I once corrected a younger sister's language use and she turned around and game me a lecture on "local color."

I just saw a Dr. Who episode, "The Unicorn and the Wasp," featuring a posh weekend house party in the country set in the 20s with Agatha Christie. When one guest's non-posh antecedents was uncovered by the use of a non-U word, the guest suddenly switched accents. quite fun to watch.

Chris, now I've got to know: What was the non-U word that gave things away in the Dr Who episode?! I have to admit the whole flap caused by Nancy Mitford's article written in the 1950s is still very amusing. I remember that the U-class did not use euphemisms for 'die' and 'pregnant' but just stated the words baldly. Of course as soon as the U-words drifted down to the proles, the upper class devised other shibboleths. I wonder with the rise of Estuary English what the signifiers are now? I'll never believe the UC would want to be completely anonymous.

I'm trying to think what some of the American U-words/phrases are, or were (outdated?). Since I don't know, I'm obviously not U myself. :-)

Frieda, please explain to we the unenlightened. What is "Estuary English"?

And what is "Non-U"? (does the U stand for University?)

There was a plethora of speech therapists when I was growing up. You were sent to one if you were a stutterer, for example.

Woodnymph, Estuary English is a dialect (it's actually a number of dialects but can be thought of as a collective singular) in England that seems to have developed and taken hold in the past thirty years or so. The label "Estuary" seems to have hit print in 1984 (I googled). The region is in and around London, in the south east and east of England, along the River Thames and its estuary. The accent of Estuary is called a "leveller" because it combines phonetical aspects of working class and middle class accents, along with Received Pronunciation (the heretofore most desirable accent in English-English). Curiously, some upper class English have also adopted certain aspects of the dialect and its primary accent -- including the Royal family and the Queen herself, apparently. Vee should really be explaining this because she's heard more of it than I, but it is really a quite striking change even to an outsider who is somewhat familiar with RP. Not everyone is happy with the emergence of "Estuary" but there's not a whole lot they can do about it because language change is inevitable.

Woodnymph, the U stands for upper class.

Yes, stuttering was treated by speech therapists in my neck of the woods, too, as I think it has been for as long as there have been therapists. What I was getting at, though, was the "treatment" of the regional accent by therapists as if it was an impediment. I can see where a regional accent might be detrimental to an aspiring child actor, but treating every schoolchild with a regional accent seems frivolous, even futile, to me. And I think it would be undesirable to many parents, even to the point of getting them hopping mad.

The character used toilet instead of loo or lavatory which surprised me as I'd thought toilet was a less euphemistic term. In fact, I think Fussell uses it as a U word in his book Class, but the Wikipedia article on the subject categorizes it is non-U.

Chris, it surprises me, too, because I thought the upper class -- at least the Mitford variety I've read most about -- were unabashed about calling a spade a spade. The upper class I've met seemed to bear this out. They are typically blunt and some of them toss out vulgarities in what seem to me the most inappropriate situations. However, I suppose that's what makes them U.

Vee, I want to let you know that I finally finished listening to the recordings of UK dialects and accents -- some I listened to several times. We've been talking about Estuary English so I went back and listened to those representing it. The most striking feature to me is something that Chris reminded me of when she mentioned "wascally wabbit." It's called R-labialization, the turning of the r-sound into what sounds like a 'w' to those who don't normally pronounce the R that way. Are there other features of Estuary that particularly stand out to you?

Frieda, for an eg of the lack of an 'R' sound in Cockney English you can go back to Dickens' Sam Weller "werry well Sir" in 'Pickwick Papers'. Of course, as Chris said, there are many children and some adults who find it difficult to pronounce their 'R's'. I could never say "Round the ragged rocks the ragged rascal ran."
Re U and non-U, I think Mitford was taking the p***s out of of some expressions/words and doubt that she ever mixed with many people of the 'lower orders' . . . maybe the odd shop assistant.
The word 'toilet' was never used in place of 'lavatory' when I was a child. To be technical a lavatory is a sanitary installation/water closet and 'toilet' comes from to makes ones toilet ie to dress/prepare for the day or toilet table the piece of furniture on which one placed ones hair/clothes brushes, powders, unguents etc.
I would take issue with the Wikipedia article (if not the whole of Wikipedia) U 'Nice house' v non-U 'lovely home' as nice is a horrible word that I'm sure never passed NM's lips and home is never used in English-English in that way. Over here a home is what you make of your house . .. if that makes sense. ;-)

Estuary English is often no more than a lazy way of speaking, dropping the endings and slurring words together, randomly adding 'right' 'cool' 'in'it' 'like' into half-formed sentences. It also owes much to the Afro-Caribbean yoof speak culture which seems to have developed a language of its own.

Estuary English sounds like wanna-be urban teenagers' speak here. 12-13 year olds with sagging jeans and a slouch. It is an effort to lift their faces up high enough to shake the hair out of their eyes before they utter a nearly-unitelligible answer.
What makes it comic (and I do laugh at them) is that we are deep in suburban/rural Pennsylvania. Nearest large cities, Philadelphia and Baltimore, are 1 1/2 to 2 hours away by car. Even their older brothers are mimicing television.

I always think of a "lavatory" as merely a place to wash one's hands, nothing else. The roots of "lavatory" come from the Romance languages, going all the way back to Latin (to wash).

In the French family where I lived, one used either "La Toilette" or "le dooble Vay- Say" for the other function.

I agree with cece's comments re "youth-speak". The University kids around me will insert several usages of "like" in every sentence, where none is needed. If something is amazing to them, they label it "awesome" or "kewl." It's like an epidemic that has spread....

The faddish vocabularies, pronunciations, and grammatical manglings of typical youthspeak, though, are usually short-lived (think of the index fossils groovy and far out from the 1960s and '70s). Estuary English, however, appears to have teeth (or would that be 'teef'?) and some linguists predict it will further erode RP and may even replace it. Of the high muckety-mucks who once assiduously minded their RP, Tony Blair is one who employs the glottal stop -- either purposefully or unconsciously, I'm not sure which.

David Crystal -- the well-known, now retired linguistics professor -- describes in his book, The Fight for English, the general attitude in the UK toward Estuary English when the population began calling it "'warm', 'customer friendly', and 'down to earth'." At the same time RP began garnering negative descriptions, such as 'posh' and 'distant'. The thing about Estuary English that seems to appeal -- and probably why it is spreading -- is its accommodation of all classes.

Of course the diehards of RP detest Estuary. What will the class-conscious do? What about speakers of other UK regional dialects/accents who are already fed up with London's and the South East's domination? Well, it will make interesting linguistic study, that's for sure!

Chris, Mary, Cece, anyone: I'm not aware of a particular American dialect/accent that seems to be having the kind of influence that Estuary is having on English-English. What do you think is the American dynamic?

Kath, I would ask the same about Australian dialects/accents. Any trends there to watch (listen) for?

Vee, re the F/TH merger and glottal stopping, e.g. Sarf Lun'nen: I know the glottal stops are from Cockney influence, is the 'f' replacing the 'th' also?

frieda, Estuary English has some way to go before it reaches this part of the country, in fact the locals take a rise out of such speech, probably not realising that people from the London area would see them as West country yokels.

Over here, from the 60's onwards there started a 'habit' among young university lecturers, gritty northern writers and Left-Wing intellectuals to go into inverted snobbery mode. It became necessary to be 'poor' and come from a deprived background etc. I was amazed when I went to college to be looked upon with contempt because my father owned a car! A Geordie (NE England) fellow-student told me "Me da's a miner and proud of it. Riding a bike is good enough for him." It was an attitude quite new to me.

Do you have the 'Inspector Morse' TV series in the US?
Morse has a sidekick called Lewis, played by Kevin Whateley who was the 'subject' of a BBC TV show "Who Do You Think You Are?" Each week a well-know 'personality' is helped to trace his/her ancestors as far back as possible. Of course they only look at the most interesting forebears.
Whateley kept describing himself as a working class Geordie boy who couldn't get back home from the soft South quick enough, yet his immediate family were very well-to-do fish merchants. A few generation back he had an Archbishop and a director of the Bank of England in his family tree, even wealthy merchants who brought some of the first slaves to Virginia in about 1612 and had the monopoly of all the tobacco sales in the colony.
To the end of the prog. he was still claiming to be a working-class lad and his accent got thicker and thicker. :-)
I know this had nothing to do with pronunciation but it might throw some light on our strange class-bothered society.
An eg of Estuary English taken from a TV skit show below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Estuary English v. Scottish

Thanks for that vee, very amusing!

After living in the northeast for four years, I'm still astounded that many people cannot hear their own accent, or understand why people 'from away' think they have one. These people tend to not be very well traveled.

It's time for me to move on, though. I have caught myself sounding more and more like a native. This is one accent I decidedly do not want to find in my speech patterns!

Is THAT Estuary English. I can usually only get through a half of one of those skits on BBC America. She makes my teeth hurt. (Keep in mind, I teach.)

Oh my, sigh. I realize Ms Tate's shtick is parody, but it's too close to the real thing to be actually funny to me. I thought the repetition thing was a tic unique to the first person I heard yammering that way, but apparently the redundancy is characteristic of the dialect, or at least of the youthful aspect. And why does it seem to always be females who talk a mile a minute? They can't be 'bovvered' to slow down, apparently. I'm still astounded that many people cannot hear their own accent, or understand why people 'from away' think they have one. These people tend to not be very well traveled.Siobhan, I think there's no other explanation for such ethnocentricity. It's true no matter where these less-than-well-traveled people live, though. On one of my first trips to England, I had to use a launderette. As I waited for my clothes to wash, I struck up a conversation with this woman and her young daughter who were also waiting. It was all pleasantries, but when I walked away to attend my chores I heard the little girl ask:
"Mummy, why does that woman talk like that?"
Mum said, "Ssh! She can't help it; she's not from here."
I was amused at the child's query but the mother's response was inadequate, I thought. But maybe mum gave the girl a better explanation later out of my earshot. I don't know how many times since that incident I have heard similar comments, usually from kids, but I've never quite figured out why the parents seem to think an unfamiliar accent is equivalent to, say, a physical abnormality.

Unbearable clip of Catherine Tate. I hated, hated, hated it when she became the Doctor's companion. I hate her worse than Peri, worse than Tegan, worse than any Dalek in the universe - and I find the Daleks the most boring bad guys in the universe. I wanted her eaten by the Arachnid Lady, burned to a crisp in Pompeii, .... Have I mentioned I don't like Tate?

I find Tate annoying too. Until recently I worked with a woman from Hertfordshire and she encouraged me to watch her. I don't know if it was the accent or the humour (which I didn't find funny although I like a lot of British humour shows) but I couldn't even watch one episode.

I think most Australians are aware of their accent when talking to others, but until the 70s with the rise of the Australian film industry, there was a thing called the 'cultural cringe' where an Aussie accent was to be avoided if you wanted to be thought of a certain class. Until the 50s many Australians called England 'home' even though most of them had grandparents born here.

Frieda, the thing I notice most about speech in young Australians, apart from the use of 'like' as in 'I was like at the bus stop when he like talked to me', is the selective use of American terms. We have stoutly resisted gas, fender, sidewalk, diaper and cookie, but are starting to use SUV (instead of four wheel drive) and youngsters often use terms like bro, dude, wassup and so on.

I recall when a spate of Aussie films came to America some years ago, in particular, "Crocodile Dundee." I always found the Aussie accent charming. But I'm sure I would not enjoy the new Americanisms, some of which "impurities" have even spread into the French language (horrors!)

Kath, I think the drama schools in Australia must have a stellar diction department. We have a ton of Australians on TV here who've managed impeccable American accents. Such a kick to hear their native accents.

Frieda, if I understand Estuary English correctly, I can only second CeCe's comment about the proliferation of urban speak among middle-schoolers. It has been happening now for over a decade. I remember hearing a rather rude term applied years ago toward white kids who were acting ghetto. I don't think the kids today realize that the saggy pants fashion began in imitation of jailed lads having their belts taken away. Anyway, I have a 12 year old nephew with a cleft palate, very hard to understand sometimes, with a ton of speech therapy behind him who is very definitely into urban speak. This speaks to me of how pervasive the trend is.

Chris, is that urban dialect the same as 'gangsta'? I thought of the rap claptrap: it does seem to have been (continues to be?) more influential than it ought to be, in my opinion. Isn't it just wonderful that the argot of criminals has so much cultural appeal? Of course, it's not the first time and not just true of Americans.

Kath, I know about petrol, nappy and biscuit; but what's the Aussie equivalent of sidewalk...is it pavement? And fender? Heh! For many years I was confused, thinking that a fender on an automobile was the same as a bumper. The fender around a stove or fireplace: well, I'm not sure I ever called it anything except, maybe, "the guard or safety dojigger."

I can't say that I find the Aussie accent charming. Fascinating, yes, but "charming" to me connotes a soft pleasing quality, almost effete, perhaps. I tend to think of the typical Australian accent as being masculine. I don't mean that disparagingly -- I like males! -- but I suppose it's because for the longest time I wasn't aware of enough Australian women's voices. Judy Davis was, I think, the first to really grab my attention. However, as masculine as Australian-English is in my mind, there's one thing that clashes with my perception: making many nouns sound diminutive (breakie, footie, veggie, etc). Americans do it too, but I don't think it was so popular until we heard the Aussies doing it. So there's reciprocation, Kath! :-)

Anyone else tend to think of languages in terms of gender? French is feminine to me. German and Greek, masculine. Balinese, feminine.

Frieda, I do think of languages in terms of gender. I agree that French is feminine, but also I find the lovely lilt of the Scandinavian language feminine. Of course, German and Russian are both masculine. To my ear, Austrian is softer than German, so I would have it sitting on the fence....

I have always been fascinated by the usage of "garden" by Europeans whereas we Americans use "yard." (I first heard this from my German friend who studied English in London). To me, a garden is that spot of green which has flowers or vegetables. When she came to visit, I warned her I have a huge yard. She looked at it and said, ah, yes, what a large garden. (I have neither flowers nor veggies).

As well, when I was driving her around my city, any spot of green with ample, grassy "Yards" were "parks" in her vernacular. Has anyone else noticed this? Yet I know that the word "yard" is used in the UK, perhaps in a difference sense. Can you help, Vee?

What Americans call a "sidewalk" is a "footpath" in Australia. I'm always amazed at the Australians who imitate American accents well: in the main it is NOT done well as many actors simply pronounce the "r"s without altering the vowels, and it sounds..........awful. Years ago I saw a stage version of "Children of a Lesser God" with a well known Australian actor in a lead role. I missed about the first 5-10 minutes of dialogue because I was so fascinated with the mechanics of his flawless American accent I wasn't listening to his actual words :-)
I can't stand Catherine Tate as a comedienne but I did like her as a Dr Who companion, because she is one of the few who didn't dither about and go all girly. He'd tell her to do something and she'd just get on with it, instead of "but why"-ing or phoning home and endangering everyone or agonising over everything.
I believe a "yard" in the old UK speak denoted a small area at the rear of a house which had access to the outhouse, the back lane etc.

Yard and garden are rather interchangable in Australian, a backyard implies lawn, some garden, the clothesline, room for the kids to play. We have a garden but not much room out there :-)

I completely agree that Aussie English (Auslish? *VBG*) seems masculine, and agree with French being feminine, although a male speaking with a French accent makes me melt :-) The other day a very handsome Chilean man came into our shop and although I think Spanish is rather feminine too, he was rather nice.

Ah, the 'ie' ending! Can you believe that I had never noticed it until a British professor of Chemistry pointed it out to me! The sickie, the U-ie, the tinnie (which can be a beer or a small metal dinghy) or coldie, the postie, the veggies, Uni , and on it goes.

re: the -ie

When our daughter was young, her great aunt insisted on gifting her with fashion dolls at each holiday, although my DD never played with dolls. So up in her closet we had a collection of them, still in boxes (we checked-they aren't the valuable ones ;-( ) So when the phrase "Put another shrimp on the barbie, mate" was so pervasive on television-advertising beer, I believe-it had a whole 'nother meaning at our house. At least my husband and I found the intersection of shrimp, barbie and mate hysterically funny. We were sleep deprived.

I know intersection isn't really the word that I want, but it'll do until around 4 pm when the right one pops up in my poor old brain.

I found this little English-American dictionary both useful and amusing, especially for us poor non-native speakers of English who have to learn all variants. There are some comments also on Australian and Canadian idioms.

Here is a link that might be useful: English-American dictionary

re yard - garden, over here a yard is always an area of land with a hard surface. . . farm yard, factory yard, school yard (or play ground), pub yard, stable yard and so on.
A garden can be a mixture of grass/lawn, flower and vegetable beds. A park is usually a public garden with grass, maybe flowerbeds, perhaps a children's play area and sometimes the older places have a 'band stand'. If you live in a stately home your estate may well be called a 'park', filled with bosky woods, dappled deer and the odd ruin.

re fender. In the UK it is the surround of a hearth, often made of brass. To protect the floor/carpet/children from the heat or sparks from the fire a mesh guard is used. It is always the rule in this house that the last person to leave a room with a fire burning in the grate must see that the guard is in front of the fire.

cece intersection=crossroads here.

yes, but intersection or crossroads doesn't do it quite...i'm thinking-today I am in a sinus/migraine headache fog. Words are hard to catch.

cece, maybe juxtaposition is the word you are looking for?

YES!!!! The juxtaposition of shrimp, Barbie and mate was hysterically funny to us for some weird reason.

Yes, Frieda, what I'm calling urban dialect could easily be called 'gangsta' but I have no idea what it is called by those who actally know what I'm talking about.

Would 'gangsta' speech be the same as hip hop nation language? Or do you think they are just similar and related phenomena? Attached is an article PBS has posted on that subject (don't overlook the related article, Crossing Over).

This is a concern of mine because my kids go to public school and it's everywhere! It's not just a matter of words they've picked up, but a very troubling tone -- sassy and aggressive. Girl gets inserted into every sentence, such as, "what are you doin', girl?" It's not just a matter of picking this up in school, though. Rabid consumerism and the tv and music industry have contributed extensively to the spread across all classes and ethnic groups.

On another matter, can anyone actually pronounce asterisk correctly? I have no problem pronouncing ask or risk, but that -sk in asterisk is very difficult unless I speak in virtual slow motion.

Here is a link that might be useful: Hip Hop Nation

Georgia: I usually put an emphasis on the first syllable, it would sound like 'ahzz' and then the rest of the word 'terisc' trips off my tongue! The 'c' is less harsh than a 'k' ending. I think asterisk should be prefaced by "an" which helps one slide into saying it! If prefaced by "the" a double vowel combination is trickier, don't you think?

As usual, so much to respond to: you all bring up so many interesting words and phrases.

Colleen, thanks for the sidewalk/footpath equivalency. I think footpath is usually reserved in Am-E for an unpaved track through grass, woods, shrubbery, etc -- probably not laid-out or planned but usually used as a shortcut and followed by force of habit. Sidewalks are planned walkways in commercial districts and in front of houses in residential areas. They are concrete-paved, asphalt-metalled, or, in the case of the 'good ole days' and American 'Wild West' towns, wood planks. Do Australians not differentiate between paved and unpaved paths/walkways?

Mariannese, thank you for the link to the English-American dictionary. I think it probably answered by question: what is a fender in Auslish? In the UK it's wing, so I'm guessing it's the same in Australia.

Kath, I'm officially adopting your word Auslish! :-)

I keep forgetting that Hip Hop is the preferred term for the dialect influencing so much of American youth. At least it seems to be the same, Georgia, from your description and the PBS article. I try to stay neutral about these things, but that's one of the hardest for me not to be judgmental about.

Asterisk: Georgia, I think I hear most people saying AS-tuh-rik (no s-sound in the last syllable). I say it that way myself if I'm not careful. And when I say it properly it almost sounds affected to me.

I say as-ter-isk with the first syllable accented-but I do have to say it in slow motion-it is one that could lead to a "pronunciation malfunction" in front of students if I am not careful!

More on sidewalks and footpaths, please. What about walkways and trails? Our local parks department (here in central Indiana) has put in asphalt-covered trails in the parks. Trails also link the parks and schools and library in areas where they were no sidewalks. They are wide enough for a vehicle so that the workers have access with their tools and equipment used to maintain the areas. But in a state park, we have "hiking trails" which are unpaved, usually, and sometimes narrow enough to only allow single-file walking.

In a lot of country towns (like the one in which I live), footpaths are not necessarily paved, though they are in the cities. Most of the footpaths in my town, with the exception of the main street shopping area and the immediate vicinity, are hard-packed dirt. Trails through the bush are usually referred to as "tracks".
I don't know what a "fender" is- is that the past that goes around the wheel arch? I can't recall ever having to call it anything :-)

I agree that asterisk requires care but I also say AS-ter-isk.

Frieda, Australia doesn't have country 'footpaths' as such. I mean, there obviously are some, but planned walks in the wilderness are more likely to have the word trail or track attached to them (as Colleen said), and shortcuts don't have that sort of name (although I can't really think what they would be called other than 'shortcut'). Some of our tracks are good weather unpaved roads in the outback, like the Birdsville Track. A wonderful walking trail in South Australia, named for a local famous artist, is the Heysen Trail. At 1200km long, I think it is one of the longest in the world.

Our city footpaths are bitumen, concrete or concrete pavers, or in parts of the CBD, Mintaro slate from the mid north of SA.

With regard to fender, 'wing' might be used but I think 'side' or 'side panel' are more likely.

My son is an Aussie Hiphop artist. This is very interesting, because although there is a certain amount of 'bro' 'dude' and 'wassup' in the culture, anyone assuming an Amerian accent when performing is very poorly thought of. Accent is very firmly Aussie. In addition, the lyrics seem much less violent than some American hiphop, and don't include b*tch in the form, 'Yo B*tch get me a beer'. We are much more likely to just say 'she's a real b*tch'.
If you are interested in listening to a bit, go to the website below to hear Australia's best hiphop crew (who just happen to live near us in Adelaide *g*). In the songs at the top, the one that starts playing, called 'The Hard Road Restrung' is good, as is 'Nosebleed Section'. If you scroll down you will see filmclips. The first one, for ÂBreathe Restrung was filmed at a concert they did here in Adelaide with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. The history behind this is interesting. The Hoods performed at the Australian Music Awards and did a song of their recent album and, for something completely different, did it with a string quartet. This led to a collaboration with the ASO, the conductor of which wrote orchestral scores to all the songs on the album, which was re-released as 'The Hard Road Restrung'. They then did the one big show. I went, and have to say it was fantastic, with a 7 000 strong crowd and the full orchestra.
If you still have any interest, my son's crew, Grifters Inc, is found at the myspace site with griftersinc after the slash (it won't let me put a web link in) Try 'Satan Wears Stilettos' or 'Sundown' (the one at the top which will just start playing has swearing near the beginning so be careful).

PS I have had a huge amount of trouble posting this. I don't know why but when I included anything after the fender comment, I got sent to the home page. I have been sitting here adding the rest sentence by sentence.

Here is a link that might be useful: Hilltop Hoods

I call the city paved paths next to the road a 'pavement' when I am in either the UK or Australia (which word I believe is also the name of the road in parts of the US). In both countries there is sometimes a lawn edge known as a verge or grass verge and in Australia the dirt/ gravelled paths that are sometimes made in more rural areas could be called a gravel verge or path.
When we lived in the country my Aussie-born children walked a narrow beaten 'bush-track' to school but my son rode horses and his motor-bike on a trail. Complicated, hey, but like all mixed cultures we seem to understand most of what is meant.
Although I did have a problem with 'next Friday' not being the coming one but the one after! So I waited for a visitor in vain.

What I have found interesting in the US is the lack of pavements in certain neighborhoods, depending on your city of course. In my city, we live in one of the oldest neighborhoods (to keep it in perspective this was built in the 1930s) so the roads are narrower and it was more of a walking neighborhood, BUT there are not many pavements on the people's property. It seems that the homeowner owns the property up to gutter of the road, and it's up to the homeowner if they want to put a pavement in or not. So you might be walking on some nice pavement and then suddenly, BAM, no pavement and you're on grass, The pavement just runs out. If you were in a wheelchair (or had kids in pushchairs) then you have to be in the street. We have the wheelchair ramps on the corners of the streets as mandated by the ADA (or whoever), but that doesn't mean it is linked to a pavement. Sometimes it is just a ramp to more grass. Very strange.

And Annpan - I had the same trouble with "this Friday" and "next Friday". Everyone seems to have their own definition so I always check after having had a similar experience to you one time!

Plus US natives around here say "see you later" a lot which is a nice way to say goodbye. However, in the UK when I was growing up, we would only say "see you later" if we had made definite plans to see them later that day (say that night or something) so we found it very confusing when so many people say it to us in one day. Had we made plans for that night unknowingly? What were they? Very confusing until we figured it out....

The joys of cross-cultural communication!

Kath, I'm sure that Hiphop (Hip Hop, hiphop, hip hop), as with many things, comes in varying forms: some relatively mild, others extreme. I think it's the latter that unfortunately attracts the most attention in the US -- anything extreme seems to be a craze here these days. I'm probably just a fuddyduddy; but musically I'm into melody, although I enjoy a good beat -- but not just a beat and staccato vocalizations (I've never cared for the Beatnik style of the 1950s and early '60s, either). It's said that Jimi Hendrix "spoke" rather more than he "sang" songs; however, I like his vocal style (as well as his innovative guitar style). If he was a progenitor of hip hop, as he is said to be, all I can say is I like the roots but not all the fruit. Come to think of it, some of Hendrix's lyrics were decidedly misogynist. It's peculiar that I'm not particularly offended by them, though, the way I am some of the hip hop stuff.

Kath, I will listen to the Aussie hiphop examples. Good luck to your son! There's nothing to help more appreciate something heretofore unappreciated than when there's a personal connection. I have a neighbor whose son likes to race cars. I have never cared one iota for car racing, but I attended one of this young man's meets out of courtesy to his parents. Suddenly I got into it and I was screaming encouragement as much as any fan. :-)

Oh! The 'this Friday' and 'next Friday' thing drives me batty. So does the phrase 'quarter of' as in: Let's meet at a quarter of three. I always ask: Is that fifteen minutes before three or after? I think a quarter to three is clear, but I've found that a quarter of can go either way. But whichever way the speaker means it, I've had some react as if I was a shade weird for asking such a silly question.

there's quarter of, quarter 'til, quarter past and quarter after.
Around here, the existence of a sidewalk (a paved path where you can walk beside the road) was determined by the developer of the neighborhood. Next neighborhood over, built about 15 years ago, every homeowner was assessed so much per foot frontage for a sidewalk, and the whole neighborhood has them. In my neighborhood, built in the 1950s, there are none-our lawn goes right to the curb.

Auslish has only quarter to and quarter past, although with a strong UK influence in Adelaide, 'half four' rather than 'half past four' is sometimes heard.

On the hiphop topic, I find the Aussie hiphop, and especially the Hilltop Hoods, to be quite melodic compared to US stuff. I learnt to listen to it while taking my son long distances in the car to cricket games, and I had veto over the songs. I quite often would say 'boring, next song' for the repetitious songs you mention, but usually not for the Aussie stuff.

Bringing up this thread as I hope Vee, or others, can help me to settle a friendly argument amongst acquaintences. How do Brits pronounce "Gloucester"?

We in the states have at least 2 of our own Gloucesters. I've heard anything from "Glawe-ster" to "Gloss-ter." A friend of mine is headed to Gloucester, Massachusetts and claims he is pronouncing it properly according to the "English" preference when he calls it "Glue-chester." I rolled my eyes and told him he would be a laughing stock in New England. Who is correct?

I can't speak for all 'Brits' but I pronounce Gloucester as Gloster. Older 'country folk' and aristo's (HM Queen) still say Glorster. The county is pronounced Gloster-shur so the 'shur' rhymes with 'fur'. No one in England says 'shire' so it rhymes with 'fire' . . . except for a shire horse.
'Glue-chester' sounds most strange. Do you think your friend was pulling your leg?!

I agree with Vee (as does my friend who comes from Gloucester) in that it's pronounced "Gloster"....

I am also wondering if your friend is joking around...

We have a Gloucester, Mass in the US. It is also pronounced Gloster.

Thanks, vee and lemonhead. No, Ronny is an Anglophile and a self-appointed expert on pronunciation....

leel, FYI, we also have a Gloucester here in Virginia.