Proof Americans and Brits speak a different language

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  • orfeo wrote: »
    Surely we all feel, deep within our bones, that the way we do things is RIGHT and that any difference is therefore wrong? I've been enjoying this thread as an exploration of differences, and a reminder that such an assumption isn't correct.

    Nevertheless, I draw the line at calling the middle course of a 3-course meal the entree. That's just plain illogical. What the hell are you entering?

    If the French can call the meal they eat in the middle of the day "start-the-day" then I can call the middle course "start-the-meal."
  • orfeo wrote: »
    I recently heard some VERY interesting things about African-American English, in a podcast episode centred around the completely over-inflated controversy about 'Ebonics' teaching a couple of decades back.

    Children are effectively having to learn a 2nd form of language when they get to school because the first form that they learned is considered 'wrong' rather than dialect.

    It's not all that surprising. Linguistic snobbery is strong in the UK, and while I couldn't speak for other countries, snobbery is probably universal, plus racism.

    Both of which should be called out when they occur, as I'm sure you'll agree.
  • orfeo wrote: »
    Surely we all feel, deep within our bones, that the way we do things is RIGHT and that any difference is therefore wrong? I've been enjoying this thread as an exploration of differences, and a reminder that such an assumption isn't correct.

    Nevertheless, I draw the line at calling the middle course of a 3-course meal the entree. That's just plain illogical. What the hell are you entering?

    As if language makes sense? Where did you grow up?
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    Aye, but there's a world of difference between teaching about register and the place of standard and non-standard forms therein, and telling people their dialectual forms are wrong and they should always talk this way instead.

    Which was my point.
  • orfeo wrote: »
    The fascinating thing is, there are numerous cases where it's the Americans that have preserved the earlier form of English and the Brits that have changed.

    You arguably can't have "gone wrong" if you're not the ones who have gone anywhere. When Americans have maintained a pronunciation or expression that everyone was using back in the 1700s, the question is why the Brits started doing something different.

    I'd have to go hunting to remember good examples (look, I just had wine with dinner), but there are plenty of supposed 'Americanisms' that are not American inventions at all. They're just things that were preserved in America and lost elsewhere.

    "Gotten" as participle of "get" is the original form, and the clipped form "got" is a British innovation.
  • ZappaZappa Ecclesiantics Host
    Gee D wrote: »

    Nick Tamen - we use licence/practice for the noun and license/practise for the verb.

    Same in NZ. There are though significant differences between NZ and OZ English, too.

    Color/colour, program/programme .... no pattern on following UK or US, either: here in NZ we tend to have cell phone, OZ prefer mobile phones ... and there are of course state differences in OZ (strangely Queensland is similar to NZ in most, except the bewildering "port" for suitcase, satchel, briefcase indistinguishably in the former; in both NZ and QLD we wear togs, take smoko, and a few others) ...

    Damn ... I was listening to a Lou Reed song yesterday that had what I suspect was anew Yorkism in it that has never made sense to my non US ears, but have forgotten what it was ...
  • ZappaZappa Ecclesiantics Host
    mousethief wrote: »
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    It’s always spelled practice in the US, whether as a verb or noun.

    Unlike prophecy/prophesy.

    Oh, the number of times I have heard that mis-pronounced when the Dry Bones reading comes up in churches :anguished:
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    And almost every time a wedding guest reads 1 Cor 13 at a wedding

  • It's not all that surprising. Linguistic snobbery is strong in the UK, and while I couldn't speak for other countries, snobbery is probably universal, plus racism.

    Personal note, I went to a posh school, and I was told my Lancashire accent was unacceptable. I still remember the teacher who said it, and his name was Twatshitbastardly.
    Similar experience on a council estate in Luton. I was brought up by Lancastrian parents and was told off at school for saying things like ‘nowt’.
  • Zappa wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    It’s always spelled practice in the US, whether as a verb or noun.

    Unlike prophecy/prophesy.

    Oh, the number of times I have heard that mis-pronounced when the Dry Bones reading comes up in churches :anguished:

    Then there's this Eye-zay-uh guy who gets a sigh instead of an aye when some read about him. Are they the same ones who like prophes-sigh?
  • Robert ArminRobert Armin Shipmate
    edited April 2020
    Have I asked about shirtwaists before? I have only come across the term in novels written by Americans set in Victorian/Edwardian England. Having looked the term up I now know they are blouses that look like shirts. Is the term common in the UK, and I've missed it, or is it an Americanism?
  • When I did Home Economics at school,, long ago, a shirtwaister was a dress of which the bodice part was designed like a shirt: button-through and with a collar. Attached to a skirt of the same material. Very 1950s now I think of it, though I am no that old! (Though my teacher certainly was....)
  • @Cathscats, which country was that in?
  • @Zappa

    OED says that's a clipped form of portmanteau, and dates (in print) to 1898.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    Zappa wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    It’s always spelled practice in the US, whether as a verb or noun.

    Unlike prophecy/prophesy.

    Oh, the number of times I have heard that mis-pronounced when the Dry Bones reading comes up in churches :anguished:

    Then there's this Eye-zay-uh guy who gets a sigh instead of an aye when some read about him. Are they the same ones who like prophes-sigh?

    In U.K. pronunciation Eyes-eye-ah would be fairly standard. Eye-zay-ah is less common. The best way I can represent a likely a Hebrew pronunciation is Iz-ah-yah. (The ‘iah’ part of the name is theophoric - part of the name of God.)
  • Well, all those who are outraged and accusing me of linguistic snobbery appear to have overlooked my observation that particular phrases in my own native dialect wouldn't make any sense to other English speakers who don't hail from South Wales.

    I'm also more than happy to acknowledge that it's often British speech that has changed - dropping 'gotten' and 'got me a' for instance - rather than the other way around. I've acknowledged that in the past and I've also said that there are Americanisms that make a lot more sense than Britishisms, if there is such a word.

    Nobody's picked up on that.

    Ok, I expressed myself clumsily. 'Visit with Fred' in the way it has been described by Lamb Chopped and others obviously makes sense in some US contexts - and I get the impression that it isn't universal - otherwise people wouldn't use the expression.

    Equally, people in South Wales saying, 'Where by is that to?' doesn't make sense to anyone else either. I don't get accused of linguistic snobbery by making that observation.

    British people don't use 'gotten' or 'got me a' anymore but those expressions still make sense to us when we hear Americans use them. But 'visit with' involves a semantic shift in order to mean chatting (or 'chopsing' to use another dialect term) - and I was expressing surprise at that - admittedly in a way that could have sounded outraged or provocative.

    I thought I'd mitigated things by drawing attention to idiomatic expressions in certain British dialects that are just - if not more - baffling to those who might not be familiar with them.
  • Dude, just get over it unless someone calls you to Hell, and get on with the conversation.
  • Shirt-waisters are UK usage - I know what they are too, dresses that look like long blouses, more 1940s than 1950s, fashionable this year and would be available in many shops near you if they were open. I've just faked one by making a matching shirt and buttoned up skirt. The American name is shirt waist.

    Clothing is easily confused as nomenclature varies so much: jumpers are pullovers in the UK and pinafores in the US, pants are underwear in the UK and trousers in the US, vests are underwear in the UK and waistcoats in the US, dungarees in the UK are overalls in the US and what the UK call overalls the US calls coveralls (just because we recently had that conversation on Instagram), but they also get called jumpsuits and are horribly fashionable at the moment.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    edited April 2020
    . . . dungarees in the UK are overalls in the US and what the UK call overalls the US calls coveralls (just because we recently had that conversation on Instagram), but they also get called jumpsuits and are horribly fashionable at the moment.
    In the US, or at least in my part of it, overalls and coveralls are two similar but different things. And I’ve always heard dungarees as a synonym for jeans.

  • Sorry, I wasn't clear: I call what you call overalls dungarees in the UK, the implication for us is that overalls are over - all. And your coveralls are overalls here, or jumpsuits, we don't have coveralls. Someone who'd just made dungarees (US overalls) asked us because she got confused by the responses.
  • yes, basically - what is minion Dave wearing ?
    to a UK person, they are dungarees
  • Yes, and the other UK name for US coveralls is a boiler suit. So we call those coveralls boiler suits, overalls or jumpsuits. (I wore one the last time they were fashionable and the memories of having to get undressed to use the loo, holding half the garment off insalubrious floors are still vivid. I have no desire to revisit that particular garment.)
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    edited April 2020
    Yes, and the other UK name for US coveralls is a boiler suit. So we call those coveralls boiler suits, overalls or jumpsuits. (I wore one the last time they were fashionable and the memories of having to get undressed to use the loo, holding half the garment off insalubrious floors are still vivid. I have no desire to revisit that particular garment.)

    This is giving me PTSD about the time when all my folks would wear were matching colored jumpsuits--in their 70s.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    edited April 2020
    Thanks @Curiosity killed.

    Interesting about dungarees. I heard that word a lot as a child in the American South, but rarely hear it anymore. But as I heard it used, it never meant what we call overalls. It meant blue denim pants/trousers, and it’s largely been replaced by “jeans.”

    As for coveralls, not all jumpsuits are coveralls. Coveralls are a specific kind of jumpsuit intended to cover your regular cloths to protect them from things like dirt and grease while working. Coveralls are totally utilitarian; if a similar article of clothing is worn because it’s fashionable, it’s something other than coveralls.
  • The nearest equivalent to your coverall is the overall here, work overalls are put on to protect clothes. We wouldn't usually call the fashion all-in-one trouser garment overalls, the dressmaking patterns are for jumpsuits or boiler suits.
  • Jeans with a front panel that covers the chest and is held up with straps over the shoulders are called bib overalls in the US south where I came from.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Zappa wrote: »
    Gee D wrote: »

    Nick Tamen - we use licence/practice for the noun and license/practise for the verb.

    Same in NZ. There are though significant differences between NZ and OZ English, too.

    Color/colour, program/programme .... no pattern on following UK or US, either: here in NZ we tend to have cell phone, OZ prefer mobile phones ... and there are of course state differences in OZ (strangely Queensland is similar to NZ in most, except the bewildering "port" for suitcase, satchel, briefcase indistinguishably in the former; in both NZ and QLD we wear togs, take smoko, and a few others) ...

    Damn ... I was listening to a Lou Reed song yesterday that had what I suspect was anew Yorkism in it that has never made sense to my non US ears, but have forgotten what it was ...

    AFAIK, most people here use colour, but program rather than programme is far more popular. "Port" is interesting; one of my grandmothers used it and she'd never been to Queensland until her 60's. More often than not, a satchel was a small case you wore on your back, with double shoulder straps. When I was but a lad, sometimes we wore togs at the beach, sometimes a costume or of course Speedos as we grew older. Smokos are had rather than taken in my experience. Mobile phone has become plain simple mobile.
  • AthrawesAthrawes Shipmate
    Port is short for portmanteau. Back in the days when your school bag was a cardboard suitcase, it made more sense. We still use it for the backpack, though, and the hook you hang it on is the port rack.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Thanks for that derivation.
  • Re "entree":

    There are variations, but named courses in the US go something like this:

    --1st course, appetizers

    --Entree, main dish, main course

    --Dessert

    Maybe "entree" has something to do with a daily change of item entered on a chalk menu, or on a slip of paper inside the menu?
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Golden Key wrote: »
    Re "entree":

    There are variations, but named courses in the US go something like this:

    --1st course, appetizers

    --Entree, main dish, main course

    --Dessert

    Maybe "entree" has something to do with a daily change of item entered on a chalk menu, or on a slip of paper inside the menu?

    It is the entrée because in a more formal meal, there is an additional course - the roast - which comes between the entrée and the salad, then the dessert.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    edited April 2020
    The Wikipedia article I linked to above gives the history of the term “entrée,” as does, in more detail, this page, including how it changed meanings over the centuries and how it developed to mean what it currently does in the US, the UK and France.

    Entrée in the US can also mean the main (meat or vegetarian) dish of a one course meal (not counting dessert), as opposed to the side dishes.

  • Dude, just get over it unless someone calls you to Hell, and get on with the conversation.

    I was trying to avoid a Hell Call as I was aware I'm skated on very thin ice. But yes, fair point, I could have made it worse.

    I'll shut up until there's another phrase to discuss.

    There does seem to be global unanimity about the impracticality and hideousness of jump suits here, irrespective of what we happen to call them.

    I take comfort from that.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    edited April 2020
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    The Wikipedia article I linked to above gives the history of the term “entrée,” as does, in more detail, this page, including how it changed meanings over the centuries and how it developed to mean what it currently does in the US, the UK and France.

    Entrée in the US can also mean the main (meat or vegetarian) dish of a one course meal (not counting dessert), as opposed to the side dishes.

    I'm going to Larousse Gastronomique, 1st English edition (1961):

    "....... follows the relevé or intermediate course which in its turn follows the fish.... In other words , the entrée is the third course."

    In fairness, even in 1961 Larousse was incredibly outdated. If something were not French, it was scarcely worth mentioning. Even pasta was written of in its French usage, although Italian cookery as a whole was just acceptable.
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    What say we go back to service à la française where you bung it all on the table at once?

    I'd say the predominant usage hereabouts, both at home and in restaurants, is Starter, Main and Dessert. Though if giving a dinner party I would put a Cheese course in after the Main.
  • EirenistEirenist Shipmate
    In my extreme youth, I wore dungarees to play in in the garden. They were indeed a pair of strong cotton trousers with a bib or front panel over the chest held up by straps over the shoulders. I haven't heard the word dungarees for years though.
  • @Cathscats, which country was that in?

    Scotland
  • Hmmm...I've always thought dungarees were similar to jeans. What you describe would be "overalls" to me--possibly "bibbed overalls", to distinguish them from the one-piece full-body overalls that, say, an auto mechanic might wear.

    And, at times, bibbed overalls have even been fashionable. Don't know their current status.
  • Dungarees / bibs / bibbed overalls are currently fashionable, as are the equivalent bibbed skirts or pinafores. Lots around in denim, canvas or cord in the last few months.
  • Penny SPenny S Shipmate
    Shirt-waisters are UK usage - I know what they are too, dresses that look like long blouses, more 1940s than 1950s, fashionable this year and would be available in many shops near you if they were open. I've just faked one by making a matching shirt and buttoned up skirt. The American name is shirt waist.
    I recall shirtwaisters as having a full skirt, either gathered in to the waist, or shaped as A line or gored, not looking like long blouses.
    I wonder what dungarees were originally, since the word positively shrieks Indian at me, like bungalow and kedgeree.

  • Currently some shirtwaisters are like long shirts as they were in the 80s. The skirt I made to match the shirt is a three quarter skirt, as a 50s look (not a full circle as I didn't have the fabric). It's a look that keeps reiterating.
  • Re overalls...or more the singular overall, to me that doesn't mean having trouser legs as part of the garment. An overall was what my mother used to wear doing housework, a button up long sleeved slightly fitted garment worn over regular clothes, not dissimilar to a lab coat in shape/design, reaching to about knee length.

    When I had a Saturday job in retail in the 70s, these nylon garments were also regular uniform for shop assistants. In summer we just wore underwear beneath them as it was too hot otherwise. In winter you could wear a sweater and skirt or trousers underneath.
  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    edited April 2020
    orfeo wrote: »
    I recently heard some VERY interesting things about African-American English, in a podcast episode centred around the completely over-inflated controversy about 'Ebonics' teaching a couple of decades back.

    Children are effectively having to learn a 2nd form of language when they get to school because the first form that they learned is considered 'wrong' rather than dialect.

    Let me slightly reorient that.

    No doubt there are many who still call it "wrong" but that is not the reason academia-as-a-whole teaches them the standard(er) dialect. We do it because otherwise their career prospects are sharply limited. This too is a bad state of affairs, but schools are largely forced to deal with the world as it is, not the world as it ought to be, and in the US, just as elsewhere, there is a ranking of dialects. Californian/Midwest seems to come out on top, probably due to Hollywood etc. New York and New Jersey are in the middle and speakers from the deep South can face some prejudice regardless of race. And Spanglish, Vinglish, etc. are entirely non-privileged.

    You're not actually reorienting it. Half the point of the podcast was that when people made a huge fuss over Ebonics they fundamentally misunderstood what the teachers actually proposed to do.

    They didn't need to teach the kids African-American English. The kids already knew it.

    But you don't normally teach French to English speakers by just standing in front of the room jabbering in French and hoping they figure out what's going on.

  • I met someone from Maine who told me she worked hard to lose her accent and to adopt a Californian one when she was at university over there. That's a heck of a way to go to university.

    She said everyone took the mickey out of the way she spoke so she felt ostracised. I was interested to hear her 'do' an out-in-the-sticks Maine accent and to share some expressions and idioms.i thought it sounded cool. To my ears it sounded a bit Nova Scotian but not quite,but I don't know whether that was simply an association in my mind as they are both top right hand side as it were.

    She told me that a term of endearment for babies and young children was, 'Ain't you cunning,' meaning 'cute', which sounds quite Old English / Old Scots to me (that's the Scots dialect, not Gaelic of course).

    I wondered if it was related to the Geordie 'canny'.
  • Thinking more about "meet with", I think "to have a meeting with" is found in British English, and it's possible that there has been a kind of back-formation towards "meet with" in the US. Also possibly influence from "meet up with", which seems common in UK, not sure about US.

    Just reminded me that phrasal verbs in English seem fairly idiosyncratic and idiomatic, I don't know how foreigners manage them.
  • rhubarbrhubarb Shipmate
    There are certain English dialects/pronunciations that are totally incomprehensible to me. I have particular difficulty with some of the American deep south and with parts of Scotland. After some time I start to tune in, but it is often a real effort.
  • Firenze wrote: »
    What say we go back to service à la française where you bung it all on the table at once?
    Here in the American South, that’s called serving “family style.”

    I met someone from Maine who told me she worked hard to lose her accent and to adopt a Californian one when she was at university over there. That's a heck of a way to go to university.
    Many an American Southerner who has moved to other parts of the country can tell a similar story. GG, you might find this episode of “The Bitter Southerner Podcast” of interest: “What We Talk About When We Talk About How We Talk.”

    She said everyone took the mickey out of the way she spoke so she felt ostracised.
    Something tells me she didn’t actually say that everyone “took the mickey out of” the way she spoke. :wink:

  • Like Gamma Gamaliel, I grew up speaking “Wenglish”. I remember describing in a piece of school work how I went “down the hall” and not being able to see how that could be wrong.
    Just before our O levels, my school organised a talk by a gentleman who’d written a book on the South Wales dialect, working on the principle that some of us would begin to have interviews with prospective employers, and some of us would, in the future, have interviews with universities.
    I’d never realised just how much dialect I used. I’ve now come to realise that over the years, I’ve lost quite a lot of it, and so I’m trying to use concepts like -“she was tamping mad” (extremely annoyed) or “I’ll do it now just” (I’ll do it soon) in my daily conversation.
  • mousethief wrote: »
    orfeo wrote: »
    I recently heard some VERY interesting things about African-American English, in a podcast episode centred around the completely over-inflated controversy about 'Ebonics' teaching a couple of decades back.

    Children are effectively having to learn a 2nd form of language when they get to school because the first form that they learned is considered 'wrong' rather than dialect.

    It's not all that surprising. Linguistic snobbery is strong in the UK, and while I couldn't speak for other countries, snobbery is probably universal, plus racism.

    Both of which should be called out when they occur, as I'm sure you'll agree.

    George Bernard Shaw summed it up very neatly in the preface to Pygmalion:

    " It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him."

    You can find the whole thing (quite short) here - well worth a read.
  • EirenistEirenist Shipmate
    I had an aunt who married a Welshman and lived for many years in West Wales. She never learnt Welsh but acquired a Welsh intonation and local usages. Her sister from England used to visit her on holiday and take her on drives round the local villages in her Morris Minor. 'Which way now?' she would ask on coming to a fork in the road, and used to be nonplussed by the reply 'Oh, just keep straight on round.'
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