Shoe by Gary Brookins and Susie MacNelly for March 07, 2021

Blimey…..

Maybe use subtitles?

You can’t watch them on a t.v….you have watch them on a telly…

Depending on the dialect, captioning might be called for.

As they say, America and England are two countries separated by a common language.

Could be worse. At least you don’t have Mac Manc McManx hanging around.

I like to think I’m pretty good with accents, but I’ll still turn on closed captioning when I’m watching Doctor Who—the dialog zooms by so quickly and is so important for following the storyline that I need all the help I can get.

Cocney slang ?

Cherrio, pip pip!

You do get used to it eventually. Some shows are worse than others.

We use closed captioning

I’ve watched some really good BBC series, way better than US stuff, but I have to use closed captions to understand them.

British crime stories are the best!

I put closed captioning on with Brittish programs, I am just a bit hard of hearing and I do have trouble catching it all.

I tell folks that I’m tri-lingual. I’m native American speaking, fairly fluent in Canadian, and do very well in British. I can probably get by in Australian.

Given up on Netflix, mostly BritBox and Acorn now, the latter helps me keep up on my ’strine

One of the finest TV series ever produced, IMHO, is the three-season run of “Detectorists.” Be prepared to fall in love; it’s available on Acorn.

I have fun going to GB and trying to remember the proper words and pronunciation. As with all countries I visit I try and adapt to the language /culture. Makes it much more fun. If I am going to a non-English speaking country I try and learn a few words usually hello, goodbye, please and thank you. On recent last minute trip to France I was studying on the plane!

If you’re talking about Geordie, even most Brits need subtitles.

lot of fine work in this one. Worthy of print.

I set my DVR to record all the UK shows I like. I can then rewind and listen again, and sometimes again and again, to phrases I don’t understand the first time at normal volume.

Is it racist to say that I wish ‘some’ of our Asian, first or second generation, immigrants (for me, notably at work) came with subtitles? Sorry to say, and especially when there’s background noise.

I was watching some show from New Zealand. I think it was some sort of documentary. They were talking to a lorry driver and I definitely needed closed captions for this bloke. His Kiwi accent was beyond incomprehensible to this American.

When we’re watching British shows, Mrs. Baker always insists on stopping, rewinding, and deciphering. I’m more like, “Hey, it’s the Daleks. They hate the Doctor and they want to exterminate stuff.”

My Ecuadoran wife tries to improve her English comprehension by watching television programs broadcast in English. She enjoys the ones that have Spanish subtitles so she can “cheat” read. In most of the American programs – even without subtitles – she can grasp the essence of the plot – but I find myself having to translate or explain some British-made productions.

We were watching a program about heavy equipment haulers in England. My wife asked me what language the truckers were speaking in. I had to explain that it was English, but it was Geordie English. Their accents were so thick that even I had a hard time deciphering everything they said.

Got that right

right on. 2 problems… one, for a rather small nation they speak a large number of mutually exclusive dialects; two, seems like sound (at least voices) is at the lowest possible setting on the volume scale —I nearly always turn on subtitles, if possible, whenever it’s anything British

I find I can have an American TV show going on ‘in the background’, be doing something else and still follow the show’s plot. With a British show, I have to sit down and pay attention, but even then, the language can be a struggle. And it’s usually worth the effort.

He must be watching Hyacinth Bucket, uh Bouquet on Keeping Up Appearances…

i love the Britcoms, and after a while you pick it up, bloke

I have to turn on Closed Captioning when I watch British movies

There’s a town in Mass. that still speaks “The King’s English”, accent and all.

This happened to me when traveling in Europe; I think it was in the Netherlands. Different television stations were in different languages and as I flipped through the dial I could fairly easily tell what was what (not that I could necessarily understand what they were saying, however) That is, until I got to one that mystified me completely. I knew it wasn’t French or German or Dutch, and doubted it was anything Nordic or Slavic. Finally, after listening carefully, I realized it was English, but with such heavy brogues that my delicate American ears could only barely begin to understand it.

Blimey!

I’ve actually turned on closed captioning on some programs with British actors.

Ack. Spit up my coffee. :-)

Anyone ever watched “Derry Girls?” Tried for 15 minutes and could only understand a few words!

I posted this yesterday in the Non Sequitur comments—but it applies here.

I’m a writer, and I have to be fanatical about grammar, punctuation, and spelling—or I get taken to task by my editor. And I want to be that accurate (a tough slog for me, since I’m dyslexic). Once I have a page written and edited to perfection, I submit it for approval, and get it back covered with comments and corrections. English is a tough language.

However, one of the best classes I ever took at the university was ‘Transformational English’. That class, combined with Chaucer (in Middle English), and my Shakespeare classes, taught me that English is a moving target—and rightfully so.

One of the great features of our language (although it is the bane of people trying to learn it), is its ability to adapt. We don’t just steal the rhetorical cookie from the lunchboxes of other languages—we eat the whole lunch (lunchbox included).

This sticky-fingered approach makes our language able to keep up with changing times. And in a world where technology and the easy-movement of people forces change as a means of survival, this is a true benefit.

As I mentioned above, I have to be a stickler about my writing—but times have changed. Unlike Dickens or Joyce, I cannot be a stickler in the same way that they were—fashions in writing have changed, as well. I have to write in short paragraphs, or risk losing my readers. I cannot do ‘head-jumping’. If I want to have my characters see the same thing from a different viewpoint, then I need to either make a chapter break, or introduce a hiatus each time I change the perspective of whose head I’m in.

So yes, I think we need to speak and write to the best of our ability—but I believe we also need to show some forbearance as our language continues to grow and mature.

How can the Scots understand each other without subtitles?

Ah, yes. The “powers” of the U.S. public school system.