American and British English differences

[AlexAD]

Let's mix all the dialects up and call that "Overall English" :-D
When I was in Johannesburg I noticed that they use apartment (AmE) rather than flat (BrE) but at the same time they say to let (BrE) instead of to rent (AmE) as though South Africa was one of the British Colony.
That's why I take that problem easy. :-D

 

[davilan]

Outside of the US from what I have seen, most teachers of English teach British English. The reason for this from what I can tell, is simply that: British English is what they were taught, because that is what their teachers were taught.

English has become the official language of the world because computers are an American invention. Computer programing started and remains in American English the world over. The net started as an American owned (I don't know what to call it) idea? project? At the point in time that English became so important, the US was the dominant power in Business.

English learners generally learn the language to improve their life through such things as travel or better business/job qualifications.

In spite of what you may think, the difference is quite huge. I felt it is slighting an English learner to teach them only British English, specially if they are learning English for business. So I compiled only a couple of the Wikipedia articles on the subject-that is not a very extensive search-but it's already 250 pages that I gave to my teachers of English. So imagine how much material there really is, because of how large the difference really is.

There was a recent article that Webster's unabridged dictionary had just gone over 10,000 strictly American English words that originated in the United States. This does not include American English words from other languages. How many words do you think Webster's has?

 

[davilan]

Hi Barb,

Very nice to meet you. That's why I posted wekipedia links that show the different items I've spoken about.

The section on words showing the same word with different meanings was 50 pages or so. Teachers here are very encouraged to read the articles as the information is of high caliber and some of it is significant.

 

[birdeen's call]

Note that words that originated in America don't have to be strictly American now. (I'm not sure if you're asserting that they have to be; I'm saying this just in case. (By the way, take a look at one more difference between BrE and AmE. (How do you like nested parentheses? )))

 

[bhaisahab]

Outside of the US from what I have seen, most teachers of English teach British English. The reason for this from what I can tell, is simply that: British English is what they were taught, because that is what their teachers were taught.

English has become the official language of the world because computers are an American invention. Computer programing started and remains in American English the world over. The net started as an American owned (I don't know what to call it) idea? project? At the point in time that English became so important, the US was the dominant power in Business.

English learners generally learn the language to improve their life through such things as travel or better business/job qualifications.

In spite of what you may think, the difference is quite huge. I felt it is slighting an English learner to teach them only British English, specially if they are learning English for business. So I compiled only a couple of the Wikipedia articles on the subject-that is not a very extensive search-but it's already 250 pages that I gave to my teachers of English. So imagine how much material there really is, because of how large the difference really is.

There was a recent article that Webster's unabridged dictionary had just gone over 10,000 strictly American English words that originated in the United States. This does not include American English words from other languages. How many words do you think Webster's has?

In point of fact the WWW, via which AmE is transmitted around the globe, and which most people perceive as being the Internet, was invented by an Englishman:

Tim Berners-Lee was the man leading the development of the World Wide Web (with help of course), the defining of HTML (hypertext markup language) used to create web pages, HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) and URLs (Universal Resource Locators). All of those developments took place between 1989 and 1991. Tim Berners-Lee was born in London, England and graduated in Physics from Oxford University in 1976. He is currently the Director of the World Wide Web Consortium, the group that sets technical standards for the Web.
As for the invention of computers, look here:
Charles Babbage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Admittedly it was all developed in the US.

 

[The Dude]

I don't think it's important anyway, this question of 'is it a language, is it a dialect?' For me it's all just part of the rich tapestry that is my language, or any other language which varies as it travels around the world.

If a student wants me to teach him English, I assume he expects to learn British English, so that is what I teach him. If he'd particularly wanted to learn Australian English, he'd have gone to an Aussie. I always recommend to learners that they focus on one type of English and stick to it, whilst being aware of the main alternative uses in other countries. The variant to learn is the one you feel will be most appropriate to you.

Quote:
Originally Posted by davilan
I just noticed that you are not a native English speaker-just wanted to note that from what you've written here I wouldn't know.

-- I do agree with you here. BC is most proficient!

Indeed, but still, to an English ear, noticeably not native-standard. But, again, I feel this is unimportant. Whilst we should try to learn a language as best we can, it seems futile to aim for 'native-speaker-standard'. It's not only unnecessary but also simply unachievable without a stay of very many years immersed in the 'target' country. We should be realistic and work towards a good standard of fluency and comprehension, whilst always being open to learning more. There is absolutely no shame in using a second language less well than a native speaker - in my experience, nobody will mock our shortcomings.

Just an opinion of course!;-)

 

[nyota]

And now for something completely different! A tongue-in-cheek approach to AmE and BrE by Eddie Izzard.

"Two nations divided by a common language"

P.S. I hope spamming links to YT videos is tolerable and that I'm not getting myself into trouble...too much. In my defence, the stand-up does include relevant examples.

 

[bagzi94]

If you could write an example in every message in this thread, it would be usefull to me.

 

[JMurray]

As a non-Br, non-US native speaker of English I don't understand this idea that US and Br English are different languages (all jokes aside). I have lived in the UK and spent a lot of time in the US and never found any native I've spoken with, from any walk of life, to be incomprehensible. I may have to listen more carefully to some speakers, largely because of accent rather than vocabulary or syntax, and sometimes ask about a usage or reference, but it would never occur to me that we were speaking a different language. The very fact that US and Br posters on this site write entirely freely and naturally in their own English and yet are understood by each other, and the rest of us, without any strain or need of translation (except on the occasional minor point) surely indicates that we are employing the same language. As bhaisahab says: "American English is no more different from standard BrE than Irish English or Scots English, or even some English English dialects". In the end it comes down to definition but, in my opinion, to understand what a different language really is we need only consider a situation where entries started appearing on here in their poster's own Polish or Japanese, for example.

 

[allenman]

In point of fact the Internet was invented by an Englishman:
Father of the Internet Tim Berners-Lee

Yikes! HTML and WWW was invented AFTER the internet. It's simply a protocol running on the internet. Dig deeper before making misleading comments!!

 

[AlexAD]

Alenman is absolutely right, strictly speaking, Tim Berners-Lee is the Father or the World Wide Web not the Internet.

 

[bhaisahab]

Yikes! HTML and WWW was invented AFTER the internet. It's simply a protocol running on the internet. Dig deeper before making misleading comments!!

For the vast majority of people the world wide web is the Internet, it is via the WWW that information is transmitted and accessed. So it's the web that distributes AmE all over the world. The piece I included in my previous post was an article from the web about Tim Berners Lee, the title "Father of the Internet" was the writer's not mine.

 

[bhaisahab]

Yikes! HTML and WWW was invented AFTER the internet. It's simply a protocol running on the internet. Dig deeper before making misleading comments!!

Yes, you are right I have edited my post.

 

[The Dude]

As far as I'm concerned, being a simple sailor, the web is the internet and I swap titles freely, as do most people, I reckon.

But I remember using what must have been the earliest form of this medium way back in I don't know when. It was possible to place an advert for my school that could be viewed by people who had computers hooked up to a phone line. Adverts were booked by mail, paid for by cheque or transfer and there was no way of actually communicating - you could only place ads or view them. This was a French scheme I believe, and of course I can't remember the name. Can anyone else recall this far back?

 

[garret]

Intranet?

 

[The Dude]

No, that wasn't it. It'll probably come back to me, but by then I'll have forgotten why I wanted to remember it!

 

[garret]

No, that wasn't it. It'll probably come back to me, but by then I'll have forgotten why I wanted to remember it!

Was it before 1990?

Check this, you'll remember it!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet

 

[SoothingDave]

We Americans all know that Al Gore was crucial in inventing the internet. He told us himself. (To much well-deserved ridicule.)

In all seriousness, the American Department of Defense laid the groundwork for the transmission networks known now as the internet. The idea being to allow any working portion of the network to route messages to any other section. So there was no such thing as a crucial link that could be severed and hence limit the gov't/military's ability to communicate.

 

[allenman]

It's funny... I do a lot of business with the 'net' -- and never have considered WWW = internet. But, I am an engineer by trade and was using the 'net' long before the WWW came around. DARPANET might be an interesting search for those of you wishing to do some more googling.

 

[davilan]

In point of fact the WWW, via which AmE is transmitted around the globe, and which most people perceive as being the Internet, was invented by an Englishman:

Tim Berners-Lee was the man leading the development of the World Wide Web (with help of course), the defining of HTML (hypertext markup language) used to create web pages, HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) and URLs (Universal Resource Locators). All of those developments took place between 1989 and 1991. Tim Berners-Lee was born in London, England and graduated in Physics from Oxford University in 1976. He is currently the Director of the World Wide Web Consortium, the group that sets technical standards for the Web.
As for the invention of computers, look here:
Charles Babbage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Admittedly it was all developed in the US.

The INTERNET was invented in the United States. It started as a network of defense contractors and some universities in the 1960s. It grew to an international size after the US government invested money into it in the 1980s. The Englishman discussed here expanded the net to take advantage of new software possibilities that were coming into existence as personal computers started to sell.

The first actual computer was made in the United States and was a punch card system for tabulating the census in the late 1800s. If you read your Wiki article it states your man had an IDEA for a computer. He didn't invent it.