3. The questions are designed to be relevant to speakers of English worldwide, not just in the United States. Designed badly, then, in my view. Most of the questions seem to relate to purely American linguistic oddities. I do ... Hello,

}> }> I can half understand why we don't say Paree, but why shouldn't }> English speaking people be able to sort out the local pronunciations }> of proper nouns in English speaking countries? Why do all English }> people, it

I stopped reading Katherine Kerr when the same mistake was perpetuated in her 3rd or 4th book: she gave 'thin' ... of an o - I like to call it a smiley - so %u means a smiley over the u. That diacritic is called a "breve" in

Yes, but why do American dictionaries choose *my* pronunciation over someone from Alabama, or Massachusetts, or Wisconsin? There are glaring and drastic differences in pronunciation from region to region. There are, certainly. But, as I said

I don't necessarily agree with this. "Dictionaries describe the most *usual* pronunciation"?? What does "most usual" mean? The densest and ... There are a great many people in the South that pronounce "help" as

If you say that to me, you say nothing. As a description of a sound, "aw" has no useful meaning. But I think it does have some useful meaning to the community of CINC AmE speakers. I think if you were CINC you'd understand. I doubt

It's been said that Alastair Cooke sounded English to Americans ... mid-Atlantic. Angela Lansbury, I gather, is also a good example. No, I think there's a difference between what sounds to an American like an "English" accent

(posted and mailed) (Followups redirected to alt.usage.english) (posted and mailed) I say this because good basic reading skills at least ... "admittance" are fake words though highly educated folks use them. Hey, I'll be 49 in

There are a few words which tend to have the ... the same) - half, halve, calf, can't, shan't, banana, rather. Also there are still a handful of AmE speakers that follow the southern England approach (mainly in Eastern New England). Yes,

Hay, Yahl*, Luhks liek itz ben awiel sins ther haz ben anee seereeus diskushon ov English speling refohrm on this ... Sowtheest U.S. slayng ekspreshun meening "yooz peepl". Ie no manee fiend it ofensiv, but wut the hek, just beeing