Spelling and grammar on this forum

[Deerfold]

They,as a nation, seem incapable of pronouncing the letter "T" when speaking. Every time one of their defence spokesmen talks of N A D O (instead of N A T O), I conjure up a vision of the North American Doughnut Organisation

North *Atlantic* Doughnut Organisation

I rarely correct people - I once tried to politely suggest by PM that someone on here might want to correct a grammatical error in their signature as it goes into every post they write and I was told that if they were bothered about correct grammar they'd use a checker and I "should take an NVQ in Life Management".

I tend to leave people to their ignorance after that.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

I did have to correct a store locally with a sign which mispelled the town it was in ("Keithley" instead of "Keighley" in foot high letters and not noticed by anyone who worked there...)

And I complained at ASDA to blinkiing incomprehension about dozens of posters saying "Please help us use less carrier bags" (it's "fewer carrier bags")

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I rarely correct people - I once tried to politely suggest by PM that someone on here might want to correct a grammatical error in their signature as it goes into every post they write and I was told that if they were bothered about correct grammar they'd use a checker and I "should take an NVQ in Life Management". I tend to leave people to their ignorance after that.

You have my deepest sympathy, as the comment made back to you seems to be a typical defensive riposte from someone unsure how to make a considered reply.

 

[LE Greys]

Wasn't it Churchill you said something along the lines of two English speaking countries that can't understand each other? (In fact alot of the way the Americans spell and write the date, goes back the way the original settlers from England spoke, spelt, wrote etc. EG they use the word Gotten, this was used in Queen Elizabeth the First's time. We have since changed the language here. but they did not alter over there.

They don't use the 24 hour clock either and still use F instead of C when talking about the weather and use feet, inches, pints etc, although the quantity of a US Pint and certain other mesurements are not the same as over here, again we changed, they did not, also in the 1800s the US Government did officially adopt the metric system, but it was never taken up.

(Sorry, I am full of useless information, but you never know when it might come in handy, like now, pub quizes etc.)

The US tried to copy several French ideas in 1812, when they went to war with us. That is one of the reasons they drive on the right (added to the fact that a soldier marching on the right can use his musket more effectively). However, the use of the metric system was unenforceable.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

North *Atlantic* Doughnut Organisation

The reason why I said North AMERICAN Doughnut Organisation in my earlier posting was to convey the geographical area from which that particular example of American banality of pronounciation eminated from

 

[Deerfold]

The reason why I said North AMERICAN Doughnut Organisation in my earlier posting was to convey the geographical area from which that particular example of American banality of pronounciation eminated from

In that case you're mispelt the American Donuts

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

In that case you're mispelt the American Donuts

I am beginning to warm to this lexicologistic repartee. In your quote above, I did indeed note your use of the word "you're" instead of "you've"...or did you use what is known by them as "American English"? Perhaps the Americans also refer to "Mexican Spanish".

Which goes to prove that the Americans can neither pronounce nor spell correctly (if they insist that they speak English), if they think that DONUT is a correct spelling

Do you remember the film that they produced..... "The COLOR Purple"? I last heard reference of a color being a type of ice that is found in Siberian perma-frost deposits (I know that "color" is an arcane word these days), but I very much doubt if any of this ice was of a purple hue. :roll:

 

[Deerfold]

I am beginning to warm to this lexicologistic repartee. In your quote above, I did indeed note your use of the word "you're" instead of "you've"...or did you use what is known by them as "American English"? Perhaps the Americans also refer to "Mexican Spanish".

Which goes to prove that the Americans can neither pronounce nor spell correctly (if they insist that they speak English), if they think that DONUT is a correct spelling

Do you remember the film that they produced..... "The COLOR Purple"? I last heard reference of a color being a type of ice that is found in Siberian perma-frost deposits (I know that "color" is an arcane word these days), but I very much doubt if any of this ice was of a purple hue. :roll:

Oops. One thread whereI shouldn't make a mistake like that!

Interestingly, for most words where we have an extra u, we actually added the u rather than the Americans taking one out - we had a shortage of printers and employed lots of French ones who started slipping them into printed texts (if you believe QI).

There's no excuse for "thru" though.

 

[STEVIEBOY1]

You can't avoid the odd speling mustake from time to time. As long as you understand, it does it mater.

I don't mind being corrected, it's useful, to note what errors one has made to avoid doing it again in the future. It's not so important on forums like these, but when writing a business letter/email for example it does not look very good if there are errors there. (I expect someone here will now go through my recent postings and highlight any mistakes that I may have made!)

 

[LE Greys]

I am beginning to warm to this lexicologistic repartee. In your quote above, I did indeed note your use of the word "you're" instead of "you've"...or did you use what is known by them as "American English"? Perhaps the Americans also refer to "Mexican Spanish".

Which goes to prove that the Americans can neither pronounce nor spell correctly (if they insist that they speak English), if they think that DONUT is a correct spelling

Do you remember the film that they produced..... "The COLOR Purple"? I last heard reference of a color being a type of ice that is found in Siberian perma-frost deposits (I know that "color" is an arcane word these days), but I very much doubt if any of this ice was of a purple hue. :roll:

Why did they drop the U instead of the O? It's a colUr not a colOr. The curious thing about the RE/ER reversal is that it is getting away from the French. There are months in French called SeptembRE, OctobRE and NovembRE; an animal called a TigRE; and so on. Yet the American spellings (these people so keen on French ideas that they switched which side of the road they drive on) abandoned the French-style centRE and manoeuvRE by swapping letters round. Or should that be lettREs?

 

[Deerfold]

Why did they drop the U instead of the O? It's a colUr not a colOr. The curious thing about the RE/ER reversal is that it is getting away from the French. There are months in French called SeptembRE, OctobRE and NovembRE; an animal called a TigRE; and so on. Yet the American spellings (these people so keen on French ideas that they switched which side of the road they drive on) abandoned the French-style centRE and manoeuvRE by swapping letters round. Or should that be lettREs?

They didn't drop the u - as I pointed out above we added it. And our French printers moved some of our re/ers around.

The Americans are speaking Ye Olde English

And we're speaking (spelling) (bits of) French.

Because the Australians left later they usually share our spellings.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Why did they drop the U instead of the O? It's a colUr not a colOr. The curious thing about the RE/ER reversal is that it is getting away from the French. There are months in French called SeptembRE, OctobRE and NovembRE; an animal called a TigRE; and so on. Yet the American spellings (these people so keen on French ideas that they switched which side of the road they drive on) abandoned the French-style centRE and manoeuvRE by swapping letters round. Or should that be lettREs?

So now we have a Gallic lexicologist. In French, I think that the months of the year do not have a capital letter at the start of the word. You give above three months ending in "re" as examples of this suffix that you made use of as an example.... there is also decembre.

But there are also two months ending in "er"...janvier, fevrier, that are part of their naming of the months of the year.

Remember that French as a language has much of its base in Latin for reasons of religious connections in historial time. There are also words in Old French with its Celtic background that have similarities with Cornish and Welsh:-
...the word for church in French is eglise...in Welsh it is eglwys...you will note the prefix "egl" in both words.

I do not claim to have anything but the merest smattering in modern languages, as I studied Greek and Latin as a Classics scholar all those very many years ago. I am glad the subject of Finnish and Hungarian have not entered into this discussion, as neither of these two languages belong to the Indo-European language group so prevelant in Europe.

Oui, c'est ca!! ( I have no accent (grave or acute), cedilla or circumflex in my computer at present).

I am now dreading the thought of my bete noir, MattE2010, of entering into this discussion.

 

[Oswyntail]

...
I do not claim to have anything but the merest smattering in modern languages, as I studied Greek and Latin as a Classics scholar all those very many years ago.

Hey, me too!

...I am glad the subject of Finnish and Hungarian have not entered into this discussion, as neither of these two languages belong to the Indo-European language group so prevelant in Europe.....

Technically Ugaric, I seem to remember. Not to mention Basque...

 

[Seacook]

Why did they drop the U instead of the O? It's a colUr not a colOr.

Isn't it more like kull-uh? The ending is a schwa - the most common vowel sound in the English language, represented in phonetics as ə. According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) the original spelling of the word was actually colur in Middle English. The earliest citation in the OED for the colour spelling is 1398 while color does not pop up until 1483. This is inconsistent with the idea of the u being added later.

Many American spellings were introduced by Noah Webster in his dictionary (*) and spelling book (the latter sold over 10 million copies). He simplified many traditional spellings (center, theater, honor) which were generally accepted in the USA though some of his other ideas - bred for bread, kee for key, tuf for tough, and many more - were ignored.



(*) If you have seen Road to Morocco, you will know to pronounce this dik-shun-air-ee.

 

[90019]

But there are also two months ending in "er"...janvier, fevrier, that are part of their naming of the months of the year.

See, in the case of those two, I would say that they end in 'ier' as opposed to just 'er'.

 

[Eagle]

There are also words in Old French with its Celtic background that have similarities with Cornish and Welsh:-
...the word for church in French is eglise...in Welsh it is eglwys...you will note the prefix "egl" in both words.

That's just a coincidence though—both words are independently derived from the Latin ecclesia (which was imported to Welsh sometime in the first millenium) and it just so happens that Old French underwent the same kinds of sound changes as Welsh did.

It is true, however, that French has a lot of Gaulish Celtic words such as chène, mouton and habiller. As indeed did Vulgar Latin itself, where the Gaulish replaced classical words: such as caballus replacing equus, cambire for mutare, and camminus alongside via.

</philologist>

 

[LE Greys]

Isn't it more like kull-uh? The ending is a schwa - the most common vowel sound in the English language, represented in phonetics as ə. According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) the original spelling of the word was actually colur in Middle English. The earliest citation in the OED for the colour spelling is 1398 while color does not pop up until 1483. This is inconsistent with the idea of the u being added later.

Many American spellings were introduced by Noah Webster in his dictionary (*) and spelling book (the latter sold over 10 million copies). He simplified many traditional spellings (center, theater, honor) which were generally accepted in the USA though some of his other ideas - bred for bread, kee for key, tuf for tough, and many more - were ignored.



(*) If you have seen Road to Morocco, you will know to pronounce this dik-shun-air-ee.

Is it not annoying that the somewhat more sensible ideas were not taken up, whereas the silly ones were. A "theater" implies that "theat" is a verb, and that a theater performs the action of "theating". Dropping the OUGH in exchange for UF is much better. I believe that they did something similar for PH in Italian, leaving us with such gems as "teleFoto" and "Farmacia".

 

[snail]

He was alleged to have said "Britain and America are two nations divided by a common language". But someone else might have said it instead

I've seen it attributed to Churchill, GB Shaw and Oscar Wilde. If they didn't say it, they probably wished they had.

 

[Seacook]

Is it not annoying that the somewhat more sensible ideas were not taken up, whereas the silly ones were. A "theater" implies that "theat" is a verb, and that a theater performs the action of "theating".

I like this game! Now let's introduce cathet and gasometing.

 

[Yank 119]

The theater is where you go to see a play or film.

Theatre is the art of "in the flesh" acting in a play.

In American, they mean two things. The spelling makes a difference (to us yanks at least).

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

The theater is where you go to see a play or film.

Is it also the name of the room in American hospitals where operations are carried out......providing you have health insurance?

 

[Yank 119]

Is it also the name of the room in American hospitals where operations are carried out......providing you have health insurance?

That'd be the operating room. The "theater" in a hospital would be the reception desk where those who don't have insurance do some of their best acting.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

That'd be the operating room. The "theater" in a hospital would be the reception desk where those who don't have insurance do some of their best acting.

I note that you managed to revert to a link to your original posting # 259 to answer this one, which was worthy of note and not a little humour...or should this read "humor"!!

We talk on here of American pronounciation of words, but there is also the American view of English dialect, which was brought to the fore by Dick van Dyke playing the part of a Cockney chimney sweep in the film "Mary Poppins".

To this day, no-one is really sure where his voice coach must have been to bring out such an outlandish accent that is not really recogniseable as any known English dialect. The nearest that I have heard English spoken in such a manner was by some Zealand farmers in Holland many years ago, trying to explain a query in English to a visitor from Yorkshire.