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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065 |
The scene: a meeting last night attended by yours truly
Dramatis personae:
Andrew, the chair, an Australian
Jill, a US'n from Texas but has moved around a lot
Dialogue:
Andrew: So, who was at the committee meeting? Jill, George, Shelly, Peggy, anyone else?
Jill: May
Andrew: Jill, anyone else?
Jill: May
Andrew: Yes, Jill, anyone else?
Bingley
Bingley
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409 |
Beautiful!  It reminds me of taking a friend to visit an old lady from Belfast who spent much our visit desceribing the arthritis in her spine. Afterwards, my friend wanted to knoww why on earth the old lady wouldn't stop talking about Spain.
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 393
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 393 |
Scene. A drycleaner.
Date. When I was in a hotel without access to washing.
Me: How much does it cost to wash a shirt?
She: It depends.
Me: It depends on what?
She: It depends.
Me: What does it dep... oh, eighty pence.
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409 |
Scene. A drycleaner.
Date. When I was in a hotel without access to washing.
Me: How much does it cost to wash a shirt?
She: It depends.
Me: It depends on what?
She: It depends.
Me: What does it dep... oh, eighty pence.
Nicholas, where was that exchange? The Belfast lady I mentioned earlier would have sounded just the same. She told me when I first her that her husband was "idiot". The absence of an article puzzled me, until I realised that she was telling me his age, eighty-eight.
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 393
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 393 |
Scene: London.
She was Indian.
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146 |
Scene: London.
She was Indian.Was this stolen from "My Beautiful Laundrette"? 
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
Bingley, I read it several times. I even read it aloud. Perhaps I should've asked you in private, but there could be another poor lost soul out there who also didn't get it. Could you please explain? 
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 1,055
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 1,055 |
Anna, if I may , May is the name of another lady besides Jill, but Andrew understood May to mean 'me', that's why he responded 'Anyone else?'.
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
I understand you problem Anna-- I "explained" Hempstead--because my parents occationaly "slipped" into the weird UK (type) pronounciations (ham stid)... as a child I had an Aunt MARY-- as an adult I learned her name was Marie--my mother said the name MAR (as in to "mar" a finish-- with the A almost as flat as a Boston A (I pahrked my cahr...) ee-- not the almost "mu REE" sound that is more common in US.(with the first vowel a schwa -- or a blur between an A and U sound...)-- so i, and siblings "mis heard it"-- but so did my aunt-- and she didn't correct us!
Maurice-- come out of my mothers mouth as "Morris", Rollie (short for Roland) as Raleigh--(Ra lee)-- and even with that -- it took me a few seconds to get "it depends" into "eighty pence" .
I think in hundred more years-- we will be like the Chinese-- words will look the same in US/UK/A-NZ "English"-- and we will be able to read each other text-- but the spoken language will be "foreign".
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
Ah. Thanks, BY!  Now it all comes clear.  cheers, Eliza Doolittle
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