Its time to claim back the true spelling in English

[M Hayden]

One of my favorite novels, Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, has a sign on a building for "θE COMITY FOR θE REFORMATION OF ENGLISH ORθOGRAFY."

It's simplified a la Noah Webster's desire to simplify English spelling, as well - it's why the US spells 'honor,' 'plow,' and 'music' the way we do. Webster wanted to go further - he, along with Ben Franklin, wanted to spell 'women' 'wimmen' and 'tongue' 'tung'.

[Brucebubs]

Originally Posted by Tannin

You are one up on me then, as in 60-odd years of living here I have never heard that. Not even once.

I have heard people say "come and have a lemonade" where, in context, it's plain that they mean beer, but that's just a joke, a bit like saying "have a wee dram with ye" meaning "let's have a scotch or three".

Reminds me that Brits use 'Hoover' to describe vacuum cleaning.
They Hoover the carpet and we vacuum it.

Unsure where but I've seen Xerox also used to describe photo copying.
They Xerox the document and we copy it.

[Silly Moustache]

Originally Posted by eatswodo

I hate to be pedantic, but I’m going to be.

There really is no such thing as a ‘British’ accent. England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland all have their distinct accents. Most Scots, Welsh and Irish would refer to their accents as such, rather than ‘British’.

Funnily enough, it’s been my observation that English people, in general, seem to be quite happy to accept the notion of a British accent.

I’m just not one of them

David is correct. However I would suggest that, we would identify many different British accents as "one of" our accents.

Likewise, whilst I agree that the Scots, Welsh and Irish would tend to refer to their accents by nation rather than British, there are many Scottish accents, many Welsh, and many Irish accents.
modern media has changed matters in my lifetime, but at one time, I'm told, accents would tend to vary about every fifty miles in the British Isles.

I remember that one of the members of the band Oasis (a Manchester group) said on TV once that he could tell when a Mancunian came from, often down to the street.

When I moved "down south, from the west of London, to the south coast (about sixty miles, i was privileged to be the member of a photographic club that had a number of elderly members who still retained the Sussex accent .. or the local version of it.

[Jim Owen]

I agree with Andrew. In the states, we have many different accents. To folks who live north of me, apparently “southern” accents sound the same. As a southerner, I can assure you they do not. I have a North Carolina mountain accent. Folks in Georgia can tell I ain’t from around here.

In Columbus, Ga, where I work, there are a multitude of local accents. I can almost tell which high school a local here attended.

[frankmcr]

Here's a video with a good in-depth look at a variety of US accents:

[Simon Fay]

About the British accent thing, most of us in America directly associate Britain with England/Great Britain rather than with the British Isles - I would wager it's as close to 100% as you can possibly get. I imagine the etymology is just a shortening of Great Britain to Britain.

Likewise, the Brits are English, the Scots are Scottish, and the people down at the pub are Irish.

You see a similar thing with America referring to the United States of America. Very rarely is America associated with any other country than the US or an American accent confused with an Argentinian accent. Geographically, an American accent could be USA, Mexican, etc ..

So British accent might not be a geographically accurate usage of the word, but my pedantic self would also argue that doesn't make it incorrect from a linguistic standpoint

The above is all in good fun - we can disagree and it's all good.

[David Eastwood]

Originally Posted by Simon Fay

About the British accent thing, most of us in America directly associate Britain with England/Great Britain rather than with the British Isles - I would wager it's as close to 100% as you can possibly get. I imagine the etymology is just a shortening of Great Britain to Britain.

Likewise, the Brits are English, the Scots are Scottish, and the people down at the pub are Irish.

You see a similar thing with America referring to the United States of America. Very rarely is America associated with any other country than the US or an American accent confused with an Argentinian accent. Geographically, an American accent could be USA, Mexican, etc ..

So British accent might not be a geographically accurate usage of the word, but my pedantic self would also argue that doesn't make it incorrect from a linguistic standpoint

The above is all in good fun - we can disagree and it's all good.

I suspect you’re right, Simon - ‘British’ is seen as synonymous with English, especially here in the US.

But, just to muddy the waters some more, Great Britain is actually comprised of England, Scotland and Wales. The United Kingdom adds Northern Ireland, as in “The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”.

The British Isles is another thing altogether.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Isles

[Simon Fay]

Hmmm .. I might be wrong then about the etymology. I always assumed Great Britain referred to just the island of England and the United Kingdom referred to the other nations in the British Isles.

I think one reason for the strong association of the word Britain with just England is the profound impact that national superpower had upon the world.

Regardless, language does have a way of morphing significantly over the years. As a luthier, I've often had discussions about what "handmade" means. At this point in time, it is still semantically correct to refer to handmade as products made only with human power ... but give it another 50 years and nearly nothing will be made that way and we will still call things handmade. The etymology of handmade will then be a way of separating things made in a factory setting to things made with care by individual or a small group of artisans, even though they might use more advanced tooling. In fact, we pretty much use handmade in that way already.

[Cabarone]

"British and Americans; two cultures divided by a shared language"-always been one of my favorite sayings...

[David Eastwood]

Originally Posted by Simon Fay

Hmmm .. I might be wrong then about the etymology. I always assumed Great Britain referred to just the island of England and the United Kingdom referred to the other nations in the British Isles.

Easy mistake to make. We wouldn't want to make it too obvious, would we?

I think one reason for the strong association of the word Britain with just England is the profound impact that national superpower had upon the world.

True.

Regardless, language does have a way of morphing significantly over the years. As a luthier, I've often had discussions about what "handmade" means. At this point in time, it is still semantically correct to refer to handmade as products made only with human power ... but give it another 50 years and nearly nothing will be made that way and we will still call things handmade. The etymology of handmade will then be a way of separating things made in a factory setting to things made with care by individual or a small group of artisans, even though they might use more advanced tooling. In fact, we pretty much use handmade in that way already.

Understood. Language is constantly evolving, as many have alluded to in this thread.

Doesn't mean we have to like it, though

[David Eastwood]

Originally Posted by Silly Moustache

David is correct. However I would suggest that, we would identify many different British accents as "one of" our accents.

Same thing is true here in the US, Andy.

Likewise, whilst I agree that the Scots, Welsh and Irish would tend to refer to their accents by nation rather than British, there are many Scottish accents, many Welsh, and many Irish accents. Modern media has changed matters in my lifetime, but at one time, I'm told, accents would tend to vary about every fifty miles in the British Isles.

My experience is that it's even closer than that. My home town is Kettering, in the fair county of Northamptonshire. Back in the day, the county was a leather trade and shoe-making powerhouse. There were shoe factories in both Kettering and Northampton - the two major market towns - and lots of ancillary workers in the surrounding towns. People didn't move around as much in those days (we're talking early/mid 20th century here) so lots of people were born, raised, lived, worked and died in the same town.

5 miles up the road from Kettering was Rothwell; another 7 miles further on was Desborough. I knew people back in the 1970s who could identify which of the three towns you were from by your accent.

Another one. I consider myself a Northamptonshire lad. In the mid-70s, I (mis)spent a year in Bristol, at the university. Some years later, I was in a fish and chip shop in Guildford - southwest of London. I placed my order, and the chap behind the counter said "Where are you from? Let me guess - it's either Northampton or Bristol".

I was suitably gobsmacked.

And you're almost certainly asleep.

Carry on

[Brucebubs]

Originally Posted by eatswodo

Same thing is true here in the US, Andy.



My experience is that it's even closer than that. My home town is Kettering, in the fair county of Northamptonshire. Back in the day, the county was a leather trade and shoe-making powerhouse. There were shoe factories in both Kettering and Northampton - the two major market towns - and lots of ancillary workers in the surrounding towns. People didn't move around as much in those days (we're talking early/mid 20th century here) so lots of people were born, raised, lived, worked and died in the same town.

5 miles up the road from Kettering was Rothwell; another 7 miles further on was Desborough. I knew people back in the 1970s who could identify which of the three towns you were from by your accent.

Another one. I consider myself a Northamptonshire lad. In the mid-70s, I (mis)spent a year in Bristol, at the university. Some years later, I was in a fish and chip shop in Guildford - southwest of London. I placed my order, and the chap behind the counter said "Where are you from? Let me guess - it's either Northampton or Bristol".

I was suitably gobsmacked.

And you're almost certainly asleep.

Carry on

I first traveled through England in 1969. I remember 2 passerby's overhearing my younger sister speaking to my parents as we walked around a town.
One nodded to the other and I overheard him comment, "Midlanders!"

Er ... not quite!

[David Eastwood]

Originally Posted by Brucebubs

I first traveled through England in 1969. I remember 2 passerby's overhearing my younger sister speaking to my parents as we walked around a town.
One nodded to the other and I overheard him comment, "Midlanders!"

Er ... not quite!

After spending more than half my life in the US, I'm most often misidentified as Australian. Nothing against my Antipodean friends, but whenever anyone does point it out, I make an extra special effort be as English as possible.

Toodle pip!

[Brucebubs]

Originally Posted by eatswodo

After spending more than half my life in the US, I'm most often misidentified as Australian. Nothing against my Antipodean friends, but whenever anyone does point it out, I make an extra special effort be as English as possible.

Toodle pip!

My father was Royal Australian Air Force and our family got to live in Paris when he was posted to the Air Attache there in 1969/70.

I attended the English School of Paris for those 2 years and my classmates were a wonderful mix of English, Welsh, Scottish, American, Canadian, South African and Australian.
Loved it.

Saw both Concorde prototypes 001 and 002 take-off, fly together and land at the Paris Air Show in 1969 before they began service 7 years later.

[fumei]

Originally Posted by Jim Owen

The true number of rs in the universe is constant. Any time a Bostonian pawks his car, a North Carolinian warshes his

OK, that made me laugh. I could hear it in my head.