The Dominant Language On This Board Is British English

[freddiefunk]

Absolutely hilarious 'Rimmer'--Good job mate !

Reminds of a UK math professor I had at my university in the USA. He loved to tell stories and one time he got on the subject of student evaluations. He thought it was humorous that in a previous evaluation one student remarked that he spoke English pretty well for a foreigner!

[Lucifer]

Here, here, Rimmer.

[khundon]

Are you drunk or just having an acid flash-back??

Last time I checked; American English is the international language of the ENTIRE world. It is most defintely NOT that engrish <deleted> they pretend to speak in England.

Wake up and smell the SangSom (แสงโสม) my friend. ..

American English, that's a good one.

Is that what the pilgrim fathers spoke, I don't think so.

Go back to sleep.

[keemapoot]

Listening to Gordon Brown's speech in Washington this week I found my toes curling with embarrassment. Every time he said something clever or inspiring he ruined it with a soundbite of shameless flattery.

Evening Standard

Face it Brits. You are way past tense.

[Jingthing]

Its not a matter of superior or inferior but what is dominant on the board. If a Brit was posting on an American board he would sound silly using Brit usage. There are definitely more Brit expats here than any other Anglo country.

Edited March 6, 2009 by Jingthing

[Lucifer]

Listening to Gordon Brown's speech in Washington this week I found my toes curling with embarrassment. Every time he said something clever or inspiring he ruined it with a soundbite of shameless flattery.

Evening Standard

Face it Brits. You are way past tense.

Gordon Brown represents Britain about as much as George Bush represents Americans.

[keemapoot]

British English is archaic in today's world. The world moves on American English, in business communications, in technical documents, in news reports, in scientific exchanges; in virtually everything.

This forum is an exception...a throwback to the old times.... Nothing wrong with that, it's good to have some legacy experiences in life.

[allexx]

I am American but I can't help but noticing that the dominant language here is British English.That is why I now use the word whinge instead of whine, and will now switch to colour over color. Why not just make this the official language of the board: British English.

(I surrender, redcoats!)

Does it matter?, as long as we understand each other.

[dumball]

I thought languages were brought about for the purpose of communication , not constant conflict , as long as you get your point across , what is the point in going on about who/what/where/when or how , get the point ? .

[sassienie]

Jingy thingy, you’re at it again

What with your disastrous race and religious wind ups, now you are trying to split hairs about what sort of English grammar is used on ThaiVisa.

Really, does anyone give a toss whether someone describes a person living next door to them as a Neighbor or Neighbour or describes a shade as color or colour.

I am from England and have Australian, American and British friends. As far as I’m concerned we all speak the same language and couldn’t give a rats arse how they spell their words to me in an email or on Thaivisa.

Get a life, Jingy Thingy, no ones interested.

[Ijustwannateach]

What, what?

[Jingthing]

Get a life, Jingy Thingy, no ones interested.

Just another topic for discussion.

This forum is an exception...a throwback to the old times.... Nothing wrong with that, it's good to have some legacy experiences in life

.

Thats a bit ridiculous. Would you say any British based board is a throwback? Ballocks. Its just British. Actually the Brits have a lot to teach us colonials about how to deal with a crumbling empire.

Another impression I have about Brits and Americans in Pattaya specifically. The Americans living here incorporate more British expressions into their usage than the Brits incorporate Americanisms. I am not assigning a value judgment to this, just an observation. You won't find many Americans saying things like SPOT ON or BRILLIANT in the US, but you will here.

Edited March 6, 2009 by Jingthing

[henryalleman]

I'm not a native English speaker but I try to do my best to make people to understand my meaning, Google spelling is a great help.

BTW I always thought that Oxford English is a worldwide standard.

I thanks the OP that he wrote that Americans talk English, I was convinced that it was some local language who had not much in common with the English language

BTW I realy dislike all the fuzzy daddies who make remarks about spelling. Do they realize that a large part of the members are non-English speakers.

Edited March 6, 2009 by henryalleman

[oevna]

The predominant use of British English on this forum has been an great added benefit for me as it has helped increase my vocabulary of Brit and Aussie slang. I spend a great deal of time in Oz and have many Aussie friends however the forum has helped me pick up many new words and phrases that I had never heard before. On the spoken level, I think American English has bastardized British English mostly by the way we yanks run our words together. IMHO, compared to an American accent, an educated British accent has a lot more class and an Aussie accent is much more colourful. British English is hands down the winner with me but I must admit that I still find the word 'whine' to have a better ring to it than the word 'whinge'.

What is an "educated British accent?" A British accent spoken by a man from what part of England?

"It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him."

-- George Bernard Shaw

Of course, Shaw was actually Irish, but I won't go there...

[dumball]

The predominant use of British English on this forum has been an great added benefit for me as it has helped increase my vocabulary of Brit and Aussie slang. I spend a great deal of time in Oz and have many Aussie friends however the forum has helped me pick up many new words and phrases that I had never heard before. On the spoken level, I think American English has bastardized British English mostly by the way we yanks run our words together. IMHO, compared to an American accent, an educated British accent has a lot more class and an Aussie accent is much more colourful. British English is hands down the winner with me but I must admit that I still find the word 'whine' to have a better ring to it than the word 'whinge'.

What is an "educated British accent?" A British accent spoken by a man from what part of England?

"It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him."

-- George Bernard Shaw

Of course, Shaw was actually Irish, but I won't go there...

Tha aia be Bri'ol mucker , I wer born, bred un edificaéd ther , but then, thee ousent if thee coust , oust !!!!!!!

[spud1]

Are you drunk or just having an acid flash-back??

Last time I checked; American English is the international language of the ENTIRE world. It is most defintely NOT that engrish <deleted> they pretend to speak in England.

Wake up and smell the SangSom (แสงโสม) my friend. ..

Yo yanky doodle dandy,"wold" be my pleasure to speak same has them inbred rednecks on Jerry Springer (good to see independence was a success) or the shit thos rappers sing,no wat i mean homie,respect wat am takin bout.I,m packin so dont diss me man .Total bollo-ks.PS Have a nice day.

[dave_boo]

Maybe I can offer the following ideas that I unashamadly collected as being a good idea at the time.

Maybe we could build on the language thing as many people feel that the good ole colony of the US of A should revert to it's former rule from Westminister and would therefore benefit from the following:

Your new prime minister, Gordon Brown, would appoint a governor for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether anyone noticed.

If y'all don't want him, what makes you think we would?

To aid in the transition to a British Crown Colony, the following rules would be introduced with immediate effect: You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary.

1. Then look up aluminium, and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.

Considering Sir Humphry Davy is the gentleman who 'discovered' aluminum, and did NOT spell it as the British currently enjoy spelling it. That didn't happen until a political-literary journal (!) stated that it wasn't 'classical sounding enough'. IUPAC allows both spellings.

2. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour.' Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters, and the suffix-ize will be replaced by the suffix -ise. Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up 'vocabulary').

Why continue usage of vestigial letters that are unnecessary? Futhermore, looking up in Oxford English dictionary you'll find numerous examples of the 'ize' suffix, such as standardize. Had the 19th century English not been so francophiles, and stuck with their Germanic roots, words would still be spelled properly.

3. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as US English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell- checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of -ize.

Unfortunate that there are numerous examples of a limited vocabulary, however that is not a strictly American phenemon. For example, the wife cringes at the British over usage of fuc_k. Could you please explain to your country members that every third word does not need to be of that persuasion?

4. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.

Bit of a sore point for the British I guess. Will we get to celebrate every former King's birthday? Would do wonders if they were paid vacations!

5. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.

Guess we'll have to learn how to give each other Chelsea smiles?

6. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. A permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

7. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and this is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.

Wonder why you didn't propose English cars....

8. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

Kinda hard to drink a pint of Guinness (that wunderbar IRISH stout) if you're using metric....Plus the US made the automobile available to the masses, so why would we listen to a bit player in the market?

9. The Former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline)-roughly $10 per US gallon. Get used to it.

Glad you're willing to fund layabouts; not everyone believes in government controlling the citizens, some believe in the citizens controlling government.

10. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips,

and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.

Agreed, thick cut (which if you didn't assume that McDonalds was American cuisine you'd know we have) is the best. However, I will NOT give up my BBQ sauce!

11. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth,

only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. South African beer is also acceptable as they are pound for pound the greatest sporting nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of British Commonwealth - see what it did for them.

So sad that those who have never been to America assume they know all things American. The crap we export pales in comparisons to the excellent micro-breweries that are churning out the good stuff. Saint Arnolds, Shiner, Sam Adams, etc.

12. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie McDowell attempt English dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.

Perhaps England should go ahead and start their own film industry. Of course, with the exception of Guy Ritchie (who really needs to expand out of his genre) who do you have as a director?

13. You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies). Don't try Rugby - the South Africans and Kiwis will thrash you, like they regularly thrash us.

Bunch of nancies...555! Only real footballer that England has produced is Vinny Jones. Every other one needs to join the fledgling film industry suggested in the last paragraph due to their proponesity of acting and attempting to get a card flashed against the other team. How can you enjoy a sport that consists of boring passes up and down a field and a few shots on goals. Everyone knows the best sport in the world is Hockey.

14. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the South Africans first to take the sting out of their deliveries.

The world does consist of Canada and the US. Of course since exactly 0.01% of your population knows that Canada also fields professional baseball teams (the rest of the population just spouts nonsense), the error is understandable. And cricket is only slightly more interesting than soccer, but it's understandable how two sports that are designed for the least common denominator in terms of intelligence could spring forth from such a country.

15. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.

It was the Daleks. You're welcome.

16. An official from The Inland Revenue (i.e. tax collector) will be with you shortly to ensure the collection of all monies due (backdated to 1776). Until these are paid, there will be no representative government in the USA, in line with the policy: "No representation without taxation".

Will settle up. Of course there's the small problem of the Lend-Lease program never having been resolved. Oh, and there's the issue of the charges that will need to be levied for the services provided in cleaning up the waterways (see Barbary pirates for one example).

17. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 pm with proper cups and saucers (never mugs), and with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; strawberries in season.

Might interfere with Siesta...

18. Some tea has gone missing, and we expect it back. We'll be searching Boston first.

Believe it has ridden the Gulf Stream and is now somewhere on the west coast of Ireland.

So there!!

I hasten to add for those with no sense of humor that the above is what the English call 'Tongue in cheek' humor

Per your own rules you mis-spelled humour. I'll let it slide though.

You won't find many Americans saying things like SPOT ON or BRILLIANT in the US, but you will here.

Wouldn't call those living in Pattaya the creme-de-la-creme of society. I mean seriously, they're all ex-SAS or CIA and so they're extremely worldly in the words and deeds!

[bigtimeali]

now then

i have lived in a few countries(dare i say farang) and the native languages are dying out, i.e. wales and flemish) and i am very proud of the english laugauge, its forever growing, always ammendments every year. i do not like american "english"!!! why change something that already exists!!! it makes it hard for dyslexics!!!!! and whats with the change in volumes for the same word!!! a gallon is a gallon!!!!

[dave_boo]

now then

i have lived in a few countries(dare i say farang) and the native languages are dying out, i.e. wales and flemish) and i am very proud of the english laugauge, its forever growing, always ammendments every year. i do not like american "english"!!! why change something that already exists!!! it makes it hard for dyslexics!!!!! and whats with the change in volumes for the same word!!! a gallon is a gallon!!!!

Technically, the US is using the correct measure of Gallon set forth during Queen Anne's reign. It wasn't until the French started using the Metric system that England decided to copy them and 'standardize' the gallon by stating it was the volume occupied by 10 pounds of water rather than the old 231 cubic inches (approximately the amount in a container 6 inches deep and 7 inches in diameter)....so complain to the English for changing something that already existed and was defined by the English!

[Dakhar]

Maybe I can offer the following ideas that I unashamadly collected as being a good idea at the time.

Maybe we could build on the language thing as many people feel that the good ole colony of the US of A should revert to it's former rule from Westminister and would therefore benefit from the following:

Your new prime minister, Gordon Brown, would appoint a governor for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether anyone noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown Colony, the following rules would be introduced with immediate effect: You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary.

1. Then look up aluminium, and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.

2. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour.' Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters, and the suffix-ize will be replaced by the suffix -ise. Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up 'vocabulary').

3. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as US English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell- checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of -ize.

4. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.

5. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.

6. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. A permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

7. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and this is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.

8. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

9. The Former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline)-roughly $10 per US gallon. Get used to it.

10. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips,

and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.

11. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth,

only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. South African beer is also acceptable as they are pound for pound the greatest sporting nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of British Commonwealth - see what it did for them.

12. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie McDowell attempt English dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.

13. You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies). Don't try Rugby - the South Africans and Kiwis will thrash you, like they regularly thrash us.

14. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the South Africans first to take the sting out of their deliveries.

15. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.

16. An official from The Inland Revenue (i.e. tax collector) will be with you shortly to ensure the collection of all monies due (backdated to 1776). Until these are paid, there will be no representative government in the USA, in line with the policy: "No representation without taxation".

17. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 pm with proper cups and saucers (never mugs), and with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; strawberries in season.

18. Some tea has gone missing, and we expect it back. We'll be searching Boston first.

So there!!

I hasten to add for those with no sense of humor that the above is what the English call 'Tongue in cheek' humor

Ok, I am fine with the above, but can we still be alowed to brush our teeth, and can women continue to wear a bra if they so desire?

[neverdie]

6. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. A permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

I once read about a statistic on the number of people injured by vegetable peelers every year, the number was surprisingly high. Perhpas you might like to replace the peeler with a tea spoon or something a little less dangerous, afterall this is the yanks ur referring to

[bigtimeali]

dave-boo!!!! comments are class, i like. well blow me down with a feather, thee learns something everyday, glad you inherited the english sense of humour(humor) but the end of the day is that english is english!!!!!!!! english is the finacial and engineering laungauge of choice and no amount of dillution will change my langauge!!!! forever forward, we make you bastardize!!!!!!!!

[PhilHarries]

I am American but I can't help but noticing that the dominant language here is British English.That is why I now use the word whinge instead of whine, and will now switch to colour over color. Why not just make this the official language of the board: British English.

(I surrender, redcoats!)

Us Welsh will stay out of this one but could you be more precise?

Also excluding our Celtic allies do you want:-

Geordie (Newcastle) English?

Scouser (Liverpool) English?

Yorky (Yorkshire) English?

Mancunian (Manchester) English?

Sh1t I'm not even down to the midlands yet.

Brummie (Birmingham) English?

Oxford (Proper) English?

Bumkin (Norfolk/Suffolk) English?

Cockney (East London) English?

Kensington (West London) English?

'ampshire (Southern England) English?

Brissle (Bristol) English)?

enough choices I think. I apologise to those I missed out but I just wanted to be sure that our ex colonial cousin realises that there is no one British English.

I think we are fine with whatever version of English you wish to use as it is a foriegn language to more people than it is not. I am fairly fluent in American English and can even do a bit of 'strine when I am tryng to distance myself from some bunch of plonkers claiming to be British in a bar somewhere in the world.

We could always revert to Chaucerian English : "He nevere yet no vileynye ne sayde / In all his lyf unto no maner wight."

[dave_boo]

dave-boo!!!! comments are class, i like. well blow me down with a feather, thee learns something everyday, glad you inherited the english sense of humour(humor) but the end of the day is that english is english!!!!!!!! english is the finacial and engineering laungauge of choice and no amount of dillution will change my langauge!!!! forever forward, we make you bastardize!!!!!!!!

I love the English language. I also have no delusions that what will be spoken in say 50 years will be quite different than what I am used to hearing as the language expands and grows. Add in the global aspect, which you alluded to, and I wouldn't be suprised if before I finally float belly up that there will be a huge influx of Indian and Chinese words much as there was from the Romans, Germanics, Normans, and Norse. That's the beauty of the language. It follows others down a dark alley, beats them over the head, and rummages them for loose vocabulary.

We could always revert to Chaucerian English : "He nevere yet no vileynye ne sayde / In all his lyf unto no maner wight."

Don't even have to go back that far; look at William Shakespeare! However, it is quite beautiful (as such a messed up language can be), and the tone and grammar from King James I era, often called Jacobean prose, which was presented to the world by such great writers as Shakespeare, Donn, Jonson, Chapman and Bacon has always filled me with great pride of having been born able to enjoy such classics.

[PeaceBlondie]

At the end of the day, when it's all said and done [british], and the fat lady sings [san Antonio, Texas ], after the siesta when the coyote sings [spanish and Nahuatl], it's a great language to speak when you're eating pizza on the plaza [italian and Romance].

[thaimiller]

Yanks are always making language simpler. "Night" becomes "Nite", "Tyre" becomes "Tire", "Orientated" gets shortened to the meaningless "Oriented", and "I'm A Right <deleted>" gets shortened to "american"

[dave_boo]

Yanks are always making language simpler. "Night" becomes "Nite", "Tyre" becomes "Tire", "Orientated" gets shortened to the meaningless "Oriented", and "I'm A Right <deleted>" gets shortened to "american"

I'm confused, is that an "a" or an "i" that was abbreviated out of your overly witty reply?

Sorry you're confusing slang (in the case of 'nite') and also are unable to grasp the nuance of the difference of orientated (which is generally used in the form of orientation denoting a condensing of course taken in the begining of a school's year) and oriented which is quite properly used in technical discussions or that you which to describe a specific orientation. Check out Oxford's explaination. Oh, and the British were the first to use 'tire' but, once again (I'm assuming!) to demonstrate their overwhelming love for all things french, started using 'tyre' in the 1800's.....

**edit** keyboard went crazy and gave me 1/2 of a post.

Edited March 7, 2009 by dave_boo

[PeaceBlondie]

Dave is rite. I mean, right. American shorthand is not the normal spelling. Thru is acceptable for through, however, whose sound is confused with cough and enough, and whose spelling is confused with though.

Noah Webster is credited with dropping unnecessary vowels from colour and favour in the early 1800's when he wrote the first American English dictionary. Pick up a King James Version or any Shakespeare if you want to read the British English that Webster replaced.

But this is silly. Surely in classrooms where native speakers teach English to foreign children (immigrants or residents), they drop their regional accents as they cross the threshold. They speak standard English, which is neither Brit nor Yank.

I just spent time with Brits and Kiwis. I had to strain to understand much of it, and they may not have understood my Chicago-Texas accent. But it was casual; no problem.

[Cuban]

British English is archaic in today's world. The world moves on American English, in business communications, in technical documents, in news reports, in scientific exchanges; in virtually everything.

I do not believe this is the case, although it may depend on the circles that you move within. One may wear the finest Italian suit, have a discreet but expensive hand crafted watch (thin is better) but it is when you open your mouth that you reveal who you truely are.

American 'words' and spellings may preveal in the written word but the language is English in origin,. If you dig into the history of this global Linga Franca (!) you will find that some British English pronunciation is in fact 'new', and some of what is seen as modern 'American' is in fact the original English from the times of the pilgrim fathers. At one point German was likely to become the first language of the emerging colonies of The Americas.

Every language reveals more detail of the person by the accent with which they speak, I try to ensure I learn only 'Thai' words from my wife and staff at work rather than Issan or Lao slang, as it were; in another thread on this board the choice to speak Thai or remain 'dumb' is wise - it can reveal what type of farang you are by showing where you leant your spoken or written Thai.

Langauge changes with time, few people outside padded cells speak received English (rp) of the 1900s, however if one speaks with a certain English accent from what is seen as the better parts (?) of England (rather than Northern Irish or the center of Birmingham) you can be as thick as a box of doughnuts but seen to have an education.

While we are on this subject, it is only New Zealanders that I have encountered that 'naturally' use the correct pronuciation of the word: 'data'

Krup.

[BEENTHEREDONETHAT]

The aussies have the most interesting version of english. They are masters at making words shorter. And defintely more fun to listen to, once you get the hang of it.