LH,

Some years ago I saw abrilliant tv series called The Story of English co-written & presented by Canadian Robert MacNeil - of MacNeil Lehrer Newshour fame. It was a fascinating bit of detective work tracking back English as it is spoken in various parts of the world, including specific areas of the U.S. and comparing it to the part(s) of England where people had migrated from. So there was Jamaican English, pidgin English, Oz English, etc and I remember that there was one area of the U.S. which was compared to a specific part of England in the north west, and the similarities were obvious.

BTW, Aussies often say "draw-ring" for "drawing", "idear" etc, but we say Pe-tah for Peter so if a girl is named Peta we can't pronounce it any differently than Peter.

I had an American friend who was living out here. She asked me where a street was which I had told her about. She said, "I can't find Chew-dah St in the street directory. I spelt it out for her as Tudor. She said, "You mean "Two-Door-r"? "Yes, that's what I said, Chew-dah."

Also in the north eastern state of Oz called Queensland, they often end their sentences with "eh". I don't know where they pikced that up from, eh?

Helen