British vs. American spelling
Jan 29th 2021, 1:56 pm
#76
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Re: British vs. American spelling
I struggle with this one when I try to work out if I'm being British or American.
"I et my lunch at 12 noon" - indicating a thing that happened in the past. Is this the passe simple/historique (sorry, French A level, not sure about the English grammar of it) equivalent? And is "I ate my lunch" the American way of saying it, or just a different English way of saying it?
"I et my lunch at 12 noon" - indicating a thing that happened in the past. Is this the passe simple/historique (sorry, French A level, not sure about the English grammar of it) equivalent? And is "I ate my lunch" the American way of saying it, or just a different English way of saying it?
perfect = I have et my lunch (or eaten)
imperfect = I et my lunch (or ate)
Jan 29th 2021, 2:04 pm
#77
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Re: British vs. American spelling
"Ate" or "Et" -- British Library Mulls Pronunciation
Jan 29th 2021, 2:23 pm
#78
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Re: British vs. American spelling
"Et" sounds very dialect to me, though I gather it is just old fashioned (which dialect so often is--like "gotten," which my father told me his mother had used way back when after I had said I disliked its usage in the US).
"Ate" or "Et" -- British Library Mulls Pronunciation
"Ate" or "Et" -- British Library Mulls Pronunciation
In turn, the young linguistic upstarts often influence the mother tongue. Britons increasingly pronounce “schedule” in the American way – “schedule” rather than “shedule.”
Jan 29th 2021, 2:53 pm
#79
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Re: British vs. American spelling
"Et" sounds very dialect to me, though I gather it is just old fashioned (which dialect so often is--like "gotten," which my father told me his mother had used way back when after I had said I disliked its usage in the US).
"Ate" or "Et" -- British Library Mulls Pronunciation
"Ate" or "Et" -- British Library Mulls Pronunciation
Jan 29th 2021, 4:09 pm
#81
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Re: British vs. American spelling
Schedule is a funny one. I’ve always pronounced it the “American “ way, skedyule. Literally the only place where I’ve consistently heard it pronounced “shedyule” is CBC Radio - I think in some ways they’re more British than the BBC.
Jan 29th 2021, 4:51 pm
#82
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Re: British vs. American spelling
Despite all my decades of total US immersion, I still say shedyule!
Jan 29th 2021, 5:25 pm
#86
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Re: British vs. American spelling
So to me it's:
perfect - I have eaten my lunch (compound verb)
simple past - I et or ate my lunch (it happened in the past at a distinct, finite, moment in time)
past imperfect - I was eating my lunch ("when the door burst open and the cat came in," for example)
I have et my lunch sounds regional to me.
Apologies for all grammar nazi elements here. This was just the way I learned to remember the differences when I learned French, so I would have some hope of getting my French verbs right.
Jan 29th 2021, 7:04 pm
#88
Deep in the woods of CT
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Re: British vs. American spelling
I am imagining you saying that with a wonderful accent!!!!
But Buckinghamshire Boy says that he has always used the K sound, and going by his name he's from the sceptered isle . . .
Jan 29th 2021, 7:24 pm
#89
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Re: British vs. American spelling
I am interested in that expression "dinky-di" I know the meaning and have heard it often but what is the etymology ?
Jan 29th 2021, 8:45 pm
#90
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Re: British vs. American spelling
Off on a tangent, here, onto the subject of the unmentionable cheese whose process was reportedly invented by a Mr Coon, in the USA... I had never heard his name used in vain - in any vein, really - in any context during my 23 years growing up in Queensland, although a friend of mine told me on the phone last week that she had heard it. Strange, that.
