This Forum should be recalled American not English

Guest   Mon Jun 04, 2007 12:33 pm GMT
Why should we continue to call this langauge English when it's majority is American?

We should be encourging the plight of our language and recall it American for the benefit of majority.

I have refused to state that I speak "English" but American when answering other people/forms/etc.
meez   Mon Jun 04, 2007 12:52 pm GMT
According to your logic we should call it Indian then....
Pub Lunch   Mon Jun 04, 2007 2:05 pm GMT
AAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!
Damian in Edinburgh   Mon Jun 04, 2007 2:58 pm GMT
Call your own personal form of spoken Language whatever you (BLEEPING) well like, Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms Guest - American is great if indeed American you are. You are totally at liberty to completely ignore its origins.

What exactly do you mean by "majority" anyway? I hope you're not suggesting that Americans (ie the citizens of the United States) make up the majority of the world's native speakers of what is universally recognised as the English Language? If so I reckon you are incorrect if you tot up all other native English speakers throughout the planet.

If you feel that strongly about it why not ask for a separate section to be opened up in Antimoon dedicated to the American Language. We will then have three subsections:

English
Other Languages
American

Sounds cool to me. I'm all for it. It should greatly ease the pressure in this ENGLISH thread. :-) I may pop into the American section from time to time just for a wee butchers but don't expect me to post in it.

You'd be very happy with a notice which is still in the window of a store here in Central Edinburgh:

"We speak English /French / German / Spanish / Italian / Dutch / American"

That should make you mega happy.
Sarcastic Northwesterner   Mon Jun 04, 2007 9:21 pm GMT
The thing is that Americans don't want to rename the English language "American". The suggestion to do so always seems to be brought up by a foreigner, I've noticed. I suppose the Australians want to rename their rendition of the language "Australian"?
Andy   Mon Jun 04, 2007 9:27 pm GMT
That's the dumbest thing I've read since "let's say BERK as a greeting"
Travis   Mon Jun 04, 2007 9:40 pm GMT
>>The thing is that Americans don't want to rename the English language "American". The suggestion to do so always seems to be brought up by a foreigner, I've noticed. I suppose the Australians want to rename their rendition of the language "Australian"?<<

I have to agree on this one myself. While there might be some English dialects on opposite sides of the Atlantic which are not mutually crossintelligible (such as, for example, having a Yooper speak with a Tynsider perhaps), for the most part English dialects are more crossintelligible across the Atlantic on average than, say, High German dialects are with each other. Furthermore, crossintelligiblity of English dialects *within* the UK or the US may at times be worse than one's average luck with an English-speaker on the opposite side of the pond.

With all of this combined with the fact that the *vast* majority of English-speakers in the US consider themselves as speaking *English* and have no interest in any kind of linguistic separatism at all aside from the usual nonsense about whether it's spelled "theater" or "theatre" (which doesn't count here). Even after enough time has passed for there to be truly significant dialect divergence between North American English and English English, I somehow do not imagine there being much political impetus for renaming what is spoken here "American", especially as people will still likely be able to read what each other write even if they have difficulty understanding each others' speech.
Guest   Mon Jun 04, 2007 9:54 pm GMT
If people would stop speaking the bad English that you guys call dialects, everyone would keep understanding everyone else forever.
Travis   Mon Jun 04, 2007 10:04 pm GMT
>>If people would stop speaking the bad English that you guys call dialects, everyone would keep understanding everyone else forever.<<

And just how do you define "bad English" anyways, and just why should we speak whatever you happen to arbitrary anoint as such rather than our own native dialects and like?
M56   Mon Jun 04, 2007 10:48 pm GMT
<Why should we continue to call this langauge English when it's majority is American?

We should be encourging the plight of our language and recall it American for the benefit of majority.

I have refused to state that I speak "English" but American when answering other people/forms/etc.>

Yawn!

Why do you call the USA America? America is the continent? Hey, why not ask USAers to go back a few hundred years and invent their own language? After all, they did steal "ours".

LOL!
Pay Tree Ot   Mon Jun 04, 2007 11:45 pm GMT
U shood start bai kree-ating yor oun speling sistam.
Uriel   Tue Jun 05, 2007 3:47 am GMT
I think we did. Dropped all those U's and switched our RE's.
Pay Tree   Tue Jun 05, 2007 4:06 am GMT
I wander if I keap ryting laik dis its stil konsiderd inglish? Is it de speling dat maekes de language or it just has to bea compreensible?...
Uriel   Tue Jun 05, 2007 4:55 am GMT
So, you don't say the H in comprehensible?
Travis   Tue Jun 05, 2007 5:18 am GMT
It duzzent matter hau wurdz aar ritten in e given oarthógraffi - it iz stil dhe seem langgwidj wun wei oar enúdher, no matter hau it happenz tu be rêprezéntid in raiting.