How do you spell Grey/gray?

[thaiturkey]

Great stuff! Love it!

One reason why some words with different spellings and meanings sound the same nowadays is that we have become lazy with pronunciation. Take 'aluminium' and 'February' as additional examples.

Now, is American English a development of British English or a corruption of it? Who 'owns' the English language?

 

[GardenerGal]

LOL! When I saw "bubbler," I instantly thought "Hey, is mom'sfolly from Massachusetts too?"
I am Massachusetts born-and-raised, having lived in the northeast coastal corner for all my life (so far). Yet, my Mass-accent is much less pronounced than people around me, and I'm not sure why. I'm more "generic American" in my accent, though my dialect -- the colloquial usage of words -- is very much New England/Massachusetts.

There is still a strong influence from England where I live. The town where I grew up was settled in 1626 or so by people from the Jersey and Channel Islands, and their 11th-generation descendents still live here. I think that many New Englanders drop the "r"s in various parts of words, due to the lingering influence of English and Scottish ancestry that permeates large parts of the region.

Here's an odd idiosyncracy that appears to be unique to people from Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire: the use of a negative verb to connote a positive. Example: "So don't I" (meaning, "So do I"). So don't I, so doesn't he, so didn't they, so wouldn't we...
This is something I've consciously avoided, though, so I grew up not using that speech pattern, though many of my teachers did speak that way!

-We say "wicked" as an adjective that means "very": "There was a wicked big accident on the Mass. Pike..."
-Here in the Boston area, "pissah" (from -- excuse my crude language -- "piss"... "pisser") means "good," as in "That was a wicked pissah consaht! (concert)"
-A carbonated, non-alcohol beverage is called "tonic" (this used to be used everywhere in Mass., but over the past couple of decades, with more "immigrants" from other areas, most people now say "soda," a term that spread here from eastern New York)

Now for some fun with American English....

Do you pronounce bury and berry the same or differently?

How about merry and marry?

Does root rhyme with boot or with soot?

Do you know what a bubbler is?

Is a sandwich on a long roll a hoagie, a grinder or a sub sandwich?

Do you know what a hoosgow is? How about hootch?

Lots of others fit in here too.

 

[thaiturkey]

England has many accents too and they survive even today.

I come from a part of England where the short 'a' is used. In the south it's the long 'a'. They pronounce 'fast; as farst', for example. Geordies from the north east have such a strong accent and private vocabulary that the rest of us can't understand a word they are saying. It doesn't matter though because they talk only about soccer.

Regional accents are to be encouraged but it's a pity that so much lazy speech is common today.

 

[thaiturkey]

****! How do edit my errors?

 

[Bunnylady]

England has many accents too and they survive even today.

I come from a part of England where the short 'a' is used. In the south it's the long 'a'. They pronounce 'fast; as farst', for example. Geordies from the north east have such a strong accent and private vocabulary that the rest of us can't understand a word they are saying. It doesn't matter though because they talk only about soccer.

Regional accents are to be encouraged but it's a pity that so much lazy speech is common today/

Being a lifelong aficionado of BBC shows that get picked up by PBS and "cross the pond," I "get it."

And thaiturkey, if you want to edit, look at the lower left corner of your posts. All posts have a little flag there; your posts also have a little pencil. Click on the pencil, and you can edit that post.

 

[GardenerGal]

If you look in the lower left-hand corner of your screen, you should see the icon of a pencil. That's the "Edit" function. Click on it, and it will bring up a working copy of the post you wish to correct. You can just make the deletions and/or replacements, then click the "Submit" button, and there you go!

By the way, I've heard about the dreaded Geordie accent! A friend of mine recently was in London at a seminar, and met someone with that accent, and his friends had to translate for BOTH of them, because my friend has a "wicked bad" Masssachusetts accent, which to some ears is as thick and dialectic as a Geordie one!

****! How do edit my errors?

 

[afchicken]

lol this thread has a bit of a grey area to it

 

[EweSheep]

I noticed it now LOL!

 

[Matthew3590]

Great stuff! Love it!

One reason why some words with different spellings and meanings sound the same nowadays is that we have become lazy with pronunciation. Take 'aluminium' and 'February' as additional examples.

Now, is American English a development of British English or a corruption of it? Who 'owns' the English language?

According to my History teacher, the English spoken today in America is more like the British english in 1776 than the british english is today.

 

[thaiturkey]

Thanks for the tips on editing!

The BBC news readers used to maintain the standards for good English but, alas, no more. They have more split infinitives than split hairs.

Matthew, America's English would originate from the language of the early settlers who were mainly Protestants, people escaping the arm of the law and poor people looking for a new start in life. So, you would immediately have a cross section of the English speech and accents of the common people. Irish settlers, of course had their own strong accent. Then you must add to that the accents, expressions and grammar of people from all over Europe for whom English had not been a first language.

There are many differences between American and British English but I would say that, today, it is to do with separate development rather than history.