Topic awaiting preservation: Language Pet Peeve

There are two things that really bug me in the language department. One is people who insist that to americans ( not native americans or feathered indians) the english language is a foriegn language and that we speak american. The other is that people actually believe that there is an american language. The 'american language' is nothing more than the english language with a few differant slang phrases (which 75% of those aren't truely ours by origin). You don't go teach an incoming immigrant American as a second language so he can communicate you teach him ENGLISH as a second language!!!! What americans speak doesn't have words that mean differant things than in english. Words are conjugated the same way, so why would people need to classify it as a language other than for the reasons than they are either arrogant or embarassed that we can't come up with our own original language?!?!?!???

PEN PEN!!! BAWAGAHWAGAHWAGAH!

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PEN PEN!!! BAWAGAHWAGAHWAGAH!

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PEN PEN!!! BAWAGAHWAGAHWAGAH!

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Well, they do usually call it American English, from what I've seen and heard...

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"Dawn is nature's way of telling you to stop using that stupid quote."
- me.

Pen Pen... watching a bit of NGE eh?
As for languages, compare proper english with what is spoken fluently in a.) urban neighborhoods and b.) the deep south, New Orleans etc.
It may not be enough to classify it as a whole new language, but we certainly do have quite a bit of dialects to choose from.
Then again, it's not like we're alone in that.
Must be a human thing.

Cell # 551
icq 957255
msn njuice42(at)hotmail.com

I hate Americanized English. It's differences are minute and completely annoying to me. Tennessee isn't known for practicing refined English, so I have to watch how I speak carefully.

Ambrosius
"Be only as humble as your talents require." -Oscar Levant

There's differences like Color and Colour between American English and Canadian English... how is it spellt in the UK?

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"Dawn is nature's way of telling you to stop using that stupid quote."
- me.

In England colour is spelt this way.

:::tao::: ::cell::

It's kinda like the metric system. We do one thing, the rest of the world does another collectively, yet... they're wrong somehow

Cell # 551
icq 957255
msn njuice42(at)hotmail.com

Awwww, come on! Let the Americans have their little eccentricities with the English language. It is only fair that they individualise their inherited tongue in a bid to identify themselves; to create a sense of unifying culture. I can't say I've met many Americans who boast English roots, but I have met many proudly self-declared Irish-American descendants.

The thing about the Irish is that the vast majority of them learn English as their first language - but you wouldn't recognise it...

(Edited by White Hawk on 08-16-2004 21:24)

To clarify - it's all in the pronunciation rather than the spelling.

Ask someone educated in Ireland to recite the alphabet.

(Edited by White Hawk on 08-16-2004 21:25)

the american language is basterized from british english. its supposed to be...it is how it is...we are over thousands of miles away, it would have to be different then british english, obviously. and there are differences in the languages like spelling, and words. like pants...they are like jeans in america, but in the u.k. they are underwear..go figure.

i still say as long as we americans are going to go about with our cookie-cutter ways sticking to whatever is deamed the latest trend and thinking more like a flock of sheep rather than individuals we might as well not try and have our own language.

PEN PEN!!! BAWAGAHWAGAHWAGAH!

"Basterized"?

I think he is looking for bastardized. Ironically enough, bastard is a word that is neglected in America. It is often used in its slang form and one is looked down upon when using it legitimately.

Ambrosius
"Be only as humble as your talents require." -Oscar Levant

with all this talk of american english vs. true english, I feel I need to say that everywhere you go, there are going to be different dialects, and one word may not mean the same thing in these different dialects. in the states, we call cigarettes cigarettes but I've heard that (and I very well may be wrong) the british call cigarettes fags. this is just one example. there are many more. I'd like to see a person speaking proper british english attempt to understand the way I speak (alabama native, very heavy southern accent)

my .02




...Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most (ozzy osbourne)

(Edited by I X I on 08-19-2004 06:13)

although i do not know whether or not you are wrong about British citizens calling cigarettes fags i do know the origin of why we call gays fags. A fag in it's original meaning actually refers to a bundle of sticks. In many countries gays were burned at the stake, the fuel for this activity would traditionally be a good number of bundled sticks or fags. Thus creating the phrase fags and flamer to pertain to gays. Besides if English is a universal language why make some words mean one thing one place and the same word mean the same thing a differant place?

PEN PEN!!! BAWAGAHWAGAHWAGAH!

I think that they do call it "smoking a fag" in Britain.

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tntcheats said:

I think that they do call it "smoking a fag" in Britain.-----------------------------------------------------funny websites | funny signatures | funny jokes

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That can be translated as "killing a homosexual" in America. Granted, if the person smoking is homosexual, then the fag would slowly kill the fag. Would that be considered a hate crime?

Ambrosius
"Be only as humble as your talents require." -Oscar Levant

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Besides if English is a universal language why make some words mean one thing one place and the same word mean the same thing a differant place?

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I doubt you'll find a language in this world that is perfectly uniform. All areas develop special words and phrases to mean different things. One of my biggest language pet peeves was the eternal debates freshman year between "soda" and "pop". Who cares? Everyone knows exactly what you mean with either term.

(Edited by Jestah on 08-20-2004 07:21)

I can't understand what anyone here is saying, I only speak Canadian.














...eh.

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Yep, we do sometimes call cigarettes fags, as in "I'm going for a fag break". It isn't a strict thing though, as I rarely use it - I find that calling a cigarette a cigarette is good enough for me.

By the way, Bastardized is a bastardised version of the word 'bastardised'. I've always hated the tendancy of Americans to replace 'ise' with 'ize' - but don't take that personally.

I think the customisation (note: 's' - lol) of English in America is something to be expected really. If you were still a British colony, then the language would have been fairly standardised (another 's'), but with such political and geographical separation, it is hardly surprising that the language would change over time.

I have to accept, as much as I dislike the idea, that Americans speak American, and the English speak English. Our English isn't really 'British' English (I'm English, not British, after all) so much as 'International' English. As the English language is really just a hybrid of so many other languages, including French, Spanish, German, and even some Asian languages (the word 'shampoo', for instance).

It is a versatile and adaptable language in this respect. I knew a French poet who said that she could no longer write her poems in French once she started writing/speaking in English - she could translate her French poems into English, but found it impossible the other way around. In her words, "the English have a multitude of words for variations of a meaning. The French have a multitude of meanings for one word."

This is probably why so many people speak English the world over - there are recognisable elements of their own language in it.

Ah, but isn't French the most widely spoken language globally (unlike Chinese, which is supposed to be spoken by more people than any other, but within a narrow geographical region)?

I digress...
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And I use neither 'soda' (which is simply sparkling water as a mixer) or 'pop' (which is 'popular music' here).

How about 'soft drink'?

The Irish call all soft drinks 'minerals'. That is my pet peeve...

(Edited by White Hawk on 08-20-2004 13:37)