Early Risers.

[AndyID]

9 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

 I was sad enough to count all the teeth so you have  a 54/17 on the left and a 54/18 on the right.

 

(I see the Bear beat me to it)

 

Jolly good! Now why would that be?

 

[Chris116]

9 minutes ago, AndyID said:

 

Jolly good! Now why would that be?

 

We heard you the first time and still did not know the answer here! 

Edited June 13, 2020 by Chris116

[JohnDMJ]

 

 

7 hours ago, tetsudofan said:

What has amazed me today was how quickly all of the above happened, especially how quickly the Out-of-Hours service reacted. This was in complete contrast to when I last had to contact the service when I was caring for my late Mother. At that time you had to call SEDOC (as it was called) who would then, within the next hour or so, phone back to discuss the problem and decide what action was to be taken. At the end I had no confidence in them.

 

I am due a telephone consultation on Monday. Don't know when although the original face-2-face appointment was for 11:00.

 

Have alerted my boss; his response was that if it was personal, I was welcome to kick him out of his office for privacy! I doubt it will come to that, but what a great reaction from my MD!

[Gwiwer]

19 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

That's a curiously specific accent diagnosis Rick. What other clues suggest the Yukon? Or is it the Northwest Territories?

 

Perhaps she is Inuit?

 

My ability to place an accent (without visual ethnic clues) has changed considerably. I believe a low ability to place an accent is true for many people who live in the western states of the US. There is a 'standard' western accent, (think US television shows) but the high proportion of people who come from somewhere else means there is a lot of American English as a second language so people are more accustomed to identifying accents from Latin America and Asia.

 

Many non-US English speakers can easily distinguish the southern hemisphere English accents (like South Africa, New Zealand and Australia) but unless the Afrikaans aspect is pronounced but I find it less true here. People struggle to place my trans-Pacific voice, but they usually guess correctly.

 

 

 

I'm often fairly good with accents. 

 

US is not always as obvious as it might seem but broadly - very broadly - there are three variants being east coast, west coast and southern of which the latter is less often heard in the UK.  Mid-west falls between the three.  I can pick Australians too despite the usually-held belief that there is "only one Aussie accent".  There are sufficiently distinct differences between the states, at least, for me to be right around 80% of the time.  The Queensland drawl is particularly characteristic; as I joked more than once it's so hot and humid up there that they don't hurry anything - including their speech.  

 

I have quite a good ear for British regional accents too and have even been known to get village-specific variations spot on.  I worked with a Devonian one time who spoke with something stronger than the generic accent often heard and a little conversation drew me to the conclusion that he was from Ottery St. Mary.  Which indeed he was.  I can often place a Cornish accent to the exact village especially in the west.  Helston differs to Wendron 3 miles up the road and both are different to Redruth another 5 miles along for example.  

 

Former Neighbour (Upstairs) had a visitor whom I met in passing once who had an unfamiliar accent.  A little rounder than the average American and with a hint of Oceania.  Was she perhaps Hawaiian, I asked.  Indeed she was.  And she credited me with being the only person to have correctly placed her accent.  

 

One which did stump me was the former partner of a (British) friend whose intonation was antipodean but not with an English background.  It turned out he was a Belgian-born Cook Islander - how on Earth was I going to pick that? 

 

So with New Neighbour (Next Door) I heard something not quite familiar yet broadly Canadian.  Most Canadian accents heard here would be east coast or from along the US border.  SWMBO has a Canadian-Australian friend of many years who has lived in Calgary and Melbourne before moving back to Vancouver thus speaking with a southern Canadian accent overlaid with an Aussie twang.  What I hear may be NWT, Yukon or even Alaskan - none of which are areas I am familiar with.  I'll ask when I get the chance.  

[New Haven Neil]

Metric thread change wheel, Andy?

 

Congrats to the GDB's and the Toppam-Hatts.  I married at 24.99 (the day before my birthday!) and still am 36 years on.  Her indoors was only just 21.

 

I knew modelling the GW would cause trouble!  I should point out that I play trains, and am not a rivet, er bunker step counter of any type.  As for the 3 link, it is because I have silly sharp curves and it is easier to hook up!  If I ever find the box for the Minerva pannier I should look for the steps.... I presume they are in a detail pack or something.  It may also get a crew one day.

[AndyID]

48 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

 I was sad enough to count all the teeth so you have  a 54/17 on the left and a 54/18 on the right.

 

(I see the Bear beat me to it)

 

A clue:

 

I made the 17 tooth gear and substituted it for the 18 tooth that was in the compound gear on the left. 

[New Haven Neil]

Manx accents have the variation Rick speaks of, they vary by village.  I can get them by area but not down to the fine detail!

[Ozexpatriate]

48 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

US is not always as obvious as it might seem but broadly - very broadly - there are three variants being east coast, west coast and southern of which the latter is less often heard in the UK.  Mid-west falls between the three.

It is in fact very complicated.

 

There are distinct regional accents. New England is very different from the mid-Atlantic and Boston is more pronounced with it's own argot parodied in the "Smaht Pahk" commercial for Hyundai. (Listen for 'RevereH' - this isn't just parody it's real Boston. I know someone from Revere, well Lynn, which is next door.)

 

There are distinct mid-Atlantic accents that are very regional. Connecticut, Long Island, the Bronx and Staten Island are different from what could be called "New York". New Jersey (Goisy) is different again, so is Philadelphia.

 

Mid-western doesn't so much fall between east and west linguistically but has it's own truly different regional accents. Chicago is different from the upper mid-west. The upper mid-west has a lot of Scandinavian influence leading to the "meee-na-soh-ta" trope. This accent is wickedly portrayed in the movie "Fargo" which is very different to what you will hear in a Chicago movie like "The Blues Brothers" - "We're on a mission from Gaard". Wisconsin is halfway between the two. Michigan is different again - except for the UP which is more like Minnesota.

 

The South is just as complicated. Cajun is to American English what the Scottish accent is to British English. South Carolina southern is very different from Mississippi southern and the Texas drawl is different again.

 

Then there are ethnic influences. Not just African American and Spanish dialects but other immigrant influences besides Cajun like Yiddish, Polish, Italian, German, etc.

 

Hawaiian is distinctive, I've known many Hawaiians and been there a few times. It's not something you would hear often in the UK.

 

Edited June 13, 2020 by Ozexpatriate

[Ozexpatriate]

43 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

So with New Neighbour (Next Door) I heard something not quite familiar yet broadly Canadian.  ... I'll ask when I get the chance.  

Please, do let us know.

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Accents, most of the time I speak with an 'Estuary' accent, largely because those around me speak in that accent. My 'natural' accent however is rural Essex which I picked up from my mother who in turn picked up the accent from her mother who was born in Brentwood back in the 1890's. For some reason I've always been able to identify a Canadian accent, possibly because I had met more Canadians than I had Americans before I visited the US in 1978. The Canadian accent to me is softer than the American one.

7 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

 

 

Never mind the groan button, I want an envy button.

Will this do?

[brianusa]

4 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

marriages nowadays seem to fall mostly into one of two extreme camps: the first whereby the couple divorce before the wedding presents have even barely been completely unwrapped, the second whereby the happy couple rack up innumerable anniversaries, with only “death stopping play” (to bastardise a cricketing saying). Presumably the secret to a long lasting marriage is for give-and-take to be present on both sides.

 

I was a late marrier at 36, long after all my contemporaries.  My wife was 29 then; she is now 77 and I am 85.  Give and take is certainly necessary and respect for money in the marriage.

When I think of the girls I knew and thought them 'the one', I'm glad I held out for the  'real one'!

    Brian.

[Coombe Barton]

... from the centre of England, nearly.

 

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2020/06/13/the-sea/

[Ozexpatriate]

1 hour ago, Gwiwer said:

The Queensland drawl is particularly characteristic; as I joked more than once it's so hot and humid up there that they don't hurry anything - including their speech.  

Knowing many Queenslanders as I do (they don't call it the deep north for nothing), the drawl is more pronounced the more rural you get - particularly the inland west for a more 'cowboy' drawl. The northern tropics will have more of the mañana sound.

 

Besides the Mexican mañana, it's true of most tropical cultures - Jamaican "irie mon" and Hawaiian "mahalo" / mah-hah-lo (which is "thank you" and more useful than "aloha") come to mind.

 

Edited June 13, 2020 by Ozexpatriate

[Ozexpatriate]

8 minutes ago, Coombe Barton said:

... from the centre of England, nearly.

 

"The Sea"

My 5th grade teacher wrote an observation of every pupil in the school year book.

 

Of me he wrote:

Quote

 

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

To save me from the other armed forces.

Dad was in the Navy Reserve when I was young, though probably not by the 5th grade.

 

With the exception of about seven years in Chicago, I have spent my whole life within easy reach of the Pacific Ocean though it takes a minimum of about 90 minutes or so for me to get there these days. Ironically, while I live in a coastal state and think of being relatively "close" to the ocean, it's not that much further for you to reach the sea.

[tigerburnie]

G'night all

[Ozexpatriate]

30 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

The Canadian accent to me is softer than the American one.

It's remarkable that they even have similarities. Besides the French influence, Canada was heavily influenced by Scots.

 

The American colonies were largely populated by English and African people, though there were Scots Irish in the south. Both countries had waves of Irish and Continental immigrants in the 19th century.

[newbryford]

On 12/06/2020 at 19:42, Happy Hippo said:

And that is how to:

 

Discourage children from taking up railway modelling as a hobby.

 

Put them off the GWR

 

Dismiss O gauge as a preserve of the miserable old git.

 

 

 

There - suitably amended.

 

 

[AndyID]

22 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

The American colonies were largely populated by English and African people, though there were Scots Irish in the south. Both countries had waves of Irish and Continental immigrants in the 19th century.

 

I understand it was basically a toss-up whether the US adopted English or German.

[AndyID]

Absolute stinker of a day here. Hissing down and quite cold. It's probably snowing on the mountain tops. One Scottish Terrier is not at all happy.

[newbryford]

12 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

As a matter of interest how many of the ER community get asked 'What do/Do you know about...........?'

 

In the community that surrounds the hippodrome, a conversation that starts in this way is invariably a request for something that is broken or not working to be assessed, and usually repaired.

 

This week has been no different:

 

Freeing a jammed bit from a socket. Small hammer

Repairing a garden chair. Medium hammer

Making a replacement cushion base for an easy chair. Tack hammer?

Sorting out a washing machine Large hammer

Repairing two food mixers. Difficult choice of hammer size............

 

 

 

 

 

One solution fixes all.

 

 

[Gwiwer]

1 minute ago, AndyID said:

Absolute stinker of a day here. Hissing down and quite cold. It's probably snowing on the mountain tops. One Scottish Terrier is not at all happy.

Very mixed day here.  Started damp, became sunny and humid, became windy, then cloudy, then sunny and calm.  Just as we thought to go for an evening stroll a mighty storm-cloud came out of the south-west and dumped a fair amount of water in addition to thundering loudly.  So we walked after the storm in the last of the evening light and enjoyed the smells of damp and slightly-steaming paths and plants, the gleeful noise of a small group of teens beside the river (though we kept ourselves a good 50 metres away!) and the stroll back as daylight finally gave way to the short night of summer.   One pic just as the storm rolled in and the others from the evening walk

 

 

 

 

G'night all.  

[AndyID]

3 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

Very mixed day here.  Started damp, became sunny and humid, became windy, then cloudy, then sunny and calm.  Just as we thought to go for an evening stroll a mighty storm-cloud came out of the south-west and dumped a fair amount of water in addition to thundering loudly.  So we walked after the storm in the last of the evening light and enjoyed the smells of damp and slightly-steaming paths and plants, the gleeful noise of a small group of teens beside the river (though we kept ourselves a good 50 metres away!) and the stroll back as daylight finally gave way to the short night of summer.   One pic just as the storm rolled in and the others from the evening walk

 

 

The cloud in the first pic looks like it's cloaking something. Like we need an alien invasion on top of everything else.

[AndyID]

Another clue:

 

54/17 =

 

 

[Barry O]

I used to be a le to tell people from the nearest villages (Easington to the North, Blachall to the South) by their accents. Nor sure I can do that now but I knew where Two Sugars and BoD lived when I met them,

 

Married at 22 her indoors is 2 years older than me. On June 23rd it is our 41st anniversary of wedded bliss.

 

Sleep well all!

Baz.

[Ozexpatriate]

40 minutes ago, AndyID said:

I understand it was basically a toss-up whether the US adopted English or German.

Bit of urban legend I'm afraid.

 

Many colonial immigrants to Pennsylvania came from the Palatinate of the Rhine - hence Germantown in PA. This was largely influenced by the deliberate non-establishment of religion in the colony by the Quakers. Nevertheless they were always a minority group in the colonies overall.

 

It was never a question of which would be the prevailing language. (There is no "official language" to this day but the de-facto language is English.) There was a close vote in 1795 as to whether Federal laws would be published in German in response to the petition of a group in Virginia. Multiple internet sources: Snopes, University of Illinois, Wikipedia

 

Many more German immigrants came in the 19th century, but so did the Irish, Italians, Scandinavians, Poles, etc.

 

Edited June 13, 2020 by Ozexpatriate