Should D&D be more American?

[Sir Edgar]

OT:
I have to say Morrus, your counter turned out quite handsome and rugged-looking. Pretty cool!

 

[Victim]

I hate Imperial units. They make my homework so much more complicated. Thermodynamics problems require so many additional conversion factors with imperial units.

 

[kenjib]

299,792,458! What a convenient a non-arbitrary number...

 

[Nidome]

Let me just say to those of you who don't think the Wright Bros invented the airplane, well ... you probably think the Swiss invented something more than the koo koo clock.

The best thing to come from the Swiss is their chocolate.


Hmm, local history, in about 5 minutes of walking I could be in the Public Bar of a "Coaching Inn" (Now a small Hotel) which was used by more than one English King for overnight stays, and enroute I would pass an 11th Century Church.

I recently visited the US and I must say the funniest thing I saw was a sign in a shop which read "Welcome to America - Now speak English".
If I followed those instructions I may have trouble being understood

The second funniest thing was looking though an book entitled "The Traditional American Songbook" which contained such classics as:
Sweet Molly Malone, Auld Lang Syne, Scarborough Fair, Oranges and Lemons & London Bridge (I could easily list more along similar lines, it was a big book).

I was also told that Feet and Inches were of American origin and that the "Euro" was the official currency in the UK (Although he did concede on this point after being shown a £5 note).

The one thing I did find that we could agree 100% on was that no-one likes the French

 

[Utrecht]

Indeed. Everyone knows that trolls should speak Belgian.


Hong "if not Austrian" Ooi

Ummm - I think that you mean the Dutch dialect Flemish (or Walloon for the French version)

As another note - it is most assuradly pop!!! Generally I have found that Soda is pretty much limited to the Mid-Atlantic and New England states and that once you get past Harrisburg, PA everybody calls it Pop.


Oh and they have to keep the Mile - after all calling Denver the 1.6 kilometer hig city just does not have the same ring......

 

[Berk]

I hate Imperial units. They make my homework so much more complicated. Thermodynamics problems require so many additional conversion factors with imperial units.

HAH!!! Try it in quantum mechanics. I for one love the simplicity of the metric system. I'd like to see how long it takes you to try and convert the weight of an atom over to the imperial system. I shudder at the brain fart.

 

[Utrecht]

Hmm, local history, in about 5 minutes of walking I could be in the Public Bar of a "Coaching Inn" (Now a small Hotel) which was used by more than one English King for overnight stays, and enroute I would pass an 11th Century Church.

Hmmm, 5 minutes from my house I can find other houses that did not exist there 2 years ago - oh and prarie (and @#@%!@#$$%^ Prarie Dogs - the whole lot of them should be gassed!!!)

 

[Pielorinho]

I was thinking we should all speak in cockney rhyming slang. C'mon, you know you want to!

Ooh, lemme try!

We almost croaked when the red station shot us with its fiery taxes, but then the party lips got off a maximized magic fat, and between that and the attack of our solid's angry dire apple, we drove the station off and saved the roan.

Daniel

 

[Nidome]

The metric system is inconsistent. How come Europeans strongly prefer the metric system for linear, mass and volume measurements, for instance, but nobody has every proposed metric time?

The metric system was invented by the French after the Revolution and they did come up with a "metric" Calendar and Time (which was commonly referred to as the "Revolutionary Calendar"), but it didn't catch on as no-one really understood it and the Catholic Church(highly influential in France) didn't like it.
Napoleon Bonaparte found the defence of France more difficult after they were kicked out of Spain as all of he maps were pre-revolution with the scales in miles, and most of the "Milestone" roadmarkers had been removed and repaced by ones displaying "Kilometres".

 

[Troll-Hunter]

Thanks for the memories

This discussion on dialects brought back some fond memories from when I was stationed in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. You can imagine a large barracks of 60+ marines, from New England to Texas, and boy were the accents thick sometimes. When they got excited or really motivated about something their accents really came out. I can't exactly remember all the phrases but some home states and usual conversation topics - boy from a New England fishing village complaining about the heat to the Georgia boy fresh of the farm missing his mom's cooking. One black marine from Boston who spoke so formal it was aggravating to listen to him sometimes. One from Harlem who hung out with the Italian from NY City and the Chicago gang member who rarely spoke. The tall blonde California dude who got the dear John letter, so sad.. My best friend a Kentucky boy from the country, with a real thick country accent. Myself? An immigrant Hispanic from Peru raised in Virginia since I was 5. I didn't think I had an accent till I went to New York - um rural small town New York to visit my wife's family, third-generation Italians on her mom side and second gen Norwegians on her father side. Upon meeting some of them - if they spoke first they usually tried their rusty HS Spanish. When I spoke boy did I get strange looks. I don't have a Spanish accent, but I found out I had a bit of a southern accent to my English.

In my current job for a while we had a Vietnamese immigrant finance staff member, spent his first 5 years in Texas - that was not right...his broken English with a Texas accent.