American English

[Loki]

I was talking with a friend of mine (quite proficient in English) some days ago, and he told me he was reading a book written by an American author; he said that it was so difficult to read.
So I am wondering: is American English difficult to understand to the British as well? If you have any, what kind of problems have you got?

Now, a question for the Americans too. I happened to visit this website:
Urban Dictionary, January 21: muffin top. I found some rather weird words, such as santaclaustrophobia. The question is: do you really use this kind of words?!

[lenz]

That kind of inspired word invention goes on all the time, as I'm sure it does in most languages. If the word is seen or heard on the internet or TV and catches on, and is used often enough, it can earn a place in dictionaries. Usually, such a neologism gets used so much within a short time everyone gets sick of it and it's allowed to die out. Anyone who has done Christmas shopping in a mall knows what santaclaustrophobia means.

[hdw]

I don't think Brits and Americans have much trouble with each others' written English. There are differences of idiom, and even grammatical differences, but you get used to them. Americans seem to favour (or favor) strong verb past tense forms that in English would be weak, e.g.

Amer. present tense "fit" past tense "fit"
British present tense "fit" past tense "fitted"

Amer. present tense "dive" past tense "dove"
British present tense "dive" past tense "dived"

and there are lots of lexical (vocabulary) items like Amer.sidewalk/Brit. pavement, etc., but you grow up knowing these things. I would say that the Brits. take more influence from the Americans language-wise than vice versa. As for spelling, American spelling (e.g. -or instead of -our) was regularised (or regularized) by Noah Webster's magisterial dictionary.

As regards the spoken language, the Americans often have trouble understanding anything that's not the Queen's English, i.e. our many regional dialects. When a feature film was made about the Beatles, the Liverpool accents had to be toned down for the American market, and John Lennon was apparently scornful of the word "ciggies" being used for cigarettes. The northern lads would have said "fags", but when you think what "fags" means in America, and what people tend to do with cigarettes, maybe "ciggies" was a good compromise.

Likewise, "knickers" and "pants" are a bit more raunchy in Britain than they are in the States.

From the influence of Hollywood movies and American TV, and more recently tourism to the States, Brits are perhaps more acclimatised to spoken American than Americans are to spoken British English. I heard once that only about 10% of Americans have a passport, so not really all that many come over here, and I don't think their media are swamped with British imports.

Harry

[miercuri]

I always wondered if American editions of British books apply the American spelling regulations to the text, or vice-versa? I assume they leave the text as it is, right?

[Omo]

What about spelling in Canada, Australia, NZ? Do they have their own local mixtures of spelling or do they keep to AE (Canada?) resp. BE (Aus, NZ?)?

I'm always very confused about double negations in English (I don't know whether this is something exclusive to American English or also common in British dialects?). I'm talking about phrases like "ain't no", "don't know nothing" etc. Once I tried to read M. Twain's Huckleberry Finn and couldn't get into it, because the text was full of such double negations and I never knew whether they meant what they said or the opposite.

[hdw]

I think the Aussies and Kiwis follow British spelling conventions. I'm not sure about the Canadians, but we have some on this forum who can tell you.

Double negation is a common feature in regional English speech and is just a way of emphasizing the negation. "I ain't got no money" just means 'I have no money'. Old-fashioned teachers used to claim that two negatives make a positive, so "I ain't got no ..." must mean 'I have some ...', but that is rubbish, as the rules of mathematics don't apply to natural languages.

As proof of that, in the Slavonic languages it's normal to use double negatives. For example, nikdo ne?el do divadla, 'no-one went to the theatre', lit. 'no-one didn't go to the theatre'. Or, nepotřebuji nic, 'I don't need anything', lit. 'I don't need nothing'.

Even triple negation occurs in Czech, e.g. Nikdy nikde nikomu nic nekupuju, 'I never buy anything for anyone anywhere', which literally translated is 'I don't never buy nothing for nobody nowhere'.

I'm sure some of our chums on the forum could quote similar examples from Russian.

Harry

[Liam]

What about spelling in Canada, Australia, NZ? Do they have their own local mixtures of spelling or do they keep to AE (Canada?) resp. BE (Aus, NZ?)?

Former British colonies all follow the modern British spelling system. There is some variation between Canada and Australia (colonize vs. colonise), but words like colour, etc, are spelled with a U. And spectre is spectre.

I think the US is the only English-speaking country in the world that has "modernized" its spelling system, somewhat.

[miercuri]

As proof of that, in the Slavonic languages it's normal to use double negatives. For example, nikdo nešel do divadla, 'no-one went to the theatre', lit. 'no-one didn't go to the theatre'. Or, nepotřebuji nic, 'I don't need anything', lit. 'I don't need nothing'.

Even triple negation occurs in Czech, e.g. Nikdy nikde nikomu nic nekupuju, 'I never buy anything for anyone anywhere', which literally translated is 'I don't never buy nothing for nobody nowhere'.

I'm sure some of our chums on the forum could quote similar examples from Russian.

Double (and occasional triple) negations are the norm in Romanian as well. I don't know whether this is the Slavic influence or not, it might be a trait shared by more Romance language. If I am not mistaking the Spanish for 'I have no idea' is no tengo ninguna idea. I know for sure that in French double negation is impossible, but I don't know anything about its use in Italian or Portuguese. I'd be grateful if someone cleared it up for me.

[Omo]

[...]Double negation is a common feature in regional English speech and is just a way of emphasizing the negation. "I ain't got no money" just means 'I have no money'.

I know what it means, it's just that I always stumble when I see it, because it isn't used in standard English?

Old-fashioned teachers used to claim that two negatives make a positive, so "I ain't got no ..." must mean 'I have some ...', but that is rubbish, as the rules of mathematics don't apply to natural languages.

Well, this is how it is in German, so this seems natural and right to me.

As proof of that, in the Slavonic languages it's normal to use double negatives. For example, nikdo nešel do divadla, 'no-one went to the theatre', lit. 'no-one didn't go to the theatre'. Or, nepotřebuji nic, 'I don't need anything', lit. 'I don't need nothing'.[...]

I know. "Nikto ne snajet", nobody not knows, means "nobody knows" of course. But in Slavic languages double negations are consistently used. What is confusing is the switch in English. It doesn't seem do be used in standardised, formal English, or is it?

[miercuri]

As far as I knew, it isn't. But since not all natives have the same level of formal education, the way they speak may be different from the grammatical, formalized English us foreigners are taught.

[hdw]

As far as I knew, it isn't. But since not all natives have the same level of formal education, the way they speak may be different from the grammatical, formalized English us foreigners are taught.

Exactly. Standard English is to some extent artificial, and has to be learned almost as a foreign language by dialect speakers. But it has great status, and not mastering it means risking sounding provincial and uneducated.

Even in a liberal, left-of-centre, serious broadsheet newspaper like the Guardian, you find a senior columnist like Simon Hoggart who covers the House of Commons and who never misses a chance to sneer at politicians whose speech differs from his own neutral, generally middle-class Standard English.

Harry

[lenz]

"I don't know nothing" to mean "I don't know anything" is not standard English, such double negatives are never correct.
When you see them used in fiction, it means the character speaking is either badly educated or is new to the language and is making a mistake.
Huckleberry Finn is (I can't remember whether he can read or not) - anyway, he ain't had much schoolin' - ha ha I'm joking - and he's speaking the dialect of his savage father. By the way, ain't hasn't always been considered incorrect. See wikipedia on the subject.

[Eric]

I am as confused as Omo as to what the Aussies, Kiwis, Canadians use when it comes to spelling. All I know is the standard differences between U.S. and British spelling (honor, theater, etc.)

One whole new ball game (to use an American expression) is vocabulary. I was at least 20 before I realised that a "faucet" existed. Though "faucet-dancing" is maybe not something the Americans indulge in. On British streets we have "stop cocks". These are not anti-male-member laws. I didn't wear "diapers" as a baby, nor am I sure what a "condominium" is. However, I do realise that "guy" is no longer "Yanks-only-speak", as it is used commonly in Britain nowadays. Though "bloke", "chap", and "fellow" may not yet be Yankspeak. The current tends to be more Yank-to-Brit than vice-versa.

Despite all this, I have found that if translators don't have to translate too much dialogue - a very national enterprise - it is possible for a Brit to translate for a U.S. publisher. The written core of standard English is not much different between Britain and North America. But that of the spoken language probably is.

[lionel]

Wow, like, I mean, er, this thread was designed for folks like me!

The northern lads would have said "fags", but when you think what "fags" means in America, and what people tend to do with cigarettes, maybe "ciggies" was a good compromise.

Some misunderstandings between American and British English are of a sexual nature: for example, 'fanny' meaning 'ass' (or, less modernly, 'arse' in British English) as opposed to a polite word for 'cunt' (as in vagina, vulva, whatever); 'eraser' being the thing you rub errors out with as opposed to the British English 'rubber', which means condom in American English.

But things change all the time.

From the influence of Hollywood movies and American TV, and more recently tourism to the States, Brits are perhaps more acclimatised to spoken American than Americans are to spoken British English. I heard once that only about 10% of Americans have a passport, so not really all that many come over here, and I don't think their media are swamped with British imports.

This is so true. But as I've kinda said elsewhere, most Americans don't need a passport anyway, unless they really, really wanna travel. OK, it's great to travel the world, and America is historically a new country in a way, but although I've by no means visited even half the US states (and don't intend to - some are way too cold), I've already seen so many different Americas, and heard so many different ways of saying things.

I email a number of Americans, and unless I know they love our quaint spellings and very slightly different grammar, I often just fall into a mixture of the two, and I think we'll continue to go that way. I love 'gotten' as a past participle, as we just, er, ain't got that, and Americans tend to say 'Have you a pen?' rather than the British 'Have you got a pen?', an on an on.

But then, I'm in a privileged position in that I don't have to worry about what I write.

To be honest, though, I'm not sure what Liam means by:

'I think the US is the only English-speaking country in the world that has "modernized" its spelling system, somewhat.'

Maybe I missed a post or two above, and OK, the missing 'u' might be an indication of 'modernization', but to me 'Ivy League American' in some ways has not caught up with 'Russell Group English', if we want to use such silly expressions (invented by me, maybe?) to describe a linguistic situation. The English dispensed some time ago with using a full point after abbreviations like 'Mr.' and 'Dr.' unless the last letter was not the final letter of the word, although they are still normal in the States, and Liam's use of the zed in 'modernized' is a bit of a mystery: throughout my postgrad. (!) years, I used my university's style guide, and apart from twelve or sixteen words (which I've forgotten anyway - hey, why not 'forgot'?), the zed was the accepted usage, which I believe is more American than British.

But hey, for once I'm not trying to start a fight - just trying to get my head round, er, difference.

blog

[Bottle Rocket]

As far as I knew, it isn't. But since not all natives have the same level of formal education, the way they speak may be different from the grammatical, formalized English us foreigners are taught.

LOL ... this reminds me of an experience I had as a teenager in the Sixties -- I spent a couple of years as the only American in a college des Jesuites in Avignon. As a native speaker of English, I was excused from the language classes that were a part of the program in Humanites, but I went to one class just for a lark.

The teacher was very taken with himself, and demonstrated his fluency by having a conversation with me, in which I used perfectly proper but colloquial American syntax and vocabulary; it took about thirty seconds for the whole class to realize that M. le Professeur had almost NO idea what I was saying, and before long the classroom was all asnicker. He made it clear, through intermediaries, that my presence in that class was thereafter unwelcome.

However, every Saturday morning we had devoirs surveille, sort of halfway between study and examination, which rotated among our various subjects. Again, I was spared this exercise when the English DS rolled around, but once, again just for a lark, I took the test anyway -- and he took enormous pleasure in grading me a 4/14, because my responses were correct standard English but not exactly according to his textbook, which was almost Edwardian in its vocabulary and grammar.

BRocket

Actually, for me the most challenging linguistic work at College St. Joseph was having to translate Classical Greek to English to French, at least until the total immersion allowed me to think (and incidentally even dream) in French. But that's a whole 'nother story.

[lenz]

What about spelling in Canada, Australia, NZ? Do they have their own local mixtures of spelling or do they keep to AE (Canada?) resp. BE (Aus, NZ?)?

In Canada, British spelling is taught in schools but "correct" grammar and spoken English is a mixture of American and British with Canadian regional peculiarities thrown in.

[Loki]

If I am not mistaking the Spanish for 'I have no idea' is no tengo ninguna idea. I know for sure that in French double negation is impossible, but I don't know anything about its use in Italian or Portuguese. I'd be grateful if someone cleared it up for me.

Yes, no tengo ninguna/ni idea is correct.
Also in Italian we use double negations, as in Non vedo niente (*I don't see nothing) or Non faccio niente (*I don't do nothing).
There is also another use of double negation in Italian. For example the sentence Non posso non studiare: domani ho un esame is used to express an obligation. In standard English (I hope!) it would be I have to study: tomorrow I'm sitting an exam.
I don't think there's a tantamount in English.

[learna]

I think the Aussies and Kiwis follow British spelling conventions. I'm not sure about the Canadians, but we have some on this forum who can tell you.

Double negation is a common feature in regional English speech and is just a way of emphasizing the negation. "I ain't got no money" just means 'I have no money'. Old-fashioned teachers used to claim that two negatives make a positive, so "I ain't got no ..." must mean 'I have some ...', but that is rubbish, as the rules of mathematics don't apply to natural languages.

As proof of that, in the Slavonic languages it's normal to use double negatives. For example, nikdo nešel do divadla, 'no-one went to the theatre', lit. 'no-one didn't go to the theatre'. Or, nepotřebuji nic, 'I don't need anything', lit. 'I don't need nothing'.

Even triple negation occurs in Czech, e.g. Nikdy nikde nikomu nic nekupuju, 'I never buy anything for anyone anywhere', which literally translated is 'I don't never buy nothing for nobody nowhere'.

I'm sure some of our chums on the forum could quote similar examples from Russian.

Harry

Harry, that is true, in Russian it is normal to use several negatives. I think, this is an interesting example:
"Я никогда никому не обещал ничего невозможного" - "I have never not promised nobody nothing impossible."
And there is a nice popular quotation:"Никогда не говори никогда" - "Never do not say "never"" or if we translate it more accuratelly - "Never say "never"."

[thrash]

How do I delete this post?!!

[thrash]

Americans seem to favour (or favor) strong verb past tense forms that in English would be weak, e.g.

Amer. present tense "fit" past tense "fit"
British present tense "fit" past tense "fitted"

Amer. present tense "dive" past tense "dove"
British present tense "dive" past tense "dived"

These are not very good examples. Dove is a complete Americanism ("Dived, historically the older form, is somewhat more common in edited writing, but dove occurs there so frequently that it also must be considered standard: The rescuer dove into 20 feet of icy water. Dove is an Americanism that probably developed by analogy with alternations like drive, drove and ride, rode." - dictionary.com) and so isn't a strong verb you can chose over the weak one in British English, it's not a word for us! Fit and fitted are both acceptable forms of past and I don't really think it's more prevalent in either form of the language. I think you have it the wrong way around and strong verbs are favoured in British English.