I called my relatives, and since they are British, their word choice and accent are different from those who were born and lived in America their whole lives.

I noticed they tend to use the word “pail” more than they use “bucket” even though they use both. When they answer the phone, they don’t say “What’s up?” or “What’s good?” Instead they’ll say “You alright?” That’s the way people in England also greet each other even when they aren’t on the phone. Usually they won’t say soda or pop, and they’ll say fizzy pop instead. They never use “hella,” but they did tell me about some interesting slang from England. My cousin told me when people are typing online, they will use “babes” a lot. Saying the words “crap” and “piss” in England is worse than saying them in America. When describing something that belongs to them, instead of using “my,” they will tend to use the word “me.” For example, when we were talking about school, my cousin said “I almost left me bag in the house.”

When my family in England pronounce “pool” and “pull,” and “feel” and “fill,” the words sound really different. When they say “bad” and “bat,” the words sound similar, but “bot” sounds different. “Caller” and “collar” sound pretty similar.

Through my visits to England and conversations on the phone with my relatives, I’ve noticed the word choice between Americans and the English can differ a lot.

-Meg Collier

For this assignment I called my cousin who was born and raised in Los Angeles. I decided to call my cousin instead of my parents because my parents can not speak English so calling him would fit the assignment more. I don’t see my cousin very often because he’s very busy the only times I get to see him are at family gatherings. While talking to him on the phone I didn’t pick up on anything new or surprising about the way he speaks. We had a very casual conversation, we talked about college and dorm life and he gave me a lot of advice since he has already been through college and is now getting his masters at USC. He started of the conversation with a “What’s up?” and “What’ve you been up to?” in which I replied “nothing much”. Since he grew up in southern California he rarely uses the word “hella,” even during our conversation. During our conversation, I asked him a serious of questions and found out that he says soda and bucket instead of pop and pail which is not very surprising in California. Being a 23 year old male college student he knows quite a lot of slang such as “swag”, “sick”, “dope” but he rarely uses slangs that I use such as “totes”, “adorbs” and “ratchet.”  However, like me he has never heard of the words dank and flame which I think sounds kind of funny and weird. The vowels in pool and pull, feel and fill sound totally different to me. I also pronounce words such as bad,bat and bot differently. However, the words collar and caller sound the same to me and I say them similarly too.

I called my mom for this assignment.  The way she talks is Spanglish. She uses broken English. During this call, I noticed that sometimes when she is speaking, she is using words in past tense rather than present tense.  Her accent is a Spanish accent, it isn’t that deep. Since, my mom is from a different country her use of slang is not up to date. However, is understands slang when I use it. She knows “what’s up?” is a substitution for “how are you?’. Little things like that she understands, but not words like: ratchet or turned up. On how she speaks, I really didn’t find anything unique with the words she uses. She really only talks to me in Spanish and uses Spanish slang. However, when she does speak English she tries to pronounce her words more clearly.

A) She uses the word bucket.

B) When I called, she used the phrase  “How are you?”

C) She says the word soda, when I asked her.

D) She doesn’t know what “hella” meant.

I really didn’t hear anything different in her English slang. However, with her Spanish slang there are some words that I probably never heard of and had to ask her.

a) The Pool/Pull, they sound different to me. Pool sounds like I an saying “oo” and Pull is more short and more deep, like I am saying “uh”.

b)The words Feel/Fill do not sound the same. The word “Feel” sound softer than “Fill”

c) The three words sound the same to me.

d) Caller/Collar sound the same or very similar.

I called my dad and he has a mild British accent that I don’t really notice, but everybody else does. He says:

1. Both pail and bucket
2. What’s up, what’s good, how’s it going and how are you
3. Soda

And of course, he says… HELLA! (I’ve taught him well)

He also tries to say ratchet and all the slang words that my friends and I use to try and be hip, but to also bother us.

Some slang words that he claimed to have used but is still used back then are:

-Brilliant

-Bog…Toilet

-Fab…Fabulous

In London, many of the people who live in the East End speak with a Cockney accent (which is considered “ghetto”) but here’s some slang that many people from London used back then as well:

-Apples and pears…stairs

-Dog and bone…phone

-Whistle and flute … nice suit

a)Pool/pull sound similar but have a slight difference if you pronounce the vowels correctly.

b)Feel/fill sound similar but the double e has a longer pull on the word, the i cuts it short.

c)Bat/bad/bot all sound different.

d)Caller/collar sound exactly the same to me but if you know the spelling and context you know the difference.

I called my parents and they only said a few things that surprised me. They greeted me by asking, “How are you?” instead of  “What’s up?” My dad also uses the word ‘pail’ instead of ‘bucket.’  Otherwise, their speech was normal.