The last office I worked in we had 2 floors. Upstairs where I worked the bathrooms were tucked away and you couldn't hear anything.
One day I was downstairs near reception talking to someone and heard this noise and I was loudly asking around "What is that? What is that noise?" and everyone was laughing. Of course the Director of Operations came out of the bathroom a little later and I realised it was the sound of her peeing and that downstairs they could just hear everyone pee. All the time. It was weird and the downstairs bathroom was in a stupid place.
The restrooms in the building we were in for the first three years in Tulsa were located between floors, Men down a half flight of stairs, Women up, totally not handicapped accessible. Spirit Bank now occupies the building, I wonder if they fixed that.
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I'm annoyed that solder and soldering are pronounced differently in the UK and the USA, even though they mean the same thing and are spelt the same.
I'm not saying which pronunciation is 'correct' (there is no such thing as 'correct' pronunciation IMO) I'm just annoyed by the jarring effect of the words sounding completely different to what I'm used to whenever I hear them mentioned in a USA YouTube video (which is pretty often, as I tend to watch videos that sometimes include people soldering things).
solder and soldering are pronounced differently in the UK and the USA
I was going to go "wtf? Post pics or it didn't happen" ('cause how could "solder" and "soldering" be pronounced any other way?) then I went looking and found this.
I don't buy the whole explanation, but I've learned something new.
solder and soldering are pronounced differently in the UK and the USA
I was going to go "wtf? Post pics or it didn't happen" ('cause how could "solder" and "soldering" be pronounced any other way?) then I went looking and found this.
I don't buy the whole explanation, but I've learned something new.
Being a North American in the UK, I find this site useful for listening to the different pronunciations - The Free Dictionary. It has 3 links to listen to a word. The little American flag, the UK flag and a third one shaped like a speaker. The British one is a little robotic sounding, but clear enough to be able to hear the differences.
I don't know what the little speaker one is supposed to be, but it weirdly lines up well with Canadians on the few words we don't say like either the Americans or the British.
I did em both and the Britain quiz called me a foreigner. The American one lit up the northwest ane all along the northern border to Minnesota... which is about right, geographically.
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My map is not very good. At least they had me on the west side mostly. But they think I am from Spokane, Boise or Salt Lake City. Apparently only Washingtonians call cougars cougars. But I do too, hence the Spokane.
I did em both and the Britain quiz called me a foreigner. The American one lit up the northwest ane all along the northern border to Minnesota... which is about right, geographically.
As an American I would be from New Orleans or Baton Rouge ... whut? Do they talk like Brits? Not from my experience.
The British / Irish one put me vaguely around south-east England not including London itself. Which is pretty reasonable.
The American test nailed me as Californian, with one of the distinguishing features that the west calls the light up bug a Firefly and not whatever other wrong names everyone else said.
There's a chance you have some Mid atlantic in common with them. During the golden film age a kind of half way between american and british accent was concocted to appeal to both audiences. Some in america did adopt some of this fake british because it sounded more sophisticated while some british adopted some of the fake american because it was the voice of glamorous Hollywood.
It pegged me as not a Brit or Irish. Unsurprising, given some of those questions.
But they could peg it even without asking questions that reveal Americanisms... If but and put don't rhyme, full and fool don't, last has the vowel of cat, palm and farm don't rhyme, door and poor do, etc. you end up with a pattern of pronunciation not used anywhere in the UK/Ireland, even though all of them individually can be found there.
It did suggest my dialect is most similar to western Ireland or Oxford (I think). I very clearly don't sound like either of those.
I did em both and the Britain quiz called me a foreigner. The American one lit up the northwest ane all along the northern border to Minnesota... which is about right, geographically.
This is an old quiz, so I've done it before. Since I grew up in two dialect areas, it doesn't work for me if I do the full question barrage. My general pronunciation patterns are Northern, but my vocabulary (soda, not pop) and specific word pronunciations (e.g. pronouncing caramel with three syllables is more Southern than Midwestern) are often Southern.
It can get either of the two areas if I get the random assortment of questions. It even has a question about a word specific to the city I was born in, so if it doesn't ask questions where I come off like a Southerner, it can pinpoint that. And when it does point to the South, it usually gets the right area.
BUT since I have a mix of Southern and Northern/Midwestern features, the full question barrage always puts me in... California!
Which is because California English, in fact, has a mix of Northern and Southern features, due to its population growth involving many people from all parts of the Eastern US settling there*. Parts of California have more specific influences - Bakersfield, for example, has the pin-pen merger characteristic of the South due to Okies from the Dust Bowl, while San Francisco, as the oldest major city in California, has had time to develop a more distinct accent (for example, it does not merge cot and caught, which sets it apart from the rest of California).
*Much as American dialects in general have a mixture of features found in British and Irish dialects due to settlers coming from many parts of those countries, although that mixture varies and the traditional American dialect areas have roots in those differences. Some features, of course, are American innovations.
I did em both and the Britain quiz called me a foreigner. The American one lit up the northwest ane all along the northern border to Minnesota... which is about right, geographically.
The American one put me in, roughly, the San Francisco Bay region (Stockton to Santa Rosa). The English/Irish one flagged me as a foreigner, but said my pronunciations were closest to those in the Birmingham/Bath/Wales triangle.
I did em both and the Britain quiz called me a foreigner. The American one lit up the northwest ane all along the northern border to Minnesota... which is about right, geographically.
Way off. Your answers didn't fit here at all.
Perfect thrad to be annoyed over a triviality.
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