April 25th, 2009

Pardon?

{britishisms}

But there are some legitimate pronunciation differences, some of which I find very odd. One of them is “greasy”: in BrE that would be [GREE-see], but in AmE it becomes [GREE-zee]1. That one still trips me up whenever it comes up, and since some halfwit left a tub of discarded cooking fat in the yard (not the garden!), it comes up with unusual frequency.

That particular one’s a pet peave of mine, but it seems to be regional in America. Most people I know use the S, not the Z. But then you have noise/noisy, which would be more accurately spelled noize/noizy in the US. Boise (BOY-zee) mixes it up, but locals from Idaho will hiss that there is no Z in BOY-see. Bah.

The thing I’ve found more peculiar is the -ise/-ize. I tend to prefer the BrE version, but people tend to stare when an American does that. And we wouldn’t want that, now would we.

Reblogged from Britishisms
  1. synapsecollapse reblogged this from and added:
    That particular one’s...pet peave of mine,...America. Most...
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I am John T. Hoffoss. All opinions are my own. If you don't like them, let's disagree.