This is all very interesting (really, no sarcasm), but the only thing I want to add right now is that Peter Sellers was a master of accents/dialects in the english language - has anyone seen the pre-taped interview he did for Dr Strangelove where he rattles off a lot of different british dialetcs rather impressively ? Sorry to digress, now I'm off to bed

Doesn't anyone teach listening skills?

Apparently not. As a Brit I have occasional difficulty understanding our colonial cousins from the USA, Australia, NZ and about 1/6 of the worlds surface.

Just say "eh?", they understand and will rephrase in vaguely understandable English. Independence .... this is what you get

Edited December 15, 200718 yr by yorkman

One thing that I have noticed recently is converting nouns into verbs, toady I heard 'journaling' & 'languaging'. a word of advice to those on this forum who either do it or are thinking of doing it - PLEASE DON'T!