Translation for our Geordie friends. Goodness gracious me, now that is a strange occurance, lets have no doubt about that. (Arse bout roit innit bor)?
I'm just saying that if you played a sound clip of e.g. "You Monkey" and gave 100 second language listeners the choice of selecting: a) You Monkey b) You Mikel You would not get a reliable 100% on a)
Clattenburg had a shocker at the weekend, no doubt about it, but I can't see him being foolish enough to make such a comment, either way, mud sticks and human nature means many people will just be of the opinion it happened but couldn't be proven. As for someone misunderstanding the Geordie accent, who knows, lots of good points have been made, how it would sound to someone not familiar with it, or to a none English speaker, either way damage has been done and the press are not going to let it blow over.
That was really the thrust of my OP.Mrs CT is a fluent French speaker ans she went to the Sorbonne in Paris.When we are on holiday in the wilder areas down South (I don't mean Croydon) She struggles to understand the local patois.I once heard a group of teenagers chatting on the platform at Jarrow station and I thought that they were foreign.
Haha, I live in Jarrow, alas I know what you mean. I speak with a Tyneside accent, I use very little Geordie, but I was in Sunderland a couple of weeks ago, I was in a queue in a shop, a lady in front of me who happened to be American said she couldn't distinguish between my accent, and the girl who was serving her, (who had a distinctly Mackem accent), either way although English speaking, she found our acccents difficult to understand.
Talking of accents and where you live - I was getting my usual train from Cambridge to Norwich that goes through Wymondham. There was a guy opposite me clearly not from the area who pronounced it as Wymondham and thought the guy on the PA was getting it wrong by calling it Wyndham. He didn't believe me when I corrected him!
There was a time when BBC presenters, news readers and weather persons regarded it as important to pronounce UK place names correctly and actually know where those places are. Now they couldn't care less and think the really important thing is to be up with the latest on the pop music scene. "Oh!, what a fall was there, my countrymen." Shakespeare Julius Caesar.
Giving two options would create doubt though. Ask them to spell out what they said instead, and I'm sure you would get a significant drop in the amount of words resembling monkey than compared to how many chose a) out of the straight choice.
I quite like the local accents and it's a shame that they are being lost.I like the North East too,an area with it's own distinctive culture and much more attractive than it gets credit for.You can also get a decent Sauvignon Blanc in Jesmond.
Sorry Cruyff, but you've really gone too far this time. You can't get "a decent Sauvignon Blanc" ANYWHERE in this country. Did you know that the British are virtually the only people on the entire planet who will drink vast quantities of truly dry wine? Go into any supermarket and off-licence and the shelves are weighed down with faux acid. I take a pair of knee pads with me, because the half decent wine -- if there is any -- is always on the bottom shelf! When French growers produce a dry wine they know they'll never sell to a Frenchman, they ship it to the UK -- or to the channel ferry ports where it will be bought by the trolley load.
But this is the argument isn't it? Was he called by name, or the worse connotation? The test is certainly a weak one and getting them to transcribe what they heard depends on their intelligibility of the accent they listen to. If they are familiar with the accent the transcription would be pretty accurate. However if not, they may write down all kinds of things: You Money You Money Key You Mono Key You Mickey So what was heard depends on familiarity with the accent and what you think you hear. I've misheard stuff all my life (e.g. always get the words to songs wrong and am really surprised when I find out what the actual words are). I'm just stating that things can be misheard/misconstrued all too easily.
Dry White Burgundy's? Chablis? Vouvray and Muscadet from the Loire? Champagne? etc etc. Blimey I don't know where you shop for wine?
Hang on ILD, I didn't say you couldn't get a half-decent dry-ish white wine in this country. None of the (good) white wines you mention -- White Burgundy, Chablis, Vouvray, Muscadet, Champagne -- are made from Sauvignon Blanc grapes. It is true that lots of the Chardonnay drunk in this country also qualifies as what I call faux acid, but I agree there are some very drinkable wines of those varieties as well. My general point was that the natives of the wine growing countries do not, by and large, favour very dry wine. That is a distinctively British taste.
