British vs American English (Rant)

Started by fcgamer, November 24, 2015, 07:54:00 pm

Previous topic - Next topic

L___E___T

 


Hang on - what on earth are Indian English, South African English and Australian English?  I refuse to accept those exist, in terms of academic use.  Those are local variants and dialects surely?  As relatively recent colonies, they should all be following British English as a rule, I have never seen those referred to at all.

Also agree that American English is the more useful style, for business and online communication these days.  British English is preferred in my experience, as the pedigree version.

By the way, for benefit of other readers - American English (or US English) is by no means 'incorrect English'.  There are many oft-quoted examples of incorrect English used by American people (i.e. "You did great!") but it's a bit like Canadian French, the differences go further ack when the language was still evolving and so certain differences appear when you branch off.

After all, we don't all speak Olde English as Chaucer wrote, it's not like we're chasing some pure form of English - hence my use of hyphens in written English and as I said (wrote!) 'whatever works'.

So I do think it depends on what the core goal is by using Cambridge resources.  It's not something I would say is clear, but it looks like a mix of things, with no set reasoning, which must be irritating for sure.
My for Sale / Trade thread
http://www.famicomworld.com/forum/index.php?topic=9423.msg133828#msg133828
大事なのは、オチに至るまでの積み重ねなのです。

fcgamer

@L___E___T:  There are dictionaries available for those other variations of English.  If they are dialects, they are dialects of what, exactly?  How are they any different from American English?  As an example:

English speakers went to South Africa and colonized it, and their English became influenced by local languages as well as Dutch (which later became Afrikaans).  Suddenly this variant of English is different than that spoken in England.

Now let's compare to the following:

People from England went to North America and settled, and due to local (Native American) languages and languages of other settlers (German, French, Swedish, etc) as well as distance, the language changed from that spoken in England. 

In both situations, the exact same thing occurred.

And for fun:

https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/boekmakierie/Sept15/September2015-547.JPG

Yes, I also collect dictionaries, so I am quite familiar with other official variants of the language.  ;)

On another note, I used to have a South African colleague (and I knew some other South Africans) which would always say the following (incorrect) sentence:  This is a jeans.  Maybe this is how they talk in those parts.

Post Merge: November 25, 2015, 10:02:45 am

Quote from: L___E___T on November 25, 2015, 09:45:54 am

So I do think it depends on what the core goal is by using Cambridge resources.  It's not something I would say is clear, but it looks like a mix of things, with no set reasoning, which must be irritating for sure.



The manager is only using this as a way to make a name for herself. She wants to force the students (children) to take the Cambridge test (the highest level would be A2 for primary education), yet a lot (most?) of the parents don't even want to do this, as it is expensive and unnecessary at this stage of the game (3rd grade, 4th grade...).  As the manager had said to me while trying to choose a new name for the school, "I want the students to learn American English, but want to name it after a place in Britain, since it sounds 'bigger'".  IMO this is not really a good reason to go with Cambridge.   
Family Bits - Check Progress Below!

https://famicomfamilybits.wordpress.com

L___E___T

 
Bah, lots of South Africans where I live and although I love a braii - those are just words, I'm not convinced there's a different style of written English.

Is the teacher British herself?  Seems like she has a hard on for Cambridge standards, which suggests otherwise.

I think it depends on what looks better for the school - I know a good chunk of Mainland Chinese have an obsession with English heritage education, I'd have thought Taiwanese prefer Harvard standard.  Depends on who / what the market is and strategy for the school I guess.  Let's hope they don't see this thread though ;)

My for Sale / Trade thread
http://www.famicomworld.com/forum/index.php?topic=9423.msg133828#msg133828
大事なのは、オチに至るまでの積み重ねなのです。

famifan

Quote from: fcgamer on November 25, 2015, 09:59:12 am
On another note, I used to have a South African colleague (and I knew some other South Africans) which would always say the following (incorrect) sentence:  This is a jeans.  Maybe this is how they talk in those parts.

what's wrong with that sentence?

i think it's okay unless artificial jean exists in the wild. Some objects/items don't exist in a singular form. Compare with gloves. One glove could exist and be useful at the same time.

jeans, scissors are the object that can't be split and remain its functionality.

i can't imagine myself saying something like 'a pair of jeans'. It's ridiculous and doesn't make any sense. A pair of things that can't be decoupled by design. It's a rock solid item. One item. ;D

chowder

Ridiculous or not, "pair of jeans" is correct.  No one ever said English makes sense ;)

L___E___T

 

Like it or lump it, jeans is a plural, so you can't use 'this' or 'a' alone - it has to be 'these' and 'a pair of'.
My for Sale / Trade thread
http://www.famicomworld.com/forum/index.php?topic=9423.msg133828#msg133828
大事なのは、オチに至るまでの積み重ねなのです。

fcgamer

Yup I agree with you guys as well with that sentence.  For all we know though, it could be considered acceptable / correct English in South Africa.  That is my point about different varieties of English. 

From a historical perspective, all variants of English stem from one language, well Old English / Anglo Saxon, which was closely related to other Germanic tongues.  Then due to distance, time, the Norman invasion, colonization, etc, English spread elsewhere and changed again and again.  So from that reasoning, there is no reason to say that South African English or Australian English is any less of a variant of English than the two major players.  It is just that these varieties are not as desirable to learn, and as such, have probably not been codified as much or studied as much.  ;)

Just to branch out on the topic a bit (but since I started this thread, I guess I'm allowed):  before moving to Taiwan, I had been extremely interested in obtaining an Icelandic / English language dictionary and trying to remove many of the French borrowings from English, replacing them with Germanic alternatives.  Why did I want to use the Icelandic words as a source for inspiration?  Simply because it is one of the most conservative of the modern Germanic languages.  I had learned some interesting things, such as how their word for balloon is the same as their word for bladder.  Pretty interesting stuff.  But then I became preoccupied with other things and the project never went anywhere, not like anyone would have ever used it for anything anyway.   
Family Bits - Check Progress Below!

https://famicomfamilybits.wordpress.com