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Since when have many adverbs lost the ending 'ly' in the US? It has become impossible to distinguish between the adverb and adjective in many cases. E.G: "He'll be here real soon now" (International: really soon now) Sounds very strange to this writer because I think 'real' is an adjective but the US example above treats it as an adverb (modifying the verb 'be') - Clive
Formally speaking, 'real' is an adjective in American English and 'really' is the adverb. However, it is common in informal American speech to drop the -ly where there is no ambiguity, so whether or not that counts as a difference is a matter of interpretation. As an American, if I saw 'real' used as an adverb on wikipedia, I would correct it. - Rob
"Many" adverbs have not lost the -ly suffix. Only a few have. However, as is often the case in irregularities in English dialects, they happen to be more common adverbs Dogface 22:09, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Am I right in thinking that Canadians, perhaps in an attempt to preserve some differences from their southern neighbours, also use tap rather than faucet? jimfbleak
[continued from Tap vs Faucet] I've just thought of one difference. In Europe, we say 'two thousand and three' for 2003 (I to be alkward say 20-0-3!) whereas americans say 'two thousand three' not using the 'and'. Is this widespread or just a phenomenon associated with news anchors? JTD 07:52 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)
So - What do Americans call " 2001: A Space Odyssey"? I've never heard anyone call it anthing other than "Two thousand and one: A Space Odyssey". I've never heard it called "Twenty oh one: a Space Odyssey". What about One Hundred and One Dalmatians? Jooler 10:09, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)
(There's another one: US - news anchors. UK + Irl: newscasters or newsreaders) JTD 07:52 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)
Newsreaders is an old term from the time when actors rather than journalists 'read' the news, becoming professional newsreaders. (Kenneth Kendall in the UK and Charles Mitchell in Ireland spring to mind.) By the 1980s, most stations used professional journalists, who to show their journalistic cred insisted on being called newscasters to show they weren't mere actors reading someone else's script. Call a newscaster a newsreader is a bit like calling Rev. Jerry Falwell a catholic: you better duck before you get a punch!!! (But the term still is used, to the fury of journalists. JTD 08:03 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)
Could someone say how an American would interpret "Highly Inflammable"? - in the UK, contrary to appearances it normally appears in warning signs, meaning "very likely to catch fire". Arwel 22:02 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)
The word inflammable is not used in American English. I suspect that many Americans would be highly confused by it. They might guess that it means "fireproof", the opposite of flammable, which is what warning signs in the US say. However, if an American saw inflammable on a warning sign, they could possibly figure the correct meaning out from context. (fireproof would be an advertising claim, not a warning)
According to my dictionary, flammable and inflammable mean the same thing. Flammable is always used on warning signs in the US. The use of inflammable, though technically correct, is considered too confusing.
The terms combustible, flammable, highly flammable, explosive etc., used on warning signs in the US, have precise meanings which depend on characteristics, such as flash point, of the material involved. Bluelion 23:38 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)
The reason "flammable" and "inflammable" have the same meaning is that children and illiterates get confused by the "in-" and think that "inflammable" means "not combustible" when it means "combustible". -- 65.57.137.165 04:22 Feb 20, 2003 (UTC)
Technically speaking, inflammable and flammable are synonymous in American English. However, 'flammable' seems to be increasingly common on warning signs, probably to avoid confusion. When writing something formal, I would always use 'inflammable,' just because 'flammable' sounds silly to me. - Rob (American)
They dealt with the question in France this way: they invented a new word -- ininflammable, for "is not", and no prefix for "is". ;Bear 03:43, 2004 Dec 13 (UTC)
The fact that tea refers to a meal (as well as a beverage) in British English should be added, but I'm not sure where exactly. Mkweise
Errr... I don't think there's a North/South divide on tea being an evening meal, it's more of a class thing. Mintguy
Mintguy is correct. It is a matter of class. In Ireland too, we called the midday meal dinner, and the evening meal tea, largely because the meal was based around tea. However upper middle class and upper people tend to have a light 'lunch' in the middle of the day, and a large dinner for the evening meal.
Of course, at school, whether you are in the North or South, you still get school dinners, served by dinner ladies (paid for with dinner money) during the lunch break. It's a confusing world. (I am, of course, referring to the midday meal).
In American English, to "have tea", is to drink "tea" or another herbal beverage. Whereas in British English, to "have tea" means a meal. In Oregon English (or Chinook English) (West coast USA), we have breakfast, lunch, and dinner. My grandmother on the eastern shore of Maryland (USA), has breakfast, lunch, and supper. Lunch is at noon in both cases. It is not uncommon for households not to have any tea to offer guests, or when they do the tea is of questionable age. Tea is common in countercultural circles and among Asians. Coffee is king on the west coast and snacks with it are only common in coffee houses. It is rare not to have at least poor quality coffee. It is hard to find coffee on the east coast. Superior coffee is only found in French Restaurants in major cities. I had thought elevenses was a Tolkien invention until I receintly went to an english-style tea house 16 years after reading about the concept. Even then, I was not sure until I found it in a dictionary! Do you have second breakfasts too?
If a Briton said - "My brother is a vet". Everyone would understand that his brother is a veterinarian. If an American said the same thing, would people automatically assume that he is a war veteran, or might there be some confusion as to whether he is a veterinarian or a war veteran? Mintguy
Q: I am British, and for the noun-form of admonish I say admonishment.
My American wife says admonition.
Is this a UK/US difference, are they just alternative words, or is one of us plain wrong! -- Chris Q 09:24 Mar 3, 2003 (UTC)
If you used that word I would assume your were British. I am surprised that the dictionaries don't say it is chiefly British. - Oregonian
On an old NOVA production on visual agnosia, one English guy describes another guy's apartment as "an upside down". What does that mean? Arthur 19:30 Mar 14, 2003 (UTC)
Discussion, including the suggestion to automatically transform them into appropriate markup, moved to meta:Automatic transformation of hyphens and dashes.
I removed the following claim, on the grounds that there is no body authorized to designate official spellings, and that American dictionaries typically give the -er spellings as standard. (This is regarding words like center/centre.)
"The official American spellings end in -re, but the American people use the -er spelling almost exclusively."
Mark Foskey 03:38 Mar 15, 2003 (UTC)
I removed the following from this section, I think it's more an example of a wider US phenomenon of affected use of Commonwealth forms. I haven't put it back anywhere else though... Joestynes 10:25, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Actually, the -re form IS standard for measurements -- kilometre, etc., in the US. The American Standards Institute, or some such name, has established those spellings. Never understood why, myself, since no Americans I know ever spell them that way. Rick K 21:23, Nov 25, 2004 (UTC)
I disagree about the -re forms being standard for measurements in the US. I quote from NIST Special Publication 811, 1995 edition, page 81, Appendix C, section 3:
User:cameronc 04:14, Dec 11, 2004 (UTC)
Does "lounge" really mean "bar" in the States? Bagpuss 23:45 Mar 16, 2003 (UTC)
In the most common usage of "lounge" in the US, it does not mean a "bar". It could mean a bar, but it's much more likely that it simply means a place to relax.
Bagpuss. - You're probably too young to remember this, but most pubs used to have two or more bars, the "public bar" or "saloon bar" was for working men (in workman's clothes perhaps) and might have had lino ( linoleum) or possibly even sawdust on the floor, whilst the other bar (the "lounge bar") would be for women in company and the more refined customer and would have had carpet and some soft chairs. A pub might have also had a "snug bar" which would have been a small room for a few people to enjoy their own company. Mintguy (Actually this should go in the the entry on pubs).
I'm surprised the UK doesn't use lounge meaning bar. It is so common in Ireland a pub will often have a separate lounge, with it described as that in the signage. A lounge is usually more comfortable, with soft seating, softer music, carpeted floor, more relaxing. In many ways, a lounge is more feminised, a bar more masculinised, with harder seats, seats at the bar counter, wooden or tiled floor, with Sky sports blaring on a TV (God I hate Sky Sports!). It never dawned on me that that term didn't exist in the UK. STÓD/ÉÍRE 21:03 Apr 7, 2003 (UTC)
Don't let the Englishmen confuse you, JTD. There are still plenty of hotels and public houses with lounge bars, public bars (and even snugs) in the UK of just the type that you describe. Maybe they're dying out in some parts of England but they are still going strong in Scotland. -- Derek Ross 04:37 25 May 2003 (UTC)
The use of "lounge" is, has been stated before, very specifit. Not just any drinking establishment would be a lounge. A lounge attempts to exude an aura of sophistication and fancy-pantsity. In general, any sort of raucous association would be discouraged. As an extreme (and probably incorrect) stereotype: A tuxedo would be less out of place at a lounge than it would anywhere else in the world of American inebriative establishments.
What is this idea implied in one of the tables that "flat" does not mean "apartment" in the US. It most certainly does! - especially in the case a apartments that are flats. As is stated in the text, "apartment" has been gradually displacing "flat" in much of the world. My experience is that the generation before mine used the word "flat" instead of the word "apartment". How is the status of the word 'flat' any different in the US than it is in much of the world? Bluelion 00:25 Mar 17, 2003 (UTC)
Well, I've heard lots of Americans use the word "flat" to refer to an "apartment' although, admittedly, some were of a generation before mine. It is , perhaps, somewhat regional, but "Flat for Rent" signs are available at many hardware stores in the US. Believe me, that is a fact. I have current sign catalogs to prove it. Such signs are readily available even today in the US. I doubt sign companies would be selling signs using a word that isn't commonly understood. Bluelion
I'm not so young and, in my younger days, I heard LOTS of Americans refer to apartments as "flats". In fact, they were pretty disdainful of the word "apartment" - only people "putting on airs" used that word, according to them. That's my experience, growing up in the 'show-me' state of Missouri. And I've seen more "Flat for Rent" signs than I'd care to count. Bluelion 02:38 Mar 17, 2003 (UTC)
Just to add to the confusion, in New Zealand English "apartment" is a fairly specific term while "flat" may mean an apartment but could mean almost any form of rented accomodation including part of a house. "Flatting" used as a varb describes the situation where a group of people who are not a family share any rented accomodation even a whole house.
From above because it's relevant
Midwest U.S., urban: flat is commonly used to refer to a specific type of apartment located in a smaller building -- either purpose-built or converted from a single-family home -- in which each apartment occupies one full floor of the building, although it is not used without qualification and refers to the containing building rather than the apartment itself (e.g. "I live in a three-flat.") It's used in contrast to 'apartment building' or 'apartment complex'. SpacemanSpork 23:06, 2005 Feb 22 (UTC)
""Flat" is utterly extinct in American English to mean a rented dwelling. The only exception I can think of is a regionalism; in San Francisco, people sometimes call old Victorian houses "flats" if you're renting out the whole floor. Moncrief 20:28, May 21, 2005 (UTC)
"Complexion" is still standard British English. PML.
The article claims that "phi is "fie" to Britons and "fee" to Americans". φβκ in "American" though would seem to be "fie beta kappa" not "fee beta kappa": American dictionaries also seem to give the pronounciation "fi": is φ indeed pronounced as "fee" by most Americans? -- Someone else 02:25 Mar 22, 2003 (UTC)
I think it depends greatly on the context. As you say, "fie" appears to be the most common pronunciation when the letter appears as itself, but in a technical or scientific context it is almost invariably "fee" (as in "the oiler fee function" -- i.e., Euler's φ function, with stress on the "fee"). A check of my AHD gives "fie" and only "fie" as a pronunciation for the word phi. 18.24.0.120 03:04, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Just to add a tiny bit to 18.24.0.120's point: Outside of scientific and Greek-language contexts (such as in names for fraternities), "fie" is almost always heard. Even scientists and classicists say "fie bayta kappa", though they would say "fee" when talking about the letter in their work. Most utterances of the letter come out as "fee", but most people call the letter "fie" (when they call it anything at all). -- Atemperman 21:47, 29 May 2004 (UTC)
Regarding this time - Full stops/Periods in abbreviations - Americans tend to write "U.S.", "U.N.", "Mr.", "Mrs." etc., while most British will write "US", "UN", "Mr", "Mrs", etc. I regularly get letters from the UK addressed to 'Mr.' and from the US as 'Mr' as were always taught in Ireland that leaving outh the period was dead wrong. So NEVER write St when you mean St. (street or saint), never write Mr. or Mrs. without a period, etc. So whatever about U.S. versus US, saying that putting in a period is an Americanism not found in the UK seems dead wrong. STÓD/ÉÍRE 21:03 Apr 7, 2003 (UTC)
I have addressed letters as "#28, NG2 6LJ" and my dad 100 miles away has got them the next morning. Nicholas (UK)
changed .... which are likely to be misunderstood by most speakers of British English. to ... which could be misunderstood by speakers of British English.. I think that many younger English people have enough exposure to US tv and films to know these terms. There are a lot of people who wouldn't but I would not like to say "most"
Is there any empirical evidence for the following assertion, which I have removed from the article?:
Seems doubtful to me. Jfitzg
I was the one who added the assertion. I am British, and have seen Americans use colons many times, which I had never seen over here. However, sorry, there is a subtlety which I did not first realis/ze, that Am usage uses the colon only for a formal letter, while still using a comma for personal letters. A Google search with term "dear Sir" comma colon gives various references to this, e.g.:
http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/local/doc/punctuation/node52.html http://newark.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/c.html (section Colon) http://www.louisville.edu/a-s/writingcenter/semiandcolons.html (scroll near to bottom)
Please could you reinstate the comment, but with the modification that the difference only applies to formal letters.
Alan
What about the ending of letters? In the UK the ending of a letter commencing "Dear Sir/Madam" ends "Yours faithfully" and one begining "Dear Mr (name)", ends "yours sincerely". I have seen Yours truly and yours very truly in the US but do not know the protocol of use. Dainamo 14:25, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
This bit:
Sounds like an urban legend to me. I asked about it on the Wordcraft board, and no-one British believed it to be true. Is there any evidence for it?
Yes, indeed. I agree that while can mean until in some Northern dialects, but I'd think this is largely in speech, and that even speakers of the dialect would have no trouble at all with the written "while". I just don't believe that "this caused a number of fatalities" or that there was good reason to change the equipment instructions, if indeed they were changed. Sounds much more like an urban legend popular because it puts "stupid Northerners" in a poor light; same family as "Irish milk-bottles have Open other end written on the bottom".
Pauld 10:16 28 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Thanks Gritchka. My perception (as a British writer) is that whilst and while are almost interchangeable, although whilst feels slightly more old-fashioned than while. As great efforts have been made in recent years to write signs and official documents in straightforward English, I'd be very surprised if they now "nearly always"" use whilst. As a google of a couple of UK Government departments' sites gives about four times as many hits for while as for whilst, I've rewritten the para. Pauld 00:34 29 Jun 2003 (UTC)
I changed the supposed reference to while in the story on Northern railway signage to whilst. If whilst was seen as meaning until then the sentence must have been used with whilst not while. If it used while there could have been no confusion. Also - saying that whilst seems slightly old fashioned is POV. Whilst is still widely in many parts of Britain and Ireland and is still widely used in legislation.
BTW re the above comment about the Irish and milk bottles, the Irish don't use milk bottles they use cartons and have done for many many years. FearÉIREANN 14:24 29 Jun 2003 (UTC)
FearÉIREANN, my point was the the story about level-crossing fatalities is untrue, in the same way the the "Irish milk-bottle" joke is untrue. If the Irish don't in fact have milk-bottles, it's irrelevant -- the story isn't told by Irish people, and (presumably) it's not supposed to be true.
Chris Q, you didn't in fact "fix" the article, because the second para started "because of this" which you made to refer to the fact that official docs use whilst. Also the claim that official docs use whilst "to avoid misunderstanding" is POV, and has the feeling of the level-crossing story about it. I've tried a small re-ordering.
I've also restored aeroplane to the list of spelling differences; 62.64.141.46 took it out (but not the American airplane) as one of a list of otherwise excellent changes. Not sure why he/she took it out. Pauld 11:33 30 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Makes sense to me. -- Pauld 12:20 1 Jul 2003 (UTC)
As an American, I'd always choose the former in each of these pairs, and I rarely hear Americans say the latter. Is this a US/Britain difference? Fg2 07:37, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)
The most recent edit has made the following out of what was previously a badly formed sentence. "The British use the American spelling of encyclopedia as part of their language." I'm not sure this is what the original author intended. I certainly don't think it's true. Mintguy 18:50 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)
I have another list that I have been working on for a while; will someone attempt to incorporate? -- Kaihsu 05:40, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)
On Wikipedia I sometimes see something like "Washington State, named for George Washington, ...", whereas I would normally write "Washington State, named after George Washington, ...". Is this a British/American difference or is this just me being ignorant? Mintguy 11:30, 20 Aug 2003 (UTC)
The example in section 6 about double consonants in first syllables, i.e. that the 'a' in parrot is pronounced like the 'a' in sat, is simply not true for most speakers of American English. The vowels in, bad, bed, and bade are all the same before 'r', so for most Americans, the first syllable of parrot sounds like pair. Perhaps a better example of this phenomenon would be helpful. -- Nohat 04:06, 2003 Sep 11 (UTC)
Fixed.-- Atemperman 22:06, 29 May 2004 (UTC)
"But compelled, excelling, propelled, rebelling in both, although Americans also use exceling, propeled, rebeling."
What's up with this? I know American English and those spellings like "exceling", "propeled" and "rebeling" are just plain WRONG! Wiwaxia 01:15, 14 Sep 2003 (UTC)
You may not say 'drugs dealer' or 'sport page', but I do, as do many others, as does the BBC and other media outlets some times; it is a recognised common (and often thought more 'accurate', for some reason, not my POV) alternative to the form used exclusively in the Americas. I added the line:
...to point out that it is not wholly common. Please do not keep just reverting it to blankness.
James F. 23:47, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Removed Note that some British would now find this usage odd. If you put it back please make it clear whether you mean they find the American or British usage odd. Personally "drugs delaer" sounds odd to me! Chris Q 08:27, 28 Oct 2003 (UTC)
---
I agree with Seglea's summary comment - "(oh come on. This pluralisation thing is ridiculous)".
Doing a google on the exact phrases shows: "sports page" - 248,000 occurrences "sport page" - 19,700 occurrences and, in direct contradiction to what is stated, "sport page" appears to be MORE common in America, whereas it's listed as British usage in the article. (The first three occurrences are utexas.edu, USATODAY.com, and the 'Ohio Wrestling Sport Page'.)
For the other phrase, we get: "drug dealer" - 135,000 occurrences "drugs dealer" - 1,290 occurrences I would agree from the google entries that "drugs dealer" is more likely to be British, but there are plenty of British examples of "drug dealer" - including the Guardian, Observer and the BBC. Indeed, James F's assertion that the BBC uses "drugs dealer" is not borne out by checking google counts for site news.bbc.co.uk - the BBC news site uses "drug dealer" 734 times and "drugs dealer" only 66 times.
Given this, the section is factually incorrect for both phrases given and I therefore deleted it. If anyone feels that there ARE noteworthy differences between British and American .. AND they can back it up with evidence (as opposed to just introspective examination of their own usage), the section needs rewriting.
Spellbinder 17:55, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Although most American would write "meter", isn't "metre" (and "kilometre", etc. the OFFICIAL US Government spelling? RickK 07:09, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
> Greek-derived words with ae or æ and oe or œ
Is this a British transliteration of omega with "oe", or of omicron, or of something else ?
I have never seen the word "esthetic." It is always spelled "aesthetic" in my experience. - Rob (American)
Yeah, I too see "aesthetic" at least twenty times as often as "esthetic". Same goes for "archaeology" over "archeology". I've fixed this on the page now. -- Atemperman 22:12, 29 May 2004 (UTC)
During the 1950s at least, in at least some British publications, the decimal point was typeset as a center dot or middle dot; that is,
not
Is this still true? (Can someone tell me more about how common it is/was and during what time period it is/was used so I can update my remark at Middle dot?)
Two examples of books in which this practice occurs.
The latter is particularly interesting because sections and illustrations numbered with ordinary periods, which are also used in the nomenclature for identifying polyhedra. For example, p. 96 is headed
Later on the same page, it says
So this text uses center dots as decimal points in numeric decimal fractions, but ordinary base-aligned periods in section designations.
I was taught to use middle dot at school in 1990 or so, and always use it in handwriting. I don't have any problem with . in typing.
Is it still common in British English to use in when referring to the location of something adjacent to a particular street (e.g., "His shop is in Mumblefrotz street") where an American would use on ("His store is on Mumblefrotz Street")? For that matter, how about capitalization and use of the definite article ("in the Willesden road" versus "on Williston Road")?
As an Englishman living in North America, I find one of the most blatant differences is the frequent dropping of prepositions in American English where they would be normal, or even compulsory, in British English. Examples:
"He resigned Tuesday" vs "He resigned on Tuesday"
"They appealed/protested the decision" for "They appealed/protested against the decision" (although the former has started creeping into British use in the last few years)
This doesn't seem to feature in the article - has nobody else noticed it or am I just overlooking it? And does anyone know how linguists classify this kind of usage? For example, in the American example above, is the word "Tuesday" a direct object? Cambyses 18:39, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)
That's interesting. Now that I check, the OED lists "Tuesday" as a colloquial adverb as well as a noun, although I can't say I've ever heard it used as such by a British speaker. In NA this use seems to be common, even in quite formal writing, but Websters (online) seem to list "Tuesday" only as a noun. Curiouser and curiouser.... :-)
I'm not quite so sure the use of "against" with "protest" is quite as superfluous as you suggest. In England, the direct object of "protest" (when used at at all) is usually the viewpoint being put forward rather than that opposed. For example, one might "protest one's innocence" or "protest against one's criminal conviction". To "protest against one's innocence" would be something else entirely! BTW, I'm aware of the subjectivity of the phrase "missing prepositions" - hence the question mark in the title! Cambyses 19:43, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)
That sounds about right. For what it's worth, I think this is one of those rare cases where UK English is definitely more logical! It is clear (and confirmed by the Oxford Etymology) that the word derives from the Latin "pro" (in favour of) and "test" (to witness, assert or declare). So to "protest" something should be to "declare in favour of" it, and the American usage is a rather bizarre reversal! Cambyses 14:23, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)
There is a distinction, though, between obtaining a sentence which "has the same meaning" and one which "has no formal meaning but will hopefully be construed in the same way". Very often one can use different prepositions in the same place ("They met on/by/before/after/around/through Tuesday") to obtain quite different meanings. If you drop the preposition entirely, how is the reader to know which meaning is meant? The answer, of course, is that she applies local conventions to pick the most likely meaning ("They met Tuesday" -> "They met on Tuesday"). In places where prepositions are less frequently omitted, there is less familiarity with such conventions, so these sentences can be quite difficult to interpret. Cambyses 15:09, 6 May 2004 (UTC)
In American English, dates may serve as adverbs, a situation which is encountered in British English as well. No one would say, "I'm planning to go to France 'on' this summer"; they would simply say, "I'm planning to go to France this summer". Just as pretty much any noun can function as an adjective, most nouns specifying a date can function as adverbs. -- Atemperman 22:22, 29 May 2004 (UTC)
Excerpt:
The last sentence is not (or is no longer) correct, in that "Have you eaten? Yes, I did." and similar responses are very common in spoken American English, and have been since I was a child 30+ years ago (back when I had the annoying habit of correcting adults' grammar). This may not be considered "proper" for written English, but I doubt many editors would take exception to it — certainly not for written dialog(ue). -- Jeff Q 18:06, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I am from (and live in) the geographic center of the coterminous USA, and I (and almost everyone else I know here) pronounces "cot" as "kaht," and "caught" as "kawt." Any comments?
There was some discussion about the use of "International English" versus "Commonwealth English" on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:International_English. The discussion there suggests that "Commonwealth English" replace "International English", and I agree. I have edited the "American and British English differences" page accordingly. -- Atemperman 23:47, 29 May 2004 (UTC)
There's a lot of stuff here about 'Commonwealth English' pronunciation. To my knowledge, no such beast exists. Also for colloquial grammar and word choice. 'Commonwealth English' is only a written language. Unless someone can convince me otherwise I'll fix that. Felix the Cassowary 28 June 2005 07:33 (UTC)
Two things come to mind of the top of my head: having a distinct phoneme for o in hot and not pronouncing the r in words like park. I'm sure there are others. Ben Arnold 9 July 2005 04:47 (UTC)
"epsilon is "epp-SIGH-lon" /Ep"saIl(@)n/ to Britons and "EPP-si-lon" /"Eps@%lOn/ to Americans". as a Brit i've never come across anyone pronouncing "epp-SIGH-lon". So if this pronunciation exists it may be archair. Therefore the only letter difference would be beta. Mintguy (T) 13:21, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I've come across both pronounciations on both sides of the Atlantic, so agree that this is not a Britsh vs American difference. You and the article are right that beta does differ fairly consistently, as do all the letters which rhyme with it. (eta, theta, zeta and any others I've forgotten). Best wishes, Cambyses 00:34, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I myself'd always heard "EPP-sih-lahn" /"EpsIlAn/; of course, that may be local, as I've practical always lived in southeastern or southern Wisconsin. OTOH, I've never heard that supposed American pronunciation of epsilon myself. That's not saying that other Americans don't pronounce it differently, of course. 02:50, 21 Aug 2004 (CDT)
Apparently, only American English uses "in the hospital", whereas elsewhere (including Canada) it is "in hospital". How did this one come about? It's not mentioned anywhere in the article.
Also, I remember being taught that that names of languages should only be capitalized if they are part of a name or title, such as "English 101" class, but not when talking about the english language itself. Again, apparently this is only in American English (or american english)? This seems one of the odd parts of the language, along with capitalizing days of the week (which I do only if it's really darn important and expected) and months (which I do), but not say, the seasons. Maybe this come from English being a polyglot of German (capitalize almost everything) and Latin (capitalize almost nothing)? – radiojon 06:54, 2004 Jun 23 (UTC)
Americans use the older English practice. If one looks at 17th and 18th century English books, one will find a great deal more capitalization, sometimes going so far as the German practice of capitalizing all nouns (but usually not that far). British English dropped that practice while American English retained it. Dogface 22:30, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Quill 23:39, 10 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Well, this is an amazing article! I'm impressed. However, as a speaker of American English and a student of linguistics, I find a number of the points listed to overgeneralize. I would say some of it is "incorrect", except that in most cases I've heard and/or used both constructs:
Comments on any of that? I have grown up in the southwest US, where the English is alleged to be generic and people think "accents" are cool, so I think the items above reflect the "standard" usages fairly well (to whatever extent language is ever standard). It's all more complex than it seems; the above list is not meant as criticism but as food for thought. Jeeves 03:38, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I snipped the following para:
See Wikipedia:Avoid self-references.
chocolateboy 11:40, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)
See /Spelled v Spelt. The discussion there ought to be refactored. [[User:Poccil| Peter O. ( Talk)]] 23:02, Jul 25, 2004 (UTC)
Well, apparently my previous edit didn't get the entire 'summary' line through, so I suppose it's best to ask here. Is it really sensible to list both IPA as well as SAMPA here? IPA is, in my opinion at least, much more readable and comprehensible. Certainly it may be somewhat more difficult to type in, but if we're doing it anyway, we may as well drop SAMPA. Or is there a particular reason for including both? — Sinuhe 11:01, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The section on "Numbers" states that Britons woud sometimes use "oh" for zero, but that "Americans use the term 'zero' almost exclusively...." It previously referred to an exception for the use of "oh" in sports scores ("after the second inning, it was oh-and-two"), but Poccil now edited that our. In my experience, we Americans use "oh" in such cases quite often. In fact, it wouldn't be strictly for sports; someone going through his second unpleasant divorce might report sadly that he was "oh-for-two in the marriage department" (zero successes in two attempts). Or am I overgeneralizing from New York City usage? JamesMLane 08:25, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
With regard to telephone numbers, I think that the example of 999 as an example of the treble- construction is wrong. Certainly in the South East (RP and Estuary), I've only ever heard 999 pronounced Nine nine nine. Similarly for the new directory enquiries services e.g. 118 500 is pronounced ONE one eight five HUNdred. However, within a longer number the construction is used, e.g. 07700 900 333 would be pronounced OH double SEVEN double OH, NINE double OH treble THREE. Acanon 15:43, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)
This section needs a little attention: "British speakers are most likely to follow the American model for words ending in -rary, where in careful speech some may feel obliged to distinguish the two r's. Thus secretary would sound /"sEkr@t@rI/ rather than /"sEkr@trI/."
Firstly, my RP pronunciation dictionary does not even mention the American pronunciations of words ending in -rary, and secondly, the word secretary isn't even an example of such a word! I have only heard this pronounced by British speakers as "seck-ra-tree". Livajo 10:15, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I removed the following since the preceding syllable is stressed so the stated rule does not apply. That's not to say it can't be amended. Joestynes 03:10, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The "silent a" of Comm. Eng. for -ary words appears (somewhat) in some dialects in U.S. New England, particularly among older locals in the area around and to the north of Boston. I don't know the specific history, but some like my grandfather routinely pronounce words like "battery" as e.g. "bat-tree" -- a hard T followed immediately by the R, instead of the "baddery" of the remainder of the country. - Keith D. Tyler [ flame 23:10, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)
I note the use of the word "Gotten" in American dialect to mean "to have got". Is this colloquial slang or a geniuine word in US Emglish? Dainamo 14:29, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I also can't think of (m)any reasons to use "have got". Have and got is basically repetition, as they are both past tense. eg JamesMLane should say "did not get" as formal written English not "haven't gotten". Not only because it is using two words for the past tense but also because using apostrophes in formal written English (other than to define possessives) is incorrect. - Monjo
The article gives this example of different usage:
As an American, I think "are" would be much more common here. For example, a book about Beatlemania in America was titled The Beatles Are Coming. Also William F. Buckley, Jr.: "The Beatles are not merely awful. They are so unbelievably horrible, so appallingly unmusical, so dogmatically insensitive to the magic of the art, that they qualify as crowned heads of antimusic." [7] When the band name is singular in form, though, it can go either way; I wouldn't be surprised to hear either "Korn is awful" or "Korn are awful". Furthermore, many Americans will even use plural forms when talking about a corporation: "Ford is discontinuing that model because it doesn't fit into their plans." I personally consider this usage substandard but it's dismayingly common here. JamesMLane 14:58, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
To some extent, I believe many of us are not recognizing that this isn't a page to discuss the differences in speech patterns and pronounciation throughout the U.S. The article starts off by saying "For the purposes of this article: American English is the language spoken by U.S. government officials, network newscasters...." For instance, the British contributors aren't pointing out differences between Cockney and American English. I think one would be hard pressed to find an example of Peter Jennings or Tom Browkaw saying "The Beatles is a well-known band."
Actually, the suggestion that "U.S. government officials" may be used as a barometer for some sort of "standard" U.S. English is also questionable, (I offer the speech of the current president as example). It seems to me that it is only among our national broadcasters that one can find anything even remotely resembling the British notion of a received pronunciation. AdmN 16:16, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
For those of us who are reading this long after the discussion, I would make two closing points. First, the original example, using a band name containing a plural noun, was unfortunately ambiguous. Someone has since replaced "The Beatles" with "The Clash", which accurately demonstrates the point in the article. Second, to add to the confusion, the Ford example above introduced yet another variable by its use of "their" in a potentially singular context (i.e., when combined with any correct use of "Ford is"). This is not, however, a U.S. vs. UK issue. It is known as the singular they, and has a long history in both England (back at least as far as Shakespeare) and in the United States. Although most of us have probably learned the prescriptive formula that "the pronoun they is only used in a plural context", causing many (like myself) to cringe at its use in a singular context, it actually predates the Latinate and occasionally illogical 18th century formalism of Robert Lowth et al., and is widely accepted in writing and on Wikipedia. It is the subject of an ongoing and often acrimonious debate at Talk:Singular they. — Jeff Q 08:34, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Does anyone know why user User:Wereon just replaced the wiki-style italic markup for the HTML tags <i></i>? That just makes articles harder to edit, doesn't it? func (talk) 14:07, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)
The current text of this article states:
That last sentence may sound logical, given its lead-in, but it doesn't reflect my own experience in primary and secondary education in the U.S., right up through my B.S. in Computer Science with minors in Mathematics, Physics, and Astronomy, nor my Master's level work in Electrical Engineering or CompSci. I've never read any math or science text that used the so-called "long scale" or "European numbering system". To be fair, all my texts were published in the U.S., as far as I recall, but since the U.S. is the source of a not-inconsiderable number of such texts (and of research and papers in these topics), I think the above generalization is far too broad. I can't speak for the "natural" sciences, but I'd say that math and the hard sciences are quite comfortable with the so-called American system. Which is more prevalent worldwide is certainly far from obvious to me. Is the above statement perhaps a reflection of primarily European math and natural science preferences? I must admit ignorance in this area. In any case, I think the text needs a little adjustment, or at least justification. — Jeff Q 07:04, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Everytime I read this article, I see something new that makes no sense. ;-) I have been in numerous office, commerical, and residential (apartments, hotel) buildings throughout the cities of Philadelphia, New York City, Boston, etc., and I cannot ever recall seeing a first floor that was called the "first" floor. They are invariably referred to as the lobby-level, street-level, or ground floor. Perhaps the person who added this bit is referring to somewhere in the western part of the U.S.? If you're talking about someone's 2 or 3 story house, then yes, the first floor is the "first" floor, (it would hardly make sense for a home owner to refer to their "lobby"), but otherwise, buildings in general start their floor numbering on the second floor. I vote that we rename this article to What people seem to think are the differences between American and British English. ;-) func (talk) 02:54, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)
In the last three office buildings I worked at, (including the current one), and in numerous office buildings around Philadelphia, the Ground- Street- Lobby- floor is followed by the "first floor", which is physically the second story. Every day when I go to leave, I press the big "Street" button in the elevator, which is located next to the "1" button. I really think this part of the article is either off-base, or only partially correct for certain kinds of buildings, (perhaps only in certain places). I'm going to attempt to do some research on this on the 'net. func (talk) 16:36, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)
This is because the ground is not a floor, but a floor must be built over the ground, whatever "over" means. lysdexia 13:47, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I just removed some recently added information (indicated in bold), which doesn't appear relevant to this article or seems rather superfluous.
[[User:Poccil| Peter O. ( Talk)]] 07:23, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)
The article is particulalry interesting to me as a Brit who uses the Grammar check on Word. After reading it nore I have conlcleded that changing regional settings does not convert 100% in to UK-English and I while the obvious differences can be recognised, on the more subtle rules I have questioned my own judgement and let microsoft change the way I express. Examples include hyphens where I would not have bothered beore, using "is" after a collective noun rather than "are" and being told when to use "that" or "which with a comma before it" in a sentence but never which without a comma before it! Communication does tend to merge the use of language, but Microsoft may have more to answer for than I had thought! Dainamo 21:15, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)
You may find that Microsoft Word can mark that a particular language is being used for document content.
If you haven't set this correctly in your doc or in your default template, then it's possible that your documents are being marked as "English (U.S.)" [nods to section above about the use of periods] and are being spell-/grammar-checked according to this.
(see Tools menu -> Language -> Set Language... -> "Mark selected text as <language>")
I'm American and I have had all of those problems you have encountered in Microsoft as well. I don't think its a Brit V. Yank thing. I think its a Microsoft thing. MikeMcG.
I couldn't help but notice that Character Map in Windows 2000 and XP refers to the sentence-ending dots as full stops instead of periods, even when the language is set to U.S. English. Is there a reason for this? -- /ɛvɪs/ 22:55, Apr 7, 2005 (UTC)
I'm not sure this section belongs in the article. As far as I'm aware -xion has been used in both British and American English in the past, but is becoming rarer and rarer in both forms of the language. I certainly don't see this as a notable difference between British and American English. Would anyone object strongly if I completely removed the section? jguk 08:19, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Is this word widely used in the Commonwealth? I'm British, and can't remember hearing it here. Admittedly I'm not a fan of the sport, but a search for .uk occurrences on Google UK gives barely a thousand for "basketballer", as against over 26,000 for "basketball player". My personal experience is that "footballer" and "cricketer" are very common, but "X player" would be used for other team sports. Loganberry 02:08, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Agreed. As you say the "er" ending is restricted to some sports, such as "cricketer", "footballer" and "golfer", whereas you would never say "tenniser", "basketballer" or "rugbyer", you would always use "X player". Assuming that the article is correct that the US use the "player" (I am also British) form in all cases I will change the example to use "golfer" as cricket is not common in the US -- Chris Q 07:25, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
In some Northeastern American dialects, the /ju/ sound is retained. I can think in particular of actrress Erika Slezak, who uses this pronunciation. She also uses the British pronunciation of rather. Rick K 21:18, Nov 25, 2004 (UTC)
Is cancelled, enrollment and travelling the British spelling whereas canceld, enrolment and traveling the American counterpart? Seems like it's not mentioned in the article.
From The Columbia Guide to Standard American English
In words of more than one syllable ending in a consonant, especially -l, the English generally (but not always) double the final consonant, and Americans generally do not, although American dictionaries frequently report divided usage. Here are some examples:
AMERICAN ENGLISH | BRITISH ENGLISH |
---|---|
canceled, cancelled | cancelled |
crueler, crueller | crueller |
dueled, duelled | duelled |
jeweler, jeweller | jeweller |
labeled, labelled | labelled |
quarreled, quarrelled | quarrelled |
traveled, travelled | travelled |
Rmhermen 18:51, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)
I noticed that the Hoosiers spell theatre but center. Is that true all over Indiana or the Midwest?
How do they shift around British and American pronunciations when playing in British and Hollywood films? Imagine when Hugh Grant plays as an American.
Somebody mentioned each code covers only a few addresses. What about multi-storey apartment buildings?
Would Britons say 23456 as two thirty four fifty six? What about Americans?
Offtopic, but I think I'm likely to get an answer here. In the United States, ordinary household wall-mounted light switches are made and installed so that turning the handle up turns the lights on and turning the handle down turns the lights off.
When I visited England in the 1950s the situation was the reverse: down = on, up = off. IIRC this was true in general.
a) Are my memories accurate?
b) If so, is this British/U. S. cultural difference still in effect?
(This is apropos of the Light switch article, on VfD but likely to be kept). [[User:Dpbsmith| Dpbsmith (talk)]] 16:16, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Most light switches in Britain in my experience don't have a "handle", but a flat panel that tilts. You press the top of the panel for "off" and the bottom of the panel for "on". -- Khendon 17:00, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
(UK ON) (UK OFF) | | | | --- \ / <-- PRESS HERE \ / TO SWITCH \ <-- PRESS HERE / "OFF" ---- TO SWITCH | | "ON" | |
If you look at the image at http://www.2ricam.co.uk/images/19649D_WEB.jpg the switches are ON, OFF, ON. Often the top of a switch will have a patch of red on it to indicate that this means the switch is on when this is visible. Jooler 15:24, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Organize is very common in printed British English. It seems to me this page is a bit out of date. Dejvid 13:03, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
For reference -ise is the exclusive form in New Zealand. Ben Arnold 9 July 2005 04:50 (UTC)
This paragraph needs a rewrite:
From the article:
As a Brit, when I've heard an American saying that they "majored" in something, I've inferred that a University course in the US requires a student to specialise in one subject (their major) whilst studying others to a lesser degree, but this has never being confirmed to me. Is this the case? (it isn't in the UK). If it is then there isn't a direct correlation between major and read/study. Jooler 10:38, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)
It seems to me that North Americans have a hard time understanding some ways of stating the time of day. All of the following are fine in the UK. Which are understood in the US?
numbers in general (as in "four and twenty blackbirds"!); my grandparents used it only for times; to me it is familiar, but I've never used it myself; today's teenagers probably wouldn't understand it at all! Cambyses 09:23, 23 May 2005 (UTC) Cambyses 09:23, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
Surely "quarter to six" is 5:45 and "quarter past six" 6:15. In the USA you might also hear "quarter 'til six" and "quarter of six" for 5:45. "'til" and "of" are sometimes used for other numbers besides 15 minutes as well. "quarter before six" might be understood as well, although I think it's more a (rare?) British usage
I thought the Americans invented the airplane. If that's the case, then wouldn't it be an example of the British modifying an American word? -- Kitch 12:19, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Read the page. The Americans didn't use to spell that as airplane. 131.215.167.110 08:33, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I'm British, 35 years old, and I understand College here as tertiary (university) level education from 18 years, and occasionally for 16 to 18-year-olds as in '6th-form college'. I've never refered to school for 16-year-olds and younger as a college. Conversely, I am used to hearing Americans refer to 'School' as something you can attend right into adulthood. I'm not going to edit the article myself since I'm not familiar enough with the American view to really make the distinction clear - but if anyone reads this, knows what I mean, and understands the state-side system perhaps yoú'll set that straight (it's in the 'Vocabulary'section of the main article). Thanks. -- anon
My own (BrE) use of "fresher" restricts it to first years in the first few weeks of university, not all first years. Do other Brits agree with this?
I don't know whether this is a general UK/US difference or a regional difference. My wife (from Texas) always uses the subject form of a pronoun with the verb "to be", even when it is the object. For example she says "it is she" whereas I (form the UK) would say "it is her". Another example is my wife says "it is I" rather than "it's me". Is this a general UK/US difference? -- Chris Q 09:28, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
How do the British pronounce Granite? The dictionary says it should be pronounced as in graneet the 'nite' is not pronounced as 'night.-- Jondel 01:11, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
This title can be interpreted as meaning that American and English are 2 different languages. Anyone know a good title for this article?? Georgia guy 19:59, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
Let's get this straight before we move this article back again to its regular title. Are you saying that you believe that "American" is the name of a language? Violations of community norms - moving article titles without consensus, refusing to discuss and debate with others - is a surefire way to get blocked from posting on Wikipedia. Moncrief 23:36, May 21, 2005 (UTC)
I want to lay out some reasons why it makes no sense to rename this article American and English linguistic differences, as a new user is attempting repeatedly to do. I know some of the literally dozens of people who have worked on this page or shown an interest in it will return during the week and will wonder what was going on here. Here are some reasons why that new title makes no sense:
I understand that the user changing this article (I'm not trying to avoid saying his or her name; I just can't remember it right now because he/she doesn't sign his/her posts) has a strong POV, I'm assuming, about the supermacy or "correctness" of the English spoken in England, or Britain (well, one kind of it at least - I guess the spelling conventions, since the spoken English of Britain is hardly uniform). We all have POVs of one kind of another. The whole beauty of Wikipedia, though, is to work together and build consensus. We have a successful process in place to do just that. Changing the name of this article, repeatedly, refusing to comment before doing so, is in violation of that process. Since there is no majority opinion anywhere that would classify "American" as a language, changing the name of this article to such a title seems to reflect a certain POVness that is unfortunate to a serious encyclopedia like Wikipedia should aim to become. Moncrief 00:15, May 22, 2005 (UTC)
Can I correct a misconception? "English English" is not more commonly used in Britain than "British English". Rather the reverse. I see there's even an article about "English English" (attached to a link saying British English). But while it may be true, as the article says, that this is a term used in academic writing, in general speech, as distinct from technical academic writing, "British English" (unsatisfactory term that it is) seems to me to be far more widely used. Just to add a personal viewpoint: it seems to me that one of the achievements of the Blair governments since 1997 has been to make it acceptable for the English to speak the name of their nationality. Certainly since the second world war and probably since the height of the British Empire, the English (or at least the educated ones) would almost always speak of themselves as British. (Never mind that other languages usually did it the other way round and used the equivalent of English when they meant British.) In earlier days this was a signal of nationalistic pride in the British Empire; when the British Empire was disappearing it was a signal to the Scots and the Welsh of inclusion and acceptance. (The Scots and the Welsh often had and have quite different sentiments!) But Blair introduced the Scottish Parliament so that the Scots could part-govern themselves and the Welsh Assembly so that the Welsh could sort of govern themselves in one or two areas. The response in England was to think, "What about us? What about the English?" One of the results, it seems to me, is that since Blair's reforms, for the first time in 100 years or more, the English flag, (never, ever, seen for most of the 20th century) has become commonplace and more frequently used than the Union flag, which now appears quite rarely. Look at pictures of celebrations at the end of the Second World War: the flags are all the British Union Flags. Now, the flags flown in England are usually the red cross of St George; now, the English have regained the confidence, when asked, to say they are English. Revived nationalism, after a long period of hibernation, can surface in all sorts of areas. Perhaps it's in play here, too. But I'd suggest, nonetheless, that, thus far, the form of English used in Britain is most generally referred to as British English except perhaps in recent academic writing. That may be changing, as the attitude to use of the word "English" is changing generally in England.
But in any case, perhaps the generalisations implied by the existing title have the potential to cause confusion or irritation. "Differences between forms of English spoken in the US (North America?) and Britain (western Europe?)" is probably too long but perhaps this is what the shorthand title is aiming at, or something like it. Adrian Robson 10:36, 22 May 2005 (UTC)
It seems to me that in Britain one stands for office, while in America one runs for office. Am I correct that this is a transatlantic difference? If so, one could probably write a whole dissertation on what this tells you about the respective political systems. :-) Cambyses 13:15, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I was taught at school (in the UK) that when making a possessive, singular nouns take "apostrophe S" whereas plural nouns take just an apostrophe. Thus I would write "the cat's basket" (single cat) or "the cats' basket" (more than one cat) and "Chris's pen" (one Chris!). I can't remember what I was taught if there is a plural possessive ending in s but I would probably use "'s" (Chris P and Chris Q share a room; it is the Chris's room).
My wife was taught in a US school to use apostrophe only in any noun ending is s, singular or plural, so she would write the cat's basket" (single cat) or "the cats' basket" (more than one cat) and "Chris' pen" (one Chris!).
Is this a UK/US difference or did we just learn alternative rules?
I (as a Brit) have always used the "separable verb" to have in, meaning to contain, as in "this mug has coffee in". Admittedly I wouldn't use it in formal writing, but I would consider that as a stylistic point rather than a grammatical one.
When I went to America, I was very soon told this was "bad grammar" and should be "this mug has coffee in it". Is this true? — Blotwell 09:44, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Please supply evidence that "will go and X" is "stigmatized" in GA! This is very common (informal) usage; "will go X" is equally common in the future, formal or informal; "will go to X" is quite formal. In the present (formal or not), "going and X'ing" sounds strange to me; "going X" impossible; "going X'ing" only in "activity" usages like "going fishing"; "going to X" normal. In the past (formal or not), "went and X'ed" implies something that actually happened, "went to X" implies intention, "went X'ing" only with activities like "fishing", "went X" is impossible. Benwing 02:57, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
Commonwealth English is a group of English from the Commonwealth nations and in each country, there are a variant of English. For example, Singapore English, so there's a difference. Tomhongs 11:53, 28 June 2005.
whilst in the UK and most Commonwealth countries it refers primarily to a tertiary institution between high school and university (normally referred to as a "Sixth Form College" after the old name in secondary education for Years 12 and 13, the "6th form")
I've never heard of this, so it may be in just some parts of the country. In the North-East where I live, 6th form is reserved for Years 12 and 13 at a secondary school which also has years 7 to 11, while college is just used for those places which do not have years below 12.
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Since when have many adverbs lost the ending 'ly' in the US? It has become impossible to distinguish between the adverb and adjective in many cases. E.G: "He'll be here real soon now" (International: really soon now) Sounds very strange to this writer because I think 'real' is an adjective but the US example above treats it as an adverb (modifying the verb 'be') - Clive
Formally speaking, 'real' is an adjective in American English and 'really' is the adverb. However, it is common in informal American speech to drop the -ly where there is no ambiguity, so whether or not that counts as a difference is a matter of interpretation. As an American, if I saw 'real' used as an adverb on wikipedia, I would correct it. - Rob
"Many" adverbs have not lost the -ly suffix. Only a few have. However, as is often the case in irregularities in English dialects, they happen to be more common adverbs Dogface 22:09, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Am I right in thinking that Canadians, perhaps in an attempt to preserve some differences from their southern neighbours, also use tap rather than faucet? jimfbleak
[continued from Tap vs Faucet] I've just thought of one difference. In Europe, we say 'two thousand and three' for 2003 (I to be alkward say 20-0-3!) whereas americans say 'two thousand three' not using the 'and'. Is this widespread or just a phenomenon associated with news anchors? JTD 07:52 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)
So - What do Americans call " 2001: A Space Odyssey"? I've never heard anyone call it anthing other than "Two thousand and one: A Space Odyssey". I've never heard it called "Twenty oh one: a Space Odyssey". What about One Hundred and One Dalmatians? Jooler 10:09, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)
(There's another one: US - news anchors. UK + Irl: newscasters or newsreaders) JTD 07:52 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)
Newsreaders is an old term from the time when actors rather than journalists 'read' the news, becoming professional newsreaders. (Kenneth Kendall in the UK and Charles Mitchell in Ireland spring to mind.) By the 1980s, most stations used professional journalists, who to show their journalistic cred insisted on being called newscasters to show they weren't mere actors reading someone else's script. Call a newscaster a newsreader is a bit like calling Rev. Jerry Falwell a catholic: you better duck before you get a punch!!! (But the term still is used, to the fury of journalists. JTD 08:03 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)
Could someone say how an American would interpret "Highly Inflammable"? - in the UK, contrary to appearances it normally appears in warning signs, meaning "very likely to catch fire". Arwel 22:02 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)
The word inflammable is not used in American English. I suspect that many Americans would be highly confused by it. They might guess that it means "fireproof", the opposite of flammable, which is what warning signs in the US say. However, if an American saw inflammable on a warning sign, they could possibly figure the correct meaning out from context. (fireproof would be an advertising claim, not a warning)
According to my dictionary, flammable and inflammable mean the same thing. Flammable is always used on warning signs in the US. The use of inflammable, though technically correct, is considered too confusing.
The terms combustible, flammable, highly flammable, explosive etc., used on warning signs in the US, have precise meanings which depend on characteristics, such as flash point, of the material involved. Bluelion 23:38 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)
The reason "flammable" and "inflammable" have the same meaning is that children and illiterates get confused by the "in-" and think that "inflammable" means "not combustible" when it means "combustible". -- 65.57.137.165 04:22 Feb 20, 2003 (UTC)
Technically speaking, inflammable and flammable are synonymous in American English. However, 'flammable' seems to be increasingly common on warning signs, probably to avoid confusion. When writing something formal, I would always use 'inflammable,' just because 'flammable' sounds silly to me. - Rob (American)
They dealt with the question in France this way: they invented a new word -- ininflammable, for "is not", and no prefix for "is". ;Bear 03:43, 2004 Dec 13 (UTC)
The fact that tea refers to a meal (as well as a beverage) in British English should be added, but I'm not sure where exactly. Mkweise
Errr... I don't think there's a North/South divide on tea being an evening meal, it's more of a class thing. Mintguy
Mintguy is correct. It is a matter of class. In Ireland too, we called the midday meal dinner, and the evening meal tea, largely because the meal was based around tea. However upper middle class and upper people tend to have a light 'lunch' in the middle of the day, and a large dinner for the evening meal.
Of course, at school, whether you are in the North or South, you still get school dinners, served by dinner ladies (paid for with dinner money) during the lunch break. It's a confusing world. (I am, of course, referring to the midday meal).
In American English, to "have tea", is to drink "tea" or another herbal beverage. Whereas in British English, to "have tea" means a meal. In Oregon English (or Chinook English) (West coast USA), we have breakfast, lunch, and dinner. My grandmother on the eastern shore of Maryland (USA), has breakfast, lunch, and supper. Lunch is at noon in both cases. It is not uncommon for households not to have any tea to offer guests, or when they do the tea is of questionable age. Tea is common in countercultural circles and among Asians. Coffee is king on the west coast and snacks with it are only common in coffee houses. It is rare not to have at least poor quality coffee. It is hard to find coffee on the east coast. Superior coffee is only found in French Restaurants in major cities. I had thought elevenses was a Tolkien invention until I receintly went to an english-style tea house 16 years after reading about the concept. Even then, I was not sure until I found it in a dictionary! Do you have second breakfasts too?
If a Briton said - "My brother is a vet". Everyone would understand that his brother is a veterinarian. If an American said the same thing, would people automatically assume that he is a war veteran, or might there be some confusion as to whether he is a veterinarian or a war veteran? Mintguy
Q: I am British, and for the noun-form of admonish I say admonishment.
My American wife says admonition.
Is this a UK/US difference, are they just alternative words, or is one of us plain wrong! -- Chris Q 09:24 Mar 3, 2003 (UTC)
If you used that word I would assume your were British. I am surprised that the dictionaries don't say it is chiefly British. - Oregonian
On an old NOVA production on visual agnosia, one English guy describes another guy's apartment as "an upside down". What does that mean? Arthur 19:30 Mar 14, 2003 (UTC)
Discussion, including the suggestion to automatically transform them into appropriate markup, moved to meta:Automatic transformation of hyphens and dashes.
I removed the following claim, on the grounds that there is no body authorized to designate official spellings, and that American dictionaries typically give the -er spellings as standard. (This is regarding words like center/centre.)
"The official American spellings end in -re, but the American people use the -er spelling almost exclusively."
Mark Foskey 03:38 Mar 15, 2003 (UTC)
I removed the following from this section, I think it's more an example of a wider US phenomenon of affected use of Commonwealth forms. I haven't put it back anywhere else though... Joestynes 10:25, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Actually, the -re form IS standard for measurements -- kilometre, etc., in the US. The American Standards Institute, or some such name, has established those spellings. Never understood why, myself, since no Americans I know ever spell them that way. Rick K 21:23, Nov 25, 2004 (UTC)
I disagree about the -re forms being standard for measurements in the US. I quote from NIST Special Publication 811, 1995 edition, page 81, Appendix C, section 3:
User:cameronc 04:14, Dec 11, 2004 (UTC)
Does "lounge" really mean "bar" in the States? Bagpuss 23:45 Mar 16, 2003 (UTC)
In the most common usage of "lounge" in the US, it does not mean a "bar". It could mean a bar, but it's much more likely that it simply means a place to relax.
Bagpuss. - You're probably too young to remember this, but most pubs used to have two or more bars, the "public bar" or "saloon bar" was for working men (in workman's clothes perhaps) and might have had lino ( linoleum) or possibly even sawdust on the floor, whilst the other bar (the "lounge bar") would be for women in company and the more refined customer and would have had carpet and some soft chairs. A pub might have also had a "snug bar" which would have been a small room for a few people to enjoy their own company. Mintguy (Actually this should go in the the entry on pubs).
I'm surprised the UK doesn't use lounge meaning bar. It is so common in Ireland a pub will often have a separate lounge, with it described as that in the signage. A lounge is usually more comfortable, with soft seating, softer music, carpeted floor, more relaxing. In many ways, a lounge is more feminised, a bar more masculinised, with harder seats, seats at the bar counter, wooden or tiled floor, with Sky sports blaring on a TV (God I hate Sky Sports!). It never dawned on me that that term didn't exist in the UK. STÓD/ÉÍRE 21:03 Apr 7, 2003 (UTC)
Don't let the Englishmen confuse you, JTD. There are still plenty of hotels and public houses with lounge bars, public bars (and even snugs) in the UK of just the type that you describe. Maybe they're dying out in some parts of England but they are still going strong in Scotland. -- Derek Ross 04:37 25 May 2003 (UTC)
The use of "lounge" is, has been stated before, very specifit. Not just any drinking establishment would be a lounge. A lounge attempts to exude an aura of sophistication and fancy-pantsity. In general, any sort of raucous association would be discouraged. As an extreme (and probably incorrect) stereotype: A tuxedo would be less out of place at a lounge than it would anywhere else in the world of American inebriative establishments.
What is this idea implied in one of the tables that "flat" does not mean "apartment" in the US. It most certainly does! - especially in the case a apartments that are flats. As is stated in the text, "apartment" has been gradually displacing "flat" in much of the world. My experience is that the generation before mine used the word "flat" instead of the word "apartment". How is the status of the word 'flat' any different in the US than it is in much of the world? Bluelion 00:25 Mar 17, 2003 (UTC)
Well, I've heard lots of Americans use the word "flat" to refer to an "apartment' although, admittedly, some were of a generation before mine. It is , perhaps, somewhat regional, but "Flat for Rent" signs are available at many hardware stores in the US. Believe me, that is a fact. I have current sign catalogs to prove it. Such signs are readily available even today in the US. I doubt sign companies would be selling signs using a word that isn't commonly understood. Bluelion
I'm not so young and, in my younger days, I heard LOTS of Americans refer to apartments as "flats". In fact, they were pretty disdainful of the word "apartment" - only people "putting on airs" used that word, according to them. That's my experience, growing up in the 'show-me' state of Missouri. And I've seen more "Flat for Rent" signs than I'd care to count. Bluelion 02:38 Mar 17, 2003 (UTC)
Just to add to the confusion, in New Zealand English "apartment" is a fairly specific term while "flat" may mean an apartment but could mean almost any form of rented accomodation including part of a house. "Flatting" used as a varb describes the situation where a group of people who are not a family share any rented accomodation even a whole house.
From above because it's relevant
Midwest U.S., urban: flat is commonly used to refer to a specific type of apartment located in a smaller building -- either purpose-built or converted from a single-family home -- in which each apartment occupies one full floor of the building, although it is not used without qualification and refers to the containing building rather than the apartment itself (e.g. "I live in a three-flat.") It's used in contrast to 'apartment building' or 'apartment complex'. SpacemanSpork 23:06, 2005 Feb 22 (UTC)
""Flat" is utterly extinct in American English to mean a rented dwelling. The only exception I can think of is a regionalism; in San Francisco, people sometimes call old Victorian houses "flats" if you're renting out the whole floor. Moncrief 20:28, May 21, 2005 (UTC)
"Complexion" is still standard British English. PML.
The article claims that "phi is "fie" to Britons and "fee" to Americans". φβκ in "American" though would seem to be "fie beta kappa" not "fee beta kappa": American dictionaries also seem to give the pronounciation "fi": is φ indeed pronounced as "fee" by most Americans? -- Someone else 02:25 Mar 22, 2003 (UTC)
I think it depends greatly on the context. As you say, "fie" appears to be the most common pronunciation when the letter appears as itself, but in a technical or scientific context it is almost invariably "fee" (as in "the oiler fee function" -- i.e., Euler's φ function, with stress on the "fee"). A check of my AHD gives "fie" and only "fie" as a pronunciation for the word phi. 18.24.0.120 03:04, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Just to add a tiny bit to 18.24.0.120's point: Outside of scientific and Greek-language contexts (such as in names for fraternities), "fie" is almost always heard. Even scientists and classicists say "fie bayta kappa", though they would say "fee" when talking about the letter in their work. Most utterances of the letter come out as "fee", but most people call the letter "fie" (when they call it anything at all). -- Atemperman 21:47, 29 May 2004 (UTC)
Regarding this time - Full stops/Periods in abbreviations - Americans tend to write "U.S.", "U.N.", "Mr.", "Mrs." etc., while most British will write "US", "UN", "Mr", "Mrs", etc. I regularly get letters from the UK addressed to 'Mr.' and from the US as 'Mr' as were always taught in Ireland that leaving outh the period was dead wrong. So NEVER write St when you mean St. (street or saint), never write Mr. or Mrs. without a period, etc. So whatever about U.S. versus US, saying that putting in a period is an Americanism not found in the UK seems dead wrong. STÓD/ÉÍRE 21:03 Apr 7, 2003 (UTC)
I have addressed letters as "#28, NG2 6LJ" and my dad 100 miles away has got them the next morning. Nicholas (UK)
changed .... which are likely to be misunderstood by most speakers of British English. to ... which could be misunderstood by speakers of British English.. I think that many younger English people have enough exposure to US tv and films to know these terms. There are a lot of people who wouldn't but I would not like to say "most"
Is there any empirical evidence for the following assertion, which I have removed from the article?:
Seems doubtful to me. Jfitzg
I was the one who added the assertion. I am British, and have seen Americans use colons many times, which I had never seen over here. However, sorry, there is a subtlety which I did not first realis/ze, that Am usage uses the colon only for a formal letter, while still using a comma for personal letters. A Google search with term "dear Sir" comma colon gives various references to this, e.g.:
http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/local/doc/punctuation/node52.html http://newark.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/c.html (section Colon) http://www.louisville.edu/a-s/writingcenter/semiandcolons.html (scroll near to bottom)
Please could you reinstate the comment, but with the modification that the difference only applies to formal letters.
Alan
What about the ending of letters? In the UK the ending of a letter commencing "Dear Sir/Madam" ends "Yours faithfully" and one begining "Dear Mr (name)", ends "yours sincerely". I have seen Yours truly and yours very truly in the US but do not know the protocol of use. Dainamo 14:25, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
This bit:
Sounds like an urban legend to me. I asked about it on the Wordcraft board, and no-one British believed it to be true. Is there any evidence for it?
Yes, indeed. I agree that while can mean until in some Northern dialects, but I'd think this is largely in speech, and that even speakers of the dialect would have no trouble at all with the written "while". I just don't believe that "this caused a number of fatalities" or that there was good reason to change the equipment instructions, if indeed they were changed. Sounds much more like an urban legend popular because it puts "stupid Northerners" in a poor light; same family as "Irish milk-bottles have Open other end written on the bottom".
Pauld 10:16 28 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Thanks Gritchka. My perception (as a British writer) is that whilst and while are almost interchangeable, although whilst feels slightly more old-fashioned than while. As great efforts have been made in recent years to write signs and official documents in straightforward English, I'd be very surprised if they now "nearly always"" use whilst. As a google of a couple of UK Government departments' sites gives about four times as many hits for while as for whilst, I've rewritten the para. Pauld 00:34 29 Jun 2003 (UTC)
I changed the supposed reference to while in the story on Northern railway signage to whilst. If whilst was seen as meaning until then the sentence must have been used with whilst not while. If it used while there could have been no confusion. Also - saying that whilst seems slightly old fashioned is POV. Whilst is still widely in many parts of Britain and Ireland and is still widely used in legislation.
BTW re the above comment about the Irish and milk bottles, the Irish don't use milk bottles they use cartons and have done for many many years. FearÉIREANN 14:24 29 Jun 2003 (UTC)
FearÉIREANN, my point was the the story about level-crossing fatalities is untrue, in the same way the the "Irish milk-bottle" joke is untrue. If the Irish don't in fact have milk-bottles, it's irrelevant -- the story isn't told by Irish people, and (presumably) it's not supposed to be true.
Chris Q, you didn't in fact "fix" the article, because the second para started "because of this" which you made to refer to the fact that official docs use whilst. Also the claim that official docs use whilst "to avoid misunderstanding" is POV, and has the feeling of the level-crossing story about it. I've tried a small re-ordering.
I've also restored aeroplane to the list of spelling differences; 62.64.141.46 took it out (but not the American airplane) as one of a list of otherwise excellent changes. Not sure why he/she took it out. Pauld 11:33 30 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Makes sense to me. -- Pauld 12:20 1 Jul 2003 (UTC)
As an American, I'd always choose the former in each of these pairs, and I rarely hear Americans say the latter. Is this a US/Britain difference? Fg2 07:37, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)
The most recent edit has made the following out of what was previously a badly formed sentence. "The British use the American spelling of encyclopedia as part of their language." I'm not sure this is what the original author intended. I certainly don't think it's true. Mintguy 18:50 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)
I have another list that I have been working on for a while; will someone attempt to incorporate? -- Kaihsu 05:40, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)
On Wikipedia I sometimes see something like "Washington State, named for George Washington, ...", whereas I would normally write "Washington State, named after George Washington, ...". Is this a British/American difference or is this just me being ignorant? Mintguy 11:30, 20 Aug 2003 (UTC)
The example in section 6 about double consonants in first syllables, i.e. that the 'a' in parrot is pronounced like the 'a' in sat, is simply not true for most speakers of American English. The vowels in, bad, bed, and bade are all the same before 'r', so for most Americans, the first syllable of parrot sounds like pair. Perhaps a better example of this phenomenon would be helpful. -- Nohat 04:06, 2003 Sep 11 (UTC)
Fixed.-- Atemperman 22:06, 29 May 2004 (UTC)
"But compelled, excelling, propelled, rebelling in both, although Americans also use exceling, propeled, rebeling."
What's up with this? I know American English and those spellings like "exceling", "propeled" and "rebeling" are just plain WRONG! Wiwaxia 01:15, 14 Sep 2003 (UTC)
You may not say 'drugs dealer' or 'sport page', but I do, as do many others, as does the BBC and other media outlets some times; it is a recognised common (and often thought more 'accurate', for some reason, not my POV) alternative to the form used exclusively in the Americas. I added the line:
...to point out that it is not wholly common. Please do not keep just reverting it to blankness.
James F. 23:47, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Removed Note that some British would now find this usage odd. If you put it back please make it clear whether you mean they find the American or British usage odd. Personally "drugs delaer" sounds odd to me! Chris Q 08:27, 28 Oct 2003 (UTC)
---
I agree with Seglea's summary comment - "(oh come on. This pluralisation thing is ridiculous)".
Doing a google on the exact phrases shows: "sports page" - 248,000 occurrences "sport page" - 19,700 occurrences and, in direct contradiction to what is stated, "sport page" appears to be MORE common in America, whereas it's listed as British usage in the article. (The first three occurrences are utexas.edu, USATODAY.com, and the 'Ohio Wrestling Sport Page'.)
For the other phrase, we get: "drug dealer" - 135,000 occurrences "drugs dealer" - 1,290 occurrences I would agree from the google entries that "drugs dealer" is more likely to be British, but there are plenty of British examples of "drug dealer" - including the Guardian, Observer and the BBC. Indeed, James F's assertion that the BBC uses "drugs dealer" is not borne out by checking google counts for site news.bbc.co.uk - the BBC news site uses "drug dealer" 734 times and "drugs dealer" only 66 times.
Given this, the section is factually incorrect for both phrases given and I therefore deleted it. If anyone feels that there ARE noteworthy differences between British and American .. AND they can back it up with evidence (as opposed to just introspective examination of their own usage), the section needs rewriting.
Spellbinder 17:55, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Although most American would write "meter", isn't "metre" (and "kilometre", etc. the OFFICIAL US Government spelling? RickK 07:09, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
> Greek-derived words with ae or æ and oe or œ
Is this a British transliteration of omega with "oe", or of omicron, or of something else ?
I have never seen the word "esthetic." It is always spelled "aesthetic" in my experience. - Rob (American)
Yeah, I too see "aesthetic" at least twenty times as often as "esthetic". Same goes for "archaeology" over "archeology". I've fixed this on the page now. -- Atemperman 22:12, 29 May 2004 (UTC)
During the 1950s at least, in at least some British publications, the decimal point was typeset as a center dot or middle dot; that is,
not
Is this still true? (Can someone tell me more about how common it is/was and during what time period it is/was used so I can update my remark at Middle dot?)
Two examples of books in which this practice occurs.
The latter is particularly interesting because sections and illustrations numbered with ordinary periods, which are also used in the nomenclature for identifying polyhedra. For example, p. 96 is headed
Later on the same page, it says
So this text uses center dots as decimal points in numeric decimal fractions, but ordinary base-aligned periods in section designations.
I was taught to use middle dot at school in 1990 or so, and always use it in handwriting. I don't have any problem with . in typing.
Is it still common in British English to use in when referring to the location of something adjacent to a particular street (e.g., "His shop is in Mumblefrotz street") where an American would use on ("His store is on Mumblefrotz Street")? For that matter, how about capitalization and use of the definite article ("in the Willesden road" versus "on Williston Road")?
As an Englishman living in North America, I find one of the most blatant differences is the frequent dropping of prepositions in American English where they would be normal, or even compulsory, in British English. Examples:
"He resigned Tuesday" vs "He resigned on Tuesday"
"They appealed/protested the decision" for "They appealed/protested against the decision" (although the former has started creeping into British use in the last few years)
This doesn't seem to feature in the article - has nobody else noticed it or am I just overlooking it? And does anyone know how linguists classify this kind of usage? For example, in the American example above, is the word "Tuesday" a direct object? Cambyses 18:39, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)
That's interesting. Now that I check, the OED lists "Tuesday" as a colloquial adverb as well as a noun, although I can't say I've ever heard it used as such by a British speaker. In NA this use seems to be common, even in quite formal writing, but Websters (online) seem to list "Tuesday" only as a noun. Curiouser and curiouser.... :-)
I'm not quite so sure the use of "against" with "protest" is quite as superfluous as you suggest. In England, the direct object of "protest" (when used at at all) is usually the viewpoint being put forward rather than that opposed. For example, one might "protest one's innocence" or "protest against one's criminal conviction". To "protest against one's innocence" would be something else entirely! BTW, I'm aware of the subjectivity of the phrase "missing prepositions" - hence the question mark in the title! Cambyses 19:43, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)
That sounds about right. For what it's worth, I think this is one of those rare cases where UK English is definitely more logical! It is clear (and confirmed by the Oxford Etymology) that the word derives from the Latin "pro" (in favour of) and "test" (to witness, assert or declare). So to "protest" something should be to "declare in favour of" it, and the American usage is a rather bizarre reversal! Cambyses 14:23, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)
There is a distinction, though, between obtaining a sentence which "has the same meaning" and one which "has no formal meaning but will hopefully be construed in the same way". Very often one can use different prepositions in the same place ("They met on/by/before/after/around/through Tuesday") to obtain quite different meanings. If you drop the preposition entirely, how is the reader to know which meaning is meant? The answer, of course, is that she applies local conventions to pick the most likely meaning ("They met Tuesday" -> "They met on Tuesday"). In places where prepositions are less frequently omitted, there is less familiarity with such conventions, so these sentences can be quite difficult to interpret. Cambyses 15:09, 6 May 2004 (UTC)
In American English, dates may serve as adverbs, a situation which is encountered in British English as well. No one would say, "I'm planning to go to France 'on' this summer"; they would simply say, "I'm planning to go to France this summer". Just as pretty much any noun can function as an adjective, most nouns specifying a date can function as adverbs. -- Atemperman 22:22, 29 May 2004 (UTC)
Excerpt:
The last sentence is not (or is no longer) correct, in that "Have you eaten? Yes, I did." and similar responses are very common in spoken American English, and have been since I was a child 30+ years ago (back when I had the annoying habit of correcting adults' grammar). This may not be considered "proper" for written English, but I doubt many editors would take exception to it — certainly not for written dialog(ue). -- Jeff Q 18:06, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I am from (and live in) the geographic center of the coterminous USA, and I (and almost everyone else I know here) pronounces "cot" as "kaht," and "caught" as "kawt." Any comments?
There was some discussion about the use of "International English" versus "Commonwealth English" on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:International_English. The discussion there suggests that "Commonwealth English" replace "International English", and I agree. I have edited the "American and British English differences" page accordingly. -- Atemperman 23:47, 29 May 2004 (UTC)
There's a lot of stuff here about 'Commonwealth English' pronunciation. To my knowledge, no such beast exists. Also for colloquial grammar and word choice. 'Commonwealth English' is only a written language. Unless someone can convince me otherwise I'll fix that. Felix the Cassowary 28 June 2005 07:33 (UTC)
Two things come to mind of the top of my head: having a distinct phoneme for o in hot and not pronouncing the r in words like park. I'm sure there are others. Ben Arnold 9 July 2005 04:47 (UTC)
"epsilon is "epp-SIGH-lon" /Ep"saIl(@)n/ to Britons and "EPP-si-lon" /"Eps@%lOn/ to Americans". as a Brit i've never come across anyone pronouncing "epp-SIGH-lon". So if this pronunciation exists it may be archair. Therefore the only letter difference would be beta. Mintguy (T) 13:21, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I've come across both pronounciations on both sides of the Atlantic, so agree that this is not a Britsh vs American difference. You and the article are right that beta does differ fairly consistently, as do all the letters which rhyme with it. (eta, theta, zeta and any others I've forgotten). Best wishes, Cambyses 00:34, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I myself'd always heard "EPP-sih-lahn" /"EpsIlAn/; of course, that may be local, as I've practical always lived in southeastern or southern Wisconsin. OTOH, I've never heard that supposed American pronunciation of epsilon myself. That's not saying that other Americans don't pronounce it differently, of course. 02:50, 21 Aug 2004 (CDT)
Apparently, only American English uses "in the hospital", whereas elsewhere (including Canada) it is "in hospital". How did this one come about? It's not mentioned anywhere in the article.
Also, I remember being taught that that names of languages should only be capitalized if they are part of a name or title, such as "English 101" class, but not when talking about the english language itself. Again, apparently this is only in American English (or american english)? This seems one of the odd parts of the language, along with capitalizing days of the week (which I do only if it's really darn important and expected) and months (which I do), but not say, the seasons. Maybe this come from English being a polyglot of German (capitalize almost everything) and Latin (capitalize almost nothing)? – radiojon 06:54, 2004 Jun 23 (UTC)
Americans use the older English practice. If one looks at 17th and 18th century English books, one will find a great deal more capitalization, sometimes going so far as the German practice of capitalizing all nouns (but usually not that far). British English dropped that practice while American English retained it. Dogface 22:30, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Quill 23:39, 10 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Well, this is an amazing article! I'm impressed. However, as a speaker of American English and a student of linguistics, I find a number of the points listed to overgeneralize. I would say some of it is "incorrect", except that in most cases I've heard and/or used both constructs:
Comments on any of that? I have grown up in the southwest US, where the English is alleged to be generic and people think "accents" are cool, so I think the items above reflect the "standard" usages fairly well (to whatever extent language is ever standard). It's all more complex than it seems; the above list is not meant as criticism but as food for thought. Jeeves 03:38, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I snipped the following para:
See Wikipedia:Avoid self-references.
chocolateboy 11:40, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)
See /Spelled v Spelt. The discussion there ought to be refactored. [[User:Poccil| Peter O. ( Talk)]] 23:02, Jul 25, 2004 (UTC)
Well, apparently my previous edit didn't get the entire 'summary' line through, so I suppose it's best to ask here. Is it really sensible to list both IPA as well as SAMPA here? IPA is, in my opinion at least, much more readable and comprehensible. Certainly it may be somewhat more difficult to type in, but if we're doing it anyway, we may as well drop SAMPA. Or is there a particular reason for including both? — Sinuhe 11:01, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The section on "Numbers" states that Britons woud sometimes use "oh" for zero, but that "Americans use the term 'zero' almost exclusively...." It previously referred to an exception for the use of "oh" in sports scores ("after the second inning, it was oh-and-two"), but Poccil now edited that our. In my experience, we Americans use "oh" in such cases quite often. In fact, it wouldn't be strictly for sports; someone going through his second unpleasant divorce might report sadly that he was "oh-for-two in the marriage department" (zero successes in two attempts). Or am I overgeneralizing from New York City usage? JamesMLane 08:25, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
With regard to telephone numbers, I think that the example of 999 as an example of the treble- construction is wrong. Certainly in the South East (RP and Estuary), I've only ever heard 999 pronounced Nine nine nine. Similarly for the new directory enquiries services e.g. 118 500 is pronounced ONE one eight five HUNdred. However, within a longer number the construction is used, e.g. 07700 900 333 would be pronounced OH double SEVEN double OH, NINE double OH treble THREE. Acanon 15:43, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)
This section needs a little attention: "British speakers are most likely to follow the American model for words ending in -rary, where in careful speech some may feel obliged to distinguish the two r's. Thus secretary would sound /"sEkr@t@rI/ rather than /"sEkr@trI/."
Firstly, my RP pronunciation dictionary does not even mention the American pronunciations of words ending in -rary, and secondly, the word secretary isn't even an example of such a word! I have only heard this pronounced by British speakers as "seck-ra-tree". Livajo 10:15, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I removed the following since the preceding syllable is stressed so the stated rule does not apply. That's not to say it can't be amended. Joestynes 03:10, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The "silent a" of Comm. Eng. for -ary words appears (somewhat) in some dialects in U.S. New England, particularly among older locals in the area around and to the north of Boston. I don't know the specific history, but some like my grandfather routinely pronounce words like "battery" as e.g. "bat-tree" -- a hard T followed immediately by the R, instead of the "baddery" of the remainder of the country. - Keith D. Tyler [ flame 23:10, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)
I note the use of the word "Gotten" in American dialect to mean "to have got". Is this colloquial slang or a geniuine word in US Emglish? Dainamo 14:29, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I also can't think of (m)any reasons to use "have got". Have and got is basically repetition, as they are both past tense. eg JamesMLane should say "did not get" as formal written English not "haven't gotten". Not only because it is using two words for the past tense but also because using apostrophes in formal written English (other than to define possessives) is incorrect. - Monjo
The article gives this example of different usage:
As an American, I think "are" would be much more common here. For example, a book about Beatlemania in America was titled The Beatles Are Coming. Also William F. Buckley, Jr.: "The Beatles are not merely awful. They are so unbelievably horrible, so appallingly unmusical, so dogmatically insensitive to the magic of the art, that they qualify as crowned heads of antimusic." [7] When the band name is singular in form, though, it can go either way; I wouldn't be surprised to hear either "Korn is awful" or "Korn are awful". Furthermore, many Americans will even use plural forms when talking about a corporation: "Ford is discontinuing that model because it doesn't fit into their plans." I personally consider this usage substandard but it's dismayingly common here. JamesMLane 14:58, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
To some extent, I believe many of us are not recognizing that this isn't a page to discuss the differences in speech patterns and pronounciation throughout the U.S. The article starts off by saying "For the purposes of this article: American English is the language spoken by U.S. government officials, network newscasters...." For instance, the British contributors aren't pointing out differences between Cockney and American English. I think one would be hard pressed to find an example of Peter Jennings or Tom Browkaw saying "The Beatles is a well-known band."
Actually, the suggestion that "U.S. government officials" may be used as a barometer for some sort of "standard" U.S. English is also questionable, (I offer the speech of the current president as example). It seems to me that it is only among our national broadcasters that one can find anything even remotely resembling the British notion of a received pronunciation. AdmN 16:16, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
For those of us who are reading this long after the discussion, I would make two closing points. First, the original example, using a band name containing a plural noun, was unfortunately ambiguous. Someone has since replaced "The Beatles" with "The Clash", which accurately demonstrates the point in the article. Second, to add to the confusion, the Ford example above introduced yet another variable by its use of "their" in a potentially singular context (i.e., when combined with any correct use of "Ford is"). This is not, however, a U.S. vs. UK issue. It is known as the singular they, and has a long history in both England (back at least as far as Shakespeare) and in the United States. Although most of us have probably learned the prescriptive formula that "the pronoun they is only used in a plural context", causing many (like myself) to cringe at its use in a singular context, it actually predates the Latinate and occasionally illogical 18th century formalism of Robert Lowth et al., and is widely accepted in writing and on Wikipedia. It is the subject of an ongoing and often acrimonious debate at Talk:Singular they. — Jeff Q 08:34, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Does anyone know why user User:Wereon just replaced the wiki-style italic markup for the HTML tags <i></i>? That just makes articles harder to edit, doesn't it? func (talk) 14:07, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)
The current text of this article states:
That last sentence may sound logical, given its lead-in, but it doesn't reflect my own experience in primary and secondary education in the U.S., right up through my B.S. in Computer Science with minors in Mathematics, Physics, and Astronomy, nor my Master's level work in Electrical Engineering or CompSci. I've never read any math or science text that used the so-called "long scale" or "European numbering system". To be fair, all my texts were published in the U.S., as far as I recall, but since the U.S. is the source of a not-inconsiderable number of such texts (and of research and papers in these topics), I think the above generalization is far too broad. I can't speak for the "natural" sciences, but I'd say that math and the hard sciences are quite comfortable with the so-called American system. Which is more prevalent worldwide is certainly far from obvious to me. Is the above statement perhaps a reflection of primarily European math and natural science preferences? I must admit ignorance in this area. In any case, I think the text needs a little adjustment, or at least justification. — Jeff Q 07:04, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Everytime I read this article, I see something new that makes no sense. ;-) I have been in numerous office, commerical, and residential (apartments, hotel) buildings throughout the cities of Philadelphia, New York City, Boston, etc., and I cannot ever recall seeing a first floor that was called the "first" floor. They are invariably referred to as the lobby-level, street-level, or ground floor. Perhaps the person who added this bit is referring to somewhere in the western part of the U.S.? If you're talking about someone's 2 or 3 story house, then yes, the first floor is the "first" floor, (it would hardly make sense for a home owner to refer to their "lobby"), but otherwise, buildings in general start their floor numbering on the second floor. I vote that we rename this article to What people seem to think are the differences between American and British English. ;-) func (talk) 02:54, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)
In the last three office buildings I worked at, (including the current one), and in numerous office buildings around Philadelphia, the Ground- Street- Lobby- floor is followed by the "first floor", which is physically the second story. Every day when I go to leave, I press the big "Street" button in the elevator, which is located next to the "1" button. I really think this part of the article is either off-base, or only partially correct for certain kinds of buildings, (perhaps only in certain places). I'm going to attempt to do some research on this on the 'net. func (talk) 16:36, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)
This is because the ground is not a floor, but a floor must be built over the ground, whatever "over" means. lysdexia 13:47, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I just removed some recently added information (indicated in bold), which doesn't appear relevant to this article or seems rather superfluous.
[[User:Poccil| Peter O. ( Talk)]] 07:23, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)
The article is particulalry interesting to me as a Brit who uses the Grammar check on Word. After reading it nore I have conlcleded that changing regional settings does not convert 100% in to UK-English and I while the obvious differences can be recognised, on the more subtle rules I have questioned my own judgement and let microsoft change the way I express. Examples include hyphens where I would not have bothered beore, using "is" after a collective noun rather than "are" and being told when to use "that" or "which with a comma before it" in a sentence but never which without a comma before it! Communication does tend to merge the use of language, but Microsoft may have more to answer for than I had thought! Dainamo 21:15, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)
You may find that Microsoft Word can mark that a particular language is being used for document content.
If you haven't set this correctly in your doc or in your default template, then it's possible that your documents are being marked as "English (U.S.)" [nods to section above about the use of periods] and are being spell-/grammar-checked according to this.
(see Tools menu -> Language -> Set Language... -> "Mark selected text as <language>")
I'm American and I have had all of those problems you have encountered in Microsoft as well. I don't think its a Brit V. Yank thing. I think its a Microsoft thing. MikeMcG.
I couldn't help but notice that Character Map in Windows 2000 and XP refers to the sentence-ending dots as full stops instead of periods, even when the language is set to U.S. English. Is there a reason for this? -- /ɛvɪs/ 22:55, Apr 7, 2005 (UTC)
I'm not sure this section belongs in the article. As far as I'm aware -xion has been used in both British and American English in the past, but is becoming rarer and rarer in both forms of the language. I certainly don't see this as a notable difference between British and American English. Would anyone object strongly if I completely removed the section? jguk 08:19, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Is this word widely used in the Commonwealth? I'm British, and can't remember hearing it here. Admittedly I'm not a fan of the sport, but a search for .uk occurrences on Google UK gives barely a thousand for "basketballer", as against over 26,000 for "basketball player". My personal experience is that "footballer" and "cricketer" are very common, but "X player" would be used for other team sports. Loganberry 02:08, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Agreed. As you say the "er" ending is restricted to some sports, such as "cricketer", "footballer" and "golfer", whereas you would never say "tenniser", "basketballer" or "rugbyer", you would always use "X player". Assuming that the article is correct that the US use the "player" (I am also British) form in all cases I will change the example to use "golfer" as cricket is not common in the US -- Chris Q 07:25, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
In some Northeastern American dialects, the /ju/ sound is retained. I can think in particular of actrress Erika Slezak, who uses this pronunciation. She also uses the British pronunciation of rather. Rick K 21:18, Nov 25, 2004 (UTC)
Is cancelled, enrollment and travelling the British spelling whereas canceld, enrolment and traveling the American counterpart? Seems like it's not mentioned in the article.
From The Columbia Guide to Standard American English
In words of more than one syllable ending in a consonant, especially -l, the English generally (but not always) double the final consonant, and Americans generally do not, although American dictionaries frequently report divided usage. Here are some examples:
AMERICAN ENGLISH | BRITISH ENGLISH |
---|---|
canceled, cancelled | cancelled |
crueler, crueller | crueller |
dueled, duelled | duelled |
jeweler, jeweller | jeweller |
labeled, labelled | labelled |
quarreled, quarrelled | quarrelled |
traveled, travelled | travelled |
Rmhermen 18:51, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)
I noticed that the Hoosiers spell theatre but center. Is that true all over Indiana or the Midwest?
How do they shift around British and American pronunciations when playing in British and Hollywood films? Imagine when Hugh Grant plays as an American.
Somebody mentioned each code covers only a few addresses. What about multi-storey apartment buildings?
Would Britons say 23456 as two thirty four fifty six? What about Americans?
Offtopic, but I think I'm likely to get an answer here. In the United States, ordinary household wall-mounted light switches are made and installed so that turning the handle up turns the lights on and turning the handle down turns the lights off.
When I visited England in the 1950s the situation was the reverse: down = on, up = off. IIRC this was true in general.
a) Are my memories accurate?
b) If so, is this British/U. S. cultural difference still in effect?
(This is apropos of the Light switch article, on VfD but likely to be kept). [[User:Dpbsmith| Dpbsmith (talk)]] 16:16, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Most light switches in Britain in my experience don't have a "handle", but a flat panel that tilts. You press the top of the panel for "off" and the bottom of the panel for "on". -- Khendon 17:00, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
(UK ON) (UK OFF) | | | | --- \ / <-- PRESS HERE \ / TO SWITCH \ <-- PRESS HERE / "OFF" ---- TO SWITCH | | "ON" | |
If you look at the image at http://www.2ricam.co.uk/images/19649D_WEB.jpg the switches are ON, OFF, ON. Often the top of a switch will have a patch of red on it to indicate that this means the switch is on when this is visible. Jooler 15:24, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Organize is very common in printed British English. It seems to me this page is a bit out of date. Dejvid 13:03, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
For reference -ise is the exclusive form in New Zealand. Ben Arnold 9 July 2005 04:50 (UTC)
This paragraph needs a rewrite:
From the article:
As a Brit, when I've heard an American saying that they "majored" in something, I've inferred that a University course in the US requires a student to specialise in one subject (their major) whilst studying others to a lesser degree, but this has never being confirmed to me. Is this the case? (it isn't in the UK). If it is then there isn't a direct correlation between major and read/study. Jooler 10:38, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)
It seems to me that North Americans have a hard time understanding some ways of stating the time of day. All of the following are fine in the UK. Which are understood in the US?
numbers in general (as in "four and twenty blackbirds"!); my grandparents used it only for times; to me it is familiar, but I've never used it myself; today's teenagers probably wouldn't understand it at all! Cambyses 09:23, 23 May 2005 (UTC) Cambyses 09:23, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
Surely "quarter to six" is 5:45 and "quarter past six" 6:15. In the USA you might also hear "quarter 'til six" and "quarter of six" for 5:45. "'til" and "of" are sometimes used for other numbers besides 15 minutes as well. "quarter before six" might be understood as well, although I think it's more a (rare?) British usage
I thought the Americans invented the airplane. If that's the case, then wouldn't it be an example of the British modifying an American word? -- Kitch 12:19, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Read the page. The Americans didn't use to spell that as airplane. 131.215.167.110 08:33, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I'm British, 35 years old, and I understand College here as tertiary (university) level education from 18 years, and occasionally for 16 to 18-year-olds as in '6th-form college'. I've never refered to school for 16-year-olds and younger as a college. Conversely, I am used to hearing Americans refer to 'School' as something you can attend right into adulthood. I'm not going to edit the article myself since I'm not familiar enough with the American view to really make the distinction clear - but if anyone reads this, knows what I mean, and understands the state-side system perhaps yoú'll set that straight (it's in the 'Vocabulary'section of the main article). Thanks. -- anon
My own (BrE) use of "fresher" restricts it to first years in the first few weeks of university, not all first years. Do other Brits agree with this?
I don't know whether this is a general UK/US difference or a regional difference. My wife (from Texas) always uses the subject form of a pronoun with the verb "to be", even when it is the object. For example she says "it is she" whereas I (form the UK) would say "it is her". Another example is my wife says "it is I" rather than "it's me". Is this a general UK/US difference? -- Chris Q 09:28, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
How do the British pronounce Granite? The dictionary says it should be pronounced as in graneet the 'nite' is not pronounced as 'night.-- Jondel 01:11, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
This title can be interpreted as meaning that American and English are 2 different languages. Anyone know a good title for this article?? Georgia guy 19:59, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
Let's get this straight before we move this article back again to its regular title. Are you saying that you believe that "American" is the name of a language? Violations of community norms - moving article titles without consensus, refusing to discuss and debate with others - is a surefire way to get blocked from posting on Wikipedia. Moncrief 23:36, May 21, 2005 (UTC)
I want to lay out some reasons why it makes no sense to rename this article American and English linguistic differences, as a new user is attempting repeatedly to do. I know some of the literally dozens of people who have worked on this page or shown an interest in it will return during the week and will wonder what was going on here. Here are some reasons why that new title makes no sense:
I understand that the user changing this article (I'm not trying to avoid saying his or her name; I just can't remember it right now because he/she doesn't sign his/her posts) has a strong POV, I'm assuming, about the supermacy or "correctness" of the English spoken in England, or Britain (well, one kind of it at least - I guess the spelling conventions, since the spoken English of Britain is hardly uniform). We all have POVs of one kind of another. The whole beauty of Wikipedia, though, is to work together and build consensus. We have a successful process in place to do just that. Changing the name of this article, repeatedly, refusing to comment before doing so, is in violation of that process. Since there is no majority opinion anywhere that would classify "American" as a language, changing the name of this article to such a title seems to reflect a certain POVness that is unfortunate to a serious encyclopedia like Wikipedia should aim to become. Moncrief 00:15, May 22, 2005 (UTC)
Can I correct a misconception? "English English" is not more commonly used in Britain than "British English". Rather the reverse. I see there's even an article about "English English" (attached to a link saying British English). But while it may be true, as the article says, that this is a term used in academic writing, in general speech, as distinct from technical academic writing, "British English" (unsatisfactory term that it is) seems to me to be far more widely used. Just to add a personal viewpoint: it seems to me that one of the achievements of the Blair governments since 1997 has been to make it acceptable for the English to speak the name of their nationality. Certainly since the second world war and probably since the height of the British Empire, the English (or at least the educated ones) would almost always speak of themselves as British. (Never mind that other languages usually did it the other way round and used the equivalent of English when they meant British.) In earlier days this was a signal of nationalistic pride in the British Empire; when the British Empire was disappearing it was a signal to the Scots and the Welsh of inclusion and acceptance. (The Scots and the Welsh often had and have quite different sentiments!) But Blair introduced the Scottish Parliament so that the Scots could part-govern themselves and the Welsh Assembly so that the Welsh could sort of govern themselves in one or two areas. The response in England was to think, "What about us? What about the English?" One of the results, it seems to me, is that since Blair's reforms, for the first time in 100 years or more, the English flag, (never, ever, seen for most of the 20th century) has become commonplace and more frequently used than the Union flag, which now appears quite rarely. Look at pictures of celebrations at the end of the Second World War: the flags are all the British Union Flags. Now, the flags flown in England are usually the red cross of St George; now, the English have regained the confidence, when asked, to say they are English. Revived nationalism, after a long period of hibernation, can surface in all sorts of areas. Perhaps it's in play here, too. But I'd suggest, nonetheless, that, thus far, the form of English used in Britain is most generally referred to as British English except perhaps in recent academic writing. That may be changing, as the attitude to use of the word "English" is changing generally in England.
But in any case, perhaps the generalisations implied by the existing title have the potential to cause confusion or irritation. "Differences between forms of English spoken in the US (North America?) and Britain (western Europe?)" is probably too long but perhaps this is what the shorthand title is aiming at, or something like it. Adrian Robson 10:36, 22 May 2005 (UTC)
It seems to me that in Britain one stands for office, while in America one runs for office. Am I correct that this is a transatlantic difference? If so, one could probably write a whole dissertation on what this tells you about the respective political systems. :-) Cambyses 13:15, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I was taught at school (in the UK) that when making a possessive, singular nouns take "apostrophe S" whereas plural nouns take just an apostrophe. Thus I would write "the cat's basket" (single cat) or "the cats' basket" (more than one cat) and "Chris's pen" (one Chris!). I can't remember what I was taught if there is a plural possessive ending in s but I would probably use "'s" (Chris P and Chris Q share a room; it is the Chris's room).
My wife was taught in a US school to use apostrophe only in any noun ending is s, singular or plural, so she would write the cat's basket" (single cat) or "the cats' basket" (more than one cat) and "Chris' pen" (one Chris!).
Is this a UK/US difference or did we just learn alternative rules?
I (as a Brit) have always used the "separable verb" to have in, meaning to contain, as in "this mug has coffee in". Admittedly I wouldn't use it in formal writing, but I would consider that as a stylistic point rather than a grammatical one.
When I went to America, I was very soon told this was "bad grammar" and should be "this mug has coffee in it". Is this true? — Blotwell 09:44, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Please supply evidence that "will go and X" is "stigmatized" in GA! This is very common (informal) usage; "will go X" is equally common in the future, formal or informal; "will go to X" is quite formal. In the present (formal or not), "going and X'ing" sounds strange to me; "going X" impossible; "going X'ing" only in "activity" usages like "going fishing"; "going to X" normal. In the past (formal or not), "went and X'ed" implies something that actually happened, "went to X" implies intention, "went X'ing" only with activities like "fishing", "went X" is impossible. Benwing 02:57, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
Commonwealth English is a group of English from the Commonwealth nations and in each country, there are a variant of English. For example, Singapore English, so there's a difference. Tomhongs 11:53, 28 June 2005.
whilst in the UK and most Commonwealth countries it refers primarily to a tertiary institution between high school and university (normally referred to as a "Sixth Form College" after the old name in secondary education for Years 12 and 13, the "6th form")
I've never heard of this, so it may be in just some parts of the country. In the North-East where I live, 6th form is reserved for Years 12 and 13 at a secondary school which also has years 7 to 11, while college is just used for those places which do not have years below 12.