Doo De Doo De Doo

As you probably know by now, I love the English language. Particularly its ambiguities of spelling. Homonyms are my bread and butter. Which is funny in itself, because I currently have no bread or butter in the house, and have never used a homonym to make a sandwich, and yet you understood exactly what I was getting at.

Hmmm.... a homonym sandwich with cheese and Marmite. Could work.

This particular post was prompted by my good friend Cindy, with whom I have spoken to on the phone a couple of times.

Now, for a Kiwi, half the fun of talking to an American is gently making fun of their accent.

"Say duty"

"Doody."

*snigger snigger*

"Say data."

"Dayta."

*snigger snigger*

I never claimed to be particularly mature. Let it go.

This can even be localised. Nothing's funnier to me than asking a Southlander to say purple. "Paaarlpul." Ah yes, the good ol' southern accent.

Accents can be funny. But on the whole we can understand each other.

But then there are the funny stories of people going into a sh0p and needing somebody to translate English into English so everyone can understand each other through the accents.

I've heard that one of my favourite films, Trainspotting, was nearly given subtitles in America, even though it is simply English with a Scottish accent. I've read American reviews of the film saying: "Don't worry, you can work out what they're saying after about half-an-hour."

Watching the DVDs with the subtitles on can be interesting, too. I think they've cleaned up their act a bit now, but there used to be times where the character would say: "I'm fucking sick of this fucking shit!" and the subtitle would read: "Gosh, I'm upset about this!" ... Like deaf people aren't allowed to swear.

Right. Well, I didn't have a point, and I feel I've made it.

I hope you understand my written accent. I could read it aloud, but you probably wouldn't understand me.