Re: When someone from Britain speaks, Americans hear a "British accent"...

Steve Holden wrote:

On Fri, 07 Oct 2005 00:33:43 -0000, Grant Edwards <grante@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

For example: In British English one uses a plural verb when the
subject consists of more than one person. Sports teams,
government departments, states, corporations etc. are grammatically plural. In American, the verb agrees with the
word that is the subject, not how many people are denoted by
that word.

There aren't any universal rules, except possibly "British people speak English while Americans don't". 

I believe you overgeneralize. :)

A Welshman would likely be offended if you implied he spoke English, and the Scots are notorious for only speaking English when they have too. (I remember a news story some years back about a Scottish "lad" who was fined/imprisoned for replying to an official court representative with "Aye" rather than "Yes".) For that matter there are plenty of people in Cornwall and even in London (Cockney) who speak something that is only called "English" for lack of a better term.

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