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

[Michael]

Steve Holden wrote:
...
> Or is "the green tomato" also unacceptable?
> 

Of course it is. We all know* it should be "the green fried tomato", or "the
killer tomato". 

:-)

(is it me, or is the subject line for this thread silly? After all, what
accent would you expect from someone in the UK? However, that said, the
concept of a *single* British accent is a silly as the idea. Sillier even
than the suggestion that the two lines below are British vs American:

> American: Minnesota is behind 7-0.  The Vikings are behind 7-0.
> British: Minnesota are behind 7-0. The Vikings are behind 7-0.

Or even these lines:

> American: The war department has decided to cancel the program.
> British: The war department have decided to cancel the program.

A better one might be:
> British: "They installed tunnelling for the petrol pipes made of grey
> coloured aluminium." 
> American: "They installed tunneling for the gas pipes made of gray
> colored aluminum."

(I think :-) I do my best with grammar, but can fail spectactularly, more
often than I'd like :)

Bad grammar flies at the same speed as the pedants who decide that the way
that other people talk is wrong. If the majority of people use a language
one way, and a small number of people say "you're wrong", who's right? 

Is it the people who speak the language in a shared way that they all
understand, or the people who are setting rules based on how people *used*
to speak and *used* to define words? (NB, I *did* say majority above ;-)
Does /human/ language _require_ backwards compatibility?

;-)


Michael.