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Same language, Different spelling????

Posted by DangerMouse • 1/10/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: america, amusing, english, General, interseting, language, spelling, trivial

I've had too many conversations recently where my friends in America feel to mock the British spelling. I'm English, so I automatically feel it's right for me to say that it's our language so you customised it!
(How amusing that me spelling "customised" with an 's' caused the word to underlined as an spelling error on here btw! lol)

My comment is probably lack of knowledge b/c english was related to latin a lot back in school - just never paid much attention to be honest. But not I want to know the reason to the 'z' vs 's'; '-or' vs '-our'... any ideas before I start googling...???

User Comments

1/10/09

DangerMouse

*now I want to know... OOPS!

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1/10/09

Epicharis

I don't know about the or/our thing...but I do know why in America they say 'Aluminum' when we say 'Aluminium' ...'twas an error in copying down a Morse code message!

And the 'z' in words is the correct spelling in the OED. I prefer an 's', but both are correct.

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1/10/09

sensico

Your asking Americans about the english language orgins...please, I speak in slang and tested into the lowest (second lowest) english class at my university. Thats OK if your friends laugh at you, just dont get too sensitive. My aunts husband is from Germany, he said the word "scratch" but it sounded like "swatch" lol he got a little mad when we kept asking him what he said.

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1/10/09

sulz

english is not just related to latin but a whole lot of other languages. the english that we know today is a hodgepodge of many languages. that's why we have many varieties. not just british and american english, there's also australian, malaysian, indian... every country that has english speakers has its own way of using the language, but the variety that they use as a standard differs depends in its history. for instance, malaysia was colonised by the british, so we follow the british english system, while japan uses american english.

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1/10/09

DangerMouse

No, definitely not sensitive about the issue. On the contrary I am intrigued. lol.
So really there is no orignal english?

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1. 1/12/09
  
  sulz
  
  the 'pure', 'original' english (without influence by any other language) would trace back to anglo-saxon times and it's very, very different from today's english. it would sound like a foreign language altogether!
  
  if you're interested, you can read this post about the french influence in the english language: nylusmilk.wordpress.com/read-my-research-paper/
1/10/09

ArsenicCookies

I asked my dad about that once and he said "when people came to the US they came from many foreign lands, most of which spoke english. The spelling deviations have to do with what particular group was most prevalent and how they pronounced the words". He also said "that the Irish accent is strong in certain areas of MA & NY even though some are 6 &7th generation Americans because of cultural segregation"

Don't know if it's true or not, but I did note that NY state vs the NYC accents seemed to prove his point as did the MA's Kennedy vs Bostonian.

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1/10/09

siralmo

Bahahaha!!! don't feel bad, the english way is the correct way of spelling

i also don't like how americans say "Zee" instead of "Zed" for the letter "Z"

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1/10/09

busylizzy

The USA has so many sub-cultures with their own accents and pronunciations. I agree that local isolation over the generations perpetuates this. Now there are even "inner city" accents. One set of of my grandparents were from Arkansas and had their ways of pronouncing things. My dad is from Kansas and says WARSH for "wash." I am from California which seems to be a pretty good melting pot and dilutor of accents but then a friend from New Jersey pointed out the words I said funny = AVUH-CODOH instead of AHVUH-CODOH (avocodo), SHIR instead of SHOE-ER (sure), RILLY instead of REELEE (really)... Over the years, misspellings become the generally accepted way and end up in the dictionaries of their contries.

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1. 1/10/09
  
  siralmo
  
  i don't know any of those words
1/10/09

timethief

I would like to suggest that you will find that many Canadians do speak English just as the British do but without the accents. However, many of us use computers that are programmed with the American spellings.

[reply]
1. 1/10/09
  
  busylizzy
  
  So it's the Candians that speak proper English! Mystery solved!
2. 1/10/09
  
  siralmo
  
  what about spelling??
3. 1/10/09
  
  timethief
  
  When I write in long hand I use strictly British spelling. Also I do not use contractions at all. When I write online I use the American conventions with regard to spelling and contractions.
4. 1/10/09
  
  siralmo
  
  i love contractions, it has now come to the point where i am making contractions of contractions
5. 1/10/09
  
  timethief
  
  I used to like them until I saw what became of them when ASCI enters the picture. Now I avoid using them, particularly, in blog post titles.
1/10/09

siralmo

i haven't heard of this??

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1/11/09

DangerMouse

Nor have I!
@timethief - elaborate...

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