• Justice@lemmygrad.ml
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    4 months ago

    Well, clearly you’ve never tried speaking to someone from Yorkshire (and if any Americans think that’s pronounced York-SHY-re you’re in for a big surprise about the rest of that godforsaken island). Seriously, I can’t understand half the shit they say.

    “'Ave a cuppa?” “… a ‘cuppa’ what?” Angloid scoffing noises

    (Real conversation)

    • ProfessorOwl_PhD [any]@hexbear.net
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      4 months ago

      Tea or Bovril, what else do you have a cup of? I guess coffee might be on offer if they’ve travelled a lot, to places like Birmingham or Manchester.

      • Justice@lemmygrad.ml
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        4 months ago

        I just wanted to make fun of Brits. I understood his meaning, but I just hadn’t heard it said like that. Maybe Americans are all dumb base animals who can only understand the meaning if we say all the words because no one would ever ask someone like “want a cup of?” If you did ask that then after the confusion was over the assumption would be coffee. Maybe water. For me anyway

        • ProfessorOwl_PhD [any]@hexbear.net
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          4 months ago

          Don’t worry, I was making a joke about Yorkshire being very insular - Manchester and Birmingham are very close to Yorkshire, and Bovril isn’t well known outside the UK.

          “Cuppa” is quite a linguistically interesting word as it’s derived from “cup of”, but is actually used as a noun in its own right to mean a hot drink. The correct answers are yes if you want tea, no if you don’t want anything, and the name of your preferred drink if you want something other than tea, but there’s no real way of knowing that unless you grow up in the UK. Over here it’s so common that it’s considered a standard part of English by standard English people, so when talking to other English speakers they’re completely confused by them not knowing what is.