American "T"

T's in the middle of a word get "swallowed", like a spaniard from andalucia will swallow his ending consonant. Bottle becomes "boddle", mountain becomes "mount-n", rather than the british "moun-TAIN". With words like "late" and "retail" the t sound is more pronounced, I think because there are vowels on both sides, which pop the t a little more.

I do not know why the British call the AMericans Yanks. My family call Americans Yanks, and I asked the one time, and they said, that is just what you call them in an informal way (I feel kind of special because they do not consider me a "Yank" :-)

However, I do not like it when the British call Americans Yanks, or when the Americans call the British Brits. It just seems demeaning and insulting.

Clark, I can understand your displeasure at being called a Yank but I don't think that calling the British Brits is demeaning or insulting. Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians readily refer to themselves as Aussies, Kiwis and canucks. Likewise, I've heard many British proudly refer to themselves as Brits. Now, calling the English poms or pommy (as we Aussies do) can be demeaning, but even in this case it depends on the inflection, because it can be said in a friendly way. Australians sometimes use words that are considered "insulting" in a friendly or endearing or humourous context. For example, "come here ya great big bastard" can be said in a cheeky, friendly sort of way where the use of the word bastard is not meant to be insulting. Likewise, refering to the English as poms has now become an almost common part of the Australia-England relationship, where pommy (prisoner of mother England) is said without the intent of it being insulting. This does not discount the fact that "pom" can and is said in an insulting way (eg. "go home ya whinging pom"). The term yank is generally used by the older generation of Australians in my experience, where the younger generation tends to say American instead of yank. Even "yank" can be said in a non-insulting way. I think it's just a cultural thing, especially since Australian english encompasses so much slang. A more insulting term I've heard being used in reference to Americans is "septic tank", which is rhyming slang for yank.

I don't consider being called a Yank insulting at all. I just know that many southerners do. I think it's cool to have short names to call people from different locations to help identify them. Do people from Newcastle find the term "Geordie" insulting? No. Do people from East London find "Cockney" insulting? No. Yank is the same kind of term as those two above. The British are the biggest "name callers" in the world probably, so I doubt they have a problem with us calling them an innocuous term like "Brits."

Rugger, what do you call people from South Africa, by the way? I know you guys have a big rivalry in rugby but I've never heard a term for them except "Springboks" which is the name of their rugby team, of course.

Ryan

The reason I do not like it is because everytime I hear either Brits or Yanks, the tone of the person saying it is like, "those silly people; can't get anything right."

So this is why I have a hard time with it; in America or in Britain.

As for the Southerners calling Northerners Yanks, I do not really care. I think this is because when I hear Southerners say "Yanks," they do not have the tome I hear when Americans call the British "Brits," or the British call the Americans "Yanks."

Hi Ryan, I'm a big rugby union fan (hence my name) and a cricket fan. South Africa participates in both of these sports, and yes there is great rivalry between the southern hemisphere rugby teams Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. I've heard people from Zimbabwe and South Africa call themselves "Zimbos" and "Saffers". "Springboks" only refers to the South African rugby team and not the South African people, just as the "All Blacks" refers to the New Zealand rugby team, "Wallabies" refers to the Australian rugby team, and "Lions" refers to the English rugby team.

Golly, cricket is so boring.

Chap 1, I think that generally people either love cricket or they hate it. It is an intricate game with numerous rules, laws, and names for everything from the different fielding positions to the type of bowling action. But once you understand these intricacies you start to enjoy the game itself. It's like chess, which appears complicated and thus rendered "boring" to the novice but can be addictive to those that are accomplished for the stratergy involved. It also helps that you have a national side to berrick for, and I can understand say an American not finding an Australian vs India cricket match exciting for this reason. I grew up with cricket since my father is both an avid player and fan and also umpires on weekends. I played criket in school. I have memories of summer holidays when our home was filled with radio/TV cricket commentries, of my father taking me to the Melbourne Cricket Ground to see players like Brian Lara and Sachin Tendulkar in action, and of staying up until 3.00 am in the morning to watch a cricket world cup final. All of this adds to why I am passionate about cricket. Similar reasons are probably why some Americans are passionate about baseball, while to me it is just a more complicated version of a rounders game.

I see, Rugger. Of course, I get your passion for it. I think that baseball is very, very boring as well. So is rounders, mini-rounders, etc.

Baseball played with a bat, rounders played with a round paddle, cricket played with a long paddle. Am I correct?

Baseball is boring, and I'm an American. It's more relaxing than anything to go to a baseball stadium and watch a game for three hours and eat hotdogs and drink beer. If you want to cheer and make a lot of noise, baseball is not a good sport, although they do seem to raise quite a ruckus in Japan somehow.

Rugger, I have never enjoyed rugby but I do like Aussie Rules Football. From what I've read, there is a lot of regionalism in Australia when it comes to sports. AFL is not as popular in NSW and Queensland, and rugby is not as popular in Victoria and South Australia. AFL seems to be growing in popularity in Brisbane, though. I have heard of a different kind of AFL in Perth too. Why is there so much regionalism in Australian sport? In the UK everyone loves football except perhaps the Welsh, and in the USA we all love our American football everywhere.

Ryan

There has always been a rivalry between Victoria and New South Wales. Australian Football was invented in Victoria and was gradually adopted by Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania but New South Wales and Queensland decided to adopt the code from England in the form of rugby.

Australian Football developed from Gaelic Football. Every year, Australia plays Ireland in a special cross code game.

The reason for regionalism is that in the beginning, the different states were very separate (different postal services, even different train guages).

As an Englishman, Australian Football just looks completely nuts. I tried to watch it once but couldn't stop laughing: the round pitch, the "cricket umpires" with their funny hand gestures, the way they punch pass the ball, seeing people dribbling an oval ball as in basket ball, ridiculously high scores... Classic.

I like watching the jumping and fighting for marks in Aussie Football. It has all the appeal of basketball but with full contact and some of the aesthetic appeal of soccer but with more scoring. There's too much slowness in American football and too many scrums and backwards passes in rugby. I think everyone kind of enjoys the sport who watches it but consider it some kind of weird Aussie cultural tradition and don't think of the idea of truly importing it professionally to their own country. It's a shame because I can't think of too many things wrong with the sport even though soccer will always be my favorite because of its sheer beauty.

Ryan

"Raiders! Raiders! Raiders! Woo hooo!!!..... Oops... wrong football...

Since we are supposed to be talking about English T's here something I didn't see y'all post:

Future, Amateur, Furniture. The T's in these have a "ch" sound to them. (though I've heard some people pronounce amateur '@-mah-toor' instead of '@-mah-chur')

[]My $0.02 :)[]