Americans rewriting history

[Sam Slater]

When I was in LA, I had to keep reminding myself to speak as clearly as possible.

"Acud dowiya cuppa tea!" and "shut thigob asal shutit fothi!" never really got understood!

[jj]

Apparently Shakespeare's spoken vowel-sounds had much more in common
with, say, modern New York-ese than R.P, e.g. 'bath' [short 'a' as in the
US 'math' rather than 'barth'- think West Country. There is a lot of evidence
in the rhyme-structure that supports the thesis.

[jj]

I'm sure the point has been made before that US English is in some ways
more logical than our version- 'color' is faithful to the original Latin root
whereas our 'coulour' derived, via the Normans, from French 'couleur'...
which of course had its root in Latin 'color'. The 'different than' thing, for
example, drives me mad but I never fear that we'll become mutually
unintelligible [pace Mr Bush]. Several ways to skin a lingustic cat, eh?

BTW Portuguese has a broadly similar grammar but a very different
vocabulary and a significantly different orthography- I'm niot sure all
Spaniards would be that comfortable in the wilder parts of P.

[Sam Slater]

[quote]These are two different languages. English Englsih and Amercian English are not.[/quote]

No, they're two different languages, they're just slightly more similar than Portuguese is to Spanish. You've said yourself, numerous times when debating 'txt spk', that language is a tool to get your point across, and so if a Spaniard can understand Portuguese, and vice-versa, because many words and phrases are similar, then why not just force all Spaniards to use a Portuguese spell-checker (or vice-versa)?

There's no good reason for English English to be omitted because the UK, and other countries who traditionally use British English spellings, are BIG consumers of such software that ignore the language.

Basically, it's rude.

[jj]

It IS rude [and self-defeating] to omit 'EE'; but your contention that
Spanish and Portuguese differ more than USE and EE is, I'm afraid,
frankly ludicrous.

[Sam Slater]

[quote]your contention that
Spanish and Portuguese differ more than USE and EE is, I'm afraid,
frankly ludicrous.[/quote]

Spanish and Portuguese do differ more than USE does to EE, and I never said otherwise.

I think you have worded your reply wrong.

[Sam Slater]

[quote]Apparently Shakespeare's spoken vowel-sounds had much more in common
with, say, modern New York-ese than R.P, e.g. 'bath' [short 'a' as in the
US 'math' rather than 'barth'[/quote]

The short 'a' as in 'cat' and 'math' is still used all around the UK from Birmingham upwards, not just the West country. The aristocracy used the short 'a' pronunciation from the 14th to 18th century, and it was only changed after much consideration and debate during the late 1700's (I've forgot the names of the opposing camps).

THE ADVENTURE OF ENGLISH by Melvyn Bragg is a good, interesting read, and covers every aspect of the English language from it's beginnings, right through to American, Indian, and Caribbean English of today.

[jj]

Sam Slater wrote:
> The short 'a' as in 'cat' and 'math' is still used all around
> the UK from Birmingham upwards, not just the West country. The
> aristocracy used the short 'a' pronunciation from the 14th to
> 18th century, and it was only changed after much consideration
> and debate during the late 1700's (I've forgot the names of the
> opposing camps).
I merely used 'WC' as a quick pointer to the sort of sound I meant.
IIRC, Chaucer's 'a's were short too, also supported by scansion.


>
> THE ADVENTURE OF ENGLISH by Melvyn Bragg is a good, interesting
> read, and covers every aspect of the English language from it's
> beginnings, right through to American, Indian, and Caribbean
> English of today.
Yes, read it. Good stuff.