REAL English

[SavingPollyOliver]

IamredMage

Driinex_the_Flower_Child

Alrighty then. I'm Dutch, so this whole English or American thing is really strange. I spell some words the English way and I spell some the American way. Frankly I don't think it matters wether you spell it colour or color. It all depends on if you're writing a paper, or a letter to a friend, or a book or story. Take it from someone on the gray end of the black and white spectrum. IT DOES NOT MATTER. IT MEANS THE SAME EXACT FROGGING THING. There. I've said my peice and I'm leaving now.

Yeah, but sometimes (excuse me whilst I slip this amazing phraze in again somewhere...), in american context, English becomes so butchered (Oh, yeah, I knew I'd find a place for it somewhere...) that to a person who's taught english english from a young age, it becomes almost unrecognisable. You should have seen me the first time I heard an american refer to something as 'in back of' something else. My brain hurt for weeks...

I think you may be confusing American with Southern dialect. Forgive me for saying this, but people from places like Louisiana and Mississippi and Georgia say things totally different than people would in New York, Montana, Texas, or California. Believe me, I know. I'm a grad student with a major in foreign languages. And coming from Holland, everything sounds slightly weird from the version of English I was taught. But as far as I know, only uneducated people, not Americans, refer to things as 'in back of'. And feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, which I'm sure you are going to try to do anyway, but isn't the whole 'ae' spelling originally Latin in the first place? In my opinion, the American way to spell certian words is a lot simpler. Except for theatre. I like spelling it that way.  

[IamredMage]

Driinex_the_Flower_Child

IamredMage

Driinex_the_Flower_Child

Alrighty then. I'm Dutch, so this whole English or American thing is really strange. I spell some words the English way and I spell some the American way. Frankly I don't think it matters wether you spell it colour or color. It all depends on if you're writing a paper, or a letter to a friend, or a book or story. Take it from someone on the gray end of the black and white spectrum. IT DOES NOT MATTER. IT MEANS THE SAME EXACT FROGGING THING. There. I've said my peice and I'm leaving now.

Yeah, but sometimes (excuse me whilst I slip this amazing phraze in again somewhere...), in american context, English becomes so butchered (Oh, yeah, I knew I'd find a place for it somewhere...) that to a person who's taught english english from a young age, it becomes almost unrecognisable. You should have seen me the first time I heard an american refer to something as 'in back of' something else. My brain hurt for weeks...

I think you may be confusing American with Southern dialect. Forgive me for saying this, but people from places like Louisiana and Mississippi and Georgia say things totally different than people would in New York, Montana, Texas, or California. Believe me, I know. I'm a grad student with a major in foreign languages. And coming from Holland, everything sounds slightly weird from the version of English I was taught. But as far as I know, only uneducated people, not Americans, refer to things as 'in back of'. And feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, which I'm sure you are going to try to do anyway, but isn't the whole 'ae' spelling originally Latin in the first place? In my opinion, the American way to spell certian words is a lot simpler. Except for theatre. I like spelling it that way.

Most english spellings are originated from the french - the most prevalent language in renaissance european society. It always seems to me like the americans attempted to 'de-french' the language, although the whole american political system is based on the ideals of the french republic.  

[SavingPollyOliver]

IamredMage

Driinex_the_Flower_Child

IamredMage

Driinex_the_Flower_Child

Alrighty then. I'm Dutch, so this whole English or American thing is really strange. I spell some words the English way and I spell some the American way. Frankly I don't think it matters wether you spell it colour or color. It all depends on if you're writing a paper, or a letter to a friend, or a book or story. Take it from someone on the gray end of the black and white spectrum. IT DOES NOT MATTER. IT MEANS THE SAME EXACT FROGGING THING. There. I've said my peice and I'm leaving now.

Yeah, but sometimes (excuse me whilst I slip this amazing phraze in again somewhere...), in american context, English becomes so butchered (Oh, yeah, I knew I'd find a place for it somewhere...) that to a person who's taught english english from a young age, it becomes almost unrecognisable. You should have seen me the first time I heard an american refer to something as 'in back of' something else. My brain hurt for weeks...

I think you may be confusing American with Southern dialect. Forgive me for saying this, but people from places like Louisiana and Mississippi and Georgia say things totally different than people would in New York, Montana, Texas, or California. Believe me, I know. I'm a grad student with a major in foreign languages. And coming from Holland, everything sounds slightly weird from the version of English I was taught. But as far as I know, only uneducated people, not Americans, refer to things as 'in back of'. And feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, which I'm sure you are going to try to do anyway, but isn't the whole 'ae' spelling originally Latin in the first place? In my opinion, the American way to spell certian words is a lot simpler. Except for theatre. I like spelling it that way.

Most english spellings are originated from the french - the most prevalent language in renaissance european society. It always seems to me like the americans attempted to 'de-french' the language, although the whole american political system is based on the ideals of the french republic.

Finally we agree on something. But the American is slightly easier to deal with. I think this whole problem started around WWI time when the cultures decided to throw back in with each other and we realized that, somehow, the Americans had changed everything slightly. And you have to take into consideration that America is the place where all cultures blend. Some words have gotten changed or lost in the process. So I don't really think it's the American's fault that they can't spell the old words properly.  

[IamredMage]

yeah - and most non - UK english speaking countries, because of their origins as part of the british empire, are like a melting pot of cultures. For instance, in Canada, most words are spelt in the british form because Canada was first colonised by the french, and therefore the french language's influence remains. I understand also that in french canada, some words are spelt differently from the original european form.  

[SavingPollyOliver]

You see? It's not just the Americans. The entire English speaking world garbles the old language. And it's true about the Canadian spellings of words. I guess since we've ... decided it's not the American's fault that they don't spell the same as you or I do, we can stop arguing?  

[IamredMage]

Since when were we arguing?  

[SavingPollyOliver]

sweatdrop Oh, yeah. I forgot that we had resolved the argument earlier. Sorry. Hope you had a Happy Christmas.  

[IamredMage]

It was great, actually, thankyou. And you.  

[SavingPollyOliver]

It was actually pretty nice. And Happy New Year. Wow. I haven't posted here in a while  

[azrael the reaper_95210]

everyone just be happy we (english, american, austrailian) still sound somewhat alike. We can still understand one another, rather than having to learn whole other languages (spainish, french, japanese, etc.)

(( on a side note, I just thought of something. I bet Spain and Mexico have the same deal between them......... similar but different languages.......))  

[Tus Ojos Oscuros..]

azrael the reaper

(( on a side note, I just thought of something. I bet Spain and Mexico have the same deal between them......... similar but different languages.......))

we do.
we also have pernounciation differences..
we have the ceceo/seseo, whereas in south america, they do not..
and we have a differernt verb form/ vosotros..
different words..


=O;;
i can say, that I like the British way of spelling..  

[Chipmint]

meleny7

wow thats insane i just thought we spelled like two words differently. sweatdrop

Well, what about:

Candy.............Sweets
Cookies.............Biscuits

Those are most indifferent.  

[GirlPuck]

Heh... I hadn't realized how many differences there really were, for the most part I use the British spelling (I live in Newfoundland, Canada so that's the accepted way anyhow).

We use a lot of completely different words here too, we've even got our own dictionary! For instance:

crooked --- bad tempered
daps ------ alike
duckish --- twilight
elt --------- scoundrel
hes -------- his
jinker ----- unlucky person
mauzy ---- foggy
rumper --- turnip or rutabaga
sleeveen - rascal
streel ----- untidy person
tissy ------ to be angry
touton ---- fried bread dough
upalong -- from away
vamp ----- mend (or part of a stocking)


Of course, I think half the reason some of those words exist is because so many people from coastal communities have thick accents, and that's what the words sounded like when they spoke, so they changed them... doesn't really explain stuff like mauzy or sleeveen though sweatdrop  

[snuffpot]

Kind of a dusty topic... but oh well.

GirlPuck

We use a lot of completely different words here too, we've even got our own dictionary! For instance:

Haha, that's really cool. I live in Australia and we have words from both America and Britain... We go by English English spellings, for obvious reasons (originally an British colony), but we're usually used to both. We use cookies more than biscuits, but otherwise we'll usually use the English English word. We can get away with writing 'ize' instead of 'ise' at the ends of words, and both are accepted in essays and so on.

But that's probably the only spelling they don't mind much... using 'color' instead of 'colour' would probably be corrected... but I guess it depends on the pickiness of the teacher. But technically it should be spelt 'colour' here.

I usually write color when on the internet, just because most people I encounter are American, and it's easier, spell-check-wise.

Woah, long post.