English vs English

[Battra92]

I feel like calling soda/pop "coke" is more of a southern thing since that's where it began. Still, I've had a few fast food joints say "coke."

 

I never really hear "pop" either, just soda and "soda pop."

 

People from Canada tend to say Pop. It sounds ridiculous if you ask me. Pop is something a balloon does, or it's your dad. To make matters worse, in Boston it is (was?) tonic.

 

On a sad, related note since Pepsi used to cost the same price as Coke but with double the oz per bottle (12 vs 6) the lower classes would drink it and Coke became a sort of snob item. They would refer to Pepsi as N****r-Cola.

[Hot Heart]

Seems appropriate: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13863498

[Hocking]

Free-flowing British circular my arse.

[Thursday Next]

First Jamaica say they regret leaving the Brits, then America starts adopting our superior traffic control measures... the days Empire are returning.

[Battra92]

Seems appropriate: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13863498

 

Weird, we've had rotaries in Albany for decades. Wikipedia shows that one major one in the Capital District going back to 1938. I don't particularly like rotaries as I find most people don't know what to do with them.

[Hot Heart]

Roundabouts can be a pain when you get drivers who can't 'read' them properly and sit there for ages but they're certainly faster than traffic lights regardless. For some bizarre reason, a roundabout near us was replaced with sets of lights and it's a nightmare now.

 

Also, did a bit of checking and apparently there is a difference between old rotaries and new roundabouts. To do with priority.

Edited July 1, 2011 by Hot Heart

[Yantelope]

Most people in Texas don't seem to understand stop signs so I think roundabouts would be far too complicated. There are a couple of roundabouts where I live but they're extremely rare and people just treat them like stop signs.

[Mr W Phallus]

Also, did a bit of checking and apparently there is a difference between old rotaries and new roundabouts. To do with priority.

There was a little fact box about that on the side of the BBC article.

 

The modern roundabout gives way on entry and priority to cars already on it

They are usually smaller than rotaries

And vehicles usually travel at lower speeds

Rotaries may have traffic lights and stop signs

Marble Arch in London and the Arc de Triomphe in Paris are found on rotary systems

 

Roundabouts are definitely the best option for junctions, providing everyone knows how to use them, which I guess is the major problem for implementing them in the US. They can be implemented poorly, though, they recently built a 'through-a-bout' near me which is a roundabout with a road going across it and traffic lights (already defeating one of the main advantages of a roundabout) to switch between normal roundabout mode and driving straight across mode and all it's done is make traffic worse, another roundabout near me just isn't big enough for the amount of traffic it gets.

[Hocking]

A junction at the top of the area I live in, which leads onto a main road, was replaced with a roundabout a few years back. It's now a nightmare to get out onto the road if there is anything more than light traffic. The lights further down the road from that have also been turned into a roundabout. It sits on accesses to the City Council, a supermarket, the road leading to the train station and the road into the city centre.

 

It's a two lane roundabout but everyone treats it like a single lane. You get queues going back about 15 cars on each of the roads because no one uses both lanes. On the off occasion someone actually does, everyone else beeps at them. It's crazy. I've only been driving for a year though, so I tend to stick with the sheep and use the one lane too.

[Hot Heart]

There was a little fact box about that on the side of the BBC article.

 

I was trying to summarise for Battra who obviously was not reading the whole thing...but then I got busy with work and just kinda cut short what I was saying.

[WTF]

Butty ---> Now you don't call bread or buns butty without chips. It's a chip buttie or nothing. I've not come across anyone calling a bun a butty without chips.

Bacon butty, definitely. I'd also use it for a fish finger butty. I probably wouldn't use it for much else but I'm pretty sure I've heard people refer to all sorts of sandwich as a butty. Could be a Northern thing.

 

My bad - forgot about bacon butty (i don't eat bacon or any other meat like that - at best beef so that's obviously not crossed my mind, however the fish finger thing is a bit rare, haven't come across that) but you generally don't call the Butty a butty without something in it usually buttered too .

[CorgiShinobi]

I like roundabouts, but sometimes it can feel like you're entering a death trap with the people who don't yield before entering.

 

"I don't see anyone, so lets keep on going and don't slow down! OH YEAH!"

[Battra92]

Roundabout?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPOTg-7pV64

[CorgiShinobi]

Yes to Yes!

[Hot Heart]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/14130942

[deanb]

Pretty good article. Worth a read for americans. The culture impact of america on the rest of the world is huge. But it manges to do it so subtly in UK cos we share much already. It's like a form of osmosis. And it has started to wear down on what england/english is.

Just this feeling that you're in England, but there's american everywhere and there's not really anyway to stop it. Well there is but way too much effort. Battra will arrive in London for his honeymoon, and apart from the touristy stuff of Union Jacks everywhere I'd imagine there wouldn't be much difference to visiting the big city in US. Want something warm to drink? Go to Starbucks. A quick bite to eat, pop into Subway and have it your way. He asks for a soda, people will know what he means. Whereas if we went to the US and ask for pop the waitress would bring her dad over. And apart from "Bloody hell" n "rooty-tooty point-n-shooty" it's a very one way stream of words and culture.

 

It's hardest on the education system. Trying to explain to little joe why he was marked down for writing "the color of my dog is gray". "But miss all the words on the internet say that's right" "yes but the internet is written in a different language". I wouldn't be surprised if nearing 2050 British English is a near extinct language since it's most children who are so heavily exposed to american english though the net, TV, film etc.

 

 

btw computers not having British English as a display option is effing annoying. Sure it offers the language option, but it still uses american english. They'll port OSes to whole other languages completely different in structure and even the characters used. But damn if they'll change a few words to british english.

[Mr W Phallus]

There's something a little twisted, that the BBC decided to end an article which provides a fair and balanced view of Americanisms with 'A selection of your most disliked Americanisms will be published soon.' It's like they just sifted out the positive side of the article, presumably because negative things are an easier sell.

 

Good article though, I'd have liked him (/her. Where does it say who wrote the article?) to dwell a bit longer on actually arguing the case for keeping the two 'languages' distinct.

[Yantelope]

I honestly don't much care to preserve different languages or forms. Seems as though things would be easier if everybody spoke the same language. I would learn swahili if it's what the whole world agreed to speak.

Edited July 13, 2011 by Yantelope

[deanb]

We'll see your opinion when mandarin starts filtering into american English. If the world was Civilization the US would have a pink-purple glob of cultural force extending to the Kepler belt. As it currently stands the US is a net exporter of language, mannerisms, phrases and lots of other stuff. So from your view everything is pretty much the same. you turn on your PC, go to the net, and there's nothing really out of the ordinary. Everything is priced in dollars. You turn on the TV and watch The Office, laughing at Steven Carells jokes. Then feeling hungry you go out and get some Fish n Chips. Hell yeah we got that one.

 

Actually Fish n Chips. Imagine that it wasn't the only example of British English around. People start saying about going out to the pub. your kids are asking if you have any pop to drink. You'd start to feel a tad uncomfortable. Yes languages change, develop, pick up new words. But not on this scale and speed.

 

 

As for your main point: Yes a single language would be pretty practical. But I'd be surprised if it ultimately turns out to be derived from English.

 

edit: or Swahili.

[TheRevanchist]

I read the article, but I felt like the author is just . . . overlooking the main issue.

 

Globalization. It's happening with business as it's happening with social aspects.

 

Case in point: Here in the US, we now have soccer on our TVs, and we don't have to have a huge satellite dish in our back yard to be able to view. This was an impossibility 10 years ago, even when we had bowling, tennis, golf, and women's volleyball already on our TV.

 

Another case: We have, even in the farmland area I live in California, we have restaurants of all kinds of ethnicities. When I grew up, ethnic food was either Chinese or Mexican. No Indian. No Vietnamese. No Thai.

 

Last case: My dad is hispanic. My mom is white from the Midwest. My wife is Russian-Armenian from Iran. My sister's husband is Philipino. No one sticks to one country anymore. We use words from so many countries in our house. We're all American, but we're not a solitary people.

[deanb]

I don't think he was overlooking globalisation, just it's a bit of a different topic for a different time.

[Mr W Phallus]

I honestly don't much care to preserve different languages or forms. Seems as though things would be easier if everybody spoke the same language. I would learn swahili if it's what the whole world agreed to speak.

That's all very well for language as a tool for communication, but for those of us who like to appreciate the art of language that would be a terrible thing. The day language stops evolving (and variety is vital to this process of evolution) will be a very sorry day indeed.

Edited July 13, 2011 by Mr W Phallus

[WTF]

I dunno I'm multiracial based on my origins yet I prefer RP English for the most part. I think language more than communication depends on something people forget to talk about and that's education and culture. For instance there's this Indian actress whose name I can't remember whose blog or something I came across sometime last year and she types lyk dis. Yes text speak is quite common there amongst those in their 20s probably due to the fact that everyone started using mobiles in the early 2000s in that subcontinent and despite them using language properly when they speak and write formally, when it comes to informal use some of them from that generation can't help it.

 

In my case, I'm not annoyed by the change in languages but by hypocrisy. You see I would have no problem in people speaking English whatever the way they liked had it not been for the fact that they use their colloquialisms, mannerisms and slang whilst being intolerant about the way other people speak English when it's not 1) their native tongue or 2) even originally from that country. That hypocrisy is the sole reason I sometimes act out on those people who aren't properly English who mock others on the basis of their English. In the real world, I don't care. I work with people who have thick dialects and accents and often am the one doing the translating for others since I tend to figure out accents quite quickly.

 

As long as I'm going to be alive though I will carry forth the whole Englishness purely because of my education. So if you don't like it sod off .

 

Anyways on a serious note, the whole reason for the weirdness in language is because people have an inherent need to feel exclusive and special and thus mock others that don't fit in. All languages evolve, even non-English ones. In fact in some languages their cursive writing style has changed over the last 100 years because of the change in pace in society.

 

On the subject, computers or rather some software use both British English and US English which at one point companies just called 'American'. The reason for American English to be all pervasive is because of Hollywood but take a moment to realise that there are a lot of British shows that are exported as well. In many parts of the world they do not see the difference between the shows as much and thus their English evolves into a strange amalgam of both British and American. I do believe that many people in the 'West' are only now experiencing the product of such intermixing. Not to mention globalisation is just helping it a tiny bit.

[TheRevanchist]

As long as I'm going to be alive though I will carry forth the whole Englishness purely because of my education. So if you don't like it sod off .

 

Sod off?

[WTF]

As long as I'm going to be alive though I will carry forth the whole Englishness purely because of my education. So if you don't like it sod off .

 

Sod off?

 

lol . Well technically yes that's where it comes from. 'There's the door, get lost' I think was what it was originally intended for before it was replaced by kinder phrases and now this is just well what it is.

 

 

On the subject of language here's something interesting. Beta is pronounced Bayta in US English, Beeta out here, Vuyta in modern Greek and they're all different from how ancient Greeks used the letter β. Time changes things interestingly and in the end we're all wrong XD.