What color are your knickers? (Thanks Owlwings)

I often say that the US and the UK are to great nations divided by a common language Dawn. Many is the time that I have seen "go figure" written by a US friend. When we might write "work it out". Or more simply "I could care less" whereas we say "I couldn't care less". I talk abut F@ggots and mean meat balls. As Owlwings says, we say "knickers" you say "panties" etc etc. A "doodle" means different things. To scribble or to be a loon. In Loud's case it might mean something else too. She's the expert on Scottish! Of course dear old Henry Higgins had it easy. He was simply trying to get a cockney to speak "proper"!

Aw an I thought this wer aboot knickers. Damn I were going to say what colour are they? None cause I doont wear them. Now you say its about language. All my life language has marked me. People in my home town tell me I speak English with an English accent. Ha what would they know. Australians have no idea about the variety of the language back in England. So I go home to visit my mother's family in Yorkshire and I find myself possessed and my cousins keep asking me why I put r's in words like Dad. In Australia we pronounce it Daaard I suppose, it is a drawn out word but they pronounce it dad very quick and sharp. In fact I would say that they say dood. We are all different but is all the same language.

Having grown up in the Midwest of the United States, and never having been lucky enough to travel outside the boundaries of said country, I have spent a lot of time in other place in the pages of books written by speakers/writers of English all over the world. It has lead me to understand a lot about English as spoken in different parts of the world and in different areas as well as different time periods, but it has never made it easy for me to change my own use of English. I still speak pretty much mainstream Midwestern American English, with a slightly enhanced vocabulary. :)

It's not just foreign language speakers, I have trouble deciphering different generations in my own language. Us old farts really have problems at times. A friend of mine once wrote a song about it, and I'll share the first verse with you to give you an idea of what I mean. [b][i]Do you remember the day when if you said that you were gay It meant with joy, that you could sing and shout? When a fairy was enchanting and dressing up and camping Was something you did with the Scouts? That innocent age when an urgent case of aids Was powdered milk we sent to the Sahara. A fruit was something nice to eat, a poof was something for your feet And a queen was an old tart in a tiara.[/i] [/b] [Eric Bogle] Lash

We think of English as one language but English is actually the accumulation of multiple languages and continues to borrow from here and there. At one time everyone seemed to want to invade Britain and the Angles, Saxons, Norsemen, Romans and the rest all left behind some of their language. Then the British for awhile wanted to invade the world back and picked up more words from far away places. It continues to borrow and change. As the ungrateful colonies became rebellious and cut off their ties with the motherland, their language has taken a different course as it inevitably changed on both sides of the ocean. What I find most astounding is that in America there is such a great divide in language between white and blacks in their language. It is not a geographic difference which those in UK are familiar with, but a racial difference. In Canada we have both American influence and British influence in our language. Other than a whole province whose first language is now French (which is different that Parisian French) our language is generally free from major regional differences until you come to Newfoundland who have different expressions and accents all their own.

Yes we all seen to have our own we sayings. I use the word "knickers" also but we also refare them to "drawers" hear in Belfast. We really have lots of stupid words for things. We say "cheerio" for Bye and a "poke" for an ice-cream. We say "hurry on" for hurry up and "peeler" for a Police man or cop or whatever you call them. We also have a swear word also for them but it's not nice. The word colour is weird though. I am glad you know it is not our bad spelling. But Mylot is US owned so we probably should use the US spelling for a lot of words.

yup,you are right.my english is now a mix (rather mish-mash,as a mylot friend would put it)we are used to saying choclates but here i have learnt the word candy.sometimes some discussions do not make any sense to me.

lol It is very interesting how many English speaking nations have so many different spellings, pronouniations, and idioms for the same words. America and Canada are good examples. We spell colour... while americans spell it color. We call the letter Z ; zed while American's call it Zee. We say Ketchup while some americans pronounce it Catsup. Its kinda intereting. I found a website that compares Canadian, British and American. http://www3.telus.net/linguisticsissues/britishcanadianamericanvocabjk.html

I am from India and we have a unique language for for almost every state so there is a great variation in their English including me. I speak Tamil and do speak little English and the mother tongue influence is always there when we speak..

my knickers today are pink :) LOL! but over here we call them underwear or panties! haha. I just moved to Singapore from the Philippines and i have been noticing a lot of differences in the english like in restaurants back home we use the term : dine in (when eating there) but here it is called: having here. When saying yes or sure, people here just say Can! Spelling of some words are also different like, Enquiries/Inquiries or realise/realize. pretty cool, huh? :)

hmmmm...... i think u should corect it espesially when chat with me lol :P