On Fri, 07 Oct 2005 00:33:43 -0000, Grant Edwards <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>On 2005-10-06, DaveM <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >>>Frankly, I can't watch Shakespeare or movies like "the full >>>monty" or "trainspotting" because I can't understand a damn >>>word they say. British talk sounds like gibberish to me for the >>>most part. >> >> Not just you. It always amuses me in trips to the US that >> British voices (outside of the movies) are often subtitled, >> while first-generation Americans whose English is. um, >> limited, are not. > >What?!? I've never seen a British voice (inside or outside of >the movies) subtitled -- with the exception of one of a >nightclub scenes in one movie (I think it was Trainspotting) >where the dialog was inaudible because of the music. I noticed this watching news footage rather than imported shows. I haven't seen 'Trainspotting', but I have seen Scottish accents subtitled (unnecessarily) on English TV, to understandable anger across the border - so this isn't uniquely a US phenomenon, to be fair. <snip> >For example: In British English one uses a plural verb when the >subject consists of more than one person. Sports teams, >government departments, states, corporations etc. are >grammatically plural. In American, the verb agrees with the >word that is the subject, not how many people are denoted by >that word. > >In sports (thats "sport" for you Brits): Yes. > American: Minnesota is behind 7-0. The Vikings are behind 7-0. > British: Minnesota are behind 7-0. The Vikings are behind 7-0. True. >In politics: > American: The war department has decided to cancel the program. > British: The war department have decided to cancel the program. Not sure about this one. They may be used interchangeably as neither strikes me as sounding "odd". DaveM -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
