The Americanization of spelling and terminology

29-06-2020 11:54am

Leg End Reject wrote: »

Yes, change it from the default American English.

I just did this, but realize is still wrong anyway..

theteal · 29-06-2020 11:59am

I get you OP, I work with Cisco equipment and quite regularly have to type the word "neighbor". . . .the baxtards!

Also, "Mom" is a Cork thing

looksee · 29-06-2020 12:00pm

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

For context, this is English spoken in the 1300s. It's the start of the prologue to Chauser's Canterbury Tales:

WHAN that Aprille with his shoures soote
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,
And smale fowles maken melodye,
That slepen al the night with open ye
(So priketh hem nature in hir corages:
Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,

Languages change over time. Get over it.

That would be Chaucer, not Chauser.

I learned to say that particular poem in the original accent (so far as it is known) years ago, not sure I still could, but it sounds awesome...

El_Duderino 09 · 29-06-2020 12:32pm

Hairy Japanese BASTARDS! wrote: »

This isn't genuine language drift though, it's just pure ignorance.

And by ignorance I don't mean rudeness. But that's for another thread.

No. It's language drift. Just like tha language drifted in the past into the form were familiar with and it'll continue to drift.

Language is about conveying meaning. The meaning of your OP was perfectly understandable to any Irish person who doesn't use those particular American-English terms. So it was grand, not ignorant.

We speak a different version of English in Ireland (Hiberno-English). Is that ignorant too and should we all speak the Queen's English?

El_Duderino 09 · 29-06-2020 12:35pm

looksee wrote: »

That would be Chaucer, not Chauser.

I learned to say that particular poem in the original accent (so far as it is known) years ago, not sure I still could, but it sounds awesome...

Fair one. But of all things, Chaucer wasn't particular about spelling. There are 8 spelling variations of the work "cúnt" in Chaucer's works.

Just goes to prove that language has never been static.

El_Duderino 09 · 29-06-2020 12:38pm

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

Spelling? Thats all examples of different words being used entirely.

Id be more concerned about people that dont seem to understand that "been" is not interchangeable with "being".

And "of" is not interchangeable with "have". But ultimately, it's about being understood. And as long as that's achieved, then it was a good communication.

29-06-2020 12:40pm

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

And "of" is not interchangeable with "have".

This is another one that wrecks my head..

El_Duderino 09 · 29-06-2020 12:40pm

murpho999 wrote: »

Using Americanisms is not languages changing over time.
It's simply spelling things wrong.

Like people saying "your" for "you're", it's wrong and will never be right no matter how much a language changes.

Yeah but I'd enough people use the "wrong" version, then it becomes understood. Then it's perfectly useful so it's "right" in that sense. That's precisely how language changes in practical terms.

murpho999 · 29-06-2020 12:43pm

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Yeah but I'd enough peopep use the "wrong" version, then it becomes understood. Then it's perfectly useful so it's "right" in that sense. That's precisely how language changea in practical terms.

No people are still saying and meaning "you're" but are misspelling it as "your".

There's a difference between a language developing and evolving and wrong grammar and spelling.

Wibbs · 29-06-2020 12:44pm

theteal wrote: »

Also, "Mom" is a Cork thing

It might be, though I never heard it on my many visits to Cork as a kid, but let's say it is/was, it most certainly wasn't in the rest of the country. Ma, mammy, mam, or mum for the posher kids were. When this has come up before I've laid down a challenge for anyone to find any video or film or even written document on youtube or RTE or wherever where any Irish person refers to their mother as "Mom" before the mid 1990's. Good luck with that.

I knew an American lass when I was in my late teens in the 80s and she of course used to use American words and pronunciations and she would get playfully teased about them from time to time and one of them was "Mom". "Store" was another. It was the first time I learned that "shop" in the US meant workshop, not well, a shop. Though Americans also go shopping in stores, which was about the point where the mainspring in my brain let go.

Mom among other things like store are almost entirely a mid Atlantic influence that has spread in the last 20 years, just like the accent to be heard on many a younger Irish person, a certain type among suburban young women tend to affect it the most and have the most pronounced and nasally with a rising tone at the end type. I even noticed this difference in friend's kids. Their daughters are much more mid Atlantic than their sons.

TV has been blamed on it. I'm not so sure. As a kid growing up in Dublin like my peers we had the "piped TV" so got the UK stations and along with RTE showed many American TV series and nobody had the mid Atlantic accent. I grew up from from a toddler onwards on Sesame Street on RTE and yet... Though I did learn some Spanish(I think we got the LA version?).

Indeed the accent was derided as daft and usually only present in wedding DJs and the like.

Store I can understand more as online shopping, much of it US or US English based took over. Spelling where zeds(not Zee

) are swapped for S down to the aforementioned auto spellchecks. And since few enough seem to change the standard ringtones on their phones that's not such a surprise.

Guy:Incognito · 29-06-2020 12:46pm

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Yeah but I'd enough people use the "wrong" version, then it becomes understood. Then it's perfectly useful so it's "right" in that sense. That's precisely how language changes in practical terms.

Survival of the weakest.

Kaybaykwah · 29-06-2020 12:50pm

theteal wrote: »

I get you OP, I work with Cisco equipment and quite regularly have to type the word "neighbor". . . .the baxtards!

Also, "Mom" is a Cork thing

No, in England it is spelled Maugham.

Wibbs · 29-06-2020 12:53pm

murpho999 wrote: »

No people are still saying and meaning "you're" but are misspelling it as "your".

There's a difference between a language developing and evolving and wrong grammar and spelling.

Not really. El D is right here. Correct spellings came late enough to English(and other languages) and evolved rapidly after printing kicked in and then became more codified. English spellings are all over the place and not particularly phonetic the way say Spanish would be. So in some pre codified spellings "tho" would be more correct than "though". Your could come to mean both your and you're. Than and then is another that is regularly swapped incorrectly and I've noticed those who do so tend to pronounce than as then so write it that way.

Some English accents say "drawring" for drawing as the ah to w move is hard for them to say so they add an R. Sometimes they will write "draw" instead of "drawer" maybe thinking the addition of this R is wrong? Or they don't hear it. I was watching an English youtuber who had that accent where some T's become F's. "These fings" as it were and in the comments I would guess Americans pointed this out and his replies suggested he couldn't really hear the difference and what was their point. The Irish version would be Turty Tree and a Turd where the aitch is dropped.

Mad_maxx · 29-06-2020 12:54pm

Hairy Japanese BASTARDS! wrote: »

So, like, there I was waiting in line in the parking lot with my shopping cart to enter the grocery store in the shopping mall. I was parked on the top floor so I had to get the elevator to the first floor with the cart.

And like, who did I meet?! My MOM!

No-one was standing 2 meters away.

was the shopping cart made of a_loom_in_um or aluminium ?

american spelling is gas

El_Duderino 09 · 29-06-2020 12:57pm

murpho999 wrote: »

No people are still saying and meaning "you're" but are misspelling it as "your".

There's a difference between a language developing and evolving and wrong grammar and spelling.

Yeah but these things happen all the time in language. If you think the current conventions have always been in place, then you're wrong.

Loads of conventions and even "rules" have been changed, overwritten or erased. In time the spelling "you're" might just be dropped to the point that future English speakers will note, as a point of trivia, that there used to be another way of spelling "your" to denote "you are". In the same sense, I could tell you, as a point of trivia that possession used to be denoted with "es" at the end. Now we've contracted it to "'s" (apostrophe s). Are we all wrong for using the new convention?

Language changes all the time. It's not worth getting upset about. Words are arbitrary, it's just about conveying meaning.

hairyprincess · 29-06-2020 12:57pm

Mad_maxx wrote: »

was the shopping cart made of a_loom_in_um or aluminium ?

american spelling is gas

Is it gas? Or is it petrol?

murpho999 · 29-06-2020 1:01pm

Wibbs wrote: »

Not really. El D is right here. Correct spellings came late enough to English(and other languages) and evolved rapidly after printing kicked in and then became more codified. English spellings are all over the place and not particularly phonetic the way say Spanish would be. So in some pre codified spellings "tho" would be more correct than "though". Your could come to mean both your and you're. Than and then is another that is regularly swapped incorrectly and I've noticed those who do so tend to pronounce than as then so write it that way.

Some English accents say "drawring" for drawing as the ah to w move is hard for them to say so they add an R. Sometimes they will write "draw" instead of "drawer" maybe thinking the addition of this R is wrong? Or they don't hear it. I was watching an English youtuber who had that accent where some T's become F's. "These fings" as it were and in the comments I would guess Americans pointed this out and his replies suggested he couldn't really hear the difference and what was their point. The Irish version would be Turty Tree and a Turd where the aitch is dropped.

Yes but you're talking about phonetics.

After all no Irish person would every write "turty" down when referring to "thirty".

Also going back hundreds of years to how a language was written down is very different to today.

I'm not sure which body (if any) decides the rules of language and grammar, (is it lexicographers working for dictionary companies?) but I'm sure the likes of "your" replacing "you're" will never happen.

sligojoek · 29-06-2020 1:04pm

Hairy Japanese BASTARDS! wrote: »

So, like, there I was waiting in line in the parking lot with my shopping cart to enter the grocery store in the shopping mall. I was parked on the top floor so I had to get the elevator to the first floor with the cart.

And like, who did I meet?! My MOM!

No-one was standing 2 meters away.

It's 6 feet.

El_Duderino 09 · 29-06-2020 1:10pm

murpho999 wrote: »

Also going back hundreds of years to how a language was written down is very different to today.

I'm not sure which body (if any) decides the rules of language and grammar, (is it lexicographers working for dictionary companies?) but I'm sure the likes of "your" replacing "you're" will never happen.

If you think that change couldn't happen, then I think you probably don't know how much the English language has already changed. If you time travelled to the 1200s England, you would have to learn the language they spoke.

The language spoken back then lead directly to the language we speak today, but it continually evolved and will continue to evolve to the point that in a few hundred years, a modern English speaker probably couldn't understand the conversation were having with each other right now.

Wibbs · 29-06-2020 1:28pm

sligojoek wrote: »

It's 6 feet.

Four cubits damn your eyes!

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

If you think that change couldn't happen, then I think you probably don't know howuch the English language has already changed. If you time travelled to the 1200s England, you would have to learn the language they spoke.

The language spoken back then lead directly to the language we speak today, but it continually evolved and will continue to evolve to the point that in a few hundred years, a modern English speaker probably couldn't understand the conversation were having with each other right now.

+1, though while new words will always be added, like printing slowed down the evolution of language and standardised it I can see the internet and what it becomes will do similarly. More standardise it. So because of automatic translation local English will become more and more American English as it started to already. Non English speakers also tend to learn American English too which would have some impact. Like with printing languages will become less local over time.

29-06-2020 1:32pm

We wil Al b speking lik dis..

Kaybaykwah · 29-06-2020 1:40pm

Hairy Japanese BASTARDS! wrote: »

So, like, there I was waiting in line in the parking lot with my shopping cart to enter the grocery store in the shopping mall. I was parked on the top floor so I had to get the elevator to the first floor with the cart.

And like, who did I meet?! My MOM!

No-one was standing 2 meters away.

2 yards away, or six feet.

In Canada, people from my generation still use feet and inches in spite of the conversion to metric many years ago.

Kaybaykwah · 29-06-2020 1:51pm

Wibbs wrote: »

Four cubits damn your eyes!

+1, though while new words will always be added, like printing slowed down the evolution of language and standardised it I can see the internet and what it becomes will do similarly. More standardise it. So because of automatic translation local English will become more and more American English as it started to already. Non English speakers also tend to learn American English too which would have some impact. Like with printing languages will become less local over time.

Yes, and technical lingo in science keeps growing by leaps over the vernacular which shows that language is in constant progression. I am always checking out unknown terms on Internet slang when I encounter them. Some of that stuff looks like it was made up real fast, on the sly so to speak, for clickbaiting.

Hairy Japanese BASTARDS! · 29-06-2020 2:27pm

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

No. It's language drift. Just like tha language drifted in the past into the form were familiar with and it'll continue to drift.

Language is about conveying meaning. The meaning of your OP was perfectly understandable to any Irish person who doesn't use those particular American-English terms. So it was grand, not ignorant.

We speak a different version of English in Ireland (Hiberno-English). Is that ignorant too and should we all speak the Queen's English?

Genuine language drift is imperceptibly slow.
This nonsense seems to have exploded of late.

Hiberno English is peppered with Irish colloquialisms, elevator and parking lot are not one of them.

I never said Americanisms were incorrect English, I simply stated my distaste for their usage in Irish vernacular of late.

El_Duderino 09 · 29-06-2020 2:32pm

[Deleted User] wrote: »

We wil Al b speking lik dis..

Maybe. As long as it's understandable then it's grand. Here will probably be emojis involved too.

But I'd note that, as with anything, there will be different ways of doing things depending on what message you want to convey about yourself. We have lots of ways of speaking today that can tell an audience about your culture, class and education. Speaking the queen's English would say a lot about a person regardless of the content of the speech.

For example, having complicated rules and obeying the rules in speech can help those of the upper class to identify each other and identify imposters (not the only way, of course).

Zebra3 · 29-06-2020 2:37pm

sligojoek wrote: »

It's 6 feet.

6.5 feet.

El_Duderino 09 · 29-06-2020 2:45pm

Hairy Japanese BASTARDS! wrote: »

Genuine language drift is imperceptibly slow.
This nonsense seems to have exploded of late.

Hiberno English is peppered with Irish colloquialisms, elevator and parking lot are not one of them.

I never said Americanisms were incorrect English, I simply stated my distaste for their usage in Irish vernacular of late.

Language drift doesn't have to be imperceptibly slow. Where did you why that idea from?

American English is peppered with American colloquialisms too. It's just the way languages drift. It really isn't a big deal.

29-06-2020 2:50pm

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Maybe. As long as it's understandable then it's grand. Here will probably be emojis involved too.

But I'd note that, as with anything, there will be different ways of doing things depending on what message you want to convey about yourself. We have lots of ways of speaking today that can tell an audience about your culture, class and education. Speaking the queen's English would say a lot about a person regardless of the content of the speech.

For example, having complicated rules and obeying the rules in speech can help those of the upper class to identify each other and identify imposters (not the only way, of course).

Language much more important than that..
Language is what holds civilization together..we damage it at our peril..

Church on Tuesday · 29-06-2020 3:00pm

Hangdogroad wrote: »

Cowabunga.

Dude :cool:

El_Duderino 09 · 29-06-2020 3:04pm

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Language much more important than that..
Language is what holds civilization together..we damage it at our peril..

Not sure I agree with that. But in any case, you proposed replacing language, not getting rid of it. I don't think anyone envisages getting rid of language so I think civilisation is safe. Of course, civilisation will change. Much like languages, civilisation is always in transition.

The Americanization of spelling and terminology

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