Monday, October 20, 2008

Do you speak English?

I've been watching Skins on BBC America, anyone seen it? It's about a gang of high school kids who live in Bristol, England. It's pretty edgy by American TV standards; it took me a while to get into it, but now I like it. I wonder how popular it is in the UK?

The funny part is that the show airs with English subtitles! The actors' accents are so thick and some of the slang is so foreign to us Yanks that it seems like they're speaking a completely different language! Words like slag, bint, dosh, cobber, todger and shonky? Then there are words that we use in the U.S. that mean something entirely different outside of America, like tit, twat, fag and pissed. According to the subtitles a tit is a stupid person, twatty means stupid, a fag is a cigarette (think I already knew that), pissed means drunk and piss off means go away (knew that one too; my best friend, whose hub is from Australia, is always screaming it at her dog). Without the subtitles I'd miss out on about 1/2 of what is being said.
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2 comments:

Robin Vistnes said...

I think this is Kjell's first mention in your blog- but sadly I think this may also be my first mention too, and then only by proxy.

Bryn said...

By proxy? I clearly stated that YOU were screaming at the dog, and I know I mentioned you in a beer drinking post! And I've definitely mentioned the dogs before....the only ones who've been neglected are those two kids that live at your house.