Is this a British website?

[garob]

Hi all,

When I browse this site in the top right-hand corner it says "Howdy" and when posting I have to do this "math" stuff.

If the foundation is British, why is the website Americanised?

[Doogle]

I'll take a stab in the dark and suggest that the Software is sourced from the US of A.

(Shouldn't that have been "Americanized"? LOL)

[jamesh]

Correct. I'm not sure if there is any UK sourced web forum software. Wish there was, 'cos the current one is a bit sucky.

[Doogle]

Sounds like a good project for a distributed team of Raspberries, a Rpi 'director' at the front end, one Rpi per Forum (or set of Forums) in the middle and an Rpi (or two) distributed DBMS at the back end. If the perfomance sucks just throw more computing power at it (now, where have I heard that before ?) LOL

[Burngate]

There's a reason for Americanization.

We Brits know the rest of the world is somewhat parochial.

We know, for example, that the Germans do in fact speak English, but to maintain face, they change "v"s into "w"s and join all the words together to make one long one (oh, yes, and put the verbs at the end). That way, they can pretend it's a different language.

The French merely add the odd e to the end of some words (as in "Concorde"). But the give-away is their word for "weekend".

So the Americans don't feel comfortable when the rest of us display our Alien roots. So, just as we let the French call the plane "Concorde" and think it was theirs, we let the Americans miss the "u" out of lots of words, miss-spell "metre" and "fibre" (the French get that right), say "Howdy" instead of "Hello, Ducks" and call it "Math" without the "s"

We know they're wrong but we're too polite to mention it.

[scep]

Gor blimey guv'nor, too right it's a Bri'ish site innit, do wot, as it 'appens, fings an' all that. You're a right littul five speed gearbox and no mistake, incha? Just done a Boris and kedged a blank spanner in me brisket. Innit.

[archsaddler]

scep said:




Gor blimey guv'nor, too right it's a Bri'ish site innit, do wot, as it 'appens, fings an' all that. You're a right littul five speed gearbox and no mistake, incha? Just done a Boris and kedged a blank spanner in me brisket. Innit.



Finally summat on ere i understand

[Burngate]

archsaddler said:


Finally summat on ere i understand



Spelling error. It's "unnerstan' "

[abishur]

To be fair, howdy is a colloquialism limited mainly to one state in America.  Though it is arguably one of the better states, it's not like there's a majority of American's greeting each other by saying 'howdy"  In fact most people would probably look at you like you were nuts. Outside of Texas at least.

[liz]

Would you prefer "Wotcha!" or perhaps "Oi! Scaaaahmbag!" as a welcome, fellow Brits?

[ukscone]

liz said:


Would you prefer "Wotcha!" or perhaps "Oi! Scaaaahmbag!" as a welcome, fellow Brits?


could have "ay up me duck"

http://www.angelfire.com/fl2/slang/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/leicester.....ture.shtml

[ukscone]

just as a matter of interest a quick question to all fellow brits.

what did/do you call a bread roll in your area.

where i grew up within the space of 4 miles i went from bap to cob to roll and back again

[Lynbarn]

ukscone said:


liz said:


Would you prefer "Wotcha!" or perhaps "Oi! Scaaaahmbag!" as a welcome, fellow Brits?


could have "ay up me duck"

http://www.angelfire.com/fl2/slang/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/leicester.....ture.shtml



Boring, I know, but I'd be quite happy with "Welcome"

[spurious]

ukscone said:


just as a matter of interest a quick question to all fellow brits.

what did/do you call a bread roll in your area.

where i grew up within the space of 4 miles i went from bap to cob to roll and back again


near Manchester..

muffin, barm cake, bap, tea cake and more

[liz]

Born in Lincolnshire, where we called them baps. Also rolls and buns once we'd moved to Bedfordshire. My mother made us stop saying bap, because she thought it was common. Dear old Mum.

[scep]

ukscone said:


just as a matter of interest a quick question to all fellow brits.

what did/do you call a bread roll in your area.

where i grew up within the space of 4 miles i went from bap to cob to roll and back again



Cobs are round and have a crusty top; rolls are soft and elongated; baps are big, round, soft and floured. Wey hey!

[Jongoleur]

liz said:


Would you prefer "Wotcha!" or perhaps "Oi! Scaaaahmbag!" as a welcome, fellow Brits?



Bus drivers around here keep getting told off for saying "'ello luv" to their (female) passengers.  Blokes just get a grunt, which is perfectly acceptable.

@ ukscone :  Barm cakes, baps... I think it depended on the amount of flour dusted on top of the item.  Cobs were always the crusty ones.  They seem to be called just rolls nowadays.

[johnbeetem]

I was curious a while back about "Howdy" so I looked up Wordpress on Wikipedia and found out that its creator Matthew Charles "Matt" Mullenweg was born in Houston, Texas.  Odd, doesn't sound like a Texas name, but whatever.

There's a great film noir called Ride the Pink Horse (1947) which takes place in a Southwest USA town near the Mexican border.  The bus station has two neon signs: Buenos Días and Howdy.  Perfect way to characterize the town.

Texas is sui generis.  They speak their own form of 'Mercan.  For example, they use the phrase y'all for both singular and plural (How y'all doin'?) whereas a Southerner knows that the plural form is all y'all.

And now my favorite Texan joke:

A Texan is visiting Harvard University.  His friends had told him he should check out the library — a wonderful old building and you've never seen so many books!  The Texan sees a group of Harvard men in tweed jackets with leather elbow patches standing around earnestly discussing their theses while smoking pipes.  He walks up to them and says: "'scuse me, can y'all tell me whar the libray's at?"

One of the Harvard men looks down his nose at the Texan and says: "Here at Hahvad we do not end sentences with prepositions."

The Texan says: "Well in that case, can y'all tell me whar the libray's at, a--hole?"

[Jongoleur]

Of course, to give the greeting a more English flavour, it could always be replaced with "How'st do"  (see Thomas Hardy "Under the Greenwood Tree". On my bookshelf it was sandwiched between "On the Road" and "The Incredible Adventures of Professor Branestawm", which gives some indication of my book organisation system…. )

Edit for punctuational excess....

[abishur]

I had some relatives who visited me in Texas once.  They were very disappointed to learn that we weren't all cowboys who spoke with a drawl.    Also don't diss the y'all Texans are just trying to fix the English language.  Almost every other language out there has a gender neutral you plural form, not English.  So Texans took it upon themselves to fix this obvious hole that has existed for centuries and I think they did a right purdy job of it

[Jessie]

Howdy yall, sorry I missed this thread I must have been doing something that us white Americans do... Like watching NASCAR, or drinking beer that has slightly more flavor than carbonated water, or chewing a giant wad of gum like a cow with my mouth wide open, or eating way too much red meat. 

I would like to point out that several contries use USD as their denomiation so it isn't that far fetched to list an items price in our currency.  The word howdy did strike me as odd, but it isn't that uncommon for me to greet someone at work with it even though I am not a Texan nor do I live in Texas.

[Prometheus]

Jessie said:

I would like to point out that several contries use USD as their denomiation so it isn't that far fetched to list an items price in our currency.
And the fact that electronics parts are almost invariably priced in US Dollars, so listing completed electronics with that pricing helps to protect against currency fluctuations a bit.

The word howdy did strike me as odd, but it isn't that uncommon for me to greet someone at work with it even though I am not a Texan nor do I live in Texas.
It didn't strike me as too odd, but then I'm British and commonly greet people with "Aloha", "Howdy", "Konnichiwa", and all sorts of other salutations from all over the place!

[piglet]

I was wondering about the Volkswagon icon in the top left....

[liz]

John Beetem said:



There's a great film noir called Ride the Pink Horse (1947)


Have to say, I would not expect a film of that particular title to be a film noir. More a…film flesh-tone.

[TheEponymousBob]

ukscone said:

just as a matter of interest a quick question to all fellow brits.

what did/do you call a bread roll in your area.

where i grew up within the space of 4 miles i went from bap to cob to roll and back again


Ooh—now here"s a topic that could become incendiary. Up here, that would be a butty, though my English wife seems to think a butty involves sliced bread—nonsense, I know

Actually, a Scotsman on The Weakest Link was once asked what a butty was, and his answer of "a bread roll" was deemed incorrect. Poor show. Just like the student who answered "500 miles" was deemed correct, when asked how far The Proclaimers were willing to walk, on University Challenge; there"s no justice.