Do me a favour, is it flavor or flavour..lol!

[bakechef]

My father was in the military, so I just kind of go with the flow on most words, and don't consider any option right or wrong. When I was in New Hampshire, a water fountain was a bubbler. Carbonated beverages were soda most places I lived, but here are pop and in New Hampshire were tonic. Then over many years I had to learn a few words in many different languages. Don't know enough to speak any of them! So few can offend me by their pronunciation unless they are trying hard to do it!

I, too, do have my limits. I am an aunt, not an ant. Probably comes from a French-Canadian translation from "tante". It isn't so much that I'm being stubborn, but just prefer my nieces and nephews to use "aunt". I find it amusing how people get offended if you pronounce something differently.

I grew up in Maine with a strong French Canadian background. I grew up saying aunt, after moving away I noticed that many people say ant, struck me as odd since it isn't spelled that way. I've had people comment on my use of "aunt" saying that it made me sound snooty, I thought that was hilarious.

 

[pacanis]

yum, i love rashers of streaky bacoun..

Hey, that ou thing looks cool

 

[PrincessFiona60]

Did somebody mention bacon?

Bacon?

 

[Sir_Loin_of_Beef]

Really? I thought that was Vanna White.

No, because Vanna White makes you BUY the vowels.

 

[LPBeier]

American Standard English drops the "u."
Canadian Standard English sometimes drops the "u."
British Standard English doesn't drop the "u."

The different Style Guides are a pain. I'm forever having to verify usage issues with punctuation and spelling conventions. And, Canadian spelling conventions and punctuation conventions are a hybrid of US and British. Go figure.

I have a funny story on this CW! Many years ago I worked for the BC Government in International Trade. We were a small department that was developing a Database to link local exporters with International Importers. My boss was American, and the assistant boss was English. I, of course, am Canadian. The two of them got into a very heated argument over this very thing. Since I was the one actually writing all the leads, I used "ou" and also spelled it "centre" if it was a place and "center" if it was the middle. My boss said that because this was international it should be the American spelling. His Assistant said that because it was extensively for Europe it MUST be British English.

I looked at them both and said "this is Canada, I am Canadian and I am spelling it in Canadian".......which is a little bit of both .

Have we totally confused you Snip?

 

[Claire]

Remember the years of the "you might be a redneck if...." jokes? A nephew of mine was really into Jeff Foxworthy and loved those jokes. Various of his other female relatives are "ants". But my sisters, my father's sisters, and my mother's sisters are all AUNTS. He one time lost track and called me "Anty Claire." I just laughed and said, you might be a redneck if .... I didn't even finish before we were all laughing.

you can't take this stuff too seriously. My husband said that when he was in Vietnam his platoon got into a huge fight about whether it was soda or pop. He said he had to declare it to be "soda pop" and that everyone would say it that way. "As if we didn't have enough fighting without that!"

 

[Claire]

While we're on the subject ... So much of what we buy now is made or assembled in China or other countries. What about instructions written in a language that vaguely resembles English but make no sense at all? I'm sure it is the same in the other languages the directions come in. I can just about assemble a piece of furniture using the directions, most of the time. The last thing I tried, though, left me with 16 screws in my hand, wondering, what the hades? The entire thing, of course, fell apart leaving me to see where I should have reinforced some joints with the screws. Another recent one was trying to attach a new printer to my computer. I used to be good at this, I really did. I gave up and called computer guy, who just for the heck of it looked at the instructions and laughed and said, Claire, these are simply wrong, wrong, wrong. I actually used to be an electronics technician in the Air Force, but now am so stupid I can't even read the instructions to hook up basic computer equipment, or for that matter, most recently, recharge my cell phone!

I just feel that if you're selling an item in a country that has a predominant language (this came in about 5 languages and I suspect they all were that poorly translated), hire one person in your company to write instructions for whom that language is their first language.

 

[dcSaute]

>>made in China

it's not a hard&fast rule, but the "written" stuff is often a very good tip-off as to whether the made in China stuff is of any quality or just knock off junk.

companies that have stuff made in China usually provide the written materials - or at least the text/copy for printing.

the knock off companies 'translate' into English on their own - which frequently 'shows up' with a case of the giggles.

 

[Zhizara]

I've had to assemble most of my furniture. The instructions I usually get often have few words, but well done diagrams.

I'd order from Walmart and have them delivered right to my planned assembly area. So easy, with a few breaks to vent my bad words vocabulary, usually caused by those #$%^&*()_ pegs.

 

[tinlizzie]

Here's part of an eBay description for a beautiful red Chinese teapot:

"...it is priceless if you own an excellent chicken-blood-coloured stone teapot, be sure of its treasure, bid it immediately,noble artwork!!..."

Of course, their English is excellent compared to my Chinese.

 

[bakechef]

I bought a camera case at Big Lots. It was obviously straight from china. The tag on it said "unit becomes portable when carried", I had to buy it just for the label, it cracked up!

 

[LPBeier]

Claire's right about not taking this stuff too seriously. Most Canadians I know take cracks about our spelling about as seriously as we take being called "hosers", being thought of as having snow 365 days a year and putting that two letter little expression after every sentence.

You don't really think we do that.....
.....
.....
.....
eh?

 

[pacanis]

Claire's right about not taking this stuff too seriously. Most Canadians I know take cracks about our spelling about as seriously as we take being called "hosers", being thought of as having snow 365 days a year and putting that two letter little expression after every sentence.

You don't really think we do that.....
.....
.....
.....
eh?

I for one know that you guys don't have snow 365 days a year.
It would be too hard to transport your beaver pelts by canoe if the streams stayed frozen.

 

[Claire]

Oh, believe me, I am well aware that almost anyone can speak English better than I can their language. But then, I'm not selling them something they have to assemble. I grew up with people of many linguistic backgrounds and have nothing but admiration for most of them. It is a great joke among my French-speaking friends that I cannot pronounce a French "R" correctly. Ridiculous, given that my full name has at least 4 of that letter in it. It took me years to realize that I inherited an odd bone spur in the roof of my mouth that simply makes it impossible to roll my "R"s correctly. My first French teacher told me to abstain from milk at lunch. Huh? I've hated milk from birth. I was easily into my 20s or older when Mom told me about the bone growth! Oh, well, what the heck.

 

[Saphellae]

LOL Laurie

Every time I say Eh at the end of a sentence, more often than not the other person also ends with Eh in their response and I just laugh at that silently... Like, "Well, I heard it was going to rain, but it looks like the sun finally came out eh?" And they would reply with something like... "Yeah but, your garden really needed it eh?"

I catch myself saying things like "is that right eh?" lol.. I say it alot, now that I think on it.

When I play online games with voice chat, as soon as I let an "eh" slip I stop talking.. and someone usually asks if I am Canadian lol.

 

[Zhizara]

LOL Laurie

Every time I say Eh at the end of a sentence, more often than not the other person also ends with Eh in their response and I just laugh at that silently... Like, "Well, I heard it was going to rain, but it looks like the sun finally came out eh?" And they would reply with something like... "Yeah but, your garden really needed it eh?"

I catch myself saying things like "is that right eh?" lol.. I say it alot, now that I think on it.

When I play online games with voice chat, as soon as I let an "eh" slip I stop talking.. and someone usually asks if I am Canadian lol.

People from Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont also use "eh" a lot.

 

[PrincessFiona60]

Claire's right about not taking this stuff too seriously. Most Canadians I know take cracks about our spelling about as seriously as we take being called "hosers", being thought of as having snow 365 days a year and putting that two letter little expression after every sentence.

You don't really think we do that.....
.....
.....
.....
eh?

Repeatedly and often...

 

[Bolas De Fraile]

I have to say as a Brit living in Wales and as I am dyslexic I have a problem at present.
I use firefox and when it upgraded to 5 my spell checker vanished and will not re-install.
I am just happy that some of my posts make sense.I do realise my punctuation, spelling and grammar is crap but not one person here has smacked me for it.
I used to use hear as here and wear as where, there and their are also dificult to choose

 

[Zhizara]

I have to say as a Brit living in Wales and as I am dyslexic I have a problem at present.
I use firefox and when it upgraded to 5 my spell checker vanished and will not re-install.
I am just happy that some of my posts make sense.I do realise my punctuation, spelling and grammar is crap but not one person here has smacked me for it.
I used to use hear as here and wear as where, there and their are also dificult to choose

Take heart, Bolas. I too recently upgraded to FireFox 5.0 and lost several of my add-ons that weren't compatible.

Over the next week, however, they were automatically added back one by one.

 

[Claire]

The "eh" thing cracked me up. Before he met my family I'd mentioned to my now-husband that my dad's family were French-Canadian (Daddy was born in the US, but his elder siblings and Memere et Pepere were originally Quebecois). He started making jokes about "eh". I had never noticed it! I told him Daddy didn't do that, it must be an English Canadian thing. Well, of course he does, quite a bit. He also transposes "th" and "t". But then my father-in-law did that as well, and he was midwestern born and of Slovene descent. There is a town in Quebec called Thetford Mines, and I swear, when I went on a "roots" road trip, I had no idea there was an "h" in the word!