English is English, except when it's not

Susan Boyle. If you don't know who she is, you can google her to find out. The minimum you need to know is that she's from an area in Scotland near Edinburgh

She appeared on Oprah, with subtitles. I don't really know what to think about that. The linguist part of me says that this is acceptable as the phonological differences can be very difficult to parse and would make comprehension difficult even though the syntax might be familiar. But there's a part of me that wishes that Americans had more experience TRYING to understand (learn to listen to) the myriad of world Englishes that exist out there.

I wonder what it's going to be like, communicating with Edinbrughers.