MrPresident
Anglo-Saxon Liberal
No, American English is unique because of its attitude towards the letter u.
Random thoughts about Europe and the World at large.
- Thread starter onejayhawk
- Start date
test_specimen
hope lost
- Joined
- May 20, 2002
- Messages
- 2,200
?. Explain. What sort of attitude towards the letter "u"?
And John-LP please explain why American-English is unique/differen from British English, IIRC except for one or two words and spelling differences it is the same language. It's just a dialect of B-English (like French-French and Canadian-French).
Yago
came undone
I guess spelling "harbor" instead of "harbour", "color" instead of "colour".
G-Force Junkie
Old Vulcan Guy
- Joined
- Jun 2, 2003
- Messages
- 405
The main difference that I can think of is that American English has many of its own local termologies, such as ya'll where I live in southern Alabama, which can apply to just about anywhere in the South, and we spell a few things differently, such as color, center, labor, etc. instead of colour, centre, labour, etc.
Pillager
League of Empire Loyalist
It's been said before, and I'll say it again - two countries separated by a common language.
onejayhawk
Afflicted with reason
You are correct to a point. During the colonial period, Noah Webster, founder of a line of "Webster" dictionaries, intentionally changed the spelling of a number of words, for example gaol to jail, theatre to theater. The most obvious change today is the large number of times a Briton will use "ou" where an American will use only "o."
It is not at all difficult for an educated American to understand an educated Briton, and I presume, vice versa. When you get out into the hinterlands or into the ghetto, things aquire a twist that may not be easily intelligable to some one living only a few miles away.
J
PS In spite of comments on the seperation caused by language differences, its the humor that is truly different. Everyone knows that American humor is, um, odd.
Similar threads
