I'm not sure whether it's a North/South divide thing - that would be my first thought, though, with the gone pronunciation being a southern (and hence RP) thing, and the bone pronunciation being a northern thing. My family tend to rhyme it with bone, I tend to rhyme it with gone. Not sure why.

That would fit, actually-- I learnt the word from my grandma, who was born 'in the north', so it's a northern pronuciation that's slipped into my normal near-RP accent.

Mind you, the American definition of muffin has so thoroughly overwhelmed the English definition of muffin, that I'm fairly sure Am-Chau doesn't know what an English muffin is.

I know of many kinds of muffin, both English and American. (And when I'm not sure, I Google. This is my way.)

Plus - Denisof! Bloody hell fire. He had me fooled -- I was gobsmacked he wasn't English. And, sure, 7 years in the UK blahblahblah - props to him. Really good accent.

Wrod. Wesley's accent is amazingly authentic.

And um,ignorant colonial as I am, I know "Buggering hell!" is not a real expression. In my head, it helps to have "bugger" translate to...screw.(No, I can't believe I said that either.) But nobody says "Screwing Hell!" either.

"Buggering hell!" is not a real expression

Indeed. "Bugger", "bloody hell" and "fucking hell", yes, but not "buggering hell", for some reason.

Hmm...although people do say "fucking hell" so I'm not sure that translation thing entirely works!

(But you're right that no-one says "buggering hell", or "buggering" anything much really, it's more likely to be "bugger me sideways" or if you're Australian just "bugger!")

(BTW "bugger" doesn't just mean "screw" it specifically refers to, um, back-door screwing.)

I'm almost curious enough to go web/OED searching on scone pronunciation. I've always known it as scone/gone and my relatives, even the Inverness crowd pronounce it that way, in spite of the Throne/Scone association. Puzzling, because I always assumed the bone/scone was an English thing.

(But you're right that no-one says "buggering hell", or "buggering" anything much really, it's more likely to be "bugger me sideways" or if you're Australian just "bugger!")

(Although it's sometimes used in the past tense: "that's buggered" (broken), "he buggered off".)

Yeah, Angus. I get that. But, as far as I can tell that particular act is not quite quite as big in our curse lexicon as it is for you.(As a verb, anyway. There's all kinds of names for people that indulge in it. )hinking of itr way just kind of gives me a hint about where Fic! Spike might use it. that's all.

"We band of buggered"? Little bit direct for Shakespeare but he was a randy little ...

All other scones are newfangled American things, and based on my one encounter with blueberry scones whilst in LA, they aren't scones. Nice, yes. Scones, no.

Very true, this.

The one thing you have to give us is Southern biscuits. Hot out of the oven they are near perfection.

I'm almost curious enough to go web/OED searching on scone pronunciation.

A quick Google reveals all sorts of pronuciations for the word 'scone': it can rhyme with bone, with gone or with moon. See this page for example.