Do the Americans speak English better than the British?

Adam   Sat May 27, 2006 5:44 pm GMT
And it's "defendent", not "defendant."

Sheesh. Americans and their "knowledge" of the English language.
Uriel   Sat May 27, 2006 10:12 pm GMT
<<Uriel:

I wouldn't make to much of this. The level of literacy in the English language - whether in Britain or the colonies - was not very high in the 18th Century. >>


I wouldn't make too much of it either ;) , and it certainly doesn't have any bearing on contemporary life. I just thought it was an interesting thing to put in a historical novel, since the author himself is English, and he was obviously trying to make a comment. And it tied in with some of Aquatar's comments as well.
D6270BC   Sat May 27, 2006 10:42 pm GMT
Uriel:

I seem to have a problem with my PC tonight.

Is there a lot of odd, addlepated random text showing up on your monitor too?

Oh wait, never mind.

It's only Adam.
Tyrone   Sat May 27, 2006 11:57 pm GMT
Oh look, I'm back at antimoon, after Kirk (still the lamest roommate ever, God love him) pointed out to me an egregious moment of idiocy on behalf of Brennus (my least favorite Celtic chieftain anyway).

C'est vrai, greg, c'est vrai. It is a massacre indeed.

Brennus, you wrote:

"I remember reading an article in 1968 which said that despite all of the complaining by Black Americans about second class citizenship status, the average Black kid in the U.S. still had a better chance of going to college than the average White kid in England."

You may want to keep in mind the cultural context of 1968 and that articles certainly may not reflect actual objective truth. And this quote just betrays your ignorance. Complaining? As an African-American, I'm annoyed, irritated and more importantly astonished at your condescention. It must've been hard for those black Americans, complaining all the time about racism. I understand that you're trying to point out what you conceive as a greater educational egalitarianism in the United Kingdom (which I assume you meant, instead of England) than compared to the United States, but honestly, my dear Brennus, a singular article written in the midst of the civil rights movement and with the attendant prejudicial influences on either side is not necessarily the best prop to your argument.

I'm back to reading on Victorian colonialism, and drinking my amarula. I miss South Africa. And antimoon. How are the rest of all of you?

--Tyrone.
Niall   Sun May 28, 2006 8:43 am GMT
You'll be from Ireland, than, with a name like that.
Uriel   Sun May 28, 2006 2:07 pm GMT
D6270BC: yeah, I get that static on my computer, too. I just scroll past without stopping, and it just fades into the background.
D6280BK   Sun May 28, 2006 3:53 pm GMT
Incidentally,

26,500,000 Google hits for "defendant"

1,810,000 Google hits for "defendent"

Sheesh. Adam and his "knowledge" of the English language.
Candy   Sun May 28, 2006 4:08 pm GMT
<<And it's "defendent", not "defendant." >>

Nooo, it's 'defendAnt'.
Adam   Sun May 28, 2006 6:27 pm GMT
As my many postings have clearly shown, only we British people speak, write and spell our great English language correctly.

But it is sadly true that the non-English elements of Britain, the Scottish, the Irish and worst of all the Welsh, have the most difficulty with English.

It is their simplified forms of our language that have had the most influence on the American dialect and are responsible for its sloppiness and crudity of expression.
Aquatar   Sun May 28, 2006 8:39 pm GMT
Adam

'But it is sadly true that the non-English elements of Britain, the Scottish, the Irish and worst of all the Welsh, have the most difficulty with English.

It is their simplified forms of our language that have had the most influence on the American dialect and are responsible for its sloppiness and crudity of expression'.

Please provide some comparative examples of this.
Adam   Sun May 28, 2006 10:09 pm GMT
Examples are 'gonna' and 'wanna' which came to America with the Irish in the Nineteenth Century.
Kirk   Sun May 28, 2006 10:23 pm GMT
<<Please provide some comparative examples of this.>>

Aquatar, I know you're relatively new here but most of us have found that it's not worth even trying to have a reasonable discussion with Adam. He just posts his ill-informed/skewed nonsense and we ignore it and go on. Works well enough.
Bob   Wed May 31, 2006 10:00 pm GMT
I think Americans are taught better in their English classes in their schools. In England people learn about poetry and shakespeare more than actually concentrating on correct grammar and how to speak properly.
scotty   Thu Jun 01, 2006 6:48 pm GMT
Do you have any idea how many gramtical errors there are in your posting?? Hmmmm.....
Damian in Edinburgh   Thu Jun 01, 2006 7:08 pm GMT
I think that Americans often do appear to speak a higher standard of English than we do, going by what I hear on TV and radio. This has nothing whatsoever to do with accent...more the confident way in which they express themselves without having to hesitate from time to time as they search for an appropriate word. Just listen to some general discussions involving audience participation on TV, or even radio phone-ins involving transAtlantic two way discussions. (Radio TalkSport is a good case in point.....late nights are devoted to all topics discussion and several times a week the London station is linked to one in Los Angeles).

Very often the Americans say their piece quite eloquently (again ignoring the accent) while some of the Brits stumble over their words a wee bit and do the erm, hum - ha type of thing in a whole range of accents.

I don't know if the US station screens their callers for such eloquence of style and verbal presentation beforehand and diss the mumblers before going on air, while the London station allows anyone to come on as long as their viewpoints are relevant to what's being discussed, whether or not they ever went to elocution classes.