Language observations....
 

Even though we both speak the same language, it's amazing how there are some subtle differences between American-English and proper English:

They say "sidewalk" we say "pavement"

They say "pants" we say "trousers"
............
They say "buried at sea" we say "naked and chained to a metal bed frame with a car battery connected to his bollocks whilst being beaten for answers"

:eek:

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Sounds like an Englishman's idea of a quiet night in :ohmy: :sneaky: :lol:

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TMI thanks R :sneaky:

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I'm still quite startled by this one. I'm still wearing flip-flops - wouldn't be seen dead in thongs:p.

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If I have to listen to Julia Gillard drone on about "kaaarbun" for very much longer, I'll "chain her naked to a metal bed frame with a car battery connected to her bollocks".

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Calm down, dear.

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I miss the 80's words like Grouse and Moll... I reckon the colour is going out of the Aus Language. Hmmm they probably still say it in Bendigo.

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do you know something we don't? :rofl:

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'Tis a scary place across the bridge, that's for sure :thumbup:

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elevators

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Jocks - to us tight fisted blue skinned race - in Oz, undies
Bark - skin
Frame - fish skeleton
Goonbag - cheap wine udder
Pushie - bike
Australian white wine - vinegar with a dash of perfume
Overseas - the 195 countries in the world not Australia
She'll be right - 'there's a massive cyclone coming our way'
Body corporate - **** knows
Fly buys - **** knows

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:rofl: great minds think alike

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Apparently American English is closer to proper Olde English than English is. Modern English is a French bastardised version of it.

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An interesting thought that. In the states, taking Spanish, Italian and Hebrew transfers out of equation, you will find substantial differences even within 200 miles radius. In New York you go to the beach. In New Jersey you go to the shore. Jersey Shore has no Rs in it btw :). A diner is a NJ phenomenon, there are more of them in jersey than in the rest of the US combined. Contrary to it's name, you don't actually dine there, it is a 24/7 roadside breakfast venue. Then there are fizzy drinks - in NJ it's a soda. In Pennsylvania it is soda pronounced with an R at the end. A wee bit to the east and it is a pop. In Georgia, deffo in Atlanta it is a coke. What kind of coke would you like?

Try guessing what this is. Clop - clop - clop - clop - clop - clop - BANG - clop - clop -clop




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Amish drive-by shooting. :eek:

Re: Language observations....
 

Yes, apparently the theory is that the original US settlers took the Olde English language with them and it hasn't had 400 years of French influence unlike Anglo English. Obviously American English has had 400 years to develop in it's own way with it's local influences.

American spelling especially is more similar Olde English.

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I can see where it is more apparent - the so called Amish country, located around Lancaster, PA. It is a closed community, they still live by the 17th century rules and must have preserved the language really well. I spent about 10 days in Lancaster after 9/11 getting sh.tfaced round the clock, so can't remember much.

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The Amish are certainly interesting; the way they manage to stay so isolated from modern culture is incredible - its one thing to do that on a desert island, but when surrounded by modern America? Must have been fascinating to be there, even if you can't remember much!

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Find it interesting.

Which is why you will never hear me complain about spelling, grammar or anything that 'must be wrong' when it might not be.

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Sounds blissful:thumbup:

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I can just see you driving one of their little horse-drawn buggies, dressed in all the Amish gear actually......you always did look good in a hat :thumbup:

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American spelling is and isn't like olde English because they didn't have standard spellings back then. Standardisation pretty much came around the time of the revolution and the two countries standardised on different spellings after that time. One is not older than the other. The US constitution contains some spellings that would nowadays be considered British rather than American.

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Correct.

Spelling was chaotic 400 years ago. Attempts at standardisation took forever to be widely accepted.

Not sure what some comments about the French influence on English in the last few hundred years are referring to though...

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If American English was like Old English it would be incomprehensible to us. For example:

And micel is nydþearf manna gehwilcum þæt he Godes lage gime.

Which means: And it is necessary for each man that he should heed God's law.

Or this:

þa ðe bet cunnon and magon sceolon gyman oðra manna.

Which means: Those who have more abilities should take care of other men.

American English preserves some archaisms from Elizabethan English ('whom' for example is rather better understood in the US and more widely used than in British English); but the differences in literary English between the UK and US are ultimately very minor. You'd hear more of it in speech.

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When I said Olde English, to be specific I meant English at the time that America was discovered. Which I would've thought would be obvious considering I mentioned the first American settlers. So, to be more accurate, it would be early modern English.

There was a good documentary about this called 'The Adventure of English' which explains the French influence and the settlers in America.

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This is a really interesting BBC article on the origins of British swear words. It notes some differences between American and Aussie uses :D

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At drama school we were having a talk with a director from the Royal Shakespeare Company.A student said that they couldn't stand it when Americans performed Shakespeare because of their accents. His reply to that was on the same line as your theory . He went on to say that an American production would be more like the original Elizabethan plays than anything that you would see at Stratford.

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The French influence was very minor and not the main reason for the divergence between British and American English which was largely due to British English being exposed to many world influences from then onwards through the expansion of Empire whilst in contrast, American English was in many ways more isolated.

I never assumed anything was obvious because the historical juxtapostitions seemed odd. But yes, it is Early Modern English.

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What many people don't realise is that the 'rhotic' pronunciation by most Americans was also far more widespread in England in the past, rather than mostly being a West Country/North Lancashire phenomenon as today. So Americans it could be argued have a better accent for Shakespeare than someone from say, the south east of England.

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And is still going on. You probably know this already but few British English users know that the OED prefers the z spelling which most label American. (i.e. standardization not standardisation). You can see it in any book produced by the OUP.

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Thanks for the insights Tony. Always found the 'rhotic' distinction interesting.

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That's more or less what I was getting at.Received Pronunciation is mostly used in Shakespearean plays,which as you probably know is non-rhotic.
The only time an accent containing rhotic is used it's usually for the comic relief in the play. As we all know,that's all that Northerners and country yokel's are good for...playing the buffoon.
I'm from Manchester by the way,and lived in Plymouth for 13 years so I think I can get away with that.

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Obviously the English language was exposed to many different cultures during the expansion of the British empire however prior to that, going back to say 1066 and onwards the language of the aristocracy/monarch was French and only the peasants actually spoke the old Germanic English. Don't forget William The Conqueror was French. Obviously as time passed the languages merged.

If you look at the modern day spelling of many English words and compare them to French, there is a lot of similarity. So, of all the foreign languages I would say that French has had the most impact.

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That merger was a long time before the US colonies separated. US English uses a lot of French expressions in the legal domain along with British English.

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True.

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Yes that's right. I saw a fascinating programme in the UK about 30 years ago where they interviewed these people who lived deep in the American countryside somewhere and they were descended from the original settlers and were quite reclusive. Their accent was considered to be the original Elizabethan one - sounded a bit like a West Country accent with a burr.

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Correct, and post 1066 we're talking about Middle English of course, not Early Modern English.

From my examples of Old English on the previous page, you can see just how much English has changed; from a language that a Low German speaker or a Fries would be quite familiar with to something utterly different, and this is where French comes in.

The influence of French on English however was mostly with vocabulary: introducing thousands of new words and heavily influencing the spelling of those words. We often retain French spellings even when the English pronunciation is totally different. The only significant grammatical change we get from French I can think of is the 'S' plural ending. The only OE survivors from this change that I can think of are Children, Oxen, Bretheren, Men, Women, Feet, Teeth, Geese, Lice, Mice and Dormice, though there may be others I can't remember... (you'll notice even with Dormice there's a French influence (Dor=sleep).

Whilst lots of Old English words survived, many other fell out of use: The OE for market was 'ceap' and mostly survives now in place names (eg Chipstead, Chipping Barnet) but which we retain in the word Cheap; whereas Market is of course a French word.

The OE for Army (the French word) was 'here', which really only survives in the word Heraldry and again place, and some personal names (Hereford, Harold). Many others have fallen out of use completely in the modern lexicon.

The Normans of course also gave us the vast majority of our first names (over 99% of OE first names fell out of use mere decades after the invasion); and of course introduced the idea of surnames so that the Domesday Book could keep tabs on everyone: thus in one village, John who lived by the Bridge would be known as John Bridge (initally something like 'John atte the Brygge'), whereas John who lived by the village green would be henceforth known as John Green; John with the gammy leg would be known as John Crookshank and John who's a bit full of himself would be known as John King etc.

As has been mentioned, the nobility of this time spoke French. It was the language of prestige whereas English was the language of the peasantry. This all started to change as you all know, because of the Hundred Years War, which England lost, and as a result, lost nearly all her French possessions. Suddenly the French speaking monarch was divorced from his ancestral homeland so turned to English as a means of communicating with his subjects.

Thus English gained prestige and power and the rest, as they say, is history...

Sorry for rambling on.;)

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And a fascinating history it is.

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I found out last week that the Aussies says Heshan when we say hessian lololol I laughed a fair bit, little amuses the simple!!! :o

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Blimey, you lot are deep...it was just a joke :lol::lol:

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Well done Hevs,you've just managed to introduce a minced oath into the thread.
When will the pleasure end?