On Mon, 8 Sep 2003 13:31:55 +1000 (EST), Helene wrote: >Since this thread seems to be still running, I just want to add my "thrupence". >What about the verb to hang, which has got 2 past tenses hanged and hung, which >mean different things? The original English was to hang, hung(past), hung(past >participle). When did we start using hanged? Is it another American usage, >since they seem to have done a lot of it during the "cowboys and Indians" era, >at least according to popular literature? :-)) I don't think that this is an exclusively American usage. 'The highwayman was hanged' sounds to me like normal British usage.
>As for accents, my DH always moans because I don't have a French accent when I >speak English, and would love me to. I learnt English in France and England and >came to Australia when I was 21. When I'm in England, the English seem to pick >some Australian whiff, and they ask me not "Are you Australian?", but "Do you >live in Australia?", which I think is a nice distinction. However, neither them >nor any other English speaker seems to be able to pick that I am French. That's because you have mastered the 'th' sound. The archetypal French accent when speaking English uses a z sound for th. If you can pronounce th, you can't possibly be French. Also by being very fluent you are running counter to our stereotype of English spoken by French people. When I'm in Germany I get asked if I'm from the Netherlands or Denmark. I obviously have a foreign accent, but I can't be English because the English have such a poor reputation at languages. I can hear when Dutch or Danish is being spoken from the very gutteral ch sound, a bit like a Scot pronouncing loch, but more so. German has an aspirated ch sound, which English speakers usually tend to underplay, so maybe I'm over compensating. -- Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go. Oscar Wilde Steph Peters, Manchester, England [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
