Lost in translation

I spent yesterday as a bookworm in the Reading libraries. Some of these libraries can be massive and hold books on several floors, whilst others are simple one room, one floor (much like the Lehighton, PA) libraries. Anywhere I can curl up in a good book makes me happy. Intrigued by the book on the shelf titled, "Spelling, it's not that complicated", I lift it off the shelf and page through. As many of my readers or friends know, I'm much like Lois Lane in the sense that I can write but am most certainly the world's most horrible speller. Paging through this book, I learned a few things.

One, that the book was comparing the English American language with the British language. I've learned a few new things but mostly I've learned that you can spell a word wee bit differently and it can still be "right".

For example, Brits add a "U" to words, where American's drop it. ie: colour v. color
both are correct.

Brits replace 'z' with 's' as in organised. American = organized

Think my finger sneezed across the keyboard and added another letter? Nope. It's OK for Brit's to spell travelling with 2 'l's whilst American's use the work traveling. Both are correct. Since I just mentioned another word above let's talk about that one: whilst or while. How about we just plain use the word "during"? and forget about it...I could go on and on but this could get boring so my next topic is how the language is vocalized (should I put "s" in that word? dear me).

Whilst I was in Cambridgeshire, it became verra clear that the pronunciation of the letter "h" was omitted. For instance, the woman who brought my breakfast said " 'ere you go and 'ave at it". Same when my little cousin likes to put on his "English" accent and say " 'allo Gov'na". He's too cute.

Here in Berkshire, they pronounce their vowels differently and put emphasis on different syllables. Prime example is they way they say their county name. Pronounced "Barkshire" like a dog bark instead of Berkshire emphasis on the ERRRRRR part (-;

The Thames River? omit the h sound, change the vowel sound and you've gotten it. It sounds almost like The Tim's River until your done.

Other fun words, schedule and leisure:

Schedule- American's will say it as if it has a k in it. skedule but the brits say shes-ule (I also want to know why schedule is pronounced this way but school is not pronounced Shuul-wouldn't that make sense to go along with "Shes-ule" :P )

Leisure centre /center(also er and re are switched between the two languages)- a leisure centre is a YMCA or gym. Americans will say it like seizure leisure; and Brits will say it like measure leisure. So there are just a few things to play around with next time you want to work on your accent. Have fun Josiah (-;