"A" vs "An" ....grammar trivia

[smokey the elder]

Let's face it, English grammar (and spelling!) is a horror show. I think we all have our pet peeves and such, and it's best to keep a sense of humor about it all.

[smokey the elder]

In the spirit of good fun, I offer the following link, often attributed to the late Isaac Asimov: http://www.grrr.net/spelling.html

[Suki Wingy]

That hurt my head!

[jennielynn1970]

That hurt my head!

Ditto!! That was not an easy read!

[jennielynn1970]

The British English link is cracking me up!! I feel like Kelso on That 70's show, or Beavis and Butthead, lol.

Biggie - This is unusual. A biggie is what a child calls his poo! Hence the reason Wendy's Hamburgers has never really taken off in England - who would buy "biggie fries"? Yuck - I'm sure you wouldn't buy poo fries! The other meaning of Biggie is erection. It just gets worse!

Blow me - When an English colleague of mine exclaimed "Blow Me" in front of a large American audience, he brought the house down. It is simply an exclamation of surprise, short for "Blow me down", meaning something like I am so surprised you could knock me over just by blowing. Similar to "Well knock me down with a feather". It is not a request for services to be performed.

Diddle - To rip someone off or to con someone is to diddle them. When you visit England, check your change to make sure you haven't been diddled! (At least in my area, when you say someone was "diddling" it meant playing with himself).

Dog's bollocks - You would say that something really fantastic was the dog's bollocks. Comes from the fact that a dog's bollocks are so fantastic that he can't stop licking them! Nice huh? (this is just too funny!)

Excuse me - This is a great one! It's what kids are taught to say when they belch in public. We are also taught to say "pardon me" if we fart out loud. Unfortunately in American "excuse me" means you are encroaching in someone's personal space and you say "pardon me" when you don't hear someone properly. Imagine our surprise when we discovered that actually Americans are not belching and farting all the time.

OMG...
Fanny - This is the word for a woman's front bits! One doesn't normally talk about anyone's fanny as it is a bit rude. You certainly don't have a fanny pack, or smack people on their fannys - you would get arrested for that! Careful use of this word in the UK is advised!


Anyone see any others they find amusing?? I'm sorry I'm so easily amused, but the differences are cracking me up, and just imagining the faces of people who are hearing them used improperly is making me giggle.

My mom's one secretary was British, and she would tell the kids at school "Don't forget your rubbers!" on their way to their next class. Seems she was talking about not forgetting the erasers.

[jennielynn1970]

Rat arsed - Yet another term for drunk, sloshed or plastered. You might say loaded.


Example: Staci was getting rat arsed on her Beergaritas this past weekend.


I'm loving these sayings, lol.

[Suki Wingy]

Yeah, that site's a blast to dig through!

[Randi]

In the spirit of good fun, I offer the following link, often attributed to the late Isaac Asimov: http://www.grrr.net/spelling.html

l love it!! A modified version of this old one:


An interesting article highlighting British power over Germany

The European Union have recently announced that finally an agreement has been reached to adopt English as the preferred language for European communications, rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and as such has accepted a five year phased plan to implement what will become known as EuroEnglish .

In the first year, 's' will be used instead of the soft 'c'. Sertainly sivil servants will resieve this news with joy . Also the hard 'c' will be replased with 'k`. Not only will this klear up konfusion, but typewriters kan have one less letter .

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome 'ph' will be replased by 'f'. This will make words like 'fotograf' 20 per sent shorter .

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible, which have always been a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent "e"s in the languag is disgrasful and they wil go .

By the fourth year , peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing 'th' by 'z' and 'w'
by 'v'

During ze fifz year , ze unesesary 'o' kan be dropd from vords kontaining 'ou', and similar changes vud of kore be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters .

After zis fifz year, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer.

Ze drem vil finali kum tru !

[Randi]

Oh, and The American's guide to speaking British:

http://www.effingpot.com/slang.shtml