Proof Americans and Brits speak a different language

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  • finelinefineline Kerygmania Host, 8th Day Host
    mousethief wrote: »
    fineline wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    fineline wrote: »
    I can normally tell by context which one people mean, as they tend to give examples where you can work it out.

    The problem, of course, is that this depends on us all pronouncing the examples the same way. Ha. Haha. Hahaha.

    Heh, that can be an issue, but the differences between the two versions of a long vowel tend to be such that it's usually clear - to me, at least. When someone talks about a long a, as in hate, I don't think they might possibly be pronouncing it with an ah sound. (Which in RP would be heart. A big difference between 'I hate you' and 'I heart you'!) Or if someone talks about the long i in fight, I don't wonder if they might be pronouncing it 'feet'. There are enough similarities in the various versions of English that variatioms don't tend to stretch this far. From what I've observed so far, the issue is more simply when people want to say 'Oh, but that's not a long i - you've got it all wrong!' rather than genuine misunderstanding.

    You pick easy ones. What if someone says "a like in class"? Even in North America Canadians tend to have more ash sounds than USians -- I know of one native Torontan who says Nazi with an ash, whereas in these parts we say it with an ah. Similar for the car make Mazda. I say ah, he says æ.

    I was specifically talking about long vowels - if you read the context of my whole post and the previous posts I was addressing, it was expressed that it might be confusing talking about long vowels, as the term has two different meanings. I was saying I personally can usually tell from context, plus the fact that most use the lay meaning. If someone said 'A long a as in class,' it would probably be KarlLB, as he is the one using the phonetic meaning. I am not aware of any accent which pronounces class to rhyme with grace, so I think it would be fair to assume the lay meaning of 'long a' was not being used!

  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    Pigwidgeon wrote: »
    What to do, then? Well, we could do IPA. Or we could give examples each time. Or we could just carry on ignoring one another and driving each other nuts, which is most probable.
    Carry on.

    Or we could just drink IPA and forget the whole thing.
    :smile:

    I will take an Imperial Stout, thank you. IPAs are not real beers in my mind. Want to know why new brewers come out with IPA's first? They are still learning how to make beer.
  • finelinefineline Kerygmania Host, 8th Day Host
    KarlLB wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    orfeo wrote: »
    Dog bites man. Man bites dog. English often can't be arsed with markers of subjects and objects.

    Quite. The case system with pronouns started breaking down in OE times and it seems that case and form selection are no longer directly correlated.

    Which is why we rely on word order and particles. "Give me the ball" is 100% clear. "Give the ball to me" is so clear one goes, "Um, no. I'm not giving you to the ball."
    Penny S wrote: »
    The confusion between "f" and "th" (and, probably, "v" and the other sort of "th") is very old. There is a village between Deal and Dover called Finglesham. It was written down, by Norman scribes, with an initial "f", as that was what they heard the locals say. However, earlier documents, written down by English scribes, who knew what the name meant, had an initial "th", because it meant "thengel's ham" or the home of a nobleman. Presumably the ceorls around his hall had a different form of English from his. (He had some lovely grave goods.)

    The f/v/th/dh conflation made its way into Russian, since Russian has no sound corresponding to our th/dh sounds. Things with a theta in Greek get translated with an F. So you get Fyodor for Theodore, Feofan for Theophan, Foma for Thomas, Timofei for Timothy.
    The "I and X" construction is problematic in English. People want to avoid "me and Jim", and "I and Jim", subject position. One compromise is "Jim and I". I say "me and Jim", but this is in speech. Myself sounds Irish to me.

    I don't see the problem. "Jim and I" where you'd use "I" (subject); "Jim and me" where you'd use "me" (object). Easy rule to remember. Never understood why this is so hard.

    Because it's not natural for many English speakers. They have to make a conscious effort to use a construction that feels unnatural as opposed to the one that feels natural.

    Speaking your own native language shouldn't feel like trying to remember the formal grammar of one you've learnt. You're asking people to stop mid flow, re-cast the sentence in their mind to take Jim out, and then put the sentence back together. This isn't how language works.

    'Jim and I' also sounds quite formal for many dialects and social groups in the UK. I wouldn't say it in casual, fun chat - the more usual dialect, with a sense of light-hearted casualness about it, is 'Me and Jim...' Similar to 'I was sat on the bus' rather than 'I was sitting.' It's a bit of a class thing - it's more lower classes who say these, and upper classes sometimes sneer, but they have their own dialectical oddities too, as do Americans, that aren't officially 'correct,' but are dialect, part of the group language and identity.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    fineline wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    fineline wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    fineline wrote: »
    I can normally tell by context which one people mean, as they tend to give examples where you can work it out.

    The problem, of course, is that this depends on us all pronouncing the examples the same way. Ha. Haha. Hahaha.

    Heh, that can be an issue, but the differences between the two versions of a long vowel tend to be such that it's usually clear - to me, at least. When someone talks about a long a, as in hate, I don't think they might possibly be pronouncing it with an ah sound. (Which in RP would be heart. A big difference between 'I hate you' and 'I heart you'!) Or if someone talks about the long i in fight, I don't wonder if they might be pronouncing it 'feet'. There are enough similarities in the various versions of English that variatioms don't tend to stretch this far. From what I've observed so far, the issue is more simply when people want to say 'Oh, but that's not a long i - you've got it all wrong!' rather than genuine misunderstanding.

    You pick easy ones. What if someone says "a like in class"? Even in North America Canadians tend to have more ash sounds than USians -- I know of one native Torontan who says Nazi with an ash, whereas in these parts we say it with an ah. Similar for the car make Mazda. I say ah, he says æ.

    I was specifically talking about long vowels - if you read the context of my whole post and the previous posts I was addressing, it was expressed that it might be confusing talking about long vowels, as the term has two different meanings. I was saying I personally can usually tell from context, plus the fact that most use the lay meaning. If someone said 'A long a as in class,' it would probably be KarlLB, as he is the one using the phonetic meaning. I am not aware of any accent which pronounces class to rhyme with grace, so I think it would be fair to assume the lay meaning of 'long a' was not being used!

    I pronounce class with a short vowel though, like in cat.
  • finelinefineline Kerygmania Host, 8th Day Host
    KarlLB wrote: »
    fineline wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    fineline wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    fineline wrote: »
    I can normally tell by context which one people mean, as they tend to give examples where you can work it out.

    The problem, of course, is that this depends on us all pronouncing the examples the same way. Ha. Haha. Hahaha.

    Heh, that can be an issue, but the differences between the two versions of a long vowel tend to be such that it's usually clear - to me, at least. When someone talks about a long a, as in hate, I don't think they might possibly be pronouncing it with an ah sound. (Which in RP would be heart. A big difference between 'I hate you' and 'I heart you'!) Or if someone talks about the long i in fight, I don't wonder if they might be pronouncing it 'feet'. There are enough similarities in the various versions of English that variatioms don't tend to stretch this far. From what I've observed so far, the issue is more simply when people want to say 'Oh, but that's not a long i - you've got it all wrong!' rather than genuine misunderstanding.

    You pick easy ones. What if someone says "a like in class"? Even in North America Canadians tend to have more ash sounds than USians -- I know of one native Torontan who says Nazi with an ash, whereas in these parts we say it with an ah. Similar for the car make Mazda. I say ah, he says æ.

    I was specifically talking about long vowels - if you read the context of my whole post and the previous posts I was addressing, it was expressed that it might be confusing talking about long vowels, as the term has two different meanings. I was saying I personally can usually tell from context, plus the fact that most use the lay meaning. If someone said 'A long a as in class,' it would probably be KarlLB, as he is the one using the phonetic meaning. I am not aware of any accent which pronounces class to rhyme with grace, so I think it would be fair to assume the lay meaning of 'long a' was not being used!

    I pronounce class with a short vowel though, like in cat.

    Ha, good point, so it's unlikely that anyone would talk about 'a long a as in class'!

  • finelinefineline Kerygmania Host, 8th Day Host
    To return to the point though, if someone talked about a long i as in feet, I would assume they were using the phonetic meaning (most probably KarlLB, as he's the only one using that meaning here, unless he has a different way of pronouncing feet). I would assume no one says feet as fight, and so the lay meaning isn't being used! Perhaps 'long a as in lager' would work for you, Karl?
  • mousethief wrote: »
    The "I and X" construction is problematic in English. People want to avoid "me and Jim", and "I and Jim", subject position. One compromise is "Jim and I". I say "me and Jim", but this is in speech. Myself sounds Irish to me.

    I don't see the problem. "Jim and I" where you'd use "I" (subject); "Jim and me" where you'd use "me" (object). Easy rule to remember. Never understood why this is so hard.

    I suspect what's really going on for a lot of people is some trauma from being harshly corrected in grade school, and a resulting fear of getting it wrong--which leads them to over-correct, under-correct, and WTF-correct. Leave children alone and they echo their family and friends, which is usually right and when wrong, at least understandable.

  • Gramps49 wrote: »
    Pigwidgeon wrote: »
    What to do, then? Well, we could do IPA. Or we could give examples each time. Or we could just carry on ignoring one another and driving each other nuts, which is most probable.
    Carry on.

    Or we could just drink IPA and forget the whole thing.
    :smile:

    I will take an Imperial Stout, thank you. IPAs are not real beers in my mind. Want to know why new brewers come out with IPA's first? They are still learning how to make beer.

    There is an important distinction to be made here. North American IPA is a disgusting concoction that aspires to be fermented grapefruit juice and has no conceivable connection with beer as known to older civilizations. In fact, the curse of cheap citra hops is a greatly underestimated threat to North America, rather like donald trump was four years ago. A good traditional IPA is still a good beer.
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    Speaking your own native language shouldn't feel like trying to remember the formal grammar of one you've learnt. You're asking people to stop mid flow, re-cast the sentence in their mind to take Jim out, and then put the sentence back together. This isn't how language works.

    I would never ask anybody to do any such thing. People can say whatever the hell they want. And others can think about their level of education and/or ignorance what they want. Free world.
  • I say "me and Jim", why should I change it?
  • I never told you to. Get over it.
  • IPAs generally are hopily overpowering for my taste. I like good local beer made locally.
  • I actually prefer a good English ale (preferably Hobgoblin, but it's gotten almost impossible to find around here) to an IPA. But I'd rather drink an IPA than fuss about the International Phonetic Alphabet.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    Pigwidgeon wrote: »
    I actually prefer a good English ale (preferably Hobgoblin, but it's gotten almost impossible to find around here) to an IPA. But I'd rather drink an IPA than fuss about the International Phonetic Alphabet.

    Oh, is that what we were talking about?
  • I've stopped using phonetic symbols, it's too damn fiddly, and writing /dɒk/ doesnt advance the discussion.
  • finelinefineline Kerygmania Host, 8th Day Host
    Yes, I don't use them here, also because not everyone knows them, so it's kind of like using another language, not accessible to all. Though the OED uses it in its phonetic transcriptions, and Wikipedia has loads of info on it, with a separate page for each sound, if people are curious. It's easy to learn about, and useful if you are learning another language, or teaching English as another langauge.
  • I got excited when I realized that I could print schwa by using html code, but it passed.
  • Schwa makes me think of "b'schwa", which means whatever the person said is being summarily dismissed and disregarded. I have no idea of derivation. Is this used anywhere else?
  • SignallerSignaller Shipmate
    I say "me and Jim", why should I change it?

    Because putting yourself first is rude. Or so my mother told me.
  • finelinefineline Kerygmania Host, 8th Day Host
    Schwa makes me think of "b'schwa", which means whatever the person said is being summarily dismissed and disregarded. I have no idea of derivation. Is this used anywhere else?

    Hm... I just googled b'schwa and can't find anything. Is it actually spelt like that? Or do you mean the dismissive vocal noise that has traditionally been represented in fiction as 'pshaw'? I remember that being used a lot in What Katy Did, which I loved reading as a kid.

  • fineline wrote: »
    Hm... I just googled b'schwa and can't find anything. Is it actually spelt like that? Or do you mean the dismissive vocal noise that has traditionally been represented in fiction as 'pshaw'? I remember that being used a lot in What Katy Did, which I loved reading as a kid.

    It reminds me of "bushwah", which means nonsense, more or less.

    Perhaps that's what NP means.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    Signaller wrote: »
    I say "me and Jim", why should I change it?

    Because putting yourself first is rude. Or so my mother told me.

    I guess someone who lives in a big white house in DC never learned that.

    Sorry, I could not resist. I'll get me coat, now. (A Britishism if I ever heard one.)
  • fineline wrote: »
    Schwa makes me think of "b'schwa", which means whatever the person said is being summarily dismissed and disregarded. I have no idea of derivation. Is this used anywhere else?

    Hm... I just googled b'schwa and can't find anything. Is it actually spelt like that? Or do you mean the dismissive vocal noise that has traditionally been represented in fiction as 'pshaw'? I remember that being used a lot in What Katy Did, which I loved reading as a kid.

    I've no idea but it isn't a p. It's a b.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Signaller wrote: »
    I say "me and Jim", why should I change it?

    Because putting yourself first is rude. Or so my mother told me.

    OK. "Jim and me went to the pub"
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    OK. "Jim and me went to the pub"

    What? A real, live, open pub? Where? Lead me to it.
  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    fineline wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    orfeo wrote: »
    Dog bites man. Man bites dog. English often can't be arsed with markers of subjects and objects.

    Quite. The case system with pronouns started breaking down in OE times and it seems that case and form selection are no longer directly correlated.

    Which is why we rely on word order and particles. "Give me the ball" is 100% clear. "Give the ball to me" is so clear one goes, "Um, no. I'm not giving you to the ball."
    Penny S wrote: »
    The confusion between "f" and "th" (and, probably, "v" and the other sort of "th") is very old. There is a village between Deal and Dover called Finglesham. It was written down, by Norman scribes, with an initial "f", as that was what they heard the locals say. However, earlier documents, written down by English scribes, who knew what the name meant, had an initial "th", because it meant "thengel's ham" or the home of a nobleman. Presumably the ceorls around his hall had a different form of English from his. (He had some lovely grave goods.)

    The f/v/th/dh conflation made its way into Russian, since Russian has no sound corresponding to our th/dh sounds. Things with a theta in Greek get translated with an F. So you get Fyodor for Theodore, Feofan for Theophan, Foma for Thomas, Timofei for Timothy.
    The "I and X" construction is problematic in English. People want to avoid "me and Jim", and "I and Jim", subject position. One compromise is "Jim and I". I say "me and Jim", but this is in speech. Myself sounds Irish to me.

    I don't see the problem. "Jim and I" where you'd use "I" (subject); "Jim and me" where you'd use "me" (object). Easy rule to remember. Never understood why this is so hard.

    Because it's not natural for many English speakers. They have to make a conscious effort to use a construction that feels unnatural as opposed to the one that feels natural.

    Speaking your own native language shouldn't feel like trying to remember the formal grammar of one you've learnt. You're asking people to stop mid flow, re-cast the sentence in their mind to take Jim out, and then put the sentence back together. This isn't how language works.

    'Jim and I' also sounds quite formal for many dialects and social groups in the UK. I wouldn't say it in casual, fun chat - the more usual dialect, with a sense of light-hearted casualness about it, is 'Me and Jim...' Similar to 'I was sat on the bus' rather than 'I was sitting.' It's a bit of a class thing - it's more lower classes who say these, and upper classes sometimes sneer, but they have their own dialectical oddities too, as do Americans, that aren't officially 'correct,' but are dialect, part of the group language and identity.

    The funny thing is, all these issues with when to use "I" and "me" are pretty similar to what happened with the word "you", which became the default word in the 2nd person no matter what the situation - plural, singular, subject, object, polite, informal.

    People dispensed with "thou" and started using "you" all the time. No more rules to remember about which was appropriate. Maybe we'll end up, after another century or two, with a similar situation where either "me" or "I' takes over.

    Singular "they" might also get into a stronger position one day. People use it all the time in speech but then resist it in writing.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    They also dispensed with ye and thee.
  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    Yup.
  • SparrowSparrow Shipmate
    The one that really annoys me is the incorrect use of "myself" - some time ago I was in the bank talking to a member of staff and at the end of the conversation she said "any problems, just give myself a call".

  • Sparrow wrote: »
    The one that really annoys me is the incorrect use of "myself" - some time ago I was in the bank talking to a member of staff and at the end of the conversation she said "any problems, just give myself a call".

    But that's Irish English. It doesn't mean the person was Irish, but these things spread. Therefore "correct" in some dialects.
  • SparrowSparrow Shipmate
    It sounds weird.
  • Sparrow wrote: »
    The one that really annoys me is the incorrect use of "myself" - some time ago I was in the bank talking to a member of staff and at the end of the conversation she said "any problems, just give myself a call".

    I agree. (See my post on the previous page -- I'm having difficulty quoting it here for some reason.)
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Sparrow wrote: »
    It sounds weird.

    From which we conclude your dialect doesn't use the form for this function.
  • Yes, lots of things that are spoken sound weird to me, but that is not an indicator of anything really, except they are different from my dialect. "Everybody should sound like me" is not particularly insightful.
  • SparrowSparrow Shipmate
    No ... the odd use of "myself" in UK English seems to have only become prevalent in the last few years. Probably because some popular TV series had characters that spoke that way .. I don't know.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    I remember it from over twenty years ago at least.
  • SparrowSparrow Shipmate
    Yes, the last few years!
  • "What can I get yourself?" or "...and for yourself" are not uncommon queries in a restaurant or coffee shop here.
  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    I think the point that it's something recognisable from Irish dialects is instructive. The more I try learning other languages, the more I realise how forms of grammar bleed from one language into another. Irish English includes ways of speaking that reflect the way Gaelic grammar works.

    This isn't novel. For example, there are a number of features of what we now think of as standard English that came from Norse, and others that came from French, that good old traditional Anglo-Saxons would have thought were weird. The Norse influences took hold in the North, and those ones that eventually caught on further South we now think of as normal rather than dialect.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited June 2020
    Mind, I'm not convinced the British English use of reflexives in place of simple pronouns derives from Irish English. I hear it most often when people are trying to be formal. Dating right back to the Normal Conquest English has an undercurrent of feeling that Germanic OE words have somehow lesser status than those derived from French or Latin, especially when those OE words are monosyllabic. Unfortunately, that category includes all the regular pronouns - unmarked (me, you, him, her, us, them) and marked (I, he, she, we, they). The sense I get is that this usage derives from a feeling that these monosyllabic pronouns don't sound formal enough. I think they found themselves hauled in as would-be formal/polite alternatives modelled in part on the use of reflexives as intensifiers - "I washed the car myself" - where the reflexive pronoun actually already carries no reflexive meaning - compare with "I washed myself".
  • Interesting points, Karl. It brings to mind the use of "me" at the end of a clause, to give emphasis, "I'm going to the pub, me." This used to be common in Lancs, not sure now. The use of reflexives is something of a mystery, Irish is a guess.
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    The suffix '..self' isn't only a reflexive. As @KarlLB says, it's also used as an intensifier, to emphasise. "I washed the car myself" means 'I did it personally. I didn't just arrange for someone to do it or drive it through a carwash'.

    It's therefore used colloquially, if erroneously, both to vaunt oneself and as an attempt to express respect.

  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Shall we say "non standardly" rather than "erroneously"? It's been around quite a while now and I've heard it from what sociolinguists might call "educated speakers".
  • Yes, this use of words like "erroneously" and "incorrect" baffles me. Presumably, people mean "not found in my dialect, therefore wrong". Or is there a big grammar book somewhere which lists all these incorrect usages? /sarcasm.
  • Reminded of the famous Irish usage, after knocking on the front door, "is himself in?" I think this is often tongue in cheek, incidentally, I think you do get "It's herself", so not just geezers (not Irish).
  • Also at the front door, you can still be welcomed in Scotland by, "It's yourself!" which I take to be a friendly greeting.
  • Also at the front door, you can still be welcomed in Scotland by, "It's yourself!" which I take to be a friendly greeting.

    Yes, I was going to mention Scottish use of reflexives, then started reading some stuff about Gaelic, then lost heart.
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    Dating right back to the Normal Conquest . . . .
    :lol:

    And yes, I think your point is well taken.

  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    Dating right back to the Normal Conquest . . . .
    :lol:

    And yes, I think your point is well taken.

    Bloody autocorrect...
  • rhubarbrhubarb Shipmate
    I struggle with the excessive use of the word bunch to describe a group of objects. I always thought bunches referred to carrots and flowers, but now I hear bunches of whales; ideas; politicians; meat; politicians; opportunities. etc etc. I have strange visions of whales grouped together and tied with a large pink ribbon. The odd use of bunch seems to be a recent happening where I live and I can't understand what has occurred.
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