Comments on: Animatronic Austrade oobleck

by: Ubertakter

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 04:32:52 +0100

No kidding American English is regional. In fact, I used to work with someone from New Orleans who could identify what part of the city they came from based on their accent (that is, pronunciation and usage).

I suspect that most countries are this way, as in Scotts speak English but it's not the same as British-English. Different regions have different pronunciations and usages. I know in America you can trace family heritage by certain word usages and pronunciations. Of course that's not entirely reliable but it some cases it helps create a complete picture of family history.

And to all the people who get uptight about pronunciation and usage, get over it. There are more important things to worry about.

by: Darien

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 14:00:55 +0100

One of the neat things about American English is that it's intensely regional. My wife and I are from different places within the US, and the differences between English-as-I-know-it and English-as-she-knows-it have led to some amusement over the years. It's not just pronunciation, either -- there are a fair few significant differences in the way we form sentences. She tends to omit prepositions, for example.

by: stewpot2

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 01:54:59 +0100

It was good to read the Straight Dope article on 'faggot'.

For years, I used to think that my family was the only family in the world that used faggot as a term for a mischievous child. My mother called me a faggot many a time as a kid in the 70s.

One peculiarity of American English I've never been able to handle is 'in back of', as in 'I've parked in back of the shop'. I realise it's the opposite of 'in front of', which makes perfect sense to me, but I can't get used to it.

by: Darien

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:16:40 +0100

I'm an American myself, but I've always spelled a lot of words the "British" way due to reading quite a few British books when I was rather young and just picking up those spellings. Colour, armour, realise, so forth.

Caused a bit of consternation with my teachers when I was in grammar school. ;-)

by: bmorey

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 09:36:34 +0100

If Dickens spelled 'program' that way it's good enough for me. As Miles Kington pointed out two decades ago 'programme' is a Frenchified affectation.

by: Daniel Rutter

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:49:16 +0100

The source for "autoerotic". (That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.)

by: phrantic

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:05:03 +0100

Egad! How often do you use "autoerotic" that it has made its way into your dictionary?

by: arteitle

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 09:34:45 +0100

One aspect of the split between North American English pronunciation and English English pronunciation that I find interesting is the difference between rhotic and non-rhotic accents. At one time all English speakers pronounced the letter 'R' wherever it occurred, but in the 17th century it started being dropped, and during the 18th century non-rhoticism became widespread in England. That fad didn't translate across the Atlantic, so North Americans still pronounce it the way the English once did (with a few regional and cultural exceptions, including African American Vernacular English, also known as "ebonics").

by: arteitle

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 09:19:07 +0100

18: something was wrong with the guy who was amazed at barcodes, because of course they've been commonplace on product packaging throughout the world for at least 30 years. U.S. shops have accepted credit cards for decades, but it's only within the last ten years or so that they've started accepting debit cards as an alternative form of payment.

by: Daniel Rutter

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 03:03:22 +0100

entree is a classic example of how American spelling is actually, in some sense, the "historically correct" way to spell Essentially, the American fork of the English language branched off around the time of the Revolution, which was slightly before white folk even knew Australia existed. Australia, in contrast, remained closely connected to the UK until well after Federation (in 1901). So we inherited all of their changes to the language, including absurdities like "gaol" for "jail". You can tell a spelling's really stupid when you have to tell people what word it's supposed to be. Australians also sometimes incorrectly view American usages that're actually quite old as being distasteful modern coinages. (Note that I don't actually think there's anything wrong with "young" words as opposed to "old" ones.) Take "gotten", for instance. Faux-sophisticated Commonwealth types often view "gotten" as some sort of awful Yankee creation, when it's actually a perfectly good past-participle of "get" that's only slightly less old than the hills.