XPost: alt.english.usage, alt.usage.english, nl.taal   
   From: invalide@invalid.invalid   
      
   Anton Shepelev wrote:   
   > 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...   
      
   Hmm, if you're going by how English (UK or American?) is   
   spoken in songs, that may not be the best source. Lots of   
   tv and movies, but that may not be the best either. How   
   about news broadcasts?   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)