Comments on: American English VS British English

By: Online Degree

Online Degree — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 20:16:25 +0000

This is quite an interesting topic. I have never seen anyone one compare the British and American dialect is such a manner. I feel that they English language is one of the most influence languages out there.

By: sajid ali

sajid ali — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 02:11:29 +0000

i much like this site

By: Pancho

Pancho — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 23:28:51 +0000

I teach English to new immigrants in New York City and I wonder how these good folks ever learn English since their starting points are so different. Everyone has a problem with some of the sounds, the Bengalis, the Africans, the Slavss, the Latinos, the East Asians.

yet i always insist in telling them that accent is made up of three things, links between syllables and words, intonation or rhythm, and pronunciation. The making of the correct sounds is only part of the accent. I think that often the intonation is more important

By: Masoud Kalaki

Masoud Kalaki — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 18:56:46 +0000

Hello

I am Masoud from Iran and I like American English because I believe more source are to American English (Movie, Ebook and etc) so I,d chose American English than British English. but I,d like to Know both all of words.

Can you help to fine Full List (All Words) words which have different meanings in British and American English or No?

For Example:

Wrench (US) = Spanner (Br)

Fall (US) = Autumn (Br)

I visit this link http://mtherald.com/americanism-british-vs-american-english/” rel=”nofollow”>:http://mtherald.com/americanism-british-vs-american-english/

and is good page , but is not Full List and only a few words.

If you know book about my question, you,d introduce me.

I,ve Waited

Masoud

May the Force be with YOU

By: Rafael

Rafael — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 02:05:07 +0000

Sarah, do they speak Englisch and Deutsch? (In American and today's English, do you speak English and German?)

By: Rafael

Rafael — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 01:56:29 +0000

Let the Americans turn "frozen" to "frozn" to simplify their spelling.

Let the English drop their schwas near their n, m, and l, but keep it spelt. Let them retain their "centre" and "centralise" spelling.

For example, brethren (the English must use this) will be pronounced as /breθ`rn/ (the r's are rolled, trilled), problem will be pronounced as /prɔb`lm/ and pedestal will be pronounced as /phɛ`dɛ`stɫ/.

By: Rafael

Rafael — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 01:54:58 +0000

Let the Americans turn "frozen" to "frozn" to simplify their spelling.

Let the english drop their schwas near their n, m, and l.

By: Rafael

Rafael — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 01:36:59 +0000

Fag will mean "homosexual" instead of "cigarette" and many other American slang.

Back to spelling: let the English turn all their "sh" to an "sch."

The English people will use the "ye-they-thou" distinction, for simplification of the English language in UK screwed up their mothertongue. The simplification is more suitable for the American tongue rather than the European English tongue, their society is not really classless.

Their usage of "thou/thee/thine/thy" will be for family, close friends, God and children.

Their usage of "they/they/theirs/their" will be for workmates, strangers.

Their use for "ye/you/yours/your" will be for addressing the crowd or more than one person, regardless of closeness.

Their use of "Your Majesty/Your Majesty/Your Majesty's/Your Majesty's" will be for addressing the monarch of the United Kingdom.

Their pronoun system will be more complicated, but it will help them learn the Deutsch and the Netherlandish language.

Their verb conjugation will be more complicated than the Americans' tongue.

The English will retain the more irregular conjugations of their verbs. They will regain an infinitive form.

For example:

Infinitive: worken

Present, 1st person: I worke

Present tense, 2nd person: thou workest, they work, ye work

Present tense, 3rd person: ye worketh, he/she/it/they worketh, (name) works

Past tense: wrought

Past participle: gewrought

Let the English have their "here, there, yonder" system, in which here is the nearest to the speaker, there is nearest to the addressee, and yonder is for what is far from both speaker and addressee.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 10:07:25 +0000

then allow all the double negatives, change the meaning of “bitch” from “wh*re” to “lover”

Like fag (cigarette) and other words I won't mention?

By: Rafael

Rafael — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 10:02:27 +0000

What would happen if the Americans make their own languageinstitute and then they simplify all their spellings to make it mutually unintelligible to the Brits?

There they can simplify all their tho, thru and then allow all the double negatives, change the meaning of "bitch" from "wh*re" to "lover", and change the meaning of "to rehabilitate" from "to improve, correct" to "to execute, put to death." (Spelling should be bitch and rihabiliteit, respectively.)

What would happen if the English use more of their Anglosaxon words in creating their higherwordregister and if there is a compoundword, they simply clump most of those together? Let there be a neologistic tradition, like the Deutsch and the Netherlanders.

What if there is a pronunciationsystem for the English people to retain all the letters (save the final r's) that have become silent?

For example, the English must retain those "gh" to be pronounced as a guttural "ch", the words that start with a vowel get a glottal stop, their pronounced r's are either flapped or trilled, the final t's are aspirated and pronounced (not as glottal stops), and those silent e's get a schwa pronunciation.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 18:51:48 +0000

I think the amazing thing about the English language is that it allows for change; it constantly evolves without the need for an official standardization, making it one of the the most diverse languages in the world.
That being said–who cares how we spell the words? I’m an American, and we see both spellings in school and in print. I know people who consistently use the British spelling, despite being born and reared in the US. As long as we can all still communicate, little differences shouldn’t matter.

By: Alan James

Alan James — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:37:18 +0000

P.S. a pet peeve: I hate the redundant "do", as in "do come on friday", instead of "come on Friday" or "we do wish that you…." instead of "we wish that you…". This is merely a poncy attempt to speak a more "refined" English, and should be rejected by those who wish to speak robust – and gramatically correct English. Do take note!

By: Alan James

Alan James — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:23:44 +0000

For those of you that think that there are big differences between "English" English and "american" English, you should read Bill Bryson's book "Made in America". Being no spring chicken and a native English speaker, albeit from Wales, I was convinced of the superiority of "English" English. Bryson's book brought me back to Earth with the gentlest of bumps. For example, in Britain, a carbonated soft drink is called "pop", whereas, I thought, in America it is call "soda". Imagine my surprise when I found that there are many areas in the States where the drink is also called "pop". Until WW2, "Aerial" was used for a radio antenna in the US, as it still is in the UK.

The thing I received from the book was a sense of common heritage with Americans, not a litany of differences. We can be thankful that Habeus Corpus is about to return to the US, and not the emasculation that it is due to receive in the UK.

BTW, the "filthy swear words" and almost all of the less genteel words, such as belly, cock and cunt all come from the germanic root of the language. In my opinion, these words should be celebrated because English is a low German, not a low French

By: Todd

Todd — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 14:24:40 +0000

I find the idea that English English should remain the same since it has always been like that misses a wider evolution of the language. Let’s remember that English English is a derivation of many other languages – mainly from our Teutonic brothers in Northern Germany and then about a 1,000 years later our Norman fraternity across the channel that kicked some Teutonic English ass (oops…should I say ‘arse’?) in 1066. And hell the Normans weren’t even really French to begin with – they were old Norseman who adopted the Frenchy ways and language after settling in Normandy. So a lot of our English words that differ from American English and English English are words brought over by those non-Teutonic loving Norsey Frenchmen (mais ouis – a Parisian would know what is meant by centre et colour, mon amis). Scott above has listed a few more.
So when America was still pissed off (ooops I mean ‘angry’) from the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, Noah Webster decided to wrench English free from the constraints of a spelling style imposed by the nobility (Norman-Frenchy word) and make it more suitable to the masses.
So all those people out there who hate America because it does not give power to the people in a Che Guevara kinda way, take a look at out native son, Noah Webster. Why can’t we put Noah Webster on a t-shirt with a beret, a cigar and a AK47 and sell him at the Gap for $24.99?

By: Dylan Harris

Dylan Harris — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 14:09:55 +0000

-ize is a bad example; it's not just perfectly correct British English, it's the form preferred by the OED (the nearest thing British English has to the Academy Francaise). -ise is simply the more common form.

What I find fascinating is the influance of non-mother tongue speakers on the language. For example, do other people notice previously silent letters being pronounced again? I don't mean things like the 'G' in gnu, that's the Flanders and Swann song from the 1950s, I mean things like the 'i' in parliament.