Quote:
Originally Posted by mjhudston
As a gay british smoker, you can imagine the look on some of my american friends faces when a fellow brit comes up to me and asks if they can bum a fag!
It's one of the few things that makes me smile every time.
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Funny how that works. We say something we think mundane and someone is shocked beyond belief at our rudeness.
Mispronunciations work the same way. While not precisely related to this topic, after 22 years married to a Korean woman I am still struggling with my wife's native language. Recently at our church, a Korean Presbyterian church in Alaska, I was in the kitchen and asked a cluster of ladies (all quite attractive I might add) to give me some chopsticks (Chutgorak). Except the word that came out of my lips was Chutgochi. It has a very different meaning. Imagine the looks on the faces of half a dozen attractive Korean Presbyterian Deaconesses when I asked them "Could you please give me your nipples?"
...OK...back to UK v US spelling.