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latebloomer

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Aquamarine

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ThankGod

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SwayStones
I prefer American pronunciation.
I've been told that many of the spelling differences result from French influence on English. Americans spell words more closely to the way they sound phonetically .

Hmm I wonder why that is?

Because Webster decided that was more logical when he was compiling his dictionary. It was one man's decision, basically.

Interesting...Webster's the man!

What I don't get is the cutesy trend of alternate spellings of names. Lynda for Linda, Shyanan for Shannon, Geoff for Jeff...and these aren't even the worst. Do they do this in the UK or is it just the US? A bit of a pet peeve, as my first name is always misspelled and often mispronounced. Thanks, Mom and Dad.

Ahhh, funny, Geoff is actually a really ancient name used a lot in England but first recorded about 1100 years ago in France.....[en.wikipedia.org] .
Also, in England we say mum but even that's not right, the original (so I'm told) is mam, which comes from mammary.............say no more.....



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 2013-12-30 22:44 by EddieByword.

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latebloomer

What I don't get is the cutesy trend of alternate spellings of names. Lynda for Linda, Shyanan for Shannon, Geoff for Jeff...and these aren't even the worst. Do they do this in the UK or is it just the US? A bit of a pet peeve, as my first name is always misspelled and often mispronounced. Thanks, Mom and Dad.

Yeah, like 'Shawn' instead of 'Sean'!

Aha, so now we know your real name is Abalamahalamatandra!

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Big Al

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Aquamarine


Because Webster decided that was more logical when he was compiling his dictionary. It was one man's decision, basically.

Very interesting. Actually, I presumed the reason for the difference in the American spelling may have been a way to further distance themselves from the British, post-independence. Perhaps that sounds silly, I don't know.

Yeah, it was all part of the same movement, really. Webster's idea was "We'll do things our own way, which will make much more sense than their way."

I'm glad my name is Nico.......although you can misspell it but it sound the same

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Differences in variation and spelling aside, it’s all English. Three cheers for the English people and our terrific, world-renowned, globally celebrated language!

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latebloomer
my first name is always misspelled

How do they misspell "late" ?

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Keep On Rolling

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Rolling Hansie

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latebloomer
my first name is always misspelled

How do they misspell "late" ?

Lait

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Big Al
Differences in variation and spelling aside, it’s all English. Three cheers for the English people and our terrific, world-renowned, globally celebrated language!

I haerd a few months back that more people speak English in China than the rest of the world's conutries put together............sounds impressive although I don't know if that is really true mind.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2013-12-30 23:38 by EddieByword.

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NICOS

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Rolling Hansie

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latebloomer
my first name is always misspelled

How do they misspell "late" ?

Lait

Close NIKOS, it's actually Laet, prounounced Lat. But don't go by me right now Hannseee, I just got home from the dentist...numbed the heck out of my left side, so I can't prounounth aneethink riteeee...

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Big Al

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Aquamarine


Because Webster decided that was more logical when he was compiling his dictionary. It was one man's decision, basically.

Very interesting. Actually, I presumed the reason for the difference in the American spelling may have been a way to further distance themselves from the British, post-independence. Perhaps that sounds silly, I don't know.

There may be some truth in that, but sometimes the American spelling is the more 'correct', or at least the more traditional. The Romans, for example, spelled words like color and labor the 'American' way.

Similarly, the '-ize' suffix (in words like 'sympathize') has a better pedigree than '-ise': in the olden days the Greeks used the suffix '-izo' (NOT '-iso') to make verbs out of nouns. '-ize' has historically been the more common form in English-English as well, with '-ise' being a second-hand parvenu French-influenced innovation. A lot of people think '-ise' is the historically 'correct' form, with '-ize' being a vulgar corruption. It isn't.

In Oz we usually go with what (we perceive to be) the British-English spelling, the Australian Labor Party notwithstanding. It is, of course, debatable whether the Australian dialect should be classified as a sub-set of English at all. I'll leave that one to the scholars.

Well, I'm a scholar, and I don't think I'd even go so far as to call Australian English a dialect (not in the same sense as Yorkshire dialect, for instance, or Cornish). You guys talk the same English as the rest of us, with regional variations, is all.

The thing about American spelling was just to make it more phonetic, and in doing so to distinguish American written English from the British kind. Webster and his contemporaries were actively resisting ideas of historical "accuracy."

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SixesandSevens

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Big Al

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Aquamarine


Because Webster decided that was more logical when he was compiling his dictionary. It was one man's decision, basically.

Very interesting. Actually, I presumed the reason for the difference in the American spelling may have been a way to further distance themselves from the British, post-independence. Perhaps that sounds silly, I don't know.

There may be some truth in that, but sometimes the American spelling is the more 'correct', or at least the more traditional. The Romans, for example, spelled words like color and labor the 'American' way.

Similarly, the '-ize' suffix (in words like 'sympathize') has a better pedigree than '-ise': in the olden days the Greeks used the suffix '-izo' (NOT '-iso') to make verbs out of nouns. '-ize' has historically been the more common form in English-English as well, with '-ise' being a second-hand parvenu French-influenced innovation. A lot of people think '-ise' is the historically 'correct' form, with '-ize' being a vulgar corruption. It isn't.

In Oz we usually go with what (we perceive to be) the British-English spelling, the Australian Labor Party notwithstanding. It is, of course, debatable whether the Australian dialect should be classified as a sub-set of English at all. I'll leave that one to the scholars.

You can't justify the spelling of modern languages' words by their Roman and Greek 'originals'. That's what I would call scholar nonsense.

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kleermaker

In my opinion English is a rather limited language. The only 'strange' thing about it is that it's a Germanic-Romance language (many words have a French origin, thanks to William the Conqueror and his Norman friends. It's not difficult at all for non-native speakers, as there's always the context. Without the context even native speakers would have a problem. This thing is characteristic of any language. A friend of mine who has an American mother and speaks American just as well as Dutch always wondered how it was possible that I didn't make mistakes concerning 'a' and 'an' before a noun. But it's simply not 'natural' to say for example 'an tree' or 'a apple'. Also not for non-native speakers. Anyway I prefer English and the English spelling.

In what sense do you regard English to be "limited"? Its vocabulary (for the reasons you cite) is much larger than any other European language. Do you mean English is simple syntactically and lacks inflections?

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SixesandSevens
There may be some truth in that, but sometimes the American spelling is the more 'correct', or at least the more traditional. The Romans, for example, spelled words like color and labor the 'American' way.

But did they realize at the time they were spelling it the "American" way?

Just kidding. But since some ideas for a democratic society were taken from the example of the Roman Republic, it would make sense that some conventions of language might have been followed from that example as well.

In Canada we have enough to do keeping up with two spoken languages without trying to invent slang, so we just go right ahead and use English for literature, Scotch for sermons and American for conversation. -- Stephen Leacock

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Des
In Canada we have enough to do keeping up with two spoken languages without trying to invent slang, so we just go right ahead and use English for literature, Scotch for sermons and American for conversation. -- Stephen Leacock

Scotch is a drink. Your sermons must be great fun!


"As we say in England, it can get a bit trainspottery"

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SixesandSevens

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kleermaker

In my opinion English is a rather limited language. The only 'strange' thing about it is that it's a Germanic-Romance language (many words have a French origin, thanks to William the Conqueror and his Norman friends. It's not difficult at all for non-native speakers, as there's always the context. Without the context even native speakers would have a problem. This thing is characteristic of any language. A friend of mine who has an American mother and speaks American just as well as Dutch always wondered how it was possible that I didn't make mistakes concerning 'a' and 'an' before a noun. But it's simply not 'natural' to say for example 'an tree' or 'a apple'. Also not for non-native speakers. Anyway I prefer English and the English spelling.

In what sense do you regard English to be "limited"? Its vocabulary (for the reasons you cite) is much larger than any other European language. Do you mean English is simple syntactically and lacks inflections?

No I meant it's rather stiff and inflexible and not very subtle and varied as for its idiom. It even doesn't have a diminutive.

Who are you calling stiff and inflexible, kleermaker?

Seriously, that sounded impressive, but I don't get what you're talking about.

As for Canadians, ya'll sound a bit confused too...check out the new Ron Burgundy movie if you want a laugh about typical Canadians, all in good fun, of course.

Cheers!

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kleermaker
It even doesn't have a diminutive.

Just to get it right. Shouldn't that be "It doesn't even have a diminutive ?"

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Keep On Rolling

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Rolling Hansie

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kleermaker
It even doesn't have a diminutive.

Just to get it right. Shouldn't that be "It doesn't even have a diminutive ?"

The diminutive of Big is Little

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NICOS

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Rolling Hansie

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kleermaker
It even doesn't have a diminutive.

Just to get it right. Shouldn't that be "It doesn't even have a diminutive ?"

The diminutive of Big is Little

that's a diminutive confusing.

The english language is actually very flexible, new words are constantly being added. It is very much a mongrel language, with influences from Celtic, Latin, Danish, German and French. English probably has the most words of any language, I know it passed the 1 million mark a few years ago, although I think only about 300,000 are in common use. French only has about half that number in common use, I don't know of the full number. I would say French is a more rigid language, it even has an academy that determines what words are allowed in the language. Of course, the French would probably say they are just more discerning.

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latebloomer
The english language is actually very flexible, new words are constantly being added. It is very much a mongrel language, with influences from Celtic, Latin, Danish, German and French. English probably has the most words of any language, I know it passed the 1 million mark a few years ago, although I think only about 300,000 are in common use. French only has about half that number in common use, I don't know of the full number. I would say French is a more rigid language, it even has an academy that determines what words are allowed in the language. Of course, the French would probably say they are just more discerning.

French is sexier though, so they make up in quality what we have in quantity.

1 million words to choose from...and we still can't communicate!

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treaclefingers

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latebloomer
The english language is actually very flexible, new words are constantly being added. It is very much a mongrel language, with influences from Celtic, Latin, Danish, German and French. English probably has the most words of any language, I know it passed the 1 million mark a few years ago, although I think only about 300,000 are in common use. French only has about half that number in common use, I don't know of the full number. I would say French is a more rigid language, it even has an academy that determines what words are allowed in the language. Of course, the French would probably say they are just more discerning.

French is sexier though, so they make up in quality what we have in quantity.

1 million words to choose from...and we still can't communicate!

HAH! True enough treacle, on both counts. Happy New Year...enjoying the cold?

Just posted by a friend on facebook, thought it belonged here.

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latebloomer
Just posted by a friend on facebook, thought it belonged here.

Funny little piece but not true. Because how is it then possible that English is the common world language and why do so many people read, write and speak it rather well? Even people who didn't have much education and also people from all countries having totally other mother tongues, like Japanese, Chinese and Arabic? Conclusion: English is much easier than Latin or Greek! Besides, one of the main features of any language you can imagine is that they contain so much 'irrational' irregularities. Ever learned old Greek? Then you know what I mean.

I don't think it has anything to do with it being easier, I think it's more because of the extent of the British Empire, in which so many people were forced to learn English, combined with the fact that North America was also a British colony at one point and thus had English imposed upon it. Thus, from the 18th century (at least) onwards, the dominant global economic, political, and cultural forces were English-speaking, again forcing others to learn it in order to communicate with us. (Even when the USSR and China, and to a lesser extent Japan, became so powerful, English still remained the main common language.)

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latebloomer
Who are you calling stiff and inflexible, kleermaker?

Seriously, that sounded impressive, but I don't get what you're talking about.

As for Canadians, ya'll sound a bit confused too...check out the new Ron Burgundy movie if you want a laugh about typical Canadians, all in good fun, of course.

Cheers!

First of all referencing a Ron Burgundy movie as a reference to "typical Canadians", come on???? Thats like referencing Doctor Seuse and Horton Hears a Who for a perception of African elephants.

But yes even Canuks think we are funny so it runs off our backs like water, heck we might up it a knotch on you. Canadian jokes are like men jokes, you make a female joke it is derogatory, tell a man joke and men just smile and confirm the stupidity of it all. So it is very hard to offend a canuck. One must understand one key difference in US and Canauck humor. I heard a comic say you can tell a sterotypical canandian joke in canada and we laugh, you can tell the same joke in the US and they laugh, tell a sterotypical US joke in Canada we laugh, but tell the same joke in the US and they shrug their shoulders and ask what's funny about that. Canadians laugh more at the US misimpressions of Canada.One only has to look no further that Rick Mercer's "talking to Americans", where he stops folks on US streets and asks rediculous questions, "do you approve of the proposed polar bear hunt in Toronto" or "do you support Prime Minister Poutine's (french fries with gravy and cheese) position on a new water park in Inuvit (about as far north as you can get), to which you will recieve some very articulate but totaly out of touch answers.

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Des
Canadians laugh more

No bout adoubt it

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Keep On Rolling

I hope the following does not cause any offense:

Please use the American spelling. The English spelling is outdated and is actually considered grammatically-incorrect by most language scholars. Using the English spelling is akin to using "thee" instead of "you" and "thine" instead of "yours".

By contrast, the American spelling is considered is more logical. Countless studies have shown the American style of spelling is much less confusing to those who use English as a second language. As many people who visit this website do use English as a second language, using the American spelling helps to reduce misunderstandings.

Clearer is always better.





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014-01-04 03:22 by MILKYWAY.