The hardest thing for me posting here is to take the words I know how to use and rearrange them, srunch some up, stretch other bits out and generally throw the whole bunch up into the air and hope that by the time they land they?ll have magically reordered themselves from English to American so that folks can understand what I?m getting at.

Believe it or not, USians are more than capable of understanding UK English. We don't need it translated.

I was going to mention that we all speak *English* here, and we have more than one UK poster, so we seemingly ignorant Americans CAN actually understand UK English.

I was talking about dialects and sounding American or British I know you can understand the words

It's more than understanding the words -- we're familiar with UK phrasing.

We used to play all kinds of different tag. Freeze tag, TV tag, ball tag. My best friend Kerrie used to have a pool, so our summers revolved around that. We often played "Love Boat", and we all fought over who got to be Julie McCoy.

Yes-- everybody here copes staggeringly well at the sometimes momentarily Victorian way I tend to phrase my sentances.

I was talking about dialects and sounding American or British I know you can understand the words, think about being an actress, or posting on a board where everyone speaks funny.

What Steph said.

It's more than understanding the words -- we're familiar with UK phrasing.

We've a large number of UnAmericans. They don't feel a need to change their writing style. My mother doesn't write like a USian, or speak like one. We understand each other perfectly.

Jilli's husband is English. He makes perfect sense. Both the men I called grandfather were raised in Scotland. I didn't need them to translate for me when they were talking. ita is an international superstar globetrotting type. We know what she's saying.

And then we have Fay. Who always makes sense, even when she's claming she doesn't.

Oh! It wasn't the back that was unique, it was the front. It was an Indian Cent. Must've been older than 1923, then. I wonder if I still have it somewhere.

Cool! I never found one of those. Definitely older, because they stopped making them in 1908, when they switched to the Lincoln cent. I don't recall how long they made them, but definitely back into the 19th century. (Yes, I did collect coins as a child. How did you know?)

Man, Red Rover was a brutal game. I remember it as a recess game though, not gym class. Which means we were doing it voluntarily. Kickball and dodgeball were more structured, I think.

The general rule in our neighborhood was you had to come home and check in when the streetlights came on. But then it was usually back out after dinner for a rousing game of Bloody Murder, sort of a tag variant that involved lots of screaming. Can't imagine kids being able to do this today, and that makes me sad.

You can have a perfect British accent and still sound like an American doing a bad impression because the word usage is wrong and vice vera.

This comes up a lot in fic - you can convey an accent through through word choice and patterns without having to mock up some sort of weird spelling and dialect. (See RayK patois. If you can stand it.)

Zoe, please, no need to alter your chosen language on our account. (Part of me wants to say "dumb it down for the Americans," which I suspect is not really what you intended to say.)

Part of me wants to say "dumb it down for the Americans," which I suspect is not really what you intended to say.)

Thankyou for the benefit of the doubt. I mean what I say as a complement unless I deliberately say otherwise.

See RayK patois. If you can stand it.

Brenda, nobody deserves RayK patois.

The woods behind our house served as various imaginary lands, though since my mom is a champion worrier, I could only

I misread your mother to be the champion warrior of these imaginary lands...

My house had a big ravine with a river and a stream. We dammed up the stream a couple times. Sometimes there'd be police helicopters over the ravine with searchlights, but we never saw any criminals or anyone at all.

My favorite game: Prisonball. In a gym, you throw head-sized Nerf balls at the opposite side. When you hit someone, they go to prison, which is behind your side, so you're sandwiched between. They get out of prison if they hit you. If you catch the ball someone throws at you or is trying to throw to their prison, they go to prison. It seems more interesting than straight dodgeball, but we never really played that.