Cathy in NZ writes:
<<I also have a English/American/other problem :-) >>
Me, too :) I spent 2 years in Australia, parts of 7-9 grades. I well
remember taking a spelling test my first day in Australian school...and
FLUNKED it because a) I didn't know the Queen's English added all those
Us to words like honor, color, etc and b) the teacher made no allowance
for someone coming from another country and still jet-lagged to boot.
Sheesh :) I also remember meeting my future teacher the day we arrived
in Alice Springs. I couldn't understand a word he said, and was
panicked about going to school the next day. But the accent must have
somehow 'clicked' and I had no trouble with it after that.
Then there's advertise vs advertize, etc--the z always makes more sense
to me, so there's a British spelling I've kept.
I'm messed up in other ways as well. I can never remember which is the
American and which the British way to pronounce geyser, for example. Is
it "gay-zer" or is it "guy-zer"?
My daughter sent me a Tolkien language website that illuminated another
problem I have, this time with punctuation. Do you put the punctuation
at the end of a quoted sentence inside the quotes or out? I never liked
the American way; it seems totally illogical (quotes always seem to be
on the outside, even when the quoted section is a fragment not attached
to the punctuation). At last, I find out why--it's because I
unconsciously adopted the British way of doing it! Nice to know where
that little trap comes from, finally :) Although, since I don't
remember it in Australia, perhaps it was absorbed from all those English
books I like to read.
Cathy also writes:
<<then there are the Dish Cloths which we call Tea Towels. A dishcloth
here is some you wipe the bench with. Oops I mean counter top :-) >>
Maybe it's another way in which I'm messed up, but I call tea towels
dish towels, while the cloth that wipes the bench, table, counter,
dishes, etc is a dish rag.
I like tea towel better :)
Holly
who really wants to have a tea party today, with homemade scones and a
Brown Betty pot that was purchased in Australia over 30 years ago--we'll
use tea towels today :) (Only 3 1/2 towels--dish or tea--to go on the
BIG PROJECT and then I'm done weaving them! Yippee!)
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