The British need to get over it...

Getovait   Fri Apr 16, 2010 11:18 pm GMT
I'm British, and I think the British need to stop pretending they speak English much better than the Americans.

The Brits go on about how they speak English so much better, and the Americans have no idea about grammar. The Americans don't speak English grammatically worse than the Brits in any way at all. In both countries you get the same general bad grammar. 'He don't' ,'I don't want nothing to do with him', 'me and him will do that', these grammatically incorrect sentences come out in both countries.

The countries diverge in the use of the simple past/present perfect. So you get the Americans saying 'I already ate my dinner', where the Brits might say 'I have already eaten my dinner'. But so what? It's not really bad grammar, just a different use of the tense/aspect system.

Apart from the American tendency to use the simple past where the Brits use the present perfect, the Americans retain traditional English far more than the Brits. They preserve the subjunctive i.e. I suggest he do that (AmE) as opposed to I suggest he does that (BrE). And 'whom' will be heard much more on American TV/films than it will be on anything British. And I wager that even the example above 'me and him will do that' is far more likely in Britain than it is in the US.

Brits, get over it, they preserve our language much more than we do!
Shuimo   Sat Apr 17, 2010 2:23 am GMT
As Shuimo observe it, the real pro with Brits lies not in how they treat English differently from the yankees, but solely in the illusionary mental- masturbation mentality that Britain and Brits should be treated on a par with America and China when Britain clearly has long sunk to a second-rate country that it is destined to be, given how vastly different times have evolved from old days!o(>﹏<)o
Edward Teach   Sat Apr 17, 2010 7:50 am GMT
Shuimo clearly lives in a fictional world. Shuimo most of your country is a backwater shit hole full of uneducated peasants with no grasp of basic social concepts. I am confident that anyone who has visited China but is not a brainwashed ignorant chink will agree with me.
Damian in Edinburgh   Sat Apr 17, 2010 11:41 am GMT
Maybe, just maybe, China will emerge as a fully democratic country in every sense of the word, one in which basic human rights are recognised and respected, one in which all of its many millions of people are afforded a decent way of life and a standard of living which are taken for granted in western countries, one in which official censorship of full expression and free access to all exterior influences are no longer an aspect of the Chinese scenario.......but I think it may not be worth our while to hold our breath on this one.

I do like their prawn crackers though and I quite enjoy seeing their Chinese New Year celebrations here but most of the people taking part in them have Scottish accents and have probably been no further away from home than Cowdenbeath or Ballachulish in their entire lives so far.....perhaps some have actually been on a day trip down to Blackpoool or Scarborough, who knows without asking them.

I am so glad that Britain is now a second-rate country - that is quite re-assuring as we have truly made a massive contribution to the development of the modern world we all now live in...for such a small country in physical terms - a mere scrap of an island floating off the shore of a huge Continental landmass - our contribution to mankind generally really has been hugely considerable and remarkable, totally out of proportion to our overall population, and in practically every aspect of life. Much of what the rest of the world now takes for granted in daily life first saw the light of day in the British Isles.

We have surely done our share, and more - but now we are very relieved to let others to take over the reins of so called "power" - let others have responsibility and accountability - the world is now a very different place, for good or for not so good, and most Brits would be more than happy to stand on the sidelines and decline any requests from so called allies to either offer support or take over when these self same allies acknowledge the harsh reality that the good old Brits are more effective in accomplishing certain actions and achieving certain results than they will ever be.....we have seen such a scenario in the crappy shitty desert wastelands of both Iraq and now Afghanistan.

Happy will be the day when Britain can stand by and watch others assume the role of global policemen, delriously delighted in the knowledge that we are now second-raters whose watchwords will be a very relieved "Let them get on with it - it's got nothing to do with us any more - we've done our bit!"

How lovely it will be to no longer having to witness the sad procession of coffins carrying the bodies of our brave young men along the main street of a small town in Wiltshire, England, as all the many thousands of young British men (and a much smaller number of women behind the battlefront lines) still serving in the horrid hellhole that is Afghanistan will be heading back home to Britain's green and pleasant second-rate land.

Let the global First Rate Superpowers take it all on board themselves and let us in this wee island nation enjoy our second rate British way of life in peace and neutrality, even in a so called Global world. We done our time - big time. If they fail to halt the import of evil drugs into our country and many others we will hold them up to account - big time.
Ching Chong   Sat Apr 17, 2010 12:59 pm GMT
Daman you is an ignorant man who is racist hypocrite like all white man. China people are best people in world and always right and not arrogant like western devils like you. Western people cannot accept beliefs different from their own but in China we can and if you dont agree with this we will have you imprisoned and tortured then forge a confession and throw you out of our country with the other western criminal.

You have no right to judge us for our ways we have been doing them a long time which automatically makes them right and if i dont think this way i will endanger my entire family.
Armada   Sat Apr 17, 2010 1:07 pm GMT
<< Much of what the rest of the world now takes for granted in daily life first saw the light of day in the British Isles.

>>


LOL.


I don't think the English speak better English than the Americans. America is a cultured nation and they take care of speaking proper English. In my opinion American English is usually better structured grammatically and easier to understand. English people tend to use a lot of dialectal words.
Curious   Sat Apr 17, 2010 1:24 pm GMT
The USA is more cultured than Britain?
In what ways? How do you speak English 'better'?
US   Sat Apr 17, 2010 3:09 pm GMT
I think that American english retains some ancient English forms while removing redundant ones, it's easier to learn, speak and understand (from a student's perspective). Why?

Learn:

-Irregular form of some verbs is replaced by the regular one (ex learned, dreamed)
-Simplification of past tenses. Why would I say "I just have" or "I already have" when it implies an action which has just or already finished? Ps makes more sense to me. Also, the overall broader usage of Ps is nothing but positive, it's just easier to say the past form of a verb than "have + past.part." "Do you have" instead of "Have you got" seems to make more sense too.
-Forms such as "I demand that the book be burned right now", prevalent in the US.
-"Have got" simply reduced to "have" (formally) or "got" ( informally). (Have got is much more common in the UK afaik)
-Removing "on" from days of the week.
-Redundant "u"s in words like labo(u)r, glamo(u)r etc., or misplaced "re"s in centre, metre, theater, "ise" instead of "ize" in organise, recognise etc., "ouge" instead of "og" as in catalouge, dialogue etc., "ae" instead of "e" like in paedophile etc., are removed, let alone ridiculous words such as "cheque" instead of just "check". The British form might be more respectful towards the original language, but it does make things quite harder to learn and with less sense for students.

*In the end, even if the above examples are pretty generalized and perhaps often limited to the formal English which is taught in schools, from a student's perfective, I find US English to be easier to learn overall, which is certainly a good thing considering that English is supposed to be an international language. Studying US English would probably make things easier for a lot of students.

Speak:

American English's main "objective" seems to be speaking as relaxedly as possible, merging each word with other while retaining comprehensibility; that seems to be the utter contrary of British English, which seems to focus on pronouncing each word distinctly, to the detriment of relaxedness. This certainly makes things easier for students, as it pushes them to think less about words individually and more about expressing themselves, a good measure against mechanically-spoken English.

Understand:

I actually find AE easier to understand too. BE feels more "close" and reserved, AE feels more "open" (probably because of the wider use of "a" instead of "o"). Also, I find it much easier to comprehend American dialects compared to British ones. Having learned General American I've no problem understanding "wassa madda whichoo?"s and stuff, while I find it much harder to grasp pretty much anything that isn't RP BE. BE dialects seem to go beyond dropping letters or shortening words, they seem to completely twist the standard pronunciation and use some weird, atypical words.

That's just why I think AE is easier overall. Your mileage may vary.
US   Sat Apr 17, 2010 3:27 pm GMT
Forgot to add that with the prevalence of AE on the internet, encountering AE-specific words will be quite probable.
H   Sat Apr 17, 2010 4:20 pm GMT
A stupid thread, a trite subject. How boring ...
Damian in Selkirk   Sun Apr 18, 2010 11:37 am GMT
***A stupid thread, a trite subject. How boring***

I so, so agree....very boring indeed and no point to it at all......I've said my piece but at least British football is never boring at all......not when Manchester United's hero Paul Scholes scores a blinder....and just look at his reward from his highly amorous team-mate Gary Neville....how I love living here in spite of Gordon Brown and Icelandic volcanic ash clouds but even that is allowing our current clear blue skies to be entirely free of aircraft vapour trails and living fairly close to Edinburgh International Airport the heavenly silence if absolutely heavenly...now we can actually hear the twittering of those other natural born fliers......the birds.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1266863/Paul-Scholes-gives-Manchester-Uniteds-title-charge-kiss-life.html
Quintus   Sun Apr 18, 2010 12:28 pm GMT
The British don't need to "get over" anything. Clearly, Britain is prima inter pares of English-speaking nations, and always was. She wrote the book, so to speak.
US   Sun Apr 18, 2010 12:43 pm GMT
@Quintus

WAS, not isn't, WAS.
Quintus   Sun Apr 18, 2010 1:49 pm GMT
"Not isn't" - exactly.

Is was will be.
Armada   Sun Apr 18, 2010 3:01 pm GMT
It results laughable saying Britain is prima inter pares of English-speaking nations when that small island is being literally flooded by US movies, singers, tv programms and youngsters there immitate US English shamelessly. Clearly the linguistic relationship between US and England is more a sort of "master-slave" one than "peer-to-peer".