in Amsterdam for a couple of months but moved back 2-3 years ago). And no weed is not legal in Belgium. I think they're more relaxed on the laws than in the US though. Usually you only get charged with anything if the cops are huge assholes.
I live 15-20 mins away from the border though so I just go with my mom whenever she goes grocery shopping in the Netherlands and stop by a coffee shop. Or when I'm at a particular friend I take a 40 minute busride to The N and go to a coffee shop there ... but I won't be doing that anymore since a guy at his dorm got arrested with weed on his way back. The cops got on the bus and only searched him so some asshole tipped them off but I'd rather not take the risk. I think his punishment is that he needs to go into therapy .... yeah therapy.
Bye
*whips out the dictionary* (an actual one, not a fucking website)
Accent: 1 a way of pronouncing the words of a language that shows which country, area or social class a person comes from (the rest of the definitions don't apply)
Basically a (good) linguist will be able to tell where the average person comes from (city/state) based on the way they talk. If you speak perfect American English they can't, they'll just be able to say "America". And if it turns out it's actually a foreigner that speaks perfect American English they'd be wrong! :woah:
There is definitely a correct way to pronounce things. Pronouncation of the word 'accent':
/ˈæksənt/
That's the phonetic translation (every word in the dictionary has a phonetic translation behind it). Each symbol has only one correct way of being pronounced in that particular language. If the phonetic translation of the way you say 'accent' doesn't match the one I posted you're saying it wrong.
I think the phonetic translation of American and British English words is the same but the pronounciation of the symbol differs (not entirely sure). A British person is supposed to say 'hat' and an American is supposed to say 'haaat'. It's not an accent, it's the correct way to pronounce it. Because I was studying British English and my accent is closer to American I basically had to say all the words different whenever we had phonetics class.
The 2% figure definitely sounds correct. Usually the only people that actually speak the language correctly are linguists.
Like you said I think we're on the same page, just arguing semantics.
That's probably because I don't want to be associated with Belgium
I was born in the Netherlands and I have a Dutch nationality but I moved to Belgium when I was around 6 (lived in Amsterdam for a couple of months but moved back 2-3 years ago). And no weed is not legal in Belgium. I think they're more relaxed on the laws than in the US though. Usually you only get charged with anything if the cops are huge assholes.I live 15-20 mins away from the border though so I just go with my mom whenever she goes grocery shopping in the Netherlands and stop by a coffee shop. Or when I'm at a particular friend I take a 40 minute busride to The N and go to a coffee shop there ... but I won't be doing that anymore since a guy at his dorm got arrested with weed on his way back. The cops got on the bus and only searched him so some asshole tipped them off but I'd rather not take the risk. I think his punishment is that he needs to go into therapy .... yeah therapy.
Bye
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