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Now You're Speakin' My Language (or Dialect)


Yeah, supposedly there's a cafe in NYC that imports water from the Vesuvius (the volcano near Naples, Italy), so that their espresso comes out correctly.

As you probably know, Germans are not Austrian :). They don't have all the same foods, etc in common. Plus many things in Europe are very regional. I hope you find your Austrian bread sometime.
But water can make a difference! If you have a very strong tasting water that will ruin things. If a regional recipe has water with a specific taste, etc, then some recipes will only work properly with that water.
My dad used to buy German beer until one day one of his German friends asked him why he'd drink beer made from Rhine water when Canada has much cleaner water. He switched to Canadian beer after that!


In Australia, we call "hard water" ice.

In Australia, we call "hard water" ice."
Too funny! We mean water with lots of minerals in it.
This is ironic given the title of this thread.
I wasn't able to buy back bacon when I first got married. It turns out Americans call it Canadian bacon (weird, but true, even though many other anglophone countries call it back bacon. All, as far as I know.) I had no idea and would go to the deli counter and ask for back bacon.


In France it's simply called bacon and lardons = diced up "streaky bacon". I couldn't find American style or slices of streaky bacon in France unless I went to an international food store.


Is that streaky bacon in France? Interesting :) In Québec this is streaky bacon and I found it called that in at least one UK online site:


the second image is streaky bacon in both the UK and France when you could find it as slices (it's usually cut as lardons):
In the US the closest thing I can find to lardons is either diced pancetta or proscuitto
one of the things I loved to get when I went to the UK for a vacation was a bacon butty: crispy fried bacon slices and bread smeared with butter (I didn't use either of the traditional sauces on it though)
in the US, that top image is Canadian bacon and in France it's bacon

Here's a link to international bacon types.
Now we can discuss if they got it right.

In Germany, they slice it very thinly and eat it on bread at dinnertime. I’ve never seen it diced, unless they mean pancetta which you can by in Germany very readily.

Here's a link to international bacon types. ..."
Interesting that you cut them together!
Yes, back bacon in Canada is called Canadian bacon in the States which is why I had so much trouble when I was first married. Sadly, I can no longer eat pork, and I don't usually buy back bacon for my family.
I have a hard time with a few American expressions for no logical reason, whatsoever, and calling "back bacon" "Canadian bacon" is one of them. I also cringe every time I have to say eczema the local way with the emphasis on the first syllable and the second one a non-phonetic short e. Even doctors in Canada don't say it that way (or none that I ever met. Can't speak for all 10 provinces plus the 3 territories.) On the other hand, when I am talking about fruit and vegetables I have learned to say "produce" it the local way with a long o without wincing internally.

As an American, I'd be interested to know what the alternative pronunciation would be for "produce" meaning fruits and vegetables (i.e., as a noun rather than a verb).

they say proDUCE in Canada? In American English, the rule is emphasis on the first syllable for nouns, second for verbs.

Yes! In Canada that noun is PROduce but the o rhymes with, well, not exactly "hot" but close; Americans here say it with a long o like in know. Both places emphasize the first syllable for the noun. I have met people from England who do the equivalent as Canadians but with a different accent (an English woman and I chatted about it once in a grocery store).
Both places have a long o for the verb and then emphasize the second syllable.
BUT one cannot go to Youtube and really learn "the" Canadian accent because there isn't one Canadian accent! No one I grew up with says "aboot" for about, just more like the States minus all drawl whatsoever, and I never heard it anywhere I lived in Canada, either but it's possible some Canadians say it that way.
FYI to my ear, every American has some sort of drawl and/or twang, but some far more than others. Well, there are a very few exceptions close to the Canadian border in one State only (can't recall which one, and it's only one part of it) where they have virtually none.
When I lived in Ontario my family teased me because of my new accent on the phone (I'm from BC, but even there accents vary a bit for those born in the country.)

Yes! In Canada that noun is PROduce but the o rhymes with, well, not exactly "hot" but close; Americans here say..."
I think my mom (American) said PROD-uce, but most people around here seem to say PRO-duce. She grew up in Oklahoma City, IIRC, and she had some quirks (TY-ota instead of TOY-ota) so I don’t know if it’s a regional difference.

I'm a PRO-duce gal myself. But my Cali family laughs and says I sound very snooty when I call my female relatives my aunts as in haunts, and my Connecticut family asks why the word has a u in it if it's supposed to be pronounced ant. So, I split the difference. I have aunties and ants XD

However I switch between the two pronunciations of:
coyote (2 vs 3 syllables)
creek and crick (Montana term for a stream)
and I (I may have mentioned it in an earlier post) differ these;
root like runt
rout like out
route like boot
my double os pronounced as in duff are
root
broom
room
broom
roof
I'm not sure if these are from Maryland, Virginia or Montana



Aunt/Aunty is pronounced as 'are'nt/ee (silent 'r') and never as ant or haunt.
Roof would always be pronounced 'roof' as in boot.

Aunt is pronounced aren't.
A box of vegetables is prod- uce
A roof has a good oo sound as it does in boot. Mind you I knew people in England who pronounced it like a dog barking, the same sound as woof.


US accents:
Part 1:
Part 2;
and another one:
I was born to a father from the Mid Atlantic Region (slightly Southern) and a mother from an old Virginia family (didn't sound Southern) but grew up in Maryland, California, Montana, Germany and a few other US states, so mine is a mix. Friends used to make fun of me for saying "oh" with two syllables and I think that one came from Montana, but I'm not sure
I don't usually have much trouble with people accents in understanding them as I worked for 30 years with non native speakers (French, Brazilian, Russian, Mexican, Filipino, Chinese, etc. I could even manage to figure out most of what they were saying in French (Malaysians were the hardest to figure out here)

I'm asking because I was listening to an audiobook (Villains in Venice, a MG historical spy/detective series) last week, and as the young detectives were in a gondola, approaching a palazzo in Venice in the year 1912, they saw "an enormous flaming brassiere", or that's what the narrator told me. I don't have the ebook so I can't check, but I'm pretty sure it was a brazier, not a brassiere, but that made me wonder if I've always pronounced brazier wrong? I say bray-ze-er or something close to that, not brassiere.
I have since then learned that US and UK pronounce brassiere differently, the audiobook used this US pronunciation: . And yes I have of course researched the pronunciation of brazier, too, and to me it seems like both US and UK pronounce it the same as I do in my head () so that's why I'm confused. The audiobook in question is by a British author, I'm not sure of the narrator but I think she is also British. The characters in the book are British.

Wait, how do you say brassiere?


Brassiere=bruh-zeer� (2 syllables second accented)

Wait, how do you say brassiere?"
The same way. It's all about context.

Also, since I've now tempted all of you with Enormous Flaming Brassiere, please know that I have already called dibs on that as the name of my first single/album, so don't go stealing it!

- brassiere = bruh-ZEER
- brazier = BRAY-zher (the middle Z pronounced like the S in "casual")
- that list of "oo" words that CBR listed are all long oo for me, as in "loom"
- aunt = ant
- route I don't have a definite pronunciation for, can rhyme with either lout or boot
- I have never, and will never pronounce wash "warsh"
Midwestern with German/Swiss ancestry here. One thing that I've noticed has changed in my speech since moving out to California is fully pronouncing -ing rather than saying -in'. Know what I'm sayin'?

Also, since I've now tempted all of you with Enormous Flaming Brassiere, please know that I have already called dibs on that as the name of ..."
Enormous Flaming Brassiere! LOL!!

I use the long oo [u] as in boot in all those words, but it’s possible my grandmother said the short oo as in book She also said warsh, which was astonishing for an educated woman, who taught school in the 1920s.
Books mentioned in this topic
The Language Hoax: Why the World Looks the Same in Any Language (other topics)A Clockwork Orange (other topics)
On the Road (other topics)
Villains in Venice (other topics)
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation (other topics)
More...
Tahiti's only sort of part of France. An overseas protectorate, like the Indian Ocean islands. You probably know that, though...
Yeah; I don't think I've found the same thing as that Austrian bread back here. It's both the flavour and the texture. There's a German bakery that sets up at a market here, and although I've found that only some of the 'authentic' breads they tout taste authentic (to what I remember) - maybe it's just really hard to make them here - they do have some yummy pastries, and a couple of bread types that are similar to the distinct tastes I remember.