
Also, was this forum originally British or something? Because everyone in that thread was talking about “football” (

️) and none of their slang made any sense lol
The moment you go online to discuss a thing like fish, you aren't in your country anymore. A lot of new to discussion people don't realize that, and don't realize who they're talking to. I love the old posts that say "can you suggest a good fish store in Nowhereville?" They're talking to people all over the world, and they don't realize no one knows where their town or village is, let alone who runs the local store.
We deal with google translated English, Indian English, American, British, Australian, Canadian, Irish and so many more. It comes out a lot in the fish name debates, where a lot of people feel Latin names are for eggheads, but many fish have different English names in different countries. Plus we have people here whose home language isn't English, and they have different fish names. It's why I am a pain in the butt with using the international, Latin names.
We have all kinds of cultural differences, language use differences. I stick to Canadian spelling here, and consider it my accent in writing. When I wrote commercially for the US, I used US spelling. I think we should all use our local varieties of English, but gives clues as to what we're saying. I've learned some good travel slang on fish forums.
It's fun. I wish we had more language groups and cultures able to participate. We get a tiny window into the Netherlands hobby here, but the Europeans have cool things going on, and language is such a barrier. I'm on a French forum (I'm from Quebec) and the discussions are somewhat different, though equally polite.