The other British invasion: how UK lingo conquered the US
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
I eventually came to realize many of my spelling "errors" were actually due to my exposure to the British spellings for many common words I would see online, like color/colour or behavior/behaviour for example. Unfortunately my teachers were a little unreasonable about this and would still deduct points when I pointed this out...
To this day I still inconsistently use all spelling variants, and curse Noah Webster for his half assed attempt at regional spelling reform. In practice my phone just auto corrects them without me noticing though.
I can see the teacher's perspective here. I don't think it's unreasonable for teachers to mark this down, though I don't think your request to get back the points was unreasonable either.
Communicating effectively with your particular audience (the local American audience one in this case) is arguably a skill they're trying to teach you. Using language constructs that are unnatural for your audience can distract them and disrupt their flow. You don't want your reader to see "enrol" and spend the next 5-10 seconds pondering if you're illiterate or unable to run a spellchecker instead of spending that time digesting your actual point. This friction gets in the way of your point, thus ultimately hurting your own cause in addition to wasting their time. So when you keep doing that on your assignments and exams, you're effectively showing that you haven't mastered this skill -- and so it's not unreasonable for your grade to reflect that.
but for the rest of us, the point of language is to convey a shared concept, and if the sender and receiver are doing that then mission accomplished
But even us people that live outside of the US/UK/related countries often got errors marked, because we used the wrong regional variant... In Europe, British English is used as a reference point, but I had a similar problem as GP.
Why though? I think you missed my point with the rationale for this. See below.
> But even us people that live outside of the US/UK/related countries often got errors marked, because we used the wrong regional variant... In Europe, British English is used as a reference point, but I had a similar problem as GP.
That makes perfect sense though? The point wasn't "act American because you're in America", the point was "they're trying to teach you to communicate with {whatever audience they believe you will most often find yourself needing to cater to in the future}". Obviously in Europe they deem that to be British-English speakers. In America it'd obviously be American-English. etc.
If I remember correctly BBC Basic accepted COLOUR as well as COLOR keywords to be more approachable to primary school children who were native English speakers.
It was a bad show that they allowed COLOR as well.
As each keyword was saved as a code - did COLOR and COLOUR really map to two different codes?
Unless you are writing International Standards. ISO requires British English spellings in documents.
Anecdotal counterpoint, but… I’m a British English speaker, but many of my colleagues are Continental Europeans, for whom English is their second language. Part of my job involves copy editing and, almost without exception, their output is written in American English.
Please find me the numpty who can't distinguish colour from color.
> don't want your reader to see "enrol" and spend the next 5-10 seconds pondering if you're illiterate or unable to run a spellchecker instead of spending that time digesting your actual point
Fair point. At the very least, one should be aware of the different usages.
Not sure what you mean by "distinguish". But just because you understand something that doesn't mean it can't slow you down, distract you, or be detrimental some other way.
Sure. I'm just sceptical that errant signal isn't lost in the background of the American dialect's regional heterogeneity.
If I ask someone in San Francisco "what colour pop" they want, the friction won't come from the "u."
OK, at this point I really need to explain what on earth is going on here:
"what does "pants" refer to?" - pants refers to trousers and pants refers to underpants and of course pants refers to pants as a noun. Pants also refers to heavy breathing as a verb.
I have absolutely no idea how we ended up with this situation, where pant(s) is a noun and a verb and really odd. I'm going to blame Britain, US and Italy (via Latin) and not necessarily in that order.
"A dog pants when they are hot but they only pant when they are hot."
Note how I end up slapping an extra s in for no apparent reason - actually, it is when I don't put a verb in front of that word. So: "a dog will pant" ... "a dog pants". The extra s on the word seems to make it a verballish thing.
On the bright side this is why phishing emails always look a bit wank.
Because (in English) adding -s(/-es) makes plurals of (most regular) nouns, and also makes 3rd person singular declension of (most regular) verbs.
Other examples of noun+verb collocations: books, shows, scents, raises, views, votes, comments, dates, dogs, aims, bugs, ends, grades, hunts, launches, lifts, marks, moves, posts, rains, rates, records, rows, sets, signals, tracks... Examples with -es: searches, watches, punches
(This is going to be much more common in English than Italian/Spanish/Latin because English uses -s/-es for both nouns and verbs.)
I find myself using it nowadays rather sparingly and mostly in just one phrase (and its semantic derivatives): «all that twaddle […]».
And this is just spelling, not even going into words that have different meanings in the US vs UK like pants and lemonade.
The name is “Ebonics.” It’s had its own name since the seventies, although the push to “normalize” it peaked in the nineties.
> Wonder if this includes normalizing the usage of British spelling as well.
No.
The term reached peak use around the time (I'm going from memory here as far as timeline) some educators began exploring the concept of teaching kids who spoke Ebonics at home with some of the same techniques they would use to teach English as a second language students. America reacted with the focus, intelligence, and empathy it always does when issues of education and race are brought up.
(American here, but that's one I've come across before.)
Also, if gaol can have a soft g, then so can gif? :-)
But there are probably still some words that will make me think the person is not American, like organisation with an s. I read it and it viscerally feels off.
Due to the large number of U.S. internet residents, I don't tend to really notice many "Americanisms", though one thing that bugs me is when the U.S. doesn't seem to recognise that "America" is a a large continent and only one area is the U.S. However, even Canadians will refuse to admit that they are American, as in living within the american continent.
Perhaps the solution is to just unite all of the states of America, because I at least think the original idea was that the USA was a supranational government uniting little nation-states (precursor to the EU?), but maybe these more established nation-states won't want to join the union and become a "state" (even though I think political science would already refer to them as states).
At least you use the "ize" suffix, so all else should have been forgiven!
I prefer the "u" in colour/behaviour as I find it more aesthetically pleasing. But I absolutely despise the "ise" spelling of realize (realise) and am not entirely sure why. Though, I vaguely remember spelling all words with "ise" and getting some wrong some right and not understanding why (I'd learn later I'm dyslexic so I chalked it up to that and called it a day)
Grey is UK English, so think "e" for England. Gray is American English, so think "a" for America.
Become a web/CSS developer and it won't matter anymore.
In particular, the British added the "u" when French was in fashion, and likewise for "-ise" (in fact, "-ize" dates all the way back to Ancient Greek!)
One thing that Americans do get wrong is misspelling "-lyse" which comes from a different Greek root, so should not follow the same pattern as "-ize". But even then, Webster didn't invent the error.
Ultimately I think changes like this should be more grassroots than top down whims of private dictionary publishers. Not to mention that all this focus on the phonetics fundamentally misunderstands that the phonetics of English spelling are closer to a mnemonic than a rule. I suspect this will become gradually more obvious as languages world wide evolve to be more keyboard friendly in the coming century.
But this all just my take on the situation.
So even before the internet was widely used people in the UK we’re aware of the problem.
1. See how I slipped that one in there?
Same here as a Swedish person who grew up with American media + eventually getting into Internet communities. English exams felt great when I took them, I knew all the answers after all.
But then getting the results back was always disappointing, as Swedish schools teach "British English", not "American English", so you better use the British spelling and pronunciation, otherwise it's completely wrong obviously and you deserve punishment.
I'm not sure if this is actually correct usage in those countries, or slang, but it certainly feels much more like slang, and felt virtually impenetrable, even to someone who's been exposed to a fair but of UK-isms in his life.
There's definitely cases where UK English has adopted a new word but American English hasn't. I was surprised to see the word "coupon" used in old UK literature. "Voucher" is the more common word nowadays. People would accuse you of being Americanised if you said coupon.
I also call my discount-loving fellow Brit friend ‘coupon boy’ rather than ‘voucher boy’!
It was always the dump when I was growing up (mid 70s, northwest.)
Stig of the Dump is set in an informal place people dump rubbish, if I remember correctly, which is where people are more likely to use the term (e.g: "what a dump"), but if you are talking about a managed place it is taken to be disposed of properly, tip is by far the more common term I hear used.
I suspect might be one of those regional things like scone/scone[1].
1. It’s pronounced “scone” and I will fight anyone that says otherwise!
Ps/ Americans, please keep saying "bummed". It is a constant source of amusement for immature Brits like myself.
Interestingly c*t and quaint have the same etymological roots.
that is bizarre, if true, since my internal monologue cant chose the q word to replace the c
In fact algolia search shows this was first posted 3 days ago: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Probably. When that happens the comments don't get moved, their timestamps get adjusted to match the repost timestamp.
https://news.ycombinator.com/invited
Invited: Overlooked links, invited to repost
Or maybe just bike sellers being happy to sell junky overpriced fashionate ebikes that will drop embedded non-replaceable battery's capacity significantly within few years (or replace them for exorbitant costs).
With the right mind the world is there to screw over, just look at the politicians and other high functioning sociopaths.
Anyway, I’m on the drag getting to the shops. I need to fix a picture thas on the huh. ;)
Personally I hate swimming wearing clothes, feels so unnatural, and then you're dripping wet when you get out
A few days later, he recognizes me outside the hotel but I am noticeably slow to recognize back and he mentions "we chatted on the lift". I fake remembering while desperately searching my memory for the event of riding the chairlift with this English guy.
An hour later I remember that in the UK, "lift" == "elevator". Me, being North American and having spent plenty of time in ski towns, always associates "lift" with "chairlift".
(or is there a region in the US where this is common? Everyone I know would say “on vacation,” but the US is very regional.)
Save for one singular design which, it would seem, distinguishes itself with such remarkable uniqueness as to warrant the bestowal of its very own appellation: «budgie smugglers» (AusE).
As a kid I found the Irish usage of “press” for cupboard and “runners” for trainers/sneakers confusing as hell.
when i was a lad, my mother always said "swimming togs"
Maybe "swim suit"? "Suite" is something else, no?
'I'm heaps keen to chuck that saying into the old tucker bag'...
https://douglasadams.com/dna/980707-08-a.html
"and get this, this is a very important and significant part of what happens to you on Hayman Island - staff who don't just say "No worries" when you thank them for topping up your champagne glass, they actually say "No worries at all". They truly and sincerely want you, specifically you, not just any old fat git lying around in a sun hat, but you personally, to feel that there is nothing in this best of all possible worlds that you have come to for you to concern yourself about in any way at all. Really. Really. We don't even despise you. Really. No worries at all."
(Bluey. The single greatest contribution to exporting Australian culture.)
"Fanny pack" makes me smile every time I hear it. One of my favourite Scottish colloquialisms is: fannybaws.
There's so many of these - recently a startup called "boby" appeared ("boaby" is a less harsh form of "dick"). You can encounter characters in Stardew Valley for the switch called "Rocket" (West Coast Scots for a crazy person) and "Bam" (Scots for a usually sketchy guy who is up to trouble).
I love them, they're like a little hidden treat for a tiny minority of the planet.
There's also the simple nature of being online at 6 AM. What other English-speaking country is awake at that time of day?
It's interesting the way that words sometimes seem to have nuance that doesn't seem to be strictly within the definition.
For no reason I can remotely explain, I'd divide these into clever/bright and smart/gifted.
I've met several autists that I would readily describe as smart or even gifted, but I wouldn't describe as clever or bright.
(Although the distinction might just be that I'm an arsehole.)
(I often consider it shorthand for "I'm not an American".)
> By the 1770s, postvocalic /r/-less pronunciation was becoming common around London even in formal educated speech. The English actor and linguist John Walker used the spelling ar to indicate the long vowel of aunt in his 1775 rhyming dictionary.[4] In his influential Critical Pronouncing Dictionary and Expositor of the English Language (1791), Walker reported, with a strong tone of disapproval, that "the r in lard, bard,... is pronounced so much in the throat as to be little more than the middle or Italian a, lengthened into baa, baad...."[8] Americans returning to England after the American Revolutionary War, which lasted from 1775 to 1783, reported surprise at the significant changes in the fashionable pronunciation that had taken place.[16]
...
> The loss of postvocalic /r/ in the British prestige standard in the late 18th and the early 19th centuries influenced the American port cities with close connections to Britain, which caused upper-class pronunciation to become non-rhotic in many Eastern and Southern port cities such as New York City, Boston, Alexandria, Charleston, and Savannah.[9] Like regional dialects in England, however, the accents of other areas in the United States remained rhotic in a display of linguistic "lag", which preserved the original pronunciation of /r/.[9]
I say (or rather, said, as this episode made me very conscious of it) “hmm, curious” almost reflexively when working on something. They aped me. They partied, they spread the meme. Within a week I was suddenly overhearing people in cafes and gas stations going “hmm, curious” and by the time I left town I felt like I was living in a poorly written Monty Python sketch (or perhaps a Lovecraft bit), as an epidemic of “mmm, curious” had taken over the townspeople and the UVA student body. The latter all then went home at the end of the year, towards the end of my stay there, and spread it to every corner of the U.S.
When I went back a year later, they were all still at it.
I guess this ties in with the whole “teenage girls introduce new language” piece a few weeks back.
On my first (and only) visit to Australia I got stopped at passport control. The security bloke took my passport and looked at it. Then kept looking at it, in silence. His face was straight and sour, but his shoulders were ... twitching. This went on for more than a couple of minutes until, finally, he looked up from the passport, stared into my eyes and asked: "Is that your real name?" Confused, I nodded. He handed me back my passport and waved me through - to his credit, the man never smiled or laughed at me, but I could see it had taken him a lot of effort to maintain his control.
A day later I learned about the Wombat Joke. I grew to hate the Wombat Joke. I'd love to visit Australia again, but I'll probably use a false passport next time.
I'm embarrassed to admit I'm not aware of the Wombat Joke. I'm assuming you were warned about the danger of Drop Bears though :-)
The search engines tell me that there are lots of wombat jokes, but don't seem to know any that stand out enough to deserve a "the" in front.
... Yeah. I don't get Aussie humour either.
'Good on you' is the biggest one. 'Good for you', especially in text, to me comes across as bitter or sarcastic because of how often it's used that way, whereas the other doesn't.
'Mate', while I don't use it, is a solid word. We have buddy, pal, guy, etc, but again, they can each have their own negative connotation. Maybe 'mate' does too, but it always seemed like a neutral, friendly word.
It can be negative, definitely, if said with the right intonation.
You will be surprised to find that Champ is the word Aussies will use when unimpressed. For instance, "You alright there Champ?" means " You absolute idiot, what in the hell are you thinking?"
Funnily enough, I think 'going forward'/'going forwards' is a transatlantic difference?
In British English the pronunciation is swapped. A "rooter" is the network device, and the "rahowter" is the woodworking machine.
"But in the grand scheme of things, the traffic both ways has been modest. That is, American English and British English remain distinct dialects, with little danger of being homogenised."
Nobody would click otherwise because it doesn't take a genius to know that the internet has caused Brits and Americans to interact more regularly and thus adopt more of each other's language.
It's a funny example but to be fair to the British that also happens in other Germanic languages and it also happens a hell of a lot more in Romance languages.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uYNzqgU7na4
TLDW; We have multiple different root languages in English city names, and you are only thinking one dimensionally, with the Roman Latin root. Cirencester is a good example, pronounced how you might expect while further north the town names get more germanic, and eventually Scandinavian.
The video helps it makes sense.
I've got a fairly plain accent, fairly close to Received Pronunciation or BBC/Oxford English, Americans never have a hard time understanding my pronunciation, and even I sound closer to 'aluminyum' or maybe 'aluminiyum' more than a clean 'aluminium', though it still sounds much closer to correctly pronounced British word than to the American version.
As an example of how seriously the British take their language, here's a shortened entry for the phrase "run-up".
1.The act of running up to a certain point; esp.
1.a Coursing. The race between two greyhounds up to the first turn or wrench of the hare.
1834 Thacker Courser's Comp. I. 134 One dog is sometimes behind the other in the first run up to the hare
1.b The act of taking or sending a ball up to the goal or into a position for final play. Also attrib. Chiefly in Golf.
1897 Outing XXX. 484/1 Foster‥, after a clean run from 'way down the field, puts the ball through the uprights.‥ The excitement of the run-up has been intense.
1.c A run made in preparation for jumping, throwing, etc., in Athletics; in Cricket, the bowler's approach to the bowling crease before delivery.
1897 Encycl. Sport I. 52/2 Pace in the run-up supplies the impetus; spring enables the jumper to lift himself into the air.
1.d = run-in | RAF lingo.
1942 R.A.F. Jrnl. 27 June 8 Another Stirling and a Wellington adopted almost identically the same run-up as ourselves.
1.e A period of time or series of occurrences leading up to some important (freq. political) event; an action which prepares the way for one on a larger scale.
1966 Sunday Times 20 Nov. 48/2 The Petit Palais show offers, also, invaluable evidence in its drawing section of the ways in which Picasso manoeuvred during the crucial run-up to the ‘Demoiselles d'Avignon’.
1968 Listener 5 Dec. 761/1 The run-up to the election of Oxford's new Poetry Professor has aroused a good deal of mirthful interest
2 Bookbinding. (See quot. 1875.) Also attrib.
1875 Knight Dict. Mech. 2004/2 Run-up, a fillet-mark which runs from head to tail on the back, without mitering with the horizontal cross fillets on the panels.
1880 J. W. Zaehnsdorf Bookbinding 131 With a ‘run-up’ back, the edge of the leather round the end papers is to‥have a roll run round it in gold.
3 On the U.S. Stock Market, a rapid increase in the price or value of a commodity. Now also in gen. use.
1935 Sun (Baltimore) 13 Apr. 17/8 Corn advanced to 1 to 13/4 cents a bushel, but cotton was reactionary after Thursday's run-up.
1942 Ibid. 1 Oct. 21 Laclede gas preferred had a runup of 6½ points.I think equivalent for US would be "Wind-up" (at least I think pitchers in Baseball performs a wind-up before releasing the ball)
But realistically in my day to day life I speak English with people who are not from any historically English speaking territory. It's not owned by anyone.
UK slang, like their humor, is just objectively better.
That was a very weird morning…
"The ejaculation had been drawn from my companion by the fact that our door had been suddenly dashed open, and that a huge man had framed himself in the aperture."
For a list see https://thetaleofsirbob.blogspot.com/2013/07/watson-and-othe...
If you mentally insert some commas some of them are really funny.
Makes the "romance" books my grandmother would read sound like they were lifted from the Sherlock stories
"Stop!" he ejaculated
I can't help adding a mental full stop to make 2 sentences. Childish I know :D Makes for some strange additions to the story
I’m up for it, in the UK.
However, Americans who use British lingo are the absolute worst; they remind me of a Will Farrell character except they are not funny.
(and then there's en-gb vs en-eu...)