In my lab I was hired in part so as to have a native speaker of English on hand to improve the general knowledge of the language if only by osmosis. So, deciding to take my duties seriously, the other day I drew the
Oh Snap Flowchart on the whiteboard of our break-room where it was a big hit, what other amusing flowcharts are there floating around the internet that I could use to explain any of the various oddities of the English language?
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posted by Blasdelb
on Jan 22, 2013 -
5 answers
How do you edit writing written in a different dialect than your own? I'm very soon going to be responsible for editing some English technical/business writing by a team in a highly multilingual south-Asian country.
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posted by TheNewWazoo
on Dec 2, 2012 -
10 answers
How could I describe in a non-technical way how certain English-speakers maintain a distinction between the "w" and "wh" sound? A certain amount of technical description could help. Its for a character in a story. For example: "The beginning of his 'what' still comes from deep within his throat." I don't know if that's technically true and it sounds awesomely terrible but something like that.
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posted by pynchonesque
on Jul 13, 2012 -
19 answers
Two questions about vocabulary in the American South and elsewhere: did your parents call you sugar and did they, when you were in trouble, use both your first and middle names to summon you for the reckoning?
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posted by mygothlaundry
on Jun 2, 2011 -
81 answers
A question for native speakers of UK English: With formal writing, can you readily distinguish between US and UK English? If you were reading something that supposedly targeted a UK audience and an Americanism cropped up, would you find that distracting?
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posted by adamrice
on May 18, 2010 -
53 answers
Is it a widespread behavior for multilingual speakers of english to get a more anglicized accent when talking to a native speaker?
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posted by Non Prosequitur
on Aug 22, 2009 -
19 answers
England and America, two countries separated by a common language. Check. What I'm looking for are resources that cover the differences in spoken English (accent, syntax, diction, catch-phrases - it's all good) between the two countries circa 1776-1815.
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posted by IndigoJones
on Apr 20, 2009 -
9 answers
There was a site of speakers around the world speaking a specific phrase in English. This was to show how regional dialects of English sounded. You could click on a map and it would pull up video of these speakers. Does anyone know what that site is? If not, perhaps a good response would include a concise phrase that can show different regional variations (cot/caught, don/dawn, pin/pen).
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posted by symbioid
on Sep 20, 2008 -
9 answers
Bookworm MeFites: I'm looking for novels, short stories, and plays by white authors where their non-white characters speak in a dialect. For instance, the slave Jim in Twain's
Huckleberry Finn.
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posted by rossination
on May 25, 2006 -
45 answers
A writer's question: how does British English read (and internally, silently sound) to Americans? [
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posted by MiguelCardoso
on Feb 22, 2004 -
35 answers
