Thread: US English vs Other English

I've never heard of "do the washing up".

I doubt that text-speak will ever dominate. Even on this forum we tend to speak in grammatically correct sentences, or most of us at least try to.

Americans can't even agree on how to say shit to each other. I've lived a few different places and they all have little differences in vocabulary

Originally Posted by Spartiate

Can someone please tell me how and where "lieutenant" and "colonel" became "leftenant" and "kernel"??

It's also funny how much variation there is in English orthography, French is spelled identically around the world.

I'm pretty sure the two words in question were both imposed from French/Latin.

Regarding colonel, though, I was having that conversation with my sister a couple weeks ago, and it occurred to me that the 'r' sound is just the result of contracting the 'olo' into a single sound, sort of like a diphthong with a consonant thrown in there. It's hard to convey in writing, but try saying co-lo-nel quickly, and the 'l' comes out strangled, half morphed into an Asian-style l/r phoneme already. It's easy to see illiterate or semi-literate soldiers and non-coms back in the day hearing and passing on the 'r' pronunciation without ever knowing how the word is written. An alternate phonetic representation, rather than ker-nel, would be co-l/r'-nel.

ETA:

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

Americans can't even agree on how to say shit to each other. I've lived a few different places and they all have little differences in vocabulary

The number and disparity of dialects in the much smaller and less populous area of the British Isles c. 1776 was an order of magnitude greater than contemporary North America. The big island alone probably still has our continent matched or beat, not even counting Celtic tongues.

Originally Posted by Xei

The only thing about American English that really pisses me off is the facepalmingly mangled 'I could care less'.

The american expression is 'I couldn't care less' Said quickly it sounds like what you wrote, but no one says that lol.

There are lots of types of American english too. We are a big country, we have normal US english, southern US english, Ebonics, and California English, all are very different and come from their culture. Sometimes americans can't understand other americans (and not because of accents.)

The difference is not usually spelling (although I've seen southerners spell a few words differently,) but slang and grammatical structure. For example, most people here know the REM song "Losing my Religion." Does anyone know what that term actually means without looking it up? It's southern english.

California sounds different from pacific northwest which sounds different from mountain states which sounds different from southwest which sounds different from texas which sounds different from midwest which sounds different from new england which sounds different from the south which sounds different from mississippi/louisiana south which sounds different from kansas/oklahoma bible belt.

Originally Posted by ninja9578

The american expression is 'I couldn't care less' Said quickly it sounds like what you wrote, but no one says that lol.

You really do... for instance it was said all the time on the West Wing. And I've seen it in writing on the forums.

I think the main reason American English is so messed up is because Americans basically derived from farmers and cowboys and pioneers who weren't educated. The people who came here were mostly seeking refuge - they weren't exactly the cream of the crop of Europe's intellectual elite (for the most part - some were of course). When the Renaissance was going on in Europe America was being explored by the Spanish. It was a time of high culture in Europe and England when America was cowboys and farmers scratching a primitive existence from the land. Towns were lawless in most of America until maybe 200 years ago or so. (Guessing at the date). We have no real culture or tradition aside from what people took with them from home. American myths and legends are all about pioneers - like Paul Bunyan. American art sucks compared to European art (IMO anyway) though we did have a few good literary writers. All in all it's not surprising we're predominantly a country of people who think it's assinine to be literate or well-spoken.

And yeah, I've heard both could care less and couldn't care less.

"I doubt that text-speak will ever dominate. Even on this forum we tend to speak in grammatically correct sentences, or most of us at least try to. "

Many of us do, but you see more and more young people who refuse to use proper spelling and grammar. I suspect they don't even know it. Evrthng iz abbrvtns. Yeah, I"m sure there will always be some people who care about literacy, but I think that number will dwindle sharply and there will be a stronger polarization in future generations. Especially in America with our atrocious school system.

Originally Posted by Xei

You really do... for instance it was said all the time on the West Wing. And I've seen it in writing on the forums.

I could care less.

Here's a good web page about our increasingly post-literate world: Orality and the Post-Literate West

It basically breaks down to book-smart versus street-smart - or maybe world-smart is a better term. Oral communication rather than written, and it entails a different kind of intelligence. Not dumber - just different.

I don't think it is really an issue with people not being literate or well spoken. In general, across all languages, words often change to more simple versions. Sounds are dropped, words are made shorter, or sounds change to easier pronounceable sounds. It makes communication quicker and more efficient. It sounds kind of silly to think people might change a word to save half a second on saying it but its the natural evolution for languages to do.

Inconsistency is something that irks me a lot about english. ie

3 mice


3 mouses

Originally Posted by greenhavoc

you're wrong, i could care less makes perfect sense:

i could care less if you understand why, but if i did then i simply wouldn't have said anything to you about it at all.

if i were to say i couldn't care less, that would be wrong because obviously i could care less, as i've just proving i don't by actually saying i couldn't care less.

so yeah, you're wrong

Originally Posted by ninja9578

Inconsistency is something that irks me a lot about english.

I always thought that more than one computer mouse gave you computer mice... I guess not? (< That's funny... "I don't guess" is what it would mean to some, but I used it meaning "I must be incorrect.")

I have a tendency to spell colour and flavour as so, and defence, organisation, etc (mostly from books and videogames originally in British English.)... and the word "refrigerator" irks me, since "fridge" is the shortened version, but they added a letter... otherwise it would be "frige".

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

I could care less.

as could i

I got in an argument last night over if it's ok to say 'flashlight'. Because to me, a 'torch' implies something should be set on fire.

Who says torch to describe a flashlight?

Me, now.

Those crazy Brits, that's who. And if you think about it, the filament inside the bulb (er- the lamp if you must) IS on fire!

Originally Posted by greenhavoc

you're wrong, i could care less makes perfect sense:

i could care less if you understand why, but if i did then i simply wouldn't have said anything to you about it at all.

if i were to say i couldn't care less, that would be wrong because obviously i could care less, as i've just proving i don't by actually saying i couldn't care less.

so yeah, you're wrong

I skimmed over this post earlier but I now realize I completely agree.

If you really couldn't care less, why are you responding at all? I could care less demonstrates that I care just enough to tell you how much I don't care.

Oh yes! This is one of the (many) really annoying things about English. When I first started learning it, we could choose whether to write British English or US English, but had to be consistent. But you get so many impulses in both versions, that it's not really easy to keep it apart. In the end I just gave up on it. Now I write what feels right, and sometimes listens to the spell checker (set to British English) when it disagrees, all depending on how I feel. Basically I've combined them into one set and declared that all of it is right, and that I damn well will ignore everyone else's opinion.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

In another generation none of this will matter - textspeak will dominate all. It's already being said that we now live in a "postliterate" age.

You know they've been saying that since we entered the literate age, right?

Originally Posted by Alric

I don't think it is really an issue with people not being literate or well spoken. In general, across all languages, words often change to more simple versions. Sounds are dropped, words are made shorter, or sounds change to easier pronounceable sounds. It makes communication quicker and more efficient. It sounds kind of silly to think people might change a word to save half a second on saying it but its the natural evolution for languages to do.

I hear this argument a lot, but it doesn't make sense to me. If humans naturally tend to want everything as simple as possible, how did it come to be so (by modern standards unnecessarily) complex in the first place? It's not like ye oldie people had a greater need to be precise than we do today.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Those crazy Brits, that's who. And if you think about it, the filament inside the bulb (er- the lamp if you must) IS on fire!

This is actually wrong. Fire is a rapid oxidation of materials producing (amongst other things) heat and light. But a light bulb is void of oxygen precisely so the filament won't burn up - which would happen in seconds, were there oxygen present. A light bulb actually works by black body radiation, I believe. Basically you heat up the wire to a very high temperature by passing current through it, and it the energy of this heat then produces significant light in the visual spectrum. Same principle as when iron being forged is glowing red, but hotter. (Video about light bulbs)

It's been difficult for me to spell things recently since I've been trying to use the British versions. A lot of words contain 'z' in American, usually words ending in 'ize' which are 'ise' in British. But some are 'ize' in British too. So whenever I encounter a new word, I have to look up whether or not it's 'ise' in British. It doesn't help that Firefox and Word tell me the British versions are wrong, and Word automatically corrects it. I type 'realise', a few sentences later I look up, see 'realize'. Facepalm. I know it can be disabled but I've been to lazy to figure out how. I feel like a little kid learning to spell again.

Originally Posted by Dianeva

Who says torch to describe a flashlight?

Actually, I've heard this from a number or non-americans.

Originally Posted by Dianeva

It's been difficult for me to spell things recently since I've been trying to use the British versions. A lot of words contain 'z' in American, usually words ending in 'ize' which are 'ise' in British. But some are 'ize' in British too. So whenever I encounter a new word, I have to look up whether or not it's 'ise' in British. It doesn't help that Firefox and Word tell me the British versions are wrong, and Word automatically corrects it. I type 'realise', a few sentences later I look up, see 'realize'. Facepalm. I know it can be disabled but I've been to lazy to figure out how. I feel like a little kid learning to spell again.

Don't use Word as a guide. Microsoft has a history of making up it's own stuff instead of going with what is the cultural norm.

Originally Posted by Xei

The only thing about American English that really pisses me off is the facepalmingly mangled 'I could care less'.

Pissed me off so much. I just called someone on here out on it yesterday lol But so many people say it, without realising it means the opposite of what they want to say.

But take a shower is definitely wrong. You don't take the shower anywhere.

I'm too drubnk to think of more things, but Americans have fucked the language up a lot, so much so that most of the sayings, common phrases etc. they say barely make any sense.