Proof Americans and Brits speak a different language

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  • Ha ha ha - yes, I recognise that one!

    @Nick Tamen, no, of course she didn't say 'taking the mickey.' I was being idiomatic. I could have used a stronger phrase but want to be polite.

    Yes I know US Southerners are pilloried unmercifully for talking like Tammy Wynette or Deputy Dawg in other parts of the US. I quite like the way Deputy Dawg speaks.

    I felt sorry for the lass from Maine. She didn't fit in at university in Californi-ay and then moved to Oxford where she fitted in even less ... :(.

  • Eirenist wrote: »
    I had an aunt who married a Welshman and lived for many years in West Wales. She never learnt Welsh but acquired a Welsh intonation and local usages. Her sister from England used to visit her on holiday and take her on drives round the local villages in her Morris Minor. 'Which way now?' she would ask on coming to a fork in the road, and used to be nonplussed by the reply 'Oh, just keep straight on round.'

    Somewhat like the alleged Yogi Berra quote, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it".
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    edited April 2020
    Firenze wrote: »
    What say we go back to service à la française where you bung it all on the table at once? ....
    Isn't that à la russe, or is that something else?

  • Service à la russe is bringing each course the table separately, after the previous course has been cleared away.

  • LeafLeaf Shipmate
    orfeo wrote: »
    But you don't normally teach French to English speakers by just standing in front of the room jabbering in French and hoping they figure out what's going on.

    Yes, you do. This is called "French immersion" and is extremely popular here. Literally half the schools in my neighbourhood are French immersion! They are exactly as you describe: take a bunch of children, many of whom don't know a word of French, and jabber at them in French for all their subjects.

    It's why it's called immersion: the students are thrown in at the deep end in what is for some an unfamiliar language.

    Having your child attend French immersion school is considered to be a route to potential government employment, as many jobs with the provincial and federal governments require the employee to be bilingual.

    (Tangent: AIUI native speakers of Quebecois French consider the accent of French immersion students to be flat and robotic, including that of the famous French immersion student Justin Trudeau. :smile: )

  • Re "bung". It doesn't mean the same at all here. A bung is a cork for a barrel. To be "bunged up" is constipated. This latter usage is very common. The former doesn't come up too often.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Re "bung". It doesn't mean the same at all here. A bung is a cork for a barrel. To be "bunged up" is constipated. This latter usage is very common. The former doesn't come up too often.

    And to bung it on is neither.
  • And to receive a bung is to be penalised by the authorities for some transgression of the rules
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    French immersion in England has been going on ever since the Normans invaded the Isles.

    George Carlin had a routine "The Seven Dirty Words You Don't Say on Television". When I first heard the routine, I was reminded of a professor telling me that the words we now use for some bodily functions are actually french, while the words we would consider crude or profane and not used in polite company were actually the old Anglo Saxon words.

    Thus, piss became urinate
    Shit became defecate
    Ass became derriere
    And so on.
  • And a bung is also the colloquial term for a bribe - hence the press referral to Silvio Berlusconi's notorious "bunga-bunga" parties.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    And a bung is also the colloquial term for a bribe - hence the press referral to Silvio Berlusconi's notorious "bunga-bunga" parties.

    I thought it referred to his sexual orgies. Which historically were quite common in Italy, going back to the Romans.
  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    edited April 2020
    Leaf wrote: »
    orfeo wrote: »
    But you don't normally teach French to English speakers by just standing in front of the room jabbering in French and hoping they figure out what's going on.

    Yes, you do. This is called "French immersion" and is extremely popular here. Literally half the schools in my neighbourhood are French immersion! They are exactly as you describe: take a bunch of children, many of whom don't know a word of French, and jabber at them in French for all their subjects.

    It's why it's called immersion: the students are thrown in at the deep end in what is for some an unfamiliar language.

    Having your child attend French immersion school is considered to be a route to potential government employment, as many jobs with the provincial and federal governments require the employee to be bilingual.

    (Tangent: AIUI native speakers of Quebecois French consider the accent of French immersion students to be flat and robotic, including that of the famous French immersion student Justin Trudeau. :smile: )

    I'm well aware. I said normally. There's a school here in Canberra that does some of this.

    But ALL their subjects? Seriously?

    And do the children get in trouble for speaking English?

    The idea that "half the schools in your neighbourhood" insist on teaching a bunch of non-French speaking children entirely in French sounds deeply skewed. Or maybe you actually live in a bilingual neighbourhood? Saying that half the schools in your neighbourhood are French-speaking is completely different to saying that half the schools in an English-speaking place provide no curriculum in English. The latter is frankly nuts. That's not creating bilingual kids, that's creating kids who aren't EVER learning in their own language. They'll end up being academically learned in French and deficient in English.
  • Gee D wrote: »
    Re "bung". It doesn't mean the same at all here. A bung is a cork for a barrel. To be "bunged up" is constipated. This latter usage is very common. The former doesn't come up too often.

    And to bung it on is neither.

    But what is it?
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    edited April 2020
    To over-exaggerate wildly about some injury done to the complainant
  • “Bunged up” can also refer to the unpleasant symptoms of a cold, where you can’t breathe through your nose because it’s bunged up with catarrh.
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    Gee D wrote: »
    To over-exaggerate wildly about some injury done to the complainant
    Interesting. That's a usage that's as far as I know, is unknown here (UK).

  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Enoch wrote: »
    Gee D wrote: »
    To over-exaggerate wildly about some injury done to the complainant
    Interesting. That's a usage that's as far as I know, is unknown here (UK).

    The injury need not be physical. If the bunger* always parks the car in a particular spot and someone else has go there first, your typical bunger will carry on for at least a half hour then and there, and refer to it several times through the next day or so.

    *A purely invented use of this word which has legitimate usage.
  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    Gee D wrote: »
    To over-exaggerate wildly about some injury done to the complainant

    That's bang on. Not bung.
  • All of this about the various meanings of “bung” is really interesting, given that I never hear the word “bung” used here at all.

  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Yes, I would recognise 'bang on' as tedious repetition.

    'Bung ho' as equivalent to 'Cheers' seems to have lapsed.

    I'd say the most common usage is to place something carelessly or casually - 'oh, bung it on the desk, I'll deal with it later'.
  • EirenistEirenist Shipmate
    Gramps49, the anglo-saxon word is used east of the pond is 'arse', and pronounce like that. 'Ass', I understand it, is either a polite American bowdlerisation, or a phonetic rendering of the American pronunciation. But nodoubt more learned shipmates will correct me.
  • TrudyTrudy Heaven Host, 8th Day Host
    orfeo wrote: »
    Leaf wrote: »
    orfeo wrote: »
    But you don't normally teach French to English speakers by just standing in front of the room jabbering in French and hoping they figure out what's going on.

    Yes, you do. This is called "French immersion" and is extremely popular here. Literally half the schools in my neighbourhood are French immersion! They are exactly as you describe: take a bunch of children, many of whom don't know a word of French, and jabber at them in French for all their subjects.

    It's why it's called immersion: the students are thrown in at the deep end in what is for some an unfamiliar language.

    Having your child attend French immersion school is considered to be a route to potential government employment, as many jobs with the provincial and federal governments require the employee to be bilingual.

    (Tangent: AIUI native speakers of Quebecois French consider the accent of French immersion students to be flat and robotic, including that of the famous French immersion student Justin Trudeau. :smile: )

    I'm well aware. I said normally. There's a school here in Canberra that does some of this.

    But ALL their subjects? Seriously?

    And do the children get in trouble for speaking English?

    The idea that "half the schools in your neighbourhood" insist on teaching a bunch of non-French speaking children entirely in French sounds deeply skewed. Or maybe you actually live in a bilingual neighbourhood? Saying that half the schools in your neighbourhood are French-speaking is completely different to saying that half the schools in an English-speaking place provide no curriculum in English. The latter is frankly nuts. That's not creating bilingual kids, that's creating kids who aren't EVER learning in their own language. They'll end up being academically learned in French and deficient in English.

    Most Canadian provinces have been doing it this way for 20 years. I don't know of any research into whether it has a negative impact on kids' English learning, but my anecdotal evidence as a teacher and parent is that it doesn't hurt them. The way it's normally done here is that English-speaking kids whose parents enrol them in Early French Immersion have all their schoolwork in French only from Kindergarten to grade 6 (so up till they are 11-12 years old). I think at some point in elementary they do start doing an English language-arts class (reading and writing in English) but not in the very early years. Speaking in English is not punished but is certainly discouraged (though kids obviously still do speak English on the playground, etc).

    Then in Grade 7 (age 12) they start introducing some core subjects in English (Math and Science) until, when they get to high school, all their subjects are in English except for the actual French course and one other course per year (their choice; most students choose a social studies course in French).

    I don't know if it really produces fluent, competent French speakers. I haven't seen any evidence that it hurts kids' English skills. It's very popular in English Canada, and I have no trouble believing that half the school kids in a given neighbourhood are doing French immersion. My biggest issue with it is that (in my province at least, can't speak for others) it is a HUGE class divider -- people put their kids in FI based on whether they are middle-class or not, and that creates all kinds of issues, particularly turning schools that don't offer FI into more poorly resourced "ghettos" of children from low-income families with more learning disabilities, etc. I could get very soapboxy on this topic but this is not the place -- just chiming in to say that total French Immersion in the early grades is extremely common in English Canada.
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    edited April 2020
    Eirenist wrote: »
    @Gramps49, the anglo-saxon word is used east of the pond is 'arse', and pronounce like that. 'Ass', I understand it, is either a polite American bowdlerisation, or a phonetic rendering of the American pronunciation. But no doubt more learned shipmates will correct me.
    That is correct. On this (east) side of the Atlantic, an 'ass', with a short 'a' is a donkey, and used metaphorically to describe a stupid person. An 'arse', with a long 'a', is that upon which you sit, and through which you evacuate.

  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    ‘Bung’ (verb) along with ‘chuck’ is a synonym for ‘throw’ or ‘toss’ in some U.K. English.
  • Gracious RebelGracious Rebel Shipmate
    edited April 2020
    BroJames wrote: »
    ‘Bung’ (verb) along with ‘chuck’ is a synonym for ‘throw’ or ‘toss’ in some U.K. English.

    Hence 'Bung a bob for Big Ben bong' which was a thread title from those innocent times earlier this year when all the Brits were worrying about was Brexit
  • LeafLeaf Shipmate
    Trudy wrote: »
    Most Canadian provinces have been doing it this way for 20 years. I don't know of any research into whether it has a negative impact on kids' English learning, but my anecdotal evidence as a teacher and parent is that it doesn't hurt them. The way it's normally done here is that English-speaking kids whose parents enrol them in Early French Immersion have all their schoolwork in French only from Kindergarten to grade 6 (so up till they are 11-12 years old). I think at some point in elementary they do start doing an English language-arts class (reading and writing in English) but not in the very early years. Speaking in English is not punished but is certainly discouraged (though kids obviously still do speak English on the playground, etc).

    Then in Grade 7 (age 12) they start introducing some core subjects in English (Math and Science) until, when they get to high school, all their subjects are in English except for the actual French course and one other course per year (their choice; most students choose a social studies course in French).

    I don't know if it really produces fluent, competent French speakers. I haven't seen any evidence that it hurts kids' English skills. It's very popular in English Canada, and I have no trouble believing that half the school kids in a given neighbourhood are doing French immersion. My biggest issue with it is that (in my province at least, can't speak for others) it is a HUGE class divider -- people put their kids in FI based on whether they are middle-class or not, and that creates all kinds of issues, particularly turning schools that don't offer FI into more poorly resourced "ghettos" of children from low-income families with more learning disabilities, etc. I could get very soapboxy on this topic but this is not the place -- just chiming in to say that total French Immersion in the early grades is extremely common in English Canada.

    All of this, exactly this. My neighbourhood, according to the 2016 census, is 81.8% English speaking, 16.4% English and French speaking, and 0.3% French only. I wouldn't describe it as bilingual. But the demand for French immersion education is very high.

  • Bung for throw. Interesting.

    Wing it at me, as in throwing a ball is usual. So is huck and hoof. Though the animal hoof is said with a short vowel sound and the throwing version with a lengthened vowel. We also chuck and huck things. If you're playing a sport like hockey or a ball sport you may drift a pass to someone. Which I thought like pain smarting is derived from German. Werft = drift. Schmertz = smarts.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    Just an example of how English changed over the years.
  • American "ass" refers to both the donkey (uncommon) and the anatomical, and is pronounced "ass" (no, we are not being the least bit polite--the r is really not there.)
  • Oh dear...I can feel another ancient, politically incorrect joke coming on.
    "See that person? She/he must be Scottish!"
    "How do you know?"
    "It's the way he/she rolls his/her r's".
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    edited April 2020
    Orfeo - That's bang on. Not bung.

    Yes, that's another way of putting it.
  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    edited April 2020
    Trudy wrote: »
    orfeo wrote: »
    Leaf wrote: »
    orfeo wrote: »
    But you don't normally teach French to English speakers by just standing in front of the room jabbering in French and hoping they figure out what's going on.

    Yes, you do. This is called "French immersion" and is extremely popular here. Literally half the schools in my neighbourhood are French immersion! They are exactly as you describe: take a bunch of children, many of whom don't know a word of French, and jabber at them in French for all their subjects.

    It's why it's called immersion: the students are thrown in at the deep end in what is for some an unfamiliar language.

    Having your child attend French immersion school is considered to be a route to potential government employment, as many jobs with the provincial and federal governments require the employee to be bilingual.

    (Tangent: AIUI native speakers of Quebecois French consider the accent of French immersion students to be flat and robotic, including that of the famous French immersion student Justin Trudeau. :smile: )

    I'm well aware. I said normally. There's a school here in Canberra that does some of this.

    But ALL their subjects? Seriously?

    And do the children get in trouble for speaking English?

    The idea that "half the schools in your neighbourhood" insist on teaching a bunch of non-French speaking children entirely in French sounds deeply skewed. Or maybe you actually live in a bilingual neighbourhood? Saying that half the schools in your neighbourhood are French-speaking is completely different to saying that half the schools in an English-speaking place provide no curriculum in English. The latter is frankly nuts. That's not creating bilingual kids, that's creating kids who aren't EVER learning in their own language. They'll end up being academically learned in French and deficient in English.

    Most Canadian provinces have been doing it this way for 20 years. I don't know of any research into whether it has a negative impact on kids' English learning, but my anecdotal evidence as a teacher and parent is that it doesn't hurt them. The way it's normally done here is that English-speaking kids whose parents enrol them in Early French Immersion have all their schoolwork in French only from Kindergarten to grade 6 (so up till they are 11-12 years old). I think at some point in elementary they do start doing an English language-arts class (reading and writing in English) but not in the very early years. Speaking in English is not punished but is certainly discouraged (though kids obviously still do speak English on the playground, etc).

    Then in Grade 7 (age 12) they start introducing some core subjects in English (Math and Science) until, when they get to high school, all their subjects are in English except for the actual French course and one other course per year (their choice; most students choose a social studies course in French).

    I don't know if it really produces fluent, competent French speakers. I haven't seen any evidence that it hurts kids' English skills. It's very popular in English Canada, and I have no trouble believing that half the school kids in a given neighbourhood are doing French immersion. My biggest issue with it is that (in my province at least, can't speak for others) it is a HUGE class divider -- people put their kids in FI based on whether they are middle-class or not, and that creates all kinds of issues, particularly turning schools that don't offer FI into more poorly resourced "ghettos" of children from low-income families with more learning disabilities, etc. I could get very soapboxy on this topic but this is not the place -- just chiming in to say that total French Immersion in the early grades is extremely common in English Canada.

    Okay. I find the idea that huge swathes of people explicitly want their children to not be taught in their own language throughout their primary schooling kind of hilarious. I mean, I can completely understand in Canada why you would want your child to know both languages. But actively deciding your child's whole education should be in a 2nd language. Okay then...

    I also can't help wondering if part of the reason it's a class thing is because only parents who have a hope in hell of assisting with homework want to do this.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    @orfeo this is a thing elsewhere as well. Welsh medium education is very popular and sought out even by some monoglot English speaking parents in Wales.
  • AthrawesAthrawes Shipmate
    We do it here, too. My town has a high proportion on Filipino families. Many children have no English when they arrive - we have no Tagalog teachers, or even speakers on staff, so essentially, these kids have to learn in a second language from immersion. They seem to do ok after a couple of years. A lot of the kids help each other.
  • Bilingual education works very well in Canada, and there's solid evidence to show that the children exposed to it at an early age become more agile learners. I don't think it's restricted to any particular social class. A great benefit is that bilingual people have a much broader job market open to them in business and in government. I've been envious of our children on that account for a long time. French was my best subject in school in the UK, but I have still never achieved the ability to speak it on the street like our children. I'll concede that Québec French isn't the French we learned in school - I don't think my ear will ever be tuned to it.
  • The girls of the Chalet School were all trilingual. Mondays and Thursdays only French allowed, Tuesdays and Thursdays German, and Wednesdays and Saturdays English. On Sundays you could speak what you liked.

    I often wondered if such a system would work.
  • Learning on the street as a kid is ideal, before puberty at any rate. After that, more difficult. Learning in class will not be as good, usually. Chomsky's adage was that young kids don't learn a language, they acquire it, since brains have plasticity, up to puberty.
  • A couple of the kids at church are in a Spanish immersion program in public school here. They're nothing like fluent, but do write serviceable essays in Spanish (according to our native Spanish speakers).
  • I think we've discussed 'arse' before.

    To be fair to those west of the Pond we did have school yard rhymes where it had a short 'a' sound like the US 'ass' and most of us would know that whether an American was referring to a donkey or to buttocks if we heard them using the term.

    The US term 'butt' for buttocks has grown in popularity over here in recent years. I don't remember hearing it much until about 10 or so years ago. It tends to be a milder term than 'arse' which itself seems to be a lot less offensive than it when I was growing up.

    I'd die in a ditch to retain 'arse.' I mean, you can't imagine our dear Queen saying 'ass' can you? ;)
  • I think we've discussed 'arse' before.

    A previous choir leader at my then-church in the US was trying to get the choir to put a long 'a' sound in the word "ass" in some Christmas hymn about an ox and an ass being twee together, because she didn't want the choir to say "ass".

    We had to gently explain that having the choir sing about the ox and the arse wasn't an improvement.
  • I can't imagine the queen saying *"arse"*.
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    @Golden Key I can assure you that if she were to mention an "ass" she would mean a donkey.
  • What I meant was that I couldn't imagine her using either version. GG mentioned he couldn't imagine her saying "ass". I can't imagine her saying anything as impolite as those words for that body part.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    ... She/he must be Scottish!"
    "How do you know?"
    "It's the way he/she rolls his/her r's".
    Absolutely right!

    David always used to encourage his choirs to "roll your Rs, and don't just leave it to Piglet".

    Especially that bit in the Psalms about a "rrramping and a rrroaring lion" - he actually wrote it out like that in his psalm chant sheet music!
  • Wow Piglet. I'm impressed that David wrote some of his Psalms with you in mind.
  • Golden Key wrote: »
    What I meant was that I couldn't imagine her using either version. GG mentioned he couldn't imagine her saying "ass". I can't imagine her saying anything as impolite as those words for that body part.

    Well, the Duke of Edinburgh has been known to use some choice phrases.

    Besides, there is royal precedent. When James VI of Scotland / James I of England, was told that his subjects were becoming disgruntled that he wasn't appearing publicly very often, he replied, 'What? Would you have me drop down my breeches and show them my arse?'

    Also, don't you think that a winking emoticon after my observation might just indicate that I'm being less than entirely serious?
  • LydaLyda Shipmate
    edited April 2020
    I'm curious. Americans are notoriously monolingual unless they come from bilingual families. How did those of you who come from an English speaking families but are bi- to multilingual acquire your skills? And how do you keep them over the years?
  • My mother particularly thought it important to retain languages, so she made sure we had some ability. But I speak nothing but English fluently because mostly there's seldom someone to talk to in anything but English. I find composing sentences correctly often a challenge, and because I know I'm not right, so hesitate.
  • Graven ImageGraven Image Shipmate
    edited April 2020
    Foreign language required in High School. Took one year of French and seldom used the little I knew ever again. Although every few years I meet someone who speaks French and I use the wee bit I know. I am surprised what I do remember as the conversation moves on. I can also order of the menu in a French restaurant. Does that count? Later in life and a move to California means I have picked up a limited amount of Spanish. I have used it when doing bi-lingual worship services In other words I can pray and order a meal in Spanish. I also know a very tiny bit of German from grandfather whose grandparents were German so he would sprinkle a few German words in his conversation. The funny thing is he lived in the south and when as a child I heard him using German words and expressions I though he was speaking southern.
  • Lyda wrote: »
    I'm curious. Americans are notoriously monolingual unless they come from bilingual families. How did those of you who come from an English speaking families but are bi- to multilingual acquire your skills? And how do you keep them over the years?

    I went to school (yes, Captain Obvious here) and then used them at work.
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