Let's see:

Zee versus 'zed' - in my computer class, we have students from several nations... the ones from Tanzania says 'zed'; the Americans say 'zee'; and I say ZULU, that being the NATO standard I learned in the Army. Of course, I always pronounced 'Q' as 'KAY-bec', while my sergeants kept telling me it was 'kwa-BEC'. (Good thing I had the bar and they had the stripes).

Accents - I speak with a Worshington accent, having been born in the Nation's Capital; we have a local radio personality, Ed Walker, who cracks Worsingtonians up with his 'Dundalk Dan' parodies of a 'Balamer' accent. Historically, in the First World War American soldiers going into the lines occupied by other allies often preferred relieveing a French unit rather than a British unit... the British officers used slang and assumed the 'Colonials' knew it; the French would use gestures such as "A-a-a-a-a-a" to indicate a machine gun, and 'Boum!' for cannon. Then they'd slap the Yank on the shoulder, say "Bonne secteur, m'sieur,' and leave.

Speaking of Yank... A Yankee is north of the Mason Dixon line to most Southerners... and there used to be jokes such as "I was sixteen before I learned 'damnyankee' were two separate words.

I noticed the BBC World Service is making a valiant effort to cover North American sports on the North American feed, even referring to 'games' instead of 'matches' and 'one-nothing' wins instead of 'one-nil'. If someone can explaing cricket to me, I'll do my darndest to explain baseball... all but the infiled fly rule

Greg Baker nyekulturniy@hotmail.com