When did we become America

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#1868788 19-Sep-2017 17:39

tripper1000:

MikeB4:

English is a mixed evolving language. Should we stop french words being used as English e.g depot, chic, chauffeur or German words eg hamburger, pretzel ?

IMHO we should look to England the the correct way to use English.

German and French are each a language, American isn't. AFAIK a hamburger is a hamburger in any language but in America a biscuit is not a biscuit and a kiwi is a little furry fruit.

Butchering the language is one of the ways a country shows it's independence from it's former imperial masters, which is how English became such a mixed bag in the first place and why the Americans were never shy about coming up with their own spellings and meanings.

I don't think at the time the US was colonised that there was great consistency in spelling - anywhere. The majority of people were illiterate - literacy rates only rose to greater than 50% in the mid 18th century.

Immigration to the US wasn't monocultural "British". Languages continuously evolve - through intermingling of cultures and also through separation by distance.

I don't think there's a "problem" with different spelling, pronunciation etc here. Travel short distances in the UK though - and you'll potentially struggle to understand one another (especially as a kiwi etc not used to being exposed to such accents/dialects). So if "English" isn't to be "butchered" - which version should be the sacred "English"?

Fred99

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#1868792 19-Sep-2017 17:47

My issue with the use of the word "gas" to describe "petrol" (etc) is that they're liquids.

Then again - perhaps that's not the full story:

Herodotus mentions crude oil. Throughout history it has seeped from the earth to be used for heating, warfare, and quack medicines, but significant production did not begin until 1859 when oil was struck in Pennsylvania. John Cassell, publisher, coffee merchant, and social campaigner, was soon importing the new and wonderful stuff to London. New and wonderful stuff demands a new and wonderful word so Cassell devised one, inspired presumably by his own name: cazeline. On 27 November 1862 he placed an advertisement in The Times:

The Patent Cazeline Oil, safe, economical, and brilliant … possesses all the requisites which have so long been desired as a means of powerful artificial light.

This is the earliest occurrence of the word to have been found.

Cassell was soon supplying shops across England and Ireland. Business boomed. Then, in Ireland, sales began mysteriously to fall away. Cassell discovered a shopkeeper in Dublin, Samuel Boyd, selling counterfeit cazeline and wrote to him to ask him to stop. Boyd did not reply but instead went through his stock, changing with a single dash of his pen, every ‘C’ into a ‘G’: gazeline was born.

MadEngineer

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#1868805 19-Sep-2017 18:32

I love that us Kiwis are smart enough to mix any slang words from England/America/Aussie and still be able to understand each other.

You're not on Atlantis anymore, Duncan Idaho.

Rikkitic

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#1868809 19-Sep-2017 18:44

What makes you think we understand each other?

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

sen8or

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#1868811 19-Sep-2017 18:57

Could be worse -

The European Commission has announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU, rather than German, which was the other contender. Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had room for improvement and has therefore accepted a five-year phasing in of "Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make sivil servants jump for joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of the "k", Which should klear up some konfusion and allow one key less on keyboards.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f", making words like "fotograf" 20% shorter.

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent "e" is disgrasful.

By the fourth yer, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters. After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and everivun vil find it ezi to understand ech ozer. ZE DREM VIL FINALI COM TRU!

Herr Schmidt

richms

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#1868814 19-Sep-2017 19:05

Jase2985:

petrol station

servo

Richard rich.ms

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tripper1000

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#1868835 19-Sep-2017 20:14

Fred99:

I don't think at the time the US was colonised that there was great consistency in spelling - anywhere. The majority of people were illiterate - literacy rates only rose to greater than 50% in the mid 18th century.

Immigration to the US wasn't monocultural "British". Languages continuously evolve - through intermingling of cultures and also through separation by distance.

I don't think there's a "problem" with different spelling, pronunciation etc here. Travel short distances in the UK though - and you'll potentially struggle to understand one another (especially as a kiwi etc not used to being exposed to such accents/dialects). So if "English" isn't to be "butchered" - which version should be the sacred "English"?

Obviously the Queens English should be the sacred version - I'm surprised you needed to ask :-)

It is true of course that spelling was all over the place, but the first widely accepted dictionary was published in 1755 before the War of Independence and the American constitution has to be read in the context of this dictionary (not modern ones). The first major American dictionary was the Webster (1841) dictionary and Noah Webster chose many of the now typical American spellings for simplicity and nationalistic grounds.

MikeB4

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#1868847 19-Sep-2017 20:22

English is constantly changing, the English spoken 400 years ago would be very difficult for us to understand, it has grown from many languages and regional dialects so picking American language is just a continuation of the evolution.

Here is a crazy notion, lets give peace a chance.

Batman

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#1868862 19-Sep-2017 21:03

BTR:

I've been reading new articles in the last few days about the pipeline leak which is causing issues at Auckland airport. What annoys me is multiple news agencies referring to there being a "gas" shortage. When did we change from using the word fuel to gas, and no they are not talking about natural gas.

To me the term gas sounds lazy and could be confusing to people.... I must be getting grumpier as I get older.

We ARE America.

Trucks (Am) Lorries (Brit)

An hypothesis (Am) A hypothesis (Brit)

Stadiums (Am) Stadia (Brit)

Croissant (Kroy sont - Am; Quah-song - Brit)

Fillet fill lett Am, Fill lay Brit

And I can go on ...

tripper1000

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#1868867 19-Sep-2017 21:35

Batman:

An hypothesis (Am) A hypothesis (Brit)

^^^^ this one really grinds my gears - the TV news does this so wrong it disagrees with both of the rules. One rule is that 'an' precedes only words starting with vowels, the other rule is that 'an' precedes words starting with a vowel sound. We don't say "ypothesis" or "erb" and the number one news offender "orrific".

One rule or the other - PLEASE!

Grrrrrr!