17: Pronunciation Bowl: US vs UK battle!!!

For our season finale we present a new fixture on the verbal sporting calendar. It's the first annual Pronunciation Bowl!

Who says it better - Brits or Yanks? Representing the United States of America, our very own Matt who also, er, devised all the rules. And fighting on behalf of the plucky United Kingdom, our friend Anthony Mannion who joins us from Hastings - a small portion of which will forever be devoted to American freedom and tax evasion. 

Joining us as special guest judge is James Christensen, who as an Australian is both completely neutral and minimally comprehensible to the rest of the panel.

Who will win? How many goals will be scored? And what exactly are the rules?

Get in touch: colddarkmiserablepod@gmail.com

Or reach Matt and Mike on the socials. Mike's blog is thedayofreckoning.substack.com

NFASCDMI will be back in the fall (or "autumn" lol). Until then, have a great holibob!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Anything that starts with an N, you form the N sound. And the are we really recording this or are we is this just space fill?

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Let's do it again. Okay. Welcome to Notes From or Is it Cold Dark Miserable. Anyway, we're trying to fit in and shorten the title a little like Hollybob's Cuzzy Lives.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Yeah, because we've gone this whole season and it's it's hard when people ask me what's the name of the podcast, and you say it's Notes from a Small Cold Dark Miserable Island, you know it it's a little s what do we what do we call it for short?

SPEAKER_01 0:37

N-F-A-S-C-D-M-M-I.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Yeah, so you make the N sound and use pr you start with the N sound and you pronounce from there. So and then F-A-S-C is FASH, as we know. Fash. Yeah, I don't like this. This is not going well. Well, let's try. Hold on. Fashed me. Fashed me. All right. We're gonna have to work on that. So clearly we need we need to know what this pod should be called for short. And you're gonna have some time to think about it because, spoilers, this is the season finale, Mike. We're going on summer break. This is number what? 15, 17. 17.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

17. Yeah. I type in this every week. Um, yeah, we're gonna take a little uh hollybob. Summer, summer. A little hollybob, you going anywhere?

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Yeah, so next, so tomorrow uh at 7 a.m. Uh just let's do let's timestamp this. It is Thursday, the 23rd of July.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

I didn't realize you're going on holiday right so soon.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

I am going on holiday tomorrow morning. I'm getting in the car, going to Devon, and then uh so for for about a week in Devon, family stuff, and then at the end of August, a week in the States, the annual quick see everybody as fast as you can uh uh trip trip to America. So gonna my six-week kid uh summer holidays are already pretty booked up.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

I am going to Germany next week, which is Goiche. The follow-up question that I get from these British people is Oh, why? Right. We're taking trains around Germany with children. We'll see if that works. This is your first big train journey since you went on with me? I uh like, I guess, yeah. Yeah, pretty much. I mean, certainly the mo the first multi-week one. Where do we go in Germany? I remember going to Hamburg and Berlin and that was it, Hamburg and Berlin. Is that it? We yeah, we didn't go to we didn't go to Munich. Well, we're flying to Berlin and then we're gonna take the trains all around.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

You've been doing a lot of reporting. It's been let's just get this out of the way. This setting up this episode has been our most fraught and challenging scheduling technological um episode to to get out there. Um and so part, yeah, part of that is is the schedule. You've been very busy with work. You're doing a lot of reporting, there's a lot a lot of stuff going on in the world. Your uh your Substack, linked in the show notes, uh, has been blowing up um as the world continues to blow up.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Yes. I mean, read it if you want. Uh um sell it, Mike. I sell it really badly, really badly. Um I I have a story coming out soon on our national broadcaster, there are a famous website. So um maybe we'll link that too. Uh if it if it actually gets published. If the lawyers don't stop it, uh we'll see. Um what else?

SPEAKER_00 3:33

We went Well, we went to Wimbledon. We went to Wimbledon. We did not record anything. We I I was too shy to put phones in people's faces, even though there was a enormous amount of Americans at Wimbledon as we as we went into the the queue, the official queue, the stand outdoors for many hours queue.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

You were representing Cleveland. I was representing So people were giving you shout-outs. Yeah, so I would I everyone from Cleveland in there.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

I intentionally rocked uh a Cavs jersey, uh, and and then some c some Ohio people uh called out to me, and they were students or or Aggressive, former students from OSU, so they were Columbus people, and they they but what what were they doing in London? What was their tourism? Do you remember this, Mike? Um why were they in London two weeks ago? No. They were doing the thing where it's cheaper to see Harry Styles in London than to see him in America. Yeah. Um same thing with Bad Bunny. If you want to, if you want to see these massive stars and you don't want to be at the mercy of Ticketmaster, maybe just the flights to London are uh a a more economical way to go.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

This is awesome. This is a great form of tourism. I encourage it. Come, come, come.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

Because Harry had like, you know, economical tickets. He wasn't just gouging. I mean, he did X amount of nights uh at Wembley. Everything should happen in in London.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

He played 29 nights. Cheapers. No, 29. No, it was two weeks though. It was a it was a lot. It was definitely that sort of that sort of it was definitely double digits. Yeah.

unknown 5:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

But I think everybody wanted to see him win.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

For for my first Wimbledon experience, it was terrific. And I know it's a big like, hey, uh tourists, hand over your money, please. Um, but to show up with no tickets at all and to have to wait only six hours in the sun to to get in to see some tennis, and then to see if you've never seen, you know, uh real live major league tennis up close. It's dope. These people are good. Um We saw a fiery Italian chap.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

I you know what, I went back and I read the the famous uh David Foster Wallace profile of Roger Federer, and he basically compares watching uh tennis on television to watching it real life. He says one is like watching grainy internet pornography, and the other one is like the richness of all human love. And of course he wrote it much better than that, but he basically makes that comparison. Uh it was it was yeah, it was it was fun. What was the name of our Italian player who would uh Flavio Caboli?

SPEAKER_00 6:12

Flavio butchering his name. No, it's that his name? And he eventually made it all the way to the semis?

SPEAKER_01 6:19

We held the cue for some of the Italians who wanted to watch their Italian guy. The Italian brothers. They were left. No, he got beat by the British guy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Some quarterfinal or quarterfinal, some of the things.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

Maybe the quarterfinal.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

Yeah, because he made it to the semis, the the the unranked Brit. So Wimbledon, recommend next year if we do it again, we'll we'll bring the tape recorder and we'll make it an episode.

SPEAKER_01 6:39

Um, one more, well, a couple more things we should mention. The World Cup's over. Yeah. That's that. There's a new World Cup champion. There's a new world prime minister champion. There's so much. Both those things are not related.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

We didn't get a chance to talk about the U.S. going out of the World Cup in the mo I have never taken more pleasure in the team that I was rooting for losing. It's so ugly.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

It was so fucking ugly.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

It's just such a satisfying loss, the the US losing to Belgium after and it looked like that's what they wanted to do. They sort of deserve.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

I mean, like they deserve it.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

They they were like so embarrassed to be there, and they tuned in an embarrassing performance. And it was it was the correct result. They didn't, yeah. After the the president's intervention. Everybody cheats in football. Um and then and then England had its had its had its bronze run, and we're still we're still uh uh you know doing postmortems on um on dropping back into into uh into too much defense. Uh that's still still being discussed. It's heartbreaking.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

But one of them is very yeah, that was bad too. But at least they played for part of the tournament well, and they didn't have to have the Andy Burnham phone up and try and get the get the red card done.

SPEAKER_00 7:53

I do love the most the most fun bronze medal match where you know maybe the world and England learned that playing no defense, much like the National Basketball Association, leads to a very fun product. So the 6-4 win in the bronze match over France, maybe maybe this is a good one.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

It was like the best football match ever played.

unknown 8:17

I think.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

I mean, I'm not an expert or anything. I'm just I'm just like an American who just like got involved in the World Cup just because it was in America. But definitely the best, definitely the best football match ever played.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

It was pretty great. Uh do you wanna do you wanna just touch on Farage versus Ben Face? We we uh Yeah, uh yeah. I mean, I just wonder like if an American were to listen to this podcast and be like one of your leading politicians, hate him or hate him, is gonna be an election versus a comedian who wears a garbage can. Wha how would we translate this to an America?

SPEAKER_01 9:01

It's it's so I mean uh the the bafflement is gonna be crazy because they're they are gonna sort of see a guy with a bin, a garbage can on his head uh up against this sort of right-wing rabble rouser mega-like guy. Um basically all the other parties boycotted the election because Nigel Farage um called it to try and head off a ethics investigation because he took uh millions from some crypto dude.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

Yeah. This is right, five five million, and then he's like, oh, if I'm not currently in office, then the investigation must pause, but I can also use this as an opportunity to grandstand and say they're out to get me.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

I guess the jokiness of certain British election traditions is the odd thing here. Um there is Count Binface a member of the monster raver raving loony party, or is that a different thing?

SPEAKER_00 9:56

That is a that's a good yeah, I haven't heard that name said in a long time, but yeah, that's a a traditional uh satirical, but actually we exist, uh English political party.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

Completely sort of joke parties in I it doesn't happen in the United States. I mean, there's joke candidates, but Paulson. Can I take it back to Pat Paulson? Is that what?

SPEAKER_00 10:17

Pat Paulson was a comedian and he would run for president every time. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

Up into the uh into the 80s.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

Yes, that sort of thing. Publicity stunned. Although in this country, people do it not for like publicity or like to further their own careers or anything, but just like for fun. Um but you know, we knew that we lived in a weird country, so um Here we are.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

All right, so yeah, that is the whistle ass stop of things relevant to our topic. Shall we move on? Well, this is the season finale, and we've been discussing this since we started this podcast as something that we could do. And I'd floated this as a as a concept. And I don't know if you can put, can you go back in post and put some echo on the words I'm about to say? But we would like to welcome all of our listeners to Pronunciation. So we're talking about Americans living in England, right? That's the whole thing. If I was when we make the business cards for our podcast, you know, this is the podcast by, for, and about Americans in England. And if you're an American in England, you're invariably gonna get caught up in some light banter verging on harassment about differences in pronunciation between common words. So we are, as Oscar Wilde said, nations separated by a common language. As Eddie Izzard said, nations separated by the Atlantic Ocean. Shout out Dress to Kill. So we will always be aware of differences in phrases. Go back to our Ben Yagoda episode for like, oh, there's different phrases, different, different words to say things, different spellings. Sometimes you want to spell flavor with a little extra flavor. You want to give it a little extra U in there because you love to eat it. But also, most especially, pronunciations. Because you've lived your whole life saying a certain word a certain way, it's hard not to defend that as the correct way. Tonight, pronunciation bowl won. Is there a better way to say certain words? Yes. And tonight, it's a contest.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

Alright. Uh, in the in the U.S. corner, well, it's you, isn't it? You representing the United States.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

I'm a former game show host in my Chicago years. I created a game show called Jesus Jones Jeopardy, and I'm back with my latest game show property. It's called Pronunciation Bull. And not only have I invented this game, but I'm gonna compete in it tonight. All right.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

And representing the UK, because we wanted to be fair, we have And balanced. We we have uh our friend Anthony Manion, or as Americans like to call him, Anthony. Hello, Aunt.

SPEAKER_04 13:12

Hello, Mike. Hey Matt. Hi. Thanks for having me on.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

Thank you for coming on to uh play the role of the uh the British president.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

The representative of all English people. Yeah, that's fine. I can take that on. Anthony, you lived in Chicago for a while, like Mike and Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:32

Uh 2007 Stroke 8, uh ripped up Chicago for a while and um had a few adventures with pronunciation, I have to say. But uh obviously I'll I'll keep my my powder dry for that uh for the game.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

But yeah did people did people ask you to pronounce certain words in certain ways and then mock you for it?

SPEAKER_04 13:54

Uh yeah, sometimes. Uh I mean I do remember once or or just trying I remember a drunk guy trying to get me to correctly pronounce uh and I still can't, uh Jagoff. Uh such a sort of sort of adulteration of Jerk off specific to Chicago. Is that correct? Jag off it went on forever.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

This guy kept plugging Jag off.

SPEAKER_04 14:19

Yeah, and he he just kept getting me to say it, and I'd say it wrong, and he was getting angry that I couldn't say it the way he wanted me to say it. Um but that's a that's a that's a core memory of our time there, Jagoff.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

Um now Ant is joining us in from Hastings, his home in Hastings. Um Ant, you do some comedy there in Hastings. Funny place, funny place?

SPEAKER_04 14:42

Uh no, not a massive comedy scene, no, but it is a funny place. Uh it's home of the America Ground, actually. You should check it out next. I heard your 4th of July episode. Uh we have the America Ground here that uh they they used to celebrate July the 4th down here. Uh it's an area of ground that was um uh created by a storm in the 13th century um next to the sea, and they claimed after several hundred years they then claimed to be part of America in order to avoid uh taxation, I believe.

SPEAKER_03 15:12

Oh nice.

SPEAKER_04 15:13

I mean, I I should have done more research. I did read the book about it, but that was so many years ago I can't remember, and now I'm talking to you about it. I I can't I don't know the details. It's about half a mile down the road from my house. I I don't know much about it.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

Is there still like an enclave there? Like can I guess and can I go the same, like, you know?

SPEAKER_04 15:32

Uh it's done legally, but um there there used to be a sort of American-looking diner and a few businesses that used it as their as their thing. Um and yeah, they used to be like street parties for July the 4th. So Field Trip. Yeah, field trip. Uh but otherwise, yeah, I do a bit of comedy. Um I'm I'm uh well, you know, I'm a bit of this, a bit of that. I pop up here and there, I don't really I'm hard to pin down. Sometimes I'm Mr. Benelux, uh sometimes I'm Steve Pigbank. The last time I performed I was Andrew State. Um which was interesting. And um sometimes I'm just me. So I can't really plug anything because you never know where I'm gonna be next. Sort of like a really unsuccessful bank suit of comedy.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

That's awesome. Um okay, so uh like we have these competitors, but like obviously it's not like Fairfy Judge, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:31

Right, you're the referee, so you're gonna keep time and keep the score. And but we do have uh we do have a judge. I have contracted uh measles. No, I have uh contracted, I have arranged for a judge to be here. So I wanted someone from an English-speaking nation that was neither English nor American, so a neutral third party. So obviously we should have gotten like uh uh a linguist or uh wait, is it an etymologist or an entomologist? One of them's bugs, one of them's words. Um either one would be fine. Okay, great. So obviously, someone like a very learned person, but instead one Australian guy who works at the same theater that I work at. Um but it turns out I've learned tonight that he like he's a he's an English tutor, so solid, solid booking. Ladies and gentlemen, uh and everyone else, may I introduce James Christensen? Good night.

SPEAKER_02 17:27

Did I have to bring that voice out? The accent's truly weak as is, and I feel the pressure to exaggerate it for a f it's like differentiate myself. You're going so hard. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

Uh Jane, James, how long have you been in this country?

SPEAKER_02 17:43

I've been in the UK for almost seven years. So I'm proper, properly bedded in.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

It's coming out now.

SPEAKER_02 17:49

But I'm coming out now. But I have I have no you know, I have no allegiance, so I want to make it perfectly clear to everyone of the viewers at home and all our competitors. I'm strictly impartial in this. As the bastard children of UK colonialism and US cultural imperialism. I think we're I think I have my soul split suitably in half, right? By the by the twin. I don't have, you know, I don't have a horse in this race, so I'm gonna be very impartial when it when it comes to the judging.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

All right. Awesome. Matt, you better uh explain the rules of the game that you created and are now gonna participate in.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

Pronunciation bowl. Great. Um I'm a naturally louder person, so Mike, it's just you're uh we're working off of one mic. It's it's gonna be a hell of an edit for you. So good luck with that. Pronunciation bowl works as follows. There will be four rounds and a bonus round. Each will be like a uh baseball inning, if you will. Uh so each player, uh, that's me and Anthony, uh, will uh each each of us has prepared a list, a palette, a quiver, if you will, uh, and shared this list with referee Mike. I'm just passing over my list at the very last minute to Mike just now. Don't look, James. Uh this is a list of 10 words that they think their nation says in a superior manner. So at the when it is their turn in each inning, they will have one minute to present their case, and then their opponent will have 30 seconds to rebut. Then Judge James will grant a point to the better pronunciation. So an inning can be two-nothing to your nation, it can be one-one, or you can lose it 0-2. Now we've got our list of 10. Maybe we notice the tendencies that Judge James is is giving points to, and so um we don't have to have our four words that we're gonna play with decided up front. We can chop and change, that's a British phrase, as we go. After two rounds, we'll take a little pause and we'll do a bit of a wild card, a little bit of a bonus round, and that is going to be the concession round. Now, even though we do believe in our cultural superiority, we also know that sometimes we're not getting it right. So in the concession round, each of the players will offer a word that their nation says worse than the other nation. Uh, and so they can say, I concede the word, and then they say the word. And then if that word is on the other player's list, they will receive a two-point bonus. That's right, I said one in the in the the the Google Doc, but I'm calling it two points. I think if you pull that off, you should get two points. So, for instance, uh just to give an example, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna present the word tomato. Though the word tomato does uh, you know, have have um it's forgiven because any any word that's included in the song, Let's Call the Whole Thing Off, uh, made famous by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, uh, that's that's not a word that you can play. Everyone, everyone's been informed of this. Um so I'm gonna have one minute to be like, you should say tomato for these reasons, blah blah blah baddy blah. And then Anthony would have 30 seconds to say, no, you should say tomato for these reasons, blah blah blah blah blah. And James says, the US says tomato better, US one point. So that's that's that's a sample round. So two rounds, each of us get a word, then we do the concession round, then two more rounds, then we total it up. If it is a tie, then we'll take a brief pause, figure out our tiebreaker, and move on from there. Any questions? I'm I'm good.

SPEAKER_01 21:49

Uh yeah, I got some questions. Uh let's play. Um who's going first? Do we have to flip a coin? Uh home field advantage?

SPEAKER_00 22:00

I'm I'm I'm happy to give Anthony the the the first the first word if he's if he's happy to take it.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

Alright, Ann. Yeah, sure. You're up.

SPEAKER_04 22:07

Well, I mean, possibly I'm going for low-hanging fruit here, so I'm gonna start with the word strawberry. No, that's a joke because strawberries are low-hanging fruits, but um my low-hanging word is yogurt or yogurt, as I believe you guys might say. So we say yogurt, but you go for the long vowel sounds to make a yo, which to me sounds kind of like Americans sort of sound like they taught themselves to read. What you've done is you've got confused with the split digraph rule. So presumably you think the split digraph rule applies to all vowels, when actually it only applies if the second vowel is an E. So for example, tap becomes tape when you put the E after the P. The vowel following the G is a U in yogurt, so the split digraph rule is not applicable. In fact, I would say using a long O sound for the letter string O G U is totally bogus. Sorry, I mean bogus.

SPEAKER_03 23:12

Alright. Alright.

SPEAKER_00 23:14

Yogurt. So I it's funny because uh I did have this word on my list as a word that Americans do say superiorly.

SPEAKER_03 23:24

It's true, he's I got it right here.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

It does uh yogurt is a more euphonic sounding. Also, yogurt includes the syllable yog, which is a gross sounding syllable. Yogurt is sounds like a delicious thing that you would want to eat. I have no uh, you know, academic mumbo jumbo to uh offer for you. I just know that yogurt sounds like something you want to eat, and yogurt sounds like vomit.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

Uh over to our judge.

SPEAKER_02 23:57

Yeah, goddamn. Great cases put. I hadn't thought about this. This hadn't occurred to me as one that would come up. And I feel like on the UK side, we got some we got some hard rules. We got some hard philology came in here. Someone who knows things. I used to be a primary school teacher. Oh, well, there you go. You know, and I don't know any other derivation or anything like that, but I'm gonna come down on it because I'm gonna go. When it suits me. So, look, I'm going on the euphonics as well, and I'm gonna give it to the US, and I shall tell you for why. Ooh! And it's mainly, it's mainly because yogurt has is more malleable, it's got more derivations to it. Think about froyo. You can't go froyo. Froyor? Ridiculous. Go yogo? Have you ever had that? They put yogurt in yoga setup. I know how that's supposed to be pronounced, but I do think the US has it for the roundness of it, the richness of it, and the least less choppy sound and what you can do with it. Done. Awesome. One meal.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

Um all right. Is I'm gonna present my word for the first inning then. I'm gonna present the word schedule. Schedule. I don't want to sound like Sean Connery impersonator and say, let me trick my schedule. Alright? Quick, think of some words that use SCH to say sh. Uh, uh uh shits creek. Uh shh, but school, schematic, uh, schism, schedule. Not schedule. I'm not even gonna I'm not even gonna use I I yield the rest of my time.

SPEAKER_03 25:38

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:40

I can't think of I can't think of any circumstance where you wouldn't want to sound like Sean Connery. Not that I can do any impressions. Um well that's that's tricky to come back on, isn't it? Uh it just sounds better. Uh schedule sounds more sophisticated. Um sounds more like a grown-up talking.

SPEAKER_01 25:58

Let me check my schedule.

SPEAKER_04 26:00

Yeah. Alright. I think that's all I got. James?

SPEAKER_02 26:04

Yeah. I mean, that's incredibly difficult. And again, I'm revealing the criteria by which I'm judging everything in life, generally, but it's vibes, and I weirdly think schedule is classier. Oh I know it doesn't make sense. I know it doesn't. I'm not defending this in by any lore of plan. You introduced me as a literature teacher, and it's insane that I'm doing this. But I do like the Sean Connery. Weirdly, you shot yourself in the foot. As soon as you brought it up, I was like, that actually does sound pretty good. And I hand it to the UK because it sounds cli sounds like a piece of paper being torn out of a diary.

SPEAKER_00 26:38

Shh schedule. All right. I like it. One-one! Wow, both of us both of us lost our our first presentation. Okay. All right, Reflect.

SPEAKER_01 26:48

Next up, next up.

SPEAKER_00 26:49

Do I go again or does Anthony go?

SPEAKER_01 26:50

Oh, do we flip it around? Yeah, no, no, yeah. You you you serve. Okay. You serve.

SPEAKER_00 26:55

All right, so I uh am proud to present the word urinal. Urinol. What do you put inside of a urinol? You put Yes, you put urine in a urinol. You do not put urine in a urinol. This is a classic British person putting the emphasis on the wrong syllable, as many a drama teacher has said, and it is not a nice sound. I know obviously urinating is not a nice thing to do. Wait, actually, that that brings me. So urinating. British people say urinating, right? They don't say urinating. So why when it becomes a-pissing, but you know. Why when it becomes a noun, an object, do we suddenly put a long vowel and emphasize the middle syllable?

SPEAKER_04 27:51

I feel like if anybody has w a ra resort to that, it's it's our man in Hastings, and Yeah, um, well, I guess it's it's because we're polite and and like I say, we're all sophisticated. And we're I suppose we're trying to just obscure the fact of what it is that we're doing when we visit the urinal.

SPEAKER_01 28:13

Oh, it's strategic. You don't want to say the word urine.

SPEAKER_04 28:16

Yeah, we don't want to like that's that's kind of crude, isn't it? It's crude to say urine. Oh, we wouldn't we wouldn't use the word urine in this country. Um and we wouldn't we wouldn't say I'm just going off to to urinate. You might say I'm going to go and visit the urinal because obviously nobody would quite know that that involves um having a slash.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

So um yeah. Uh uh, Josh, uh this is a very tricky one, Josh.

SPEAKER_02 28:43

Yeah, it's super tricky, super difficult. As much as I love the image of someone walking past the bathroom going, wait, they piss in there? I thought it was called a urinal. That has no similarity to any word that I know of for for taking a piss. Um, no, actually, coming down hard on this one, urinal. The United States is correct on this one. It it is it's a gent it's a it's a gentler, it's a gentler word. It's oddly more classy, it doesn't have that ah to it. Urinal. Much nicer. Much nicer. Done.

SPEAKER_01 29:19

Oh, okay. Let's see if we can come back from that, my friends.

SPEAKER_04 29:22

Okay, let's get this back on surf. Um, well, okay, let's so uh imagine the scene we're in the kitchen, you've got the bolognese bubbling away, uh nice chopped tomatoes in there, and then you know what Herbie gonna add, or sorry what herb, but let's not get into that. Um I don't know what I know what it's like. We're gonna that one. We're gonna reach, apparently, apparently you guys are gonna reach for the basil. Well, over here it's basil, uh popular in Italian dishes, um, currently dying on my kitchen windowsill. And everyone, everyone knows that uh Basil comes from is named after the fictional hotel owner Basil Fawty in Faulty Towers. So if you're creating a different pronunciation of uh Basil, you're being disrespectful to the proud tradition of 1970s British sitcoms. And when you made the American version of Fawty Towers, did you call him Basil? No, I've done the research, and you called him Royal Pain, so that's irrelevant. And you also completely ruin the dynamic by making it seem like the husband and wife uh liked each other, which is not the point of Faulty Towers. But anyway, if you really care about it, Basil comes from the Latin basilicum, and uh I could probably work that into a dirty joke involving Basil from Faulty Towers, but I choose not to.

SPEAKER_00 30:46

Basil all all day long. Uh don't start by 30 seconds. I I think like the most like the the the faulty tower, the faulty towers adaptation, even though it's not direct, is like is is is New Heart, the Bob Newhart uh sitcom where he runs a bed and breakfast. Okay, time's ticking. Um what am I speaking in support of? I'm speaking in support of Basil. Basil, yeah. Basil. Okay, another uh uh a beautiful uh long vowel sound is is more euphonic. And also um Basil makes me think of Basil Rathbone, who was an actor who was very scary and he did like scary movies and um and he and he like uh he curdles the blood to think of him, Basil uh Rathbone. Basil Rathbone, yuck. Um Basil rotting on my windowsill. I don't had to defend it really well every time. It's really just up to James to think that, like, you know what? I would like some nice basil in my uh uh Bologna's.

SPEAKER_02 31:48

You're gonna have to work pretty hard on that one, right? Actually, I'm gonna I'm not gonna lie to you. And you need to stop appealing to film stars in a negative way. That's always gonna win it for me. If anything sounds like a film star, it's it gonna I'm gonna tell you right now, I'm gonna flag a prejudice. No, Basil. Basil. Basel sounds like discount. Beach, wear, I don't like it. It's weird, basilicum, the derivation's there, it's all there. It's basil. Thanks, man.

SPEAKER_00 32:12

I didn't realize Anthony would be doing actual research.

SPEAKER_02 32:15

That's not fair.

SPEAKER_01 32:16

To win the game that you've invented. Awesome. Okay, it's two all. Woo! Uh, what comes next? The concession round. Some sort of thing.

SPEAKER_00 32:28

This is where we do the ad read.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

Oh, yeah, okay, okay, okay. But we're not gonna do that. This podcast is brought to you by whatever you hear next. Thank you. Now back to the show.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

So the concession round, we're each gonna present a word that we say our nation says worse. And if it is on our opponent's secret list of ten, of which they've already spent two, then we score a big two-point bonus. Mike, who want who do you want to present first?

SPEAKER_01 32:57

Uh uh you you go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 32:59

You go ahead. All right. It is disgusting the way uh my country peeps say the word that is spelled N-I-C-H-E. We should say niche, like the English people. Do you not? No, we be saying niche. Niche shit.

SPEAKER_01 33:21

Terrible.

SPEAKER_00 33:21

You say niche for like a like an esoteric. Yeah, it's a real niche category that you're in fucked, man. I'm so sorry. Now that's godless work right there from the United States. I concede ni I concede Nietzsche.

SPEAKER_02 33:38

I concede which is the least Nietzschean thing you could do. Concede anything.

SPEAKER_01 33:42

I I'm looking I'm looking at Ann's list. It's not on his list. Should I have revealed that? It's not. I wish it was. It either is or isn't. Okay, alright. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 33:52

It would be if I'd have known about it, but I didn't even know that.

SPEAKER_01 33:55

Who knew about this?

SPEAKER_00 34:00

This is like probably number one on Mike on Mike Wendling's Beautiful Bride's uh most hated pronunciations.

SPEAKER_01 34:06

Oh, yeah, yeah. She fucking niche. Oh, okay. So that wait, does that mean you you score?

SPEAKER_00 34:13

No, I score nothing. You score nothing. He's got a chance to score two if he picks a word from my list.

SPEAKER_01 34:18

All right, all right. All right, and what what's on his list?

SPEAKER_04 34:21

Uh okay, I'm going for uh I think Americans say vitamin better than we say vitamin.

SPEAKER_02 34:31

Oh no! Is it on there?

SPEAKER_01 34:34

It's once you did it. It sounds better.

SPEAKER_04 34:37

Is it like it sounds like it's gonna boost you, doesn't it? A vitamin. It's vital sounds a bit weak.

SPEAKER_02 34:44

Yeah. Totally agree. And you would have lost that one ant if it had come up and let's tell you now.

SPEAKER_00 34:50

Uh so it's great you put it on there, yeah. At the last minute, I changed it from one point to two points, and now it's now it's four or two, just like that. Just like that.

SPEAKER_02 35:02

But that was good ammunition. I'm I'm impressed that you yeah. I'm impressed that you have that on the that's a good one to put on the list. Yeah. Vida Bad sounds like a Marvel hero that never got off the shelves. Like, it's so good. So much better than Vitamin.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

Yeah, somewhere in uh an elementary school textbook, like uh a health class or a biology class, they to make the topic more interesting to eight-year-olds, there is a superhero named Vitaman, uh, who's who's here to teach you about the five food groups. How many food groups is it in England, by the way? I'd five I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 35:40

I'm just learning from my in this country you need to you need to eat five fruit and veg. Okay. And uh we have a healthy eating plate. That's got more than five, that's got like seven.

SPEAKER_01 35:51

In the United States, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is now in charge. So we have to eat five different types of raw meat every day. Really? Um preferably from wild animals that you've uh killed yourself.

SPEAKER_03 36:02

They're still alive.

SPEAKER_01 36:04

Right. It it's my job to say what happens next. Uh and I'm failing at it. Round three. Round three. Uh and who went first last time? Ant? Ants up? I think it's probably ants up. Ants up, ants. Yeah. All right, what's the next word?

SPEAKER_04 36:19

Go for it. All right. Uh a slightly more subtle one, probably this one. But I'm going for the uh the second day of the week, Tuesday, which um I've heard Yanks pronouncing as a Tuesday with much more of an ooh sound rather than you, uh, which is how it should be. Because everyone I've been on the internet again. Um everyone knows that Tuesday is named after the Roman god of war, Mars, hence the French Madi, uh, excuse my pronunciation. But um, as everyone also knows, it uh the the Germanic people switched it to their own Germanic version of the God of War, who was T which is T-I-W or T-I-U. So it is Tu's day, it's the day that belongs to T you. So it's if you ignore the subtlety of the EU and go straight for the much easier, I mean sound, then uh you're disrespecting the proud tradition of German mythology.

SPEAKER_03 37:26

Which is a really offensive thing to do.

SPEAKER_04 37:28

And us us brit us Brits would never offend the Germans.

SPEAKER_01 37:35

When I saw this on the list, I thought you were gonna say Tuesday.

SPEAKER_02 37:39

Oh shit.

SPEAKER_04 37:43

Let's be fair, that's it. That is how it sounds in this country, yeah. But um for the purposes of the game.

SPEAKER_02 37:48

Soon on a Tuesday, Tuesday tunes. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 37:54

Okay. Allow me to rebut. Now, something I didn't say, uh something I didn't say that was part of the rules was was is this we can't make up rules now. No, no, no, but yeah, I know, but I didn't in the lead up. This has all been very stressful getting this show up. Um was, you know, was it accent dependent? And I feel like some British people might not, but but is it is it a significant amount? Yes. So I'll uh I'll allow it, even though I'm not gonna allow it. I'll allow it. Yeah, the competitor.

SPEAKER_01 38:21

The competitor will allow it. Time. Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 38:23

All right, so um this brings into the question the liquid you. In drama school, we'd be talking about the liquid you, giving a little little uh I I'm trying to think of other words that include the liquid you, but we we are drinking some Riocha, uh, and I may have lost my my mind.

SPEAKER_01 38:39

Urinal is not a liquid you.

SPEAKER_00 38:41

So you don't need the liquid you. The liquid you sounds pretentious. I knew it. I knew it. I didn't, I did it wasn't like I knew it, like I'm adding an extra letter Y in there. I just knew it. And so therefore it's Tuesday. It's Tuesday. I'm not trying to give it Tuesday. It's just Tuesday. The just like uh is the rent due? No, it's you. So that's where I'm coming from. Also, uh how many weekdays are there? There are five weekdays. Monday is number one, Tuesday's number two.

SPEAKER_01 39:16

Um I I have a I have a feeling how this one's gonna go, James, over to you.

SPEAKER_02 39:22

Okay, well, I don't know whether I'm if I'm going off vibe really early, and I I there's something about efficiency that makes sense to me, right? And not doing a ridiculous little dip in the middle of a word, but at the same time. Tuesday. Come on. Guys, that Roman mythology hit me real fucking hard. That Germanic stuff. I don't know what happened there. Are you talking? I'm gonna be careful about it. The history lesson kind of pumped me up, and I'm going to Tuesday. I love adding, but I'm Australian. We love like we we have tri diphthongs, trip thongs. We put as many vowels as have you heard us say no? No five vowels into that. And an R. No you wanna. We love multiple vowel sounds in a way. So yeah, no, hand it to the I'm handing it to the Chris. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 40:05

It's running away with the Tuesday. It's T U. Five. Did that make it five to two? Five to two. It makes it five to two. Five to two. All right, can you get one back?

SPEAKER_00 40:17

And try to get it back in the in the last round. All right, I'm gonna present the word lieutenant. Lieutenant! Ain't no F or PH to be found. Lieutenant! In lieu of a better word, I present to you lieutenant the end. Oh god.

SPEAKER_04 40:38

Yeah, I got nothing with that. Um yeah. Never understood that one myself.

SPEAKER_02 40:46

This is absolutely terrible. I was so afraid this word would come up. But hey, based based on the arguments presented, based on the argument, exactly, because the thing is, I am irrationally fond personally of the pronunciation of left tenant because it's so stupid. Nothing else in the world, like I love some maverick shit that comes up in language sometimes where it's like no one could possibly defend that. But purely because the format demands argument, debate, forbearance, and conciliation on the balance of arguments put forward. I'm gonna hand it to the arguments that we'll put forward, which is to the markets. Oh, it's a no I will never stop from Lieutenant. Right.

SPEAKER_00 41:24

You could have you could have said like, let's do it. Just give me the thing. James overcame his personal biases.

SPEAKER_01 41:34

The judge is very open about his personal biases.

SPEAKER_02 41:37

Oh yeah, I'm really, really admitting this. Lieutenant. So stupid.

SPEAKER_01 41:40

This may this may affect strategy in the rest of the game. It's like people scanning the list. What is the dude looks a bit?

SPEAKER_02 41:48

Exactly. What's the dumbest way I could argue for this?

SPEAKER_01 41:51

Alright, all right. Um does this does this make it the final back of the book? So you need to come back. It's five to three. Yeah. UK's, yeah. US three. All right. And uh you're serving first in this round. Am I? Yeah? I think so. Yeah. Okay, good. Switching around.

SPEAKER_00 42:12

All right, great. All right. Here we go. I present to you the letter Z. A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, Elemental P, Q, R, S, C, U, V, W, X, Y, N, Z. Now I know my A, B, C's. Next time, won't you sing with meds?

SPEAKER_02 42:39

And I do sing with meds. Anytime I've accounted.

SPEAKER_01 42:43

It goes for a letter. This is controversial. Yeah, just. I guess you made all the rules, so you can do whatever you want.

SPEAKER_00 42:48

That's right. I'm not gonna quote Mike Myers and talk about Z Z top. I'm just gonna um I'm just gonna say, let's, you know, so many of the letters rhyme with E. Let's call it Z. Let's make it clear. Why are we suddenly putting an anchor on the end of an alphabet and calling it Z? Z dead, baby.

SPEAKER_01 43:07

If you were watching uh episode two, where I discussed the uh uh commissioning editor who uh referred to uh JZ. J Z. And what do you have to say to the letter Z?

SPEAKER_04 43:21

Yeah, I'm struggling. Um, apart from it's against the rules because you said it had to be words and it's not a word.

SPEAKER_00 43:32

But uh I mean, you know what?

SPEAKER_04 43:34

I'm winning, I'm I'm what am I? 5'3, so this would be f if I lose, it's still I'm still pretty confident I'm gonna win. And I'm just gonna concede that one. Uh we did put the gloves are off now.

SPEAKER_01 43:50

No, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_04 43:52

Now as a child, that was the most common um weapon to put down the Americans was that they said Z. Instead of Z, when clearly there is no reason to say Z. So I I've got to just concede it.

SPEAKER_02 44:07

There's no there is no defense to that. Honestly, yeah, man, there was nothing you were gonna say. To be honest with you, it it's it's because I grew up saying Z as well, as we'll say Zed in Australia as well, and it's a fucked way to say that letter and the yanks have it.

SPEAKER_00 44:21

Okay. 5'4, 5'4. This is the best it could have been.

SPEAKER_01 44:27

It comes down to the left swerve. This is giving third place bronze medal four company.

SPEAKER_04 44:33

Bellingham's got the ball and he's approaching the penalty.

SPEAKER_01 44:36

We're just gonna let him run around. Alright, what do you got for us?

SPEAKER_04 44:41

Oh right, I'm just going pretty basic with this one. Just I mean, it just sounds worse. So I'm going, uh, you've got a nice bunch of flowers. You're gonna apparently you're gonna put it in a vase. So this time, instead of a vase, uh this time you've kind of tried with the split diagraph rule that you go A S E, that means you need a long A sound, which would be vase, but you've not understood the second part of the rule, which is that it doesn't apply if it sounds really stupid. And vase just sounds dumb. It's a real effort to say it, it's an effort to listen to it, it's just kind of stressful sounding. Vase, it's horrid.

SPEAKER_00 45:25

That's it. I will posit that I've never heard an American say vase. We say V-A-S-E as vase, like as if it was the letter C and not the letter not the letter Z or the letter S. So when I see V-A-S-E, I would be like, if I'm trying to be like, you know, buttering up my wife and be like, oh, I got you a nice vase for our anniversary, or if I'm trying to say a word nice and easy with a long vowel sound because there's a silent E on the end, I would say, hey, uh pass me that vase. Um, but I've never heard an American say vase.

SPEAKER_04 46:06

So uh the A is the offensive part.

SPEAKER_00 46:09

Oh, okay, yeah. No, vase. Vase, vase, it's nicer. Hey, live in that vase. VAZ. Like gauz or schnauz, but uh if there is an E on the end, then why would I give it a short uh or uh uh like aww sound? Yeah, vase. It sounds better. It's more seductive. Hey, hey, hey! This is hey, reclaiming my time.

SPEAKER_02 46:33

Mr. Speaker, I'm reclaiming the most American thing you've settled.

SPEAKER_01 46:37

This is this seems a very, very tight one for the for the last round.

SPEAKER_02 46:42

Yeah, I'm gonna declare absolutely no like prior leaning on this word, weirdly. I had not thought about this one particularly. This was a shocker to me. This yeah, this is this is kind of out of left field. Which means I'm I'm coming I'm coming cold to this one. I don't have any I don't have any leaning. And it's incredibly uh difficult. So I'm gonna go on pure sound and music. And I prefer because it comes from the French, doesn't it? A vase it comes it comes from the I'm fairly sure it comes from the French, and the the openness gives me the shape of it more. Vase, it sounds like it's it's like mace it's it's or evasive. It seems sharp, it seems flat. Vase gives me the sense of a container. It's open, a vase is a container. This is my flimsy fucking logic, but I'm doubling down on it. The format and hand I'm handing it to the I'm handing it to the bridge.

SPEAKER_01 47:38

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 47:38

I'm handing that.

SPEAKER_01 47:40

Oh, and the final score. Six to four! Six to four.

SPEAKER_04 47:44

That is the perfect score for England. I thought we had another round, yeah. I thought it was uh No, four four rounds and one. Oh, okay. What was your other reverse word? Well, I wasn't, you know what? It was one that I wasn't even quite sure, but the internet told me that it's how Americans say it, which was banana. Which I like. Oh. Banana is better than banana. They go bananas.

SPEAKER_01 48:11

Oh, but banana versus banana. Banana.

SPEAKER_00 48:13

But I think that that's I think that's accent-based. That's a tomato tomato.

SPEAKER_02 48:17

Do you think all Americans say banana?

SPEAKER_00 48:20

Yeah, banana. Yeah. That's bananas. Yeah. B-A-N-A-N-A-S.

SPEAKER_02 48:23

Yes, banana is better. Banana better. I would have given you the absolutely given it to the Americans on that one. Absolutely. Uh partly because I'm really fond of the game bananagrams, and you can't say banana grams because the pun doesn't work. The portmanteau defaults apart.

SPEAKER_00 48:36

When you were talking about which herb you were gonna put in your in your bolognese, I was so ready for oregano. Yeah, yeah. I thought it was gonna be that as well.

SPEAKER_02 48:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 48:47

I nearly went oregano. And then actually I couldn't decide if I like it more, so I think I quite I quite like oregano. Can I ask a question before we finish? Yes, please. Um because when I was doing my research on which words we say differently, um the internet told me that in America, instead of calling uh offensive word, instead of calling somebody a twat, that you call them a twat. Or twat. Is that true?

SPEAKER_00 49:15

Yeah, twat, you fucking twat. Twat or but it is also female anatomy. It's quite it's quite strongly used, female anatomy anatomy. Is it quite a strong word?

SPEAKER_04 49:25

Because it's quite a silly word here. Here it's quite silly. It's like you you sort of it's not all that offensive. But it's just the the the sound of it. So have I have I have I ruined things by saying a terrible word for Americans?

SPEAKER_00 49:38

No, well, we get the E no matter what. I mean twat rhymes with twat. Listen, I'm I you know bleep it out. I'm not on I'm not on my home court. I'm happy, I'm happy to lose. Much like I was happy for America to lose in the World Cup, I'm happy to lose the inaugural pronunciation bowl.

SPEAKER_01 50:00

Thanks, guys. Thanks for Thanks to Ants. The winner. Thank you. That was fun. Thank you. For the giants. Matt, we're well, like you said, we are on a summer hiatus here. We're going to be going on our Halibobs. I'm never, but okay. Eating our pasta with uh taco. Taco. Tacos. Tacos.

SPEAKER_00 50:24

No pasta, no tacos.

SPEAKER_01 50:27

Uh in the in the meantime, people can email us.

SPEAKER_00 50:30

Uh the email is colddarkmiserablepod at gmail.com. If you've listened this far on your service of choice, then go ahead and do the the the rating mechanic, whatever it is. Give us five stars on Spotify or uh a million cheeseburgers on Apple Podcasts, whatever it is.

SPEAKER_01 50:52

Give it uh rated 18 on uh IMDB, uh I think is the maximum score.

SPEAKER_00 50:59

Oh, we didn't talk about the Odyssey. We didn't talk about the Odyssey and like all the uh, you know, all the all the American accents being performed in the Odyssey.

SPEAKER_01 51:06

I'd love to tell you this, I actually haven't seen the movie. Well, it's only been out for a few days. Because of the well, I was very keen to actually see it uh early on, but apparently in British movie theaters these days, they clamp down on the age thing and they won't let I wanted to say take my my sons in there and they wouldn't let the younger one in. Even you, even with you as a B to the S. Because it's a 15. It's it doesn't need to be a 15. 15-year-old or whatever, yeah. Um too young.

SPEAKER_00 51:38

Well, um that's it, man. We've done 17 episodes, and now we're gonna take a little bit of a break. Um we've had some amazing guests besides James and Anthony, who I gotta give thanks to Sasha, Eric, Derek, Ben, Max, Emily, Joey.

SPEAKER_01 51:56

These are the names of people. If this is the first episode that you've actually heard, what is your problem? Uh you should probably listen to the other ones. They'll make a lot more sense, honestly.

SPEAKER_00 52:06

This is the first time that we've like scrunched around one microphone in the studio. So if you don't love the sound for this one, don't worry. It's different in the other ones.

SPEAKER_01 52:16

It's different every week. Do you have a theme song? Have you have you this have we decided on that yet?

SPEAKER_00 52:21

I don't I don't want to say that there's a bit on this show, that there's a recurring bit, uh, where I present a theme song that uh at the end of the show, but you know, listen, Mike, I caught a thread on one of the social media uh uh Americans in England social media groups about a guy who was just sick and tired of all the US bashing going on at work. Uh so this is an American guy living in England who's just sick of his English coworkers being like, oh, America's the worst, and oh, can you believe they're president and all this?

SPEAKER_01 52:56

The ambassador?

SPEAKER_00 52:59

Why, you know, accusations of why don't the Americans rise up? How could they have voted for this? And so he was just, she's just so sick of it. Like, who and so he's putting it to the rest of the Americans in the social media group, what should I do when I'm just at the end of my rope of being persecuted because I'm American by these snooty English people? And my initial reaction was like, hey, buddy, uh come on, look at the scoreboard. Don't take it personal. Like this, this too. I have a I have a an old uh high school friend who who was in the US military for many years, and when Trump first got elected, I was like, what are we gonna do? And he was like, this too shall pass, which was of course is a a massive cop-out. But every once in a while I'm like, okay, just remember uh the midterms will come and maybe we'll impeach, etc. And so I was like, hey, don't don't take it personal, buddy, just just ride it out. But then I I like I get it. Like I get the you know, people being uh uh aggressive towards you because you're American. So I've I've tried to give this anonymous person some grace in song form. And also, in honor of themes, I've prepared a little something for us tonight. Alright. Are you ready? Yeah, hit it, hit it. Doom doom dee daking your way in the old UK can be hard when you're a yank. I would never refer to myself as a yank. Apologies for foreign policy, but Brits still be acting stank. Can't you see I've already moved away? T could we please forgo performative displays of shame to do too do? This shit's still not in my name since 2002. What's he done now for me to disavow his prior inaction to blame? But can't we just go where you don't have to show your shame? You wanna be where people see all Americans ain't the same. You where you wanna be where you don't have to wear your shame. Cold dark miserable island, notes from cold dark, miserable island show.