Leicester

You’ve both anticipated my next post. I was going to suggest that if a phenomenal display of grit, courage and skill to overturn decades of financial dominance and revitalise the most watched league in the world’s most popular sport wasn’t sufficient, we could always have a good chuckle as to how a particular country not only refuses to recognise the merits of a sport the world agrees is superior, and not only doesn’t even know what to call that sport, but can’t even pronounce what is now one of it’s most famous names.

Am I being deliberately controversial in order to provoke? Of course I am. But let’s enjoy it nonetheless.

DY: Touche. I was vague for linguistic effect, and you’ve done well to catch me out on it. But to be completely fair, it does too say it’s a sport ‘the world agrees is superior’, which, when you consider that Association Football is the most popular sport in the world by some distance, can only be referring to that sport, thereby excluding the post from referring to England.

Goq: I’ll happily defend my country’s national sport, so feel free to make whatever coherent point you feel supports your claim.

ZD: Huh? Would you mind please elaborating, your post is somewhat ambiguous.

The Oxford English Dictionary says the ‘cester’ is pronounced ‘ster’, so we are obviously correct in this matter. You don’t have to like it, but we can all agree that the OED are better informed than any on this forum. So that’s that dealt with.

I anticipate several questions, so I shall attempt to preempt them. Firstly, the punctuation predates the USA’s existence, indeed predates it’s discovery, so it is churlish at best for an American tk claim their country knows better when said ‘mistake’ predates their entire country.

As for the regular quibbling over the English language that regularly flakes up on this forum, in no small part due to my own zealousness, I shall simply say that as the country that both developed English, and, to be honest, has the best record of employing it, we take precedence with regard to divergences.

And lastly, and most pertinently, those in glass houses…

Not only is the USA guilty of similar inexplicable pronunciations (Arkansas, anyone?), but they have generally butchered the spelling and pronunciation of the English language in an unforgivable manner.

And besides, I find it difficult to accept a point about language from a man who, in making said point, doesn’t seem to even know how to use basic punctuation.

ZD, I think you’re just trying to get a rise out of me. No worries, I enjoy it, but I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t keep doing so.

And so, in reverse order:

We do use ‘fan’, as well as supporter.

Toon already dealt with these three, but: Car park. Completely self-explanatory; ‘Mind the Gap’ is a carefully chosen phrase, used due to it’s being clear and specific; We call it an ‘elevator’, ‘lift’ is simply a common colloquialism.

For the sake of clarity, kindly imagined I sighed prior to each sentence. And since you didn’t contradict the points I made earlier, I’ll assume you agreed. And finally, ‘British’. Oh, that’s funny.