The 30 day UK meme day 7 - Which British slang do you use in England?

[december_clouds]

This is a hard question! I say things like "tons" and "loads" and "massive" instead of saying huge and my mother lolz every time I say "as well." (As in "I'm going to the store but I'm going to the library as well" instead of saying "I'm going to the library too

Comments

[ex_girlwarl]

Yup, I say reckon a lot, and I also say a lot of things identified as British, like at 7:30 I'll say it's half seven. It just comes from having British grandparents and being around them a lot as a small person.

[december_clouds]

I always wondered about how Australian slang differed from British slang and British English and I hope you'll enlighten me. ♥

I used to have a penpal in Australia and she said "heaps" instead of saying "a lot" or "tons." I loved that.

[seifaiden]

PEN/PIN MERGER 4 LIFE

[december_clouds]

YOU DO IT TOO, DON'T YOU? :D

[seifaiden]

SO HARD. I even do it as AS AN ENGLISH TEACHER OH GOD!! I explain the issue to my students (some pick up on it since they try to pronounce each vowel so carefully, bless their hearts) but I literally do not discriminate pen/pin aurally either so it's not like I'm gonna hear it.

Matt picks on me so hard for it but he doesn't distinguish caught/cot so he can go to hell for totally missing an entire vowel from his phonemic inventory. I definitely have the vowels in pin and pen, they just have merged in that particular environment.

SOUTHERN VOWEL PARADIGM YEAH

Do English folks notice your pin/pen merger or does it kind of get subsumed into the whole U.S. accent thing?

[december_clouds]

I don't think I've actually had many opportunities to say pen/pin unfortunately. I think someone said something once, but it's hard to remember.

I usually get corrected on my pronunciation of English towns and cities or English stores. Take for example Coventry. When I first read it, I said "Co-ventry" I was very quickly corrected over and over "COV-entry."

Then there's Milton Keynes (doesn't that look like it should be "KEYKNEES" instead of "Keens"?!?!) and Leicester (how is that "lester") and Derby (which is pronounced "DARBY" WTF WTF WTF) and Argos (Arr-GOSS instead of Ar-goes)

Someone tried to correct my pronunciation of Sainsburys. My FIL (in all his public school glory) got me saying "Sainsbreeze" but someone picking up on my pronunciation said "Don't you mean Sainsberrys?" I think he was indicating that I should probably stick to one set of English pronunciations. (My FIL is great, he says "Glaas" instead of "glass" and "baaath" instead of "bath")

That was long.

[jumpinggene]

I realised I'd been here too long when I started talking about "a fiver" and "a tenner". Also, replying to someone offering me something with... "oh, go on then!"

[december_clouds]

Lulz, it starts to happen before you know it!