XPost: alt.english.usage, alt.usage.english, nl.taal   
   From: anton.txt@gmail.moc   
      
   Ruud Harmsen (uniqude punctuation amended):   
      
   > As a non-native speaker, can you hear, and make, the   
   > difference between `We built this city on rock and roll' (not   
   > one of my favourite songs by the way; donôt know why) and the   
   > present tense variant `We build this city...'?   
      
   No idea.  99% of English speech I hear is in songs, and I can't   
   seem to remember a song with the words `build' or `built'.   
   "There's a leak in this old building" irrelevantly comes to mind   
   by way of tangential association...   
      
   My general impression of modern English pronunciation is that is   
   lazy -- dirty and slurry, not sharp and well-articulated, as one   
   hears movies from the thirties.  "movies from the thirties" will   
   soon be ambiguous, by the way...   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)