old blokes

[golostruda]

And "mature" not "mateur" unless by "a matuer man" you didn't mean "a mature man" but "amateur man" and you accidentally added a space. Amateur seems to be the hardest word in the world to spell - if you a search on the internet, KazAA or whatever, you will usually get more results searching for it misspelt (amatuer) than spelt right (amateur). Anyway, about this mature amateur. Would a major auteur maitre d' ex-matador martyr to amour from Amersham be accepted by a force majure?

[Pete the Pedant]

Like you've never hit the wrong key?
Per-leaseeeeeee..........

[Shaun?]

Lemship works wonders for such cases )

[sandie]

alright clever dick. blame my university educated house mate for that one. i will let him know that he will obviously fail his exam in accountancy on tues...well unless hes better with figures than he is with letters!
God, i pay all them tax's for the state to educate these people to spell right and look what happens. i of course am excussed as i grew up in aldershot and went to a military skool (hehe). Oh and i cant afford a dictionary.lol

sandiexxx

[sandie]

really.
I will remember that next time i get the clap.
(only joking)

[jj]

Don't let it worry you...the man obviously has no manners.
Unlike wot I got.

[vila]

It's actually "danke schon" with an umlaut (two little dots) over the 'o' if we're being picky.

[vila]

Reckon I might be in here - I have TWO cats.

[woodgnome]

hold down the alt key and type 0246 on the numbers keypad (not the top row numbers) and you should get: ?

[jj.]

.....I KNEW someone would have a pop here: it is perfectly acceptable in colloquial German to render it as one word, analogous to the English reduction of 'thank you' to 'thankyou', or ' 'stimmt' to 'gestimmt', or 'desolee' to 'je suis desolee', or............
The umlaut (or indeed any such diaeresis) is normally represented in English by the addition of the second vowel, as in the 'schoen' example you gave. We don't normally seem to have trouble with such diphthong formations as 'aeroplane', etc....
....try Ancient Greek, though: they pronounce BOTH vowels-ouch- although it does sound quite mellifluous when spoken/sung correctly..
What always drives me mad is the confusion between the Russian letters 'ye' and 'yo'- the only difference in Cyrillic of course being their respective pronunciations as 'yeh' and 'yoh', and the representation of the latter by an added umlaut, which misunderstanding resulted in daily news references to President Gorbachev, not Gorbachyov. AAARRRGGGHHH....