British vs. "American English"

[Kitosdad]

[Kitosdad]

There is no such thing as American English.

America has bastardised the English language with a few misspelled words and tried to convince the non-native speakers that this " language " actually exists. IT DOESN'T.!

How many American words do you know. ? None I would think.

Is there an American dictionary that contains only American vocabulary.? I don't think so.

There isn't even a suggestion of a British accent amongst them.

What they do have is, " I've got a pebble in my mouth " way of talking. If this impresses you in any way, then seek urgent medical attention. Better still, turn off that sound and read a good book .... by a British author, of course.

If you do want to learn a really new language, try Esperanto, a language designed specifically to allow all nations to speak to one another.

Kitosdad.
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[Alan]

Hi Bill,

You cannot be serious!- in the words of a well known American tennis player. If you glance through previous postings, you will see that I have been hammered for allegedly suggesting that there is no difference between British and American English. I have repeated again and again that this allegation has no foundation. I am in fact a great fan of the American way of writing/speaking English. Clearly there are differences although the two versions don't really hinder communication. In truth there are various Englishes and that feature merely illustrates how versatile English is.
Possibly I am overreacting. You are simply being puckish, aren't you?

Alan
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[Kitosdad]

You are simply being puckish, aren't you?

Of course I am, it's called being British. :) :)

Your statement, " although the two versions don't really hinder communication."

I never said they did, so WHY did America decide to alter the British ( original ) spelling of so many words, and in doing so, create frustration for non-native students.?

I dislike America, and all that it represents. I have no valid reason for this resentment.

My resentment has no logic. I simply recognise, and accept it.

But I DO like Kim Basinger. Can't believe she isn't British.

:D :D
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[Torsten]

[Kitosdad]

Good morning Torsten, I am referring to the Educational governing body of America, not it's people. They are taught, so we cannot possibly blame them.

Alan has rightly said that there are many spoken forms of English, but non claim that they are ***** English as America does. And although I am obviously unsure, I would hazard a guess that all of these other countries use the English format in spelling.
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[Kitosdad]

Sorry Torsten, I did mean to add that I was specifically referring to their DARING to alter the already widely acknowledged and accepted British form of spelling all ENGLISH words.

American English, ha ha. There is no such animal. English is ENGLISH.
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[Jamie (K)]

Bill, if you knew more about the history of the English language, its accents, dialects and vocabulary, you would realize that in many cases it was the British who "bastardized" English, if you want to use that word, and the Americans who have faithfully retained older forms and pronunciations.

In the first place, nobody on earth speaks the "original English" anymore, so the English spoken by the British today is not any more original than what Americans speak.

The accent that is accepted worldwide as a "proper" British accent (the accent of British aristocracy, of traditional BBC announcers, etc.) is actually an innovation that did not happen to spread beyond the east coast of the United States. In other words, my Michigan accent is centuries older than Queen Elizabeth's, so if the age of the dialect is the measure of correctness, I speak more "correctly" than she does. After all, why do you people write the letter R in words like "far" and "horse" if you don't pronounce it? Because it used to be there, of course, but in "lazy" British speech, they started to drop it off.

As for the purported "I've got a pebble in my mouth" manner of speech (usually characterized by German-speaking English teachers as a potato, instead of a pebble), if the Americans speak sloppily, what is one to say about most of the population of London, who can't be bothered to stick their tongues forward to pronounce a proper T in the middle of a word? In the US, that gets a kid sent to speech therapy. Or the many British who finish words ending in a /u/ sound as if they ended in /i/, so all over London you hear the word "through" sounding like "thröee" or "do" sounding like "döee". What's that all about? Is that correct, proper, original English?

And as for "original" spellings, I think you'd better look at a bunch British documents from the 14th century or so. It appears the "original" way to spell English was any way you wanted to. The original spelling of "through", 1,000 years ago, was "ϸurh". I don't think the British write it that way anymore either.

Americans don't generally talk about "American English", but most of the time about "English". The term "American English" is generally used to refer only to variants that exist on the American continent, or by Europeans to express resentment for the United States. Or by incompetent foreign English teachers as a way to rationalize their ineptness.

I think that before you go off on a rant about this again, you'd better get an education in historical linguistics and dialectology. Your post contained essentially nothing that's factually true, but did expose your own bigotry to a great degree. You know, just because someone speaks English and is literate, it doesn't mean that they actually know anything about its origins and development. You had a lot of folk tales in your post.

[Jamie (K)]

Stop using that term "bastardize". It shows what a bigot you are.

[Kitosdad]

" Or by incompetent foreign English teachers as a way to rationalize their ineptness."

:lol: :lol: Thank the Lord I'm not a teacher Jamie. I might have been offended by that.

I'm not bigoted ... I love Kim Basinger.

" In other words, my Michigan accent is centuries older than Queen Elizabeth's. "

Sure is, +1492 I believe. ( Tongue in cheek. )

Let's talk about " recent times ". Just WHY did the Americans decide to alter the accepted forms of so many words.?

Please don't start about phonetic speaking / spelling. That doesn't wash.

If it were true you would have whole reams of newly spelled words, but you haven't.

You simply replace " ph " with " f " because it ......... what.?

You take the " u " out of colour, why.? Can you give me a logical explanation.?
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[Daemon99]

[Kitosdad]

I repeat, I am not a bigot, I just don't like Americans, and I've given my reasons why.

" Stop using that term "bastardize. "

What word would you suggest in it's place Jamie.? Incidentally, a please would sound nice right about there.

Calm down Mate/Buddy, you are sounding as though you are running out of answers.

As a matter of interest, how do they spell horse, and far, in America.? Please note that I ask a question, and do not go on to answer it.! No point asking otherwise.

It has been suggested that we use this part of the Forum as a chat room, not a sparring booth.

" nothing that's factually true." Oh, I see ... so it wasn't the Americans who changed the spelling of so many English words. Then who was it.? Pray tell.
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[Torsten]

I think the differences in American/Australian/British/Canadian spellings are rather insignificant. As long as you try to stick to one version you are fine. The problem most of our forum users are facing is that they have not learned how to use a spell checker and how to type properly. Many of them use keyboards that are designed to type texts in their native languages and not in English and as a result they have difficulty using the apostrophe, the space bar and the shift key and often the period.

Words like 'u', 'english' and 'i' don't exist in any form of English -- neither in American or in British English.

As for the different kinds of English, you might want to read Whose English is it, anyhow?

TOEIC listening, question-response: When do you want to go to lunch?

[Jamie (K)]

Bill, you are uninformed about the history of the English language and the formation of its various dialects.

You are claiming that "the Americans" "bastardized" the English language, when in fact the main thing that annoys you is that they simplified a few spellings that showed residual French influence and no longer had basis in phonetic reality on either side of the Atlantic. Your contention that changing the spelling of any word should prompt the complete overhaul of the entire spelling system is simply ridiculous. If each English-speaking nation created phonetic spelling according to its own pronunciation, we would wind up with several separate written languages. Simplification of a few unnecessarily archaic spellings is not "bastardization". For example, the spelling of the suffixes "-our" and "-re" reflect very well their pronunciation in French, but it is nonsense in English, and there is nothing wrong with changing them.

You have some nebulous notion that English spelling was standardized first and that then "the Americans" "bastardized" it, but if you look at old documents from the time Webster established the changes, you'll see that British spelling was anything but standardized or consistent.

Not too long ago the Germans changed their spelling in the interest of greater simplicity, and so did the Czechs a few years before them. Did those nations "bastardize" their languages by doing this?

You're also ignoring the fact that the differences between the North American variety of English and the British variety go beyond spelling and vocabulary words. There are also grammatical differences, usually because the North Americans have retained various forms that the British have stopped using in recent centuries. For example, the British can no longer use a verb participle to distinguish the separate meanings of, "I have got to go," and, "I have gotten to go." To express the second sentence, the British need a long circumlocution, although some centuries ago they didn't. In cases like that, it was not the Americans who changed the language, but the British.

I think before you rant and pontificate on what Americans have done to the English language, you should get a bit more education. Unless you know something about what you're dicussing, you only appear to be giving vent to the common post-colonial inferiority complex that citizens of crumbled empires tend to display (unnecessarily). It's a really deep psychic pain displayed by some of the British, French and Greeks, but almost never by Germans or Japanese.

[Jamie (K)]