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Some slang works no matter where you're from.
"No worries" sounds normal to my American ears.
"Lets go grab a pint" would sound odd and make the person saying it sound like a dumbass who is trying too hard.
One thing I hate is when an American spends a few months in England and then comes home, not with a full on British accent, but with too much new British slang...Really? You were there for 90 days and it changed the way you speak? Get outta here.
I think in this day and age everybody in the US will know what is meant when you say queue just like in the UK everybody will know what you mean when you call it a 'line', I can't see any problem with either term?? 'Tally ho' along with 'pip pip' and 'I say' are words that Americans seem to think British people use when in fact they don't, I think 'I say' may have been used by the upper class before the last war, Tally ho is I think something to do with fox hunting but I really couldn't imagine where 'pip pip' came from? :-)
It appears that pip pip was in use around 100 years ago, kind of like 23 skidoo over here.
Everybody just needs to chill out about this. We live in a global community now and it's natural for slang, as well as fashion, foods, spices, electronics, movies, TV, etc to cross cultural boundaries easily and become much more familiar to people in every corner of the globe.
Five years ago I had never even heard of sriracha. Now I use it nearly every week in my cooking. Ten years ago I hadn't discovered Rowan Atkinson. Now I own the entire Black Adder collection! Twenty years ago I'd never tasted sushi - now I can buy decent sushi in our local grocery store any time I want it!
So if I say "I was too busy shagging my hubby to notice that my Yorkshire puddings were burning," don't assume that I'm trying too hard to be cool.
You know I think the guys in the UK should have an official say 'Edwardian' slang day! Think of the fun man. Nice way to learn about Pooterism...interesting if you look it up!...;-)......
So..
"Good morning to you sir!'
Crikey! Glad you asked. I'm as merry as a grig even though I got the chuck, man! I'm thinking on cutting it and getting a Cicerone to get me on one of those Palanquins!" And I wouldn't mind getting in some razzle-dazzle too.. Just have to do it! Don't wanna get balmy on the crumpet, you know?..;-)....
Crikey! Glad you asked. I'm as merry as a grig even though I got the chuck, man! I'm thinking on cutting it and getting a Cicerone to get me on one of those Palanquins!" And I wouldn't mind getting in some razzle-dazzle too.. Just have to do it! Don't wanna get balmy on the crumpet, you know?..;-)....
LOL. I don't understand any of that!!
I sometimes say "fancy" as in, "Bob fancies Jane" or something like that. In the US, you just say like, so often there are annoying conversations in which you have to distinguish what 'like' means ("do you like her...or like like her?"). But I don't use "fancy" in normal conversation, generally.
Not sure if this counts but years ago, I used to go on chat rooms that a lot of British people would go to and their shorthand for "because" was spelled "coz" and I picked that up. I still do it to this day on some forums. I easily pick up language/idioms/accents to the point where people think I am mocking them even though I'm doing it subconsciously
heheh..Yes, of course it's from another era. 'Slang' is great that way in that it points to a particular set of time in the life of language esepcially if over 90% of what is said is enveloped in slang like my example. Slang appears to be disposable though i'm sure there are British slang words that have been around for centuries. And I'd say that would mean that the word is a big 'hit' so to speak! It has a large resonance with most of the population.
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I was just looking at these two sentences, and I noticed how BrE uses one preposition, while AmE uses another. It is a small difference, but it sounds funny to me. I wonder if you move from one place to the other if you end up changing your speech.
lol.....just as a sidenote I hear that Hugh Laurie pulled it off pretty well - I have heard numerous times Americans that are suprised to learn that Dr House is actually English.
I had seen Hugh Laurie in the various "Blackadder" series back in the 1980s, and also in the BBC "Jeeves and Wooster" series around 1990 (co-starring Stephen Fry as Jeeves and well worth finding on Amazon), so I was already aware of him being British the first time I watched "House." That said, he did a *fantastic* job with his accent in "House," IMO. I'm not surprised Americans thought he was one of their own.
Another non-American actor who IMO does a great job with his American accent is Ryan Kwanten (Jason Stackhouse in "True Blood"), but he's Aussie, not British.
I was just looking at these two sentences, and I noticed how BrE uses one preposition, while AmE uses another. It is a small difference, but it sounds funny to me. I wonder if you move from one place to the other if you end up changing your speech.
You know I think it would be very difficult not to! For exmaple, I'd say and this is my opinion that if you had say a newscaster from Brighton UK and moved him or her to New York they'll be speaking New 'Yawkese' in a bit. Ok maybe not completely in diaelct (that'll come somehwat later I'd think) but for sure in a couple of words. I figure all that would occur unconsciously perhaps.
So if I say "I was too busy shagging my hubby to notice that my Yorkshire puddings were burning," don't assume that I'm trying too hard to be cool.
If you were to say that, then I would say that while you might have absorbed the British vernacular, you haven't absorbed the conversational boundaries
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