Is this English?

Sometimes it just cracks me up. Mike and I have been trying really really hard to fit in (wink), but we just can't get our heads wrapped around a few words. I think I have already told you about how it is common for words to be shortened here.

Cell Phone= Celly
Puzzles=Puzzies
Breakfast= Breaky (I have always wanted to use this in my DD site, but I can't get over if I am spelling it correctly. Is it Breaky? Or brekky, breki...I don't know, but when I get it figured out I am sure I will work it into a post sometime.)

Then there are terms like dub dub dub. That's for spelling out a website. http://www.picklejuice.com/ would be dub dub dub picklejuice. Or how about "hard stop". I first heard this at work when I was taking someone's email address. renata@medaware (hard stop) com. It seems that a hard stop is the word for "dot".

Or how about words that end in "wn" like known or grown. The correct way to pronounce that would be to make it end with the "when" sound. So it would be growhen or knowhen. "If I had knowhen you were coming, I would have made tea."

And then two words that just make me flat out giggle inappropriately. (usually because one is used in an interview) Invision is not a word here. It's invisage. "How did you invisage your role with us?" And then Mike gave me this one. "Have a squiz over this and get back to me." Ok, so...seriously...I don't want nothin to do with someone elses "squiz" at work. A "squiz" is a quick look. Uh huh, sure it is....

The words Mike and I are struggling with (you notice I said Mike and I, the kids have picked it right up) are Yes and No. We unfortunately are dead give away Americans with these two words. Let me see if I can't break this down for you.

Yes: It's more of a Yeeez, like an American YEEEE HAW minus the HAW and a Z(zed) at the end. And then there are the different ways to use the word Yeez (yes). If you are in a convo and agreeing, the word would have hard stop (not to be confused with a dot) but still with a z. However, if they are skeptical of what you are saying they will drag it out...yeeeeeeeeezzz and the zzzz's kind of trail off.

No: I have never in my life heard of a two letter word that has as many syllables as the word No in the Kiwi language. Now I will say they do have the short "naw" (no) for casual convo. For example, "Did you catch the game last night, bro?" "Naw (no) mate, had to meet the missus." Which that's probably a bad example because I don't think the Kiwi ever miss a game.

The "no" that I am more speaking about is one that sounds like they mashed No and Ew (like ew gross) together...for a kind of Noeeww. Now what makes the word more interesting is the octives go up and down throughout the word. So it's more like NoOoOoOeeeewwww. (Seriously, stay with me.) And depending on how emphatic you are in your use of the word "no" depends on how many up and down octives you hit and how long the word it drawn out.

"Did you see what Mary had on yesterday?" "OH, I KnoOoOoOoOeeeww" (know)

Now this does seem to carry over into any other word with an "O" sound where you can show how emphatic you are. Like HelloOoOoeewwww (Hello). So, if I were to correctly say my sentence above it would be..

"OoOheeww, I KnoOoOoOoOeeeww" (Oh, I know)

I don't know (KnoOew) if you get the full gist of this since you are reading it. Maybe I should have inserted a vlog post, that would have been easier. I would have had to have had (say that 4 times) my friend Heather do it for me because I would have failed miserably. But we are learning and trying. I don't think I will ever use the word invisage or squiz or learnt or spelt...but I am trying on the Yes and No really hard.