tomgwyther

If been reading Buddhist ideas for a few decades. the good thing about it is that it's not really a religion; anymore than Stoicism is a religion.
Along with it moral ideas, it also promotes a more scientific-method approach to life.

"Sorry, we don't serve sub-atomic particles in here"

A neutrino walks into a bar.

Lisp : a speech defect that involves pronouncing `s' like voiceless `th' and `z' like voiced `th'

There is no one on the BBC or in the British Parliament with a lisp. not that I've every heard. I know this to be true because i have watched/listened to the BBC, politicians and all for about 30 years. I've never heard anyone lisp.

On the contrary

My link

The video link above is a clip from Stewart Little, where the young American boy can clearly be heard speaking with a lisp

(about 35 second in, when he says the line "It Works!"

I'm not quite sure if you're describing a lisp or describing the mispronunciation of the letter 'R'

a lisp being when the letter 'S', is pronounced as a 'Th' sound; as in "thience forumth" (instead of Science forums)

The word you typed in your post - incompwehensiboo - suggests someone who cannot pronounce their Rs

Which is indeed more common in the UK than in the USA. The TV celebrity Jonathan Ross would be a chief exponent of this. he pronounces his own name more like Woss or Ywoss.

i don't know anyone with a lisp, but I do know a few who mispronounce their 'R's

I don't see how having an unconscious desire to talk baby talk, or to subconsciously be infantile would explain why English people

misspronounce their Rs

It's more likely that the way English people are taught to pronounce words beginning with R, to be the reason why they're more commonly mispronounced in England than in America.

The R sound in English - as in 'Really' or 'Ramp'- has the tongue lying quite flat at the back with the front of the tongue close to the front or the pallet, making it very similar to the way 'Y' is pronounced - as in 'Yacht' or 'Yesterday'. Whereas with an American accent that back of the tongue is closer to the pallet, distinguishing it from the 'Y' sound, so that children who are learning English in America would be less likely to mispronounce their 'R's

I'd also like to refute the allegation that The English have such a subconscious desire to talk baby talk, or to prefer somehow a more childlike state of mind.

As an English man who has spent a fair amount of time in the states; I've always found that Americans - although far friendlier, polite and sociable than their English counterparts - tend to have a more naive childlike persona and world view than the Brits.

A view echoed by other Brits who have returned from the states. It's more evident in U.S cities than in the small towns though.

Deep blue, The chess playing computer which defeated kasparov, is now working for United Airlines call centre,

(Well half of it is anyway.)

Also, until a few years ago, you could burn witches in my home town.

1 in 6 people who have ever lived are alive today.

Earth has three natural satilites 1. the moon we can all see. 2. cruithne and more recently AA29.

The compression on the frame of a fully strung grand piano is about 20 tonnes.

Olive oil, when heated is carsonagenic.