Do some accents or languages get on your nerves?

[thaiophilus]

7 minutes ago, Keithambrose said:

There is the famous quote, probably  apocryphal,  about Princess  Margaret  asking a guest at a dinner party, "and what do you do?", to which the answer was, "I'm still the Archbishop of Canterbury ".

The (equally apocryphal) version I heard was that somebody at a garden party was chatting to a lady he couldn't quite put a name to, so he asked her "and what's your husband up to these days" She replied "Oh, he's still King".

[unicorn]

On 12/15/2025 at 11:47 PM, Olddaddy said:

Americans annoy me 

Keep saying the word "like " ... like...

Another word being used by this generation annoy me ...constant use of word "bro " 

 

I'm American, and I never say "like," though it can be irritating to hear Canadians finish every 3rd sentence with "eh." I can remember in a cruise a few years ago, meeting my neighbor at the balcony, and he said "Nice weather we're having, eh?". To which I responded "What part of Canada are you from?". He laughed and said "Did I end a sentence with 'eh' again?". The host of the MTV program Ridiculousness, Rob Dyrdek, has an annoying habit of ending every other sentence with "You know what I mean?". I feel like yelling at him "YES! I know what you mean!". 

[Keithambrose]

2 hours ago, unicorn said:

I'm American, and I never say "like," though it can be irritating to hear Canadians finish every 3rd sentence with "eh." I can remember in a cruise a few years ago, meeting my neighbor at the balcony, and he said "Nice weather we're having, eh?". To which I responded "What part of Canada are you from?". He laughed and said "Did I end a sentence with 'eh' again?". The host of the MTV program Ridiculousness, Rob Dyrdek, has an annoying habit of ending every other sentence with "You know what I mean?". I feel like yelling at him "YES! I know what you mean!". 

Like is used farbto frequently in the UK, by the younger generation,  sometimes twice or more in the same sentence. It sloppy thinking, often combined with 'you know', as in, 'like, you know'.    

[vinapu]

8 hours ago, thaiophilus said:

The (equally apocryphal) version I heard was that somebody at a garden party was chatting to a lady he couldn't quite put a name to, so he asked her "and what's your husband up to these days" She replied "Oh, he's still King".

sounds like Queen Mother

[vinapu]

6 hours ago, unicorn said:

 has an annoying habit of ending every other sentence with "You know what I mean?". 

I love when I hear that and my answer invariably is 'Noooo"

[Olddaddy]

On 12/18/2025 at 3:08 AM, unicorn said:

I'm American, and I never say "like," though it can be irritating to hear Canadians finish every 3rd sentence with "eh." I can remember in a cruise a few years ago, meeting my neighbor at the balcony, and he said "Nice weather we're having, eh?". To which I responded "What part of Canada are you from?". He laughed and said "Did I end a sentence with 'eh' again?". The host of the MTV program Ridiculousness, Rob Dyrdek, has an annoying habit of ending every other sentence with "You know what I mean?". I feel like yelling at him "YES! I know what you mean!". 

Kiwis/ New Zealanders always end the sentence with "eh" 

"It's good eh bro eh !

[Olddaddy]

18 hours ago, vinapu said:

I love when I hear that and my answer invariably is 'Noooo"

Usually cockneys ...

[PeterRS]

On 12/18/2025 at 6:07 AM, vinapu said:

sounds like Queen Mother

The favourite story about the Queen Mother is that she genuinely had a soft spot for gay men. Most of her household servants were gay. One day having woken from her afternoon nap and slightly annoyed that her tipple had not arrived, she went to the balcony and shouted down, "I don't know about you queens down there but this old queen is still waiting for her drink."  

[PeterRS]

On 12/18/2025 at 1:16 AM, Keithambrose said:

It sloppy thinking, often combined with 'you know', as in, 'like, you know'.    

I wonder if it really is sloppy thinking as opposed to bad upbringing, especially in schools. How to converse is as important as how to behave in public - and neither seems to be taught in schools any more.

[a-447]

A few years ago I watched a documentary on royal visits to Australia.

A young princess Anne was being interviewed.

'What do you think of Australia, love'?

She gave him a steely look.

'I'm your royal highness!'

Many people did not appreciate her putting him in his place. This is Australia - OUR place, not hers.

 

[unicorn]

7 hours ago, a-447 said:

...Many people did not appreciate her putting him in his place. This is Australia - OUR place, not hers.

When Australia wants to become a republic instead of a monarchy, they have only to vote and choose to do so. Until then, they can continue bowing and curtsying to their royal families. Charles III is still their king. Americans rejected the monarchy two and a half centuries ago:

 

[thaiophilus]

1 hour ago, unicorn said:

Americans rejected the monarchy two and a half centuries ago:

So what's it like, having an elected head of state?

[unicorn]

40 minutes ago, thaiophilus said:

So what's it like, having an elected head of state?

I must admit that at the current time, it would be nice to have a monarch or his representative call for a new election. My understanding though is that this almost never happens in any of Charles III's realms, so even that theoretical advantage doesn't seem to exist in practice. I suspect that a new Congress will put the brakes on Cheeto Benito's (and his lackey Speaker Mike Johnson, the closest we have to a Prime Minister) shenanigans in another year or so. At least the two years of unfettered power will show the US public what doofuses the Republicans are, and there won't be anyone else to blame. It would also be nice for the President of Israel to call for a new election, but it doesn't look as if that's ever going to happen. When the legislature and the country's political leader have unfettered power, disaster can occur, and this is almost always this is almost always the case in constitutional monarchies--prime ministers run the legislature. I have a feeling that despite Republican monkey-business attempts to dilute Democrats' votes, Johnson will lose the speakership in another year. 

At least in the US system, the legislature can put the brakes on the country's political leader. Johnson's too much of a pussy to get his nose out of Don the Con's ass. This is the first time Americans have elected a bona-fide convicted felon and con-artist to lead our country. Not all Presidents have been great, but this is the first time we've had a dictator--at least until the '26 elections.

[unicorn]

We just had a Australian guide give us a tour of a former whaling village in the South Shetland Islands. The Australian habit of pronouncing almost every vowel like a long "I" made it at times difficult for us to understand him. For example, he pointed to a structure and said "This is where they had their whiles...". It wasn't until he finished his sentence with "so they could obtain fresh water," that I understood he was saying "wells," which in Australia is pronounced the same as "whales" and "whiles" (it had occurred to me that the structure was too small to contain whales). 😉

[thaiophilus]

Aust

1 hour ago, unicorn said:

The Australian habit of pronouncing almost every vowel like a long "I" made it at times difficult for us to understand him.

It's not limited to Oz. There are parts of the USA where "marry", "merry" and "Mary" are all pronounced the same. 

"You are going to wed a cheerful girl who goes by the same name as the mother of Jesus?" "Yes, I'm about to marry merry Mary."

 

[unicorn]

One has to pronounce Mandarin Chinese carefully to say "Is Mom cursing the horse?"

Māmā mà mǎ ma?

妈妈 骂马吗?

[unicorn]

35 minutes ago, thaiophilus said:

...There are parts of the USA ...

Which parts?

[thaiophilus]

1 hour ago, unicorn said:

Which parts?

See the Wikipedia link I posted:  

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_vowel_changes_before_historic_/r/#Mary–marry–merry_merger

"The full Mary–marry–merry merger (also known, in this context, as the three-way merger) is found throughout much of the United States (particularly the Western and Central United States) and in all of Canada except Montreal.^[7] This is found in about 57% of American English speakers, according to a 2003 dialect survey.^[5] The merger is highlighted in the song Merry Go 'Round, whose central wordplay revolves around "Mary", "marry", and "merry" having the exact same pronunciation in the singer's accent."  

There's a map here (scroll down about halfway, or search for "Mary") : https://brilliantmaps.com/linguistic-maps-that-divide-americans/

 

 

[unicorn]

1 hour ago, thaiophilus said:

See the Wikipedia link I posted:  

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_vowel_changes_before_historic_/r/#Mary–marry–merry_merger

"The full Mary–marry–merry merger (also known, in this context, as the three-way merger) is found throughout much of the United States (particularly the Western and Central United States)...

I'm from the Far West (live in Los Angeles, grew up in Oakland), I don't pronounce merry and marry the same, thought Mary and marry are only slightly different. 

[jimmie50]

8 hours ago, unicorn said:

At least in the US system, the legislature can put the brakes on the country's political leader. Johnson's too much of a pussy to get his nose out of Don the Con's ass. This is the first time Americans have elected a bona-fide convicted felon and con-artist to lead our country. Not all Presidents have been great, but this is the first time we've had a dictator--at least until the '26 elections.

Let us hope and pray we can survive his stupidity and wrath until 2026, and that the people wake up and do elect enough from the opposition party to retake the House and Senate so that we can put a stop to this nonsense.  

[PeterRS]

12 hours ago, unicorn said:

At least in the US system, the legislature can put the brakes on the country's political leader.

But that really isn't true, is it? In theory it should be. But when a President has a majority in Congress, has the power to sign Executive Orders and has a Supreme Court that is weighted massively on political grounds, this is a good deal worse than the UK monarchy system. Trump has redefined what the American political system is capable of - and it's not very pretty. At least under a monarchy in the UK, the monarch has no say in the political system.

Naturally some monarchs have in the past have wielded an excess of power. (Perhaps it's a wonder that under King James VI and 1, the son of Mary Queen of Scots, more in the nation did not become gay ) But that was the system then. Now the monarch can influence but it is the two Houses of Parliament that decide policy.

My American friends tell me that Trump is an anomaly. That may well be. On the other hand, as countries move politically further from the centre and become more and more allied to right and left wings, it may not be. To my way of thinking it is a key problem with a two-party system. It splits the country more or less down the middle politically. Surely it can never have entered the minds of the founding fathers that the system of government they devised would throw up a King Donald. But it did and it has. And it is a perfect illustration of a country sticking blindly to a Constitution written centuries ago - even with the possiblity of amendments - when the founding fathers had no clue about the internet, the atomic bomb, the developments in flight and so on. The world changes, and countries have to adapt to that changing world.  

As for an elected President in the UK, I loathe the idea. That would have extended Margaret Thatcher's reign and thrown up an electorate bent on voting for past-it politicians or merry comic figures from the entertainment industry. I'll take my chance on a monarchy as the symbol of the Head of State.

[jimmie50]

1 hour ago, PeterRS said:

But that really isn't true, is it? In theory it should be.

You are correct.  This is no longer true.  In theory, yes, but the reality of our current situation is trump has pushed against and upset every set of norms.  The stacked supreme court is useless, as is the current congress, so there are no longer any checks and balances.  Our founding fathers must certainly be rolling over in their graves.  Politicians in general are no longer true statesmen with a willingness to compromise and do what is best for the country.  I don't believe they can even think for themselves.  They just follow their fearless leader blindly.  

[vinapu]

1 hour ago, PeterRS said:

And it is a perfect illustration of a country sticking blindly to a Constitution written centuries ago - even with the possiblity of amendments - when the founding fathers had no clue about the internet, the atomic bomb, the developments in flight and so on. The world changes, and countries have to adapt to that changing world.  

 

I can't agree more. Because document is outdated over years it become subject of judicial interpretations suiting often whatever prevailing mood or politcal situation was.

Gay marriage under the same constitution slavery was ? Few founding fathers no doubt are spinning in their graves

[vinapu]

30 minutes ago, jimmie50 said:

  I don't believe they can even think for themselves.  They just follow their fearless leader blindly.  

while at the same time lecturing North Koreans  how shackled and stupid they are 

[Pete1111]

Yes.  There are accents I wouldn't want to hear read an audiobook.