http://www.iht.com/articles/45177.html

for an article from the International Herald Tribune on the "English" language and the differences in meanings that beset travellers!
Bring any thoughts on other differences to mind?

I suspect that the differences and difficulties wouldn't be as great for members of this Board as they would be for people who are more insular in their outlook. Of course, Zild tends to pick up both sides of the Atlantic's terminology - and quite often, to use both interchangeably, although obviously not when the same term can mean opposites.

Thanks, Dr. Bill--I've bookmarked the Holiday Inn link, for when, if ever, I get to England. I've been written to about someone going to an off-license, and had the vague idea that it was some sort of black-market place...and now I find out it just means liquor store! One thing I noticed, that I hope our Brit-speaking friends can help with: I noticed in the list that the British "facilities" is given simply the definition "amenities". Now, if I'm in a new place and ask to use the facilities, that means I'm looking for a bathroom. Amenities, to me, mean items that are above the basic level of what one can expect, such as free shampoo, or a piece of candy on the pillow. Do the British say use the amenities the way I say use the facilities?

EDITOops--thanks, wow! Sorry, rushing again.

I really don't think we can expect an entirely common language any time soon. There are always regionalisms that will pop up, be adopted, and make their way into a language.

Good examples here are the words depanneur and SAQ.

A depanneur is an all-night convenience store. You know, those mom 'n pop grocerylets that sell staples (bread & milk), snack foods and cigarettes. Depanneur is French word that means "something or someone that helps you out of a bind" (like needing chips at 3:00 o'clock in the morning )

The word is a common English Qu�bec word but would never be understood to be a convenience store anywhere else.

SAQ is the same. The only place you can buy hard liquor in Qu�bec was at government run stores called "la Soci�t� des Alcools du Qu�bec. Each letter is pronounced separately. So going to the Ess Aye Q is common English here but unintelligible anywhere else in Canada or the world.

Re:A depanneur is an all-night convenience store. You know, those mom 'n pop grocerylets that sell staples (bread & milk), snack foods and cigarettes. Depanneur is French word that means "something or someone that helps you out of a bind" (like needing chips at 3:00 o'clock

In NYC, they are called Bodega's which come from PR spanish, but now days, they are often run by Koreans..at least in manhattan. in the outer boroughs, they are still often run bun latinos.

deli's are something different, they come in Italian, Jewish and German.

Dear belMarduk: A long time ago, I learned that "une panne" (gender?) meant automobile breakdown.
"Aye" I learned as "I". Not sure about "Q". Is it "kew" or "kyew"?
While we're at it, is Qu�bec "kwibec" as per my dictionary, or "kebec"?

See, that is the trouble with trying to spell out the sound of a letter. With SAQ each letter is pronounce as you would while reciting your alphabet. I just wanted to show that it was not pronounced as one word like "sac".

Une panne is any type of temporary mechanical/electrical breakdown. In ice storms we often have une panne d'�lectricit�.

Oh thank you for asking...it is definitely kebec. We have no idea why people pronounce it kwibec. I guess people might do exactly like you do and look it up and voila - mispronunciation.

Is it just me, or does everyone find that the rightmost and leftmost column of each screen in the iht article clickable, taking you to the previous or next screen as the case may be? This means I can't click on any of the links or cut and paste them.

Bingley

The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations says: England and America are two countries divided by a common language.
Attributed in this and other forms, but not found in Shaw's published writings

http://www.xrefer.com/entry.jsp?xrefid=249522&secid=-



Bingley

We have no idea why people pronounce it kwibec.

Because in English 'qu' is pronounced 'kw'?

Is it just me?

Looks to me like it's just you, but I might suggest, if symptoms persist, that you try starting the cut and paste in the second column and fill in the letter from the first column manually.

"England and America are two countries separated by the same language."
-George Bernard Shaw, "Reader's Digest", November, 1942

Sites on Internet favor Shavian origin by about three to one. I wonder if the Readers' Digest gave source of the quote.

Off-licences are so -called in England because over the door there will be a notice which says "john Doe licencedto sell alcoholic liquor for consumption OFF the premises" a pub will have the same notice except OFF is replaced by ON , but why pubs don't get called ON- licences I do not know.

the Duncster

England and America are two countries divided by a common language.

Yeah, this one's always puzzled me. I'd heard Churchill, Shaw and HL Mencken. Never this Shavian feller.

And wow, thanks for the link (and the links contained therein).

Shavian? ask MaxQ, he started it. I thought it had something to do with GBS never shaving.

Believing in attributions is always a tricky business. Once you have a reputation as a pundit, people will credit all kinds of witty remarks to you.

I've heard
-- "If I'd'a known I was going to live this long, I'd'a taken better care of myself!"
for example, ascribed to Eubie Blake, and to Winston Churchill, and to Mark Twain. (But not to George Burns or Bob Hope. Yet. There seems to be a fairly limited overlap.)

"If I'd'a known I was going to live this long, I'd'a taken better care of myself!"

Actually, Mickey Mantle, the New York Yankee hi wow!baseball great was quoted as saying this when he went public with his alcohol problem in the early 90's. And he would often offer this remark in many filmed interviews of the time. It seems most of the men in his family had a history of dying early (before 40) of cancer (Hodgkins, I believe) and he decided he was going to 'live it up' while he could, and never imagined he would live until his 60's. He also said that if it wasn't for his conspicuous consumption he might have had an even greater career! (not to mention that he played most of his career on bleeding legs, due to some kind of bone disease) Of course, he may have picked that saying up from an earlier quote.

We have no idea why people pronounce it kwibec.

Because in English 'qu' is pronounced 'kw'?

You are right that qu is generally pronounced kw but as we now see - not always. As with any name you try to pronounce it correctly. With an unusual spelling or sounding name people have to be corrected/informed, that is true, that is why they turn to a dictionary. You'd think the dictionary would try to get it right. People rely on a dictionary to be accurate.

You'd think the dictionary would try to get it right.

You would think! If the dictionary had Quebec in it at all. I just checked my three copies, and none list Quebec!

One other thing, my aunt who came from Montreal, always pronounced it more like "kay-beck" and that is how I have pronounced it since.

Dear belMarduk: To reverse, how do French speakers pronounce "Queen"?

People rely on a dictionary to be accurate...

... and the dictionaries have abdicated. That's a big part of the problem. Dictionaries now mostly consider themselves to be not prescriptive but descriptive - listing not what is correct but rather what well-known people say. Authorities like Ethel Merman. And Art Linkletter. Webster's Third - way back in the 1960's - cited both of them, and also gave "uninterested" as one of the meanings of "disinterested."

Things haven't improved much since, as you see.

Scrabble player's lament: "Whom are you going to believe - me or some strange dictionary?"

how do French speakers pronounce "Queen"?

Renn

Dear Faldage: Go jump in the Senn. And no fair having a barge full of hay to land in, like Buridan.

a barge full of hay to land in, like Buridan

Would that be the one his ass didn't eat?

Sparteye: How do you pronounce it [“postman”], everybody?
Keiva: I pronounce it "mailman".
Max: Wow, you pronounce "postman" as "mailman" and USns have the cheek to claim about British pronunciation?
--------------------------------
wwh: how do French speakers pronounce "Queen"?
Faldage: Renn
==================

ROFL. Sorry, Max. Sorry I started it.

Yep, and after he had exhausted his seminal vesicles and prostate servicing the Queen, she had him put in a sack and thrown into the river. But he had soft landing prepared by some of his fellow students, and survived to brag about it, and invent the famous ass. Remember "ou sont les neiges d'antan?"

ou sont les neiges d'antan?

I allus remembered it as ou sont les neigedens d'antan Parm my french, E.

O� est la tr�s sage Hello�s,
Pour qui fut chastr�, puis moyne
Pierre Espaillart a Saint Denis?
Pour son amour ot cest essoyne.
Semblablement ou est la royne
Qui commanda que Buridan
Fust gecte en ung sac en Saine?
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?

Youn me's reading different books, Dr. Bill.

I got mine from Catch-22.

Dear Faldage: I had forgotten that ancient spelling of Abelard=Espaillart.

I had forgotten that ancient spelling

You would of had to go a fur piece to come up with a better forgetting.

Dear Faldage: I took a summer course in Medieval French in 1938. Enjoyed it, but lost all the books soon after, no access to right kind of library now. But occasionally I am finding things on Internet. Encyclopedia says Heloise's uncle Fulbert ordered deprivation of further posterity, because for reasons not stated Abelard induced her to enter cloister, even though he had married her. Wonder what became of her child.

Heloise's uncle Fulbert ordered deprivation of further posterity

Anybody pays any attention to anyone named Uncle Fulbert deserves whatever may come.

S'okay, Faldage, babe. I got it ... you do have to appear crazy ...

Where, indeed?

CapK.... shhhh... discretion is the better part of valor.

You think this is easy???? *L*