When someone from Britain speaks, Americans hear a "British accent"...

[Rocco Moretti]

Steve Holden wrote:

>> On Fri, 07 Oct 2005 00:33:43 -0000, Grant Edwards <grante at visi.com> 
>> wrote:

>>> For example: In British English one uses a plural verb when the
>>> subject consists of more than one person.  Sports teams,
>>> government departments, states, corporations etc. are grammatically 
>>> plural.  In American, the verb agrees with the
>>> word that is the subject, not how many people are denoted by
>>> that word.
> 
> There aren't any universal rules, except possibly "British people speak 
> English while Americans don't". 

I believe you overgeneralize. :)

A Welshman would likely be offended if you implied he spoke English, and 
the Scots are notorious for only speaking English when they have too. (I 
remember a news story some years back about a Scottish "lad" who was 
fined/imprisoned for replying to an official court representative with 
"Aye" rather than "Yes".) For that matter there are plenty of people in 
Cornwall and even in London (Cockney) who speak something that is only 
called "English" for lack of a better term.