Yes, I’m procrastinating again. But yesterday was a long day (see below), and I did finish one small assignment.
I’ll try to get back into American English, but this may be helpful. : )
I saw a link to this explanation of Ugandan English, and though it desperately needs an editor, its explanations are helpful. I don’t necessarily agree with all the phonetic stuff at the top (though some of it is certainly true, but I think it’s painting with an overly broad brush), but I learned a bit. For example, I always thought “to slope” was to go downhill. Now that I know it can mean to go a particular direction, some directions that I thought were poor (and took me away from my destination) now make sense. And neither of us thought to clarify “to slope” when discussing the merits of said directions.
Most of these I knew, but seeing the origin of “bouncing” and being “fake” is helpful. One of my friends told me that the copiers at the library are fake. They are hideous, and the quality is horrible. So they’re fake. Some of my classmates saw me coming out of the dining hall, and said, “well done!” I had to ask them what they meant. They assume that when they see you, you’ve done something, so they congratulate you. That is SO not American.
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