quote:
Originally posted by jonah:
Alex--
Could it also be that English--especially American--has/uses more slang in every day speech than speakers of other languages. Speaking from an American perspective, the Canadians, British, Australian, New Zealander, and other parts of the English speaking world use less slang than the Americans. Even the slang has different meanings in each English speaking country:
Mob is a gang of people in U.S., but is a herd of Animals in Australia. In Britain, To Knock up means to give a wake up call, while in America, it has a TOTALLY DIFFERENT meaning.
I doubt very much that there is more American slang than there is English. This side of the pond we have no trouble understanding the vast majority of what's said American colloquialism-wise, because of the vast influx of films and books. The chances that Americans know what we're talking about when we tell someone to stop being so mardy because they didn't get the snap they wanted is much less likely. Infact, most of Britain doesn't really know what that means because a lot of slang is so localised it rarely gets heard elsewhere ;-)
