Should American English be called "American"?

Guest   Mon Nov 09, 2009 4:39 am GMT
"Deos" is the accusative plural of "deus" in Latin.
Antimooner K. T.   Mon Nov 09, 2009 5:39 am GMT
That's interesting, so it's actually "gods".
Caspian   Tue Nov 10, 2009 9:38 am GMT
I suppose I should have used the vocative singular though. Oh well, considering it was an accident, I'm quite impressed with this new knowledge of Latin which I was previously unaware.

Funny, we say 'across / over the pond' as well.

I'm probably not wealthier than you are personally, looking at my bank statement.

Am I to assume that you are K. T. under a new name?
Trimac20   Thu Nov 12, 2009 5:43 pm GMT
Are you being tongue in cheek? I hope you're not dinky dye.
Caspian   Thu Nov 12, 2009 5:48 pm GMT
Which bit do you mean?
Trimac20   Thu Nov 12, 2009 5:54 pm GMT
I meant to the OP. I'm sure most would agree calling AmEnglish 'American' as if it were a separate language is ludicrus.
Caspian   Thu Nov 12, 2009 6:01 pm GMT
Here in Britain, we joke around that American is a separate language - and it is quite different from British English, it's actually quite often that I come across an americanism that I don't understand, but you don't tend to notice because you guess what it means.

It's certainly not a different language, but why not call it American? After all, they still speak French in Quebec but it's commonly referred to as 'québecois'.
Trimac20   Thu Nov 12, 2009 6:06 pm GMT
Actually my initial reaction was that the Americans were trying to 'steal' English, or steal the thunder of English. Imo English is too well-known as English for that to happen.

As for 'Americanisms', there are very few American sayings I don't understand (the reverse isn't always true). I can partly thank the saturation of yankee media for that. But also, American is rather free of obscure sayings (like cockney rhyming slang).
kevin   Thu Nov 12, 2009 6:54 pm GMT
Australian slang is more difficult to decode even tho' Australian English is 99% British, and no one would call it ''an Australian language''.
Caspian   Thu Nov 12, 2009 7:41 pm GMT
Australians are largely descended from Cockneys, there's probably a relation regarding slang.

Where are you from Trimac20?

Ah well you'd be surprised. I've met Americans who thought that because they spoke English they were English.
Guest   Thu Nov 12, 2009 11:38 pm GMT
Trimac20 is Australian.

There is also a large Irish population in Australia. That's why a lot of Australians say "haitch" instead of "aitch", right? However, Americans always say "aitch" even if they have Irish ancestry...
Damian in Edinburgh   Fri Nov 13, 2009 12:09 am GMT
The general "dumbing down" of English Language speech styles since this present Labour Government came to power in this country in 1997, in England in particular, pretty much sums up their whole downgrading of social mores really. It really does seem to be far more of an "English thing", and looking at it from a Scottish perspective I can see it quite differently from many of my English friends.

A new style of speech seems to have evolved in all classes of society in England, especially in Southern England, from what I can tell from my experience of being down there for some time. This new "language" is called "Mockney", apparently.....and its more evident in people from the more well heeled, more educated levels of society in which they have "dumbed down" their more "posh" English English RP accent and replaced it with a sort of weird mixture of the EERP and a form of Cockney style speech they have deliberately assumed...a mock Cockney...hence the "Mockney"....a sort of cross between mega posh Brian Sewell at one extreme, and your bog standard common Cockney Jonathan Ross at the other end! To a Scot it's all quite strange, really...or funny, depending on our mood at the time.

If you listen to the younger members of the Royal Family, for instance, and especially to Princes William and Harry, you will hear them speaking what can only be described as "Mockney", but only in more informal settings. They are well known on the clubbing scene in London, especially, and you can bet your boots they do the old Mockney thing when doing the rounds.

Now it really has gone midnight.....I'm gone now too, guys!
Uriel   Sat Nov 14, 2009 6:02 pm GMT
<<Here in Britain, we joke around that American is a separate language - and it is quite different from British English, it's actually quite often that I come across an americanism that I don't understand, but you don't tend to notice because you guess what it means. >>

It goes both ways, Caspian -- I recently bought a Spanish-English dictionary without looking at it too closely, only to find that it uses British English -- so some of the expressions in the translations mystify me completely, because they aren't ones I am familiar with. But it tends to be phrases that throw me -- I have only come across a handful of individual words I didn't know (and still don't know, because the Spanish translation sheds no light on the subject, either!).

However, given that Spanish has whole verb forms you can use or ignore depending on the country you wish to communicate in (thank god Mexicans don't bother with vosotros!), and the fact that it also has tremendous dialectical variation, I don't see any special reason why English should be singled out for partition!
Jasper   Sat Nov 14, 2009 6:41 pm GMT
☝ Isn't that the truth, Uriel?

The accent on a European Spaniard gives them away in the first few words or so.
Antimooner K. T.   Sat Nov 14, 2009 10:20 pm GMT
Uriel,
You can try wordreference.com for help with Spanish. They have both dictionaries and forums where you can ask for help in English or Spanish.
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Caspian,

Yes, I am one of the KT posters. There are two or three of us. It must be confusing.