"Our Jon"

Thanks for reading , it was supposed to be a humourous twist at the end! Where abouts in Australia are you from? I have family in Perth.

interesting poem...although it was bit confusing how it changed characters all the time. After the mother was pleading his innocence, it was a bit of a shock to see what he said at the end!

you mean the clock right? i thought rome invented time with the sundile. whats gmt?

Ooooh, yes! That's what it was... TIME. We invented time, or the clock. Where would we be without time? GMT stands for somewhere in England, yup, you're all hours before or after GMT but we're just GMT...

is australia part of britin? So diffrent parts of actual england have diffrent accsents. Phillip Pulman. First house wid electricity. The toilet. America is sorta like a kid that ran away from home because it had a bedtime. I would love to travel Britin. The whole world is decended from 200 people that is a fact. Do you know any spanish or is it just that we californians are so close to mexico that we know. Did you base your peom off anything?

Yes of course we have different accents! Haven't you heard the Scottish? Well Scotland is just above England and they speak really different. The poem, Our Jon. That's in Geordie dialect, I'm a Geordie, because Newcastle's in the North we have a sort of half English half Scottich accents... That's why no one could understand us in America. I'll try and explain... You know how America's only been around for about 100 or 200 years. It's already developed it's own accent and even different type of American accents in that time. Britain has been around for thousands of years... Well, you can imagine. California is huge right? and they all speak the same there, well in England (which is about five times smaller athan California alone) I can walk for half an hour in like, any direction and go to a place where they speak completely different. Your idea of an Engish accent would probably be people from London... London is the only city anyone pays any attention to...

I've got to admit we difinately have the best writer... I'm not saying I'm better or anything, but JK Rowling, Phillup Pullman, Anthony Horwitz, Catherine Cookson, not to mention the oldies like Charles Dickens and Shakespere.

We invent things too! There's a house not far from where I live which was the first in the world to have electricity. This sounds unfair but we're responsible for America aren't we? Well we are!! Even though you have your independance you still mostly originated from here, (I know you're from other places too) if you haven't noticed your speaking ENGLISH. We are related, my ancestors are your ancestors... Britain is America's mother (in metaphorical terms!) I know we invented loads of stuff I just can't remember any of it... Are there any British people reading this? Anyone want to help me out? Just thought I'd mention, I'm far more proud of Britain, as a whole than I am of England alone, sometimes I say England when I mean Britain... It's really unfair, England gets all the attention when people talk about Britain, kind of like London gets more attention than the rest of England.

So you Did not get my message. Actually we should have paid taxes it was just more of the principle of the matter. tea and posh! I like iced tea often times more than hot tea. I shall be giggling myself to sleep! Do you say rubbish? California is the most awesome place on earth! Orange county is pretty good but I like San Diego better. Somehow when I think of orange county I think ice cream. We do have other stuff to be proud of. Warning I am about to brag we are the smartest best fairest country on earth many important things were invented here light, and airplane we have the best technology. I also just to set things strait would like to say I know other countries are proud I just did not know if they used the term "patriotic". The only thing America does not have, I am sad to say is good literature and that many good writers. Hopeful the new generation including me will prove me wrong. England must be pretty cool too though I want to live there three years before coming back. Three years is how long it takes to get an accent. Do different parts of England have differed dialects like us Americans? Californians talk the way we are supposed to but for instance road islanders are hard to understand.
now I feel I have to mention your poem again. It could get published! did I already say that?

Well, that's not that big a mistake. I'll go check them out.

I've only posted...poems, and they're not my speciality either. You can look at them if you want. I haven't had the courage to post anything else.

Yep I've posted loads, I'm so stupid though I didn't read the rules, I should have done one a day but instead I stuck them all on at the same time... I've only did one other poem, they're not really my speciality... Anyways I'll have a look at your work if you've posted any I normally try to return favours.

It's called iced tea. Depending on who makes it, its either good or...not so good. I just had iced raspberry tea, and it was delicious! I don't think it would have tasted quite the same hot...

California is a neat place. I want to visit there sometime.

Anyway...I already said what I thought about your poem. Have you posted any more?

When I said you I sort of meant all of you... As in Americans... When I was there everyone was drinking tea with ice in it. I think you can get that over here but no one drinks it... I go to California almost every year to visit my uncle, I absolutely love it. Do you know Orange County? That's where he lives. I'm dying to get back over...

Did I say that? Did you say that? No.

I hardly EVER drink tea cold. I find it disgusting. Unless it's flavored, in which case...

I do think you lot should have independance, I never said you shouldn't. I think Australia should too, alot of people believe that, they still have our Queen... But no, it doesn't matter at all... I just like having public arguments with Americans about things I know very little about. I do accept that we were the bad guys though, yep, there's no country in the world that hasn't done wrong things at some point in history, thanks for your input on our little debate.

Glad you liked the poem though ... I was wrong about thinking you wouldn't undrestand it. The accent is from near where I live, Newcastle. And yeah we use tea bags, you sometimes drink it cold though, don't you? Ugh, cold tea...

*blinks* well... this is very interesting... I love how threads go off topic and then it takes someone else coming in to put it back on track...

But as for the poem... I liked it... This style is not usually my thing, but something about it caught me just right. And I didn't have any problem understanding the dialect. But I love accents and me and my sister mimick them all the time... maybe that has something to do with it...

And just because I can: Does it really matter whether we should have our independence or not? We have it already and there's no way you can take it back after all this time.

The British needed a way to pay for the French-Indian war...I think they went in debt. So they (of course) had to tax their citizens more. And most of the tax increase was on American colonists...I don't remember all the details. But Americans were upset because they didn't have a lot of representation over seas. I mean, think about it: the situation over there was different, the government can't have always known what was best unless they actually experienced it...It's long and complicated, and we study it in great detail over here (ha ha!). I'm proud of my country (I'm American), but it wasn't a black and white situation-it was very grey. And Zethilon, the technique was called "Gurella warfare" and was invented by a man called Stone Fox, I think. I'm sorry, I had a dozen million facts drilled into my brain about the Revolutionary War last year, and it just...comes out.

I like the spelling of the word grey "g-r-E-y". I don't know...I read a lot of literature by British authors, and I'm used to different spellings. Americans aren't the only ones that have their own variation of English. In Australia, they spell "complete" "compleat". I think...maybe it was just that particular author, but I had never seen it spelled that way, and he was Australian.

Countries other than America are patriotic. Duh! Look at Greece! They are very proud of their country, and I think they have a right to be.

Ooh! I love tea! How do you make your tea? Do you use tea-bags, or is that just an American thing?

But anyway...

Your poem! Had you not told me, I wouldn't have known specifically what dialect, but I could hear the inflection and the sound very well. You portrayed it brilliantly...However, I think you have some slightly awkward changes in rhythm. Poetry is not my thing, so I'm not going to point it out...I may not know what I'm saying...

Okay. Well, I liked it. And, *laugh* maybe this should be moved to the Randomness forum, because now it's an exchange of cultural ideas etc...

You have sparked a massive debate in my house now... Just so you know, my mam reckons you're right to have your independence and my step dad thinks you should still be under our control. He told me to tell you that the only reason you're proud of the revolutionary war is because it's the only thing you have to be proud of... It is your only history as you only have 100 or so years of history while we have thousands. His words, not mine! Mam is telling me not to type it as it's making us sound as patriotic as you lot...

Yes I love tea, I'm drinking a cup now, quite strong with three sugars... mmm. No, I don't think it was greed, I can just see the reasons why we still wanted you to pay taxes, if you think about it you were all still British then, I think you'd have still had British accents and everything. I can see your side too though, you wanted independance, which is fine, but from a political point of view we'd have been crazy to just give it to you. And what message?

its funny the way we portray it diffrently, we called it taxation without representation and you call it somthing like greed. I think that the reasons don't matter much, we are proud cause there was like 10 to 1 (i may be exagerateing i don't know) and we hid in bushes while you english were being "posh"? qand insisted on staying in the open whereing red. Did you get my message? and do you like tea?

The revolutionary war... Nope, we haven't done that yet, in History we learn about Henry the eighth and world wars and stuff like that, we'll probably do it sometime soon though. I think we were sort of the bad guys back then, and you've never let us forget it have you! If you think about it seriously though, you can't really blame us... Half of our British citezens go swanning off to another country and want to stop giving their own country money, well oviously we're not going to be happy about that. I don't know many details about it though, only that something must have happened to make you lot extremely proud.

do you guys say dunno when talking? how often does America get mentioned? Do you study the revolutionary war? What do you think of the English losing to so little people?

Nope, we don't say dude or gnarly... As far as I know I'm full English, except that my surname is Riley which is definately an Irish name, I dunno.

yep we have cheer leaders in middle school as well as high school it is a long argument weather or not cheerleading is a sport or a hobby, I think it is a hobby. I feel they are anoying too, and we spell different because of webster (have you heard of him) In a short explanation its the extreem of patriotism, we have are own nation so we should have are own spelling, atleast thats the way are forefathers thought, and they teach english in school not "american" but i must admitt there are some asome american words that we have all on are own, are you full english i am a quarter irish an eith italian a quarter swedish and about a quarter more or less german the rest (an eith or so) is english of cource i am nfull ammereican too. do you guys say dude or gnarly?

Americans don't speak English, Americans speak American, that's a fact. You don't even spell the same! Why take the u out of colour? And change the e in grey to an a? Why??? I have no idea. Sorry about that little outburst! You lot are great... Nope, no geeks in Britain, no cheerleaders either, if I was American they'd drive me crazy. Does your school have cheerleaders?

you dont use geeks? wow and by bangs you mean hair bangs right?

Yeah I think people do say boff, it's not a real word though, there's this school not far from mine where they call people boffs. I think it's sort of the American equivalent to geeks (I heard that on Sabrina the teenaged witch) in my school though they're called swats and the thick people are called gorms. What really confused me when I went to America was when people talked about bangs, we call bangs a fringe.

i almost forgot if "boff" a real word an english boy once claimed he was bof and said it ment like anoyingly clever?

posh! haahaahheheehe

I didn't think Americans would understand it at all. I've been to California and they couldn't understand a word I said, I had to talk all posh. Don't Americans say brilliant or bloody? Now that I think I can't really imagine them saying it. Yes, other countries can be patriotic, (just look at the irish on st.patricks day, and the Americans too, for some reason.) we're really patriotic because of the Queen, I met the Queen once. OK that was a big fat lie, I saw the top of her purple hat over loads of crowds... Glad you both liked the poem though and thanks for reviewing. Terri.

you sound patriot if someone from somewhere other than america can be patriotic. I am from the capital of the world CA USA and i understood it completly it was bloody brilliant it might be though that i basicaly only read british books that i can understand perfectly it it was reallly good reminds me of another poem i read years ago. Maybe good enouph to get published. I use the word bloody now from reading so many books with it, and brilliant i just know, i usally dont use them together. Did you want us yankees to understand it? i wouldent blame you if you didn't.

I had no problem understanding it (I live in the US) so no worries about it not being clear. I like it, actually. I got chills at one part.