Full Stops

[Mrs Norris]

I just learned that you English don't use periods to abbreviate. Whereas we in the States might say,

"How do you do, Ms. Smith?" You guys write something like,

"How do you do, Ms Smith?"

Ahhh! That's just so weird.

[Ariane Chan]

XD You only just noticed?!

But yes - the British call your 'periods' 'full stops'. And we don't put full stops after Mr or Mrs, etc. We may speak the same language but how we write it and all does differ fundamentally.

[Esmeralda Mendez]

gah! Are you serious?! Wow, can't believe I just noticed that.

There are a lot of differences, aren't there?

[Heidi Rebecca Fleming]

Yup. The obvious ones are spelling differences, such as 'favourite' for us, and 'favorite' for you. >< Ugh, I hate it without the U, lol. And 'traveling' for you instead of 'travelling'. The double Ls!

Hmm, what else... I can't think of others, but there some. I think this is a difference (note the commas):

The British: 'I like it too.'
The American: 'I like it, too.'

I swear we don't put a comma there and you guys always do. *shrug* Bah. Grammar. So important and yet you can't ever get it right.

Moving away from British and American differences, the grammar things that irk me especially are things such as:

'"Come with me." He said.'

Rather than what it's meant to be (note comma again):
'"Come with me," he said.'

Admittedly that's one I only learnt till recently. It's all pretty confusing. Even I get it wrong and I have to edit the school magazine. XD

[Ivy Tunstall]

'Defence' rather than 'Defense'.

And 'oxidising' rather than 'oxidizing'. Noticed that one in biology today (we like watching short learning videos made by people with American accents because they say funny things like 'sigh-multaneously'. The English say 'sih-multaneously').

[Mary Evans]

I never noticed that about the periods. In Canada we use proper (English) spelling (woo go us!) but we do put that period in there, that's really odd. But Heidi I think that comma before the too must have been someone doing a typo because a comma could never fit there, right? It would just sound very odd. And Izy, it's the same with 'realise' and 'realize'. Bah, no offense to anyone but American spelling just looks wrong, I hate every time I have to write 'color' in for the BB code, always get it wrong the first time then wonder why my code didn't work lol.

[Julie Paige McGreggor]

haha and then there's 'organizing and organising' and all that good stuff. And it's odd, a lot of common words in England seem so foreign here. Like how we say 'the subway' while the English call it 'the tube' and I never understood why you guys say 'jumper'...it's always kinda bugged me.

And then there's the slang words that have become common knowledge over here...not sure if they're used as much over there though. Like 'kinda' and 'I dunno' or 'sorta'....

I find it pretty interesting how even though we speak the same language, we do have our little differences. It's pretty cool in my opinion.

[Dixie Holden-Greene]

In writing online, I tend to spell things with U's. Favourite, colour, etc.

As for the comma before the 'too.' Yep. In schools here, that's right.

It's because we see 'too' as an 'as well' and you would put a comma before the 'as well.' It's considered a...well, I can't remember what, but yeah.. if you didn't put it there it would be marked wrong on your paper.

Does this mean that commas in addresses aren't used either?

As for the Ms/Ms. Smith thing... I don't do it in general. I have no need to. If I'm posting it, I'll just say their last or first name. If I'm writing it in a letter, it depends on what type it is (formal = To Whom It May Concern: and informal = Dear first name). If I'm writing it in a note... it's just the last name.

There are plenty of differences in the British/American spelling, and it's mainly because of the laziness of the Americans. For instance, 'favourite' and 'favorite' are said the exact same way (minus the accents), but spelt different merely because we didn't feel like keeping a silent U in it. *Shrug* I also think it might be because we were trying to rebel quite a bit more from England - therefore, changing the language.

"Come with me." he said.
and
"Come with me," he said.

those are the same in America. Meaning, if you put the first in a paper - it'd be marked wrong. That's just from plain stupidity.

'Defense' and 'Defence' are two different words for us.

'Defense' is like... well, I'm pretty sure, what you would use when saying 'she immediately took the defense when she realized it influenced her.'

'Defence' is more in the line of sports... but that's just, again, Americans being weird and wanting to differentiate words.

sigh-multaneously to sih-multaneously. I think that's more of an accent thing than the way the word is used. *shrug* lol we like the long I more than the short I.

I find it really funny that American spelling looks wrong to you all but right to us. And it's like "America, why can't they just conform with the rest of the world?" *shrug* It's just our preferences. While they might seem weird, and 'wrong,' we don't care about your preferences we let you be.

Technically, Ezzie - a jumper means something totally different here. A jumper is a sweater in England, right? Well, here it's a dress type thing. annnd I've always called the subway, the tube... *shrugs* I don't think they're completely different - just in different parts of the country.

Kinda like soda.

Here, it's strange to call it soda because it's 'pop'.

In the west, it's soda pop.

In the northwest, it's soda.

It all depends on where you're from for us because we're so diverse. *shrugs again again*

[Ivy Tunstall]

I understand what you're saying about regional differences - those also exist in Britain between countries, between counties and between cities.

The reason why we get bothered about your 'incorrectness' is I think because American slang tends to exude more to the rest of the world than our slang does to you. So sometimes it can force words that are good out of common usage - sometimes yours are better anyway, but not always - and that's something that of course we're going to get protective about. As for the grammar - well, being a bit of a grammar freak, it just looks wrong and sets off the 'bad grammar!' alarm bells for me. Perhaps my English does that for you.

What is soda?

[Ariane Chan]

Soda is soft drinks for us, Izy. Yes, you Americans; soda does not exist in our dictionary! Or 'pop'!

Yup, a jumper is like your sweater. We use both, but jumper is more commonly used.

Well... addresses have commas, yeah. What exactly do you mean?

Nope, we don't have a comma before 'as well'.

[Fiona O'Reilly S5]

((meh you beat me to the punch Viv))

Soda is a soft drink (or do you call it a fizzy drink? I know someone told me that once I think). Anyway it's your Coke or Pepsi products. The states range everywhere from using the words soda, pop, soda pop, soft drinks, and just using coke.

Now, as for this whole discussion. Izy you talk about the American language forcing good words out of use. That has been done for thousands of years by a lot of different cultures. It happens that way when you have diverse individuals. The difference in this case is that we're now a world based on cross cultural communication. We'll certainly have words issued in and words issued out just with that alone.

Also, the differences between American English and British English were pinned down with the first American dictionary, published sometime in the early 1800s. It was created to formalize the differences in spelling, pronunciation, and so on for Americans. In a way I think Dixie is right when she talks about it being a form of rebellion for the States. After all, at this point in time America was trying to differentiate it's self from Britain as much as possible.

Overall, I don't believe there is any one country or culture to point fingers at for not using proper English. In America, we are taught, as to our rules, proper English and though it varies from the British proper English there is no clear standardization of English that has been adopted by all countries leaving it as is. As I've noticed over the last three years of role playing on such a diverse website we, Americans, are more prone to accept the British English spelling as opposed to you accepting the American English spelling, which I find oddly entertaining.

*Shrugs*

Who really knows why that is however. I guess we'll just all have to remember what George Bernard Shaw said, "England and America are two countries divided by a common language."

[Mary Evans]

Haha, that is a great quote Fiona

And I think Izy is right that we all get defensive because there is so much, too much in my personal opinion, American culture in our societies, especially Canadian as we are right here above you. And while I have no qualms with American culture in principle, I would rather have Canadian culture myself because... I'm Canadian. But of course Canadian culture, and Canadian tv, and Canadian music, and Canadian anything tend to be pushed aside for American because... you guys have more money to be honest. You guys can and will push harder and so ours are pushed out. So we get defensive about protecting what's ours, those of us who care at least (a rare breed I will admit).

As well, on a somewhat related note, to anyone interested in essays or George Orwell I would suggest Politics of the English Language. I read it in Lit a few years back and found it quite funny, especially in how relevant it still is despite having been written in the '40s. It's true, language will always change, and there are those of us who will always fight it

Oh and, finally, that makes sense now about the comma, thanks Dixie.

[Dixie Holden-Greene]

....

*laughs*

we have more money?

we[/u][/b] have more money?!

seriously?

wow...

no.. we're on the brink of yet another great depression. we're in our third recession in the past 30 or so years. plus, we're in a debt that covers about a trillion dollars. plus all the disaster damage that we have to fix up.

no, trust me, we have less money than you guys seem to think we do.

we're a very very poor country.

we have NO money. we are spending 'money' that doesn't exist...it's sad.

I think the bigger term would be, we're bigger... not in size - in population.

and you're welcome.

[Ruby Lehane]

I couldn't have said it better myself Dixie. I think, however, that what ya'all are getting at is that America is more publicized...we are more commercialized than other countries. We have more opportunities to experience a wide variety of film and television and because of that we don't necessarily focus on foreign films and television, unlike other countries who pull films and television shows from America for viewing in their countries. I don't believe that blaming America for a different countries own decisions to publicize the American culture is right. No I don't agree with the pushing out of other peoples culture (which if you get me going will become a very touchy subject considering of where I live and my own bias opinions), but it's not our fault that other countries feel the necessity to view our culture...

BTW...the same could have been said of any great influencing country in the past, like England.

[Cassandra Blackfire G7]

Ah!!! Ruby said ya'll!

A Southern girl after my own heart! Tennessee represent!

[Ruby Lehane]

Lmao...I'm actually not from the South...just a country girl born and raised in Colorado. Funny though I still say ya'all.

[Mrs Norris]

Sept 17, 2008 22:25:45 GMT Ivy Tunstall said:

And 'oxidising' rather than 'oxidizing'. Noticed that one in biology today (we like watching short learning videos made by people with American accents because they say funny things like 'sigh-multaneously'. The English say 'sih-multaneously').

What?! It's a hard I so that's why we say 'sigh-multaneously'. I can't even say it without the hard I.

'Sih-multaneously' indeed.

[Liam Angelus G5]

Well, I guess I had better put my two cents in.

First of all, Dixie, in the States the debt we owe is nearly $11 trillion.

Now, I don't know how many other people have been raised such as I, being born in Scotland and raised all over the world, but my entire vocabulary is entirely screwed up, as is my accent, another story, but I find myself using many different spellings, pronunciations, and punctuations in my every day us of the English language.

And as for the whole:

British: 'I like it too.'
American: 'I like it, too.'

The comma is there because the 'too' means 'also'.

Anyway, there is my two cents worth.

[ryo]

I think these can not change almost everything? Right? I remember just it:

color & colour ..

Oh! I forgot which one is which language. I think it's difficult as Turkish Language. But Turkish is not like English, as example:

þ , ç , i , ö , ü , ð .. exc. These are not in English.. Perhaps because of Tuskish characters, its won't be here. I just tried.