BinnZ Cuts

[fragger]

No GKID, I don't think there is any difference between British spelling and Aussie spelling. Some more examples: Both Aussies and Brits spell this word as "programme", whereas Americans spell it as "program", and I think we spell it "jewellery" whereas Americans spell it "jewelry" (although my spellchecker just allowed both spellings here, so maybe not). Spellcheck often pulls me up on double letters as in "travelling" and "focussed", so apparently it is correct to use one "l" or "s" for those words in the States.

In the case of the American "aluminum", that is actually the correct spelling (and pronunciation) as coined by the American discoverer. It was only after the word and the material made its way to Britain that the British added an "i" to the final "um", changing it to "aluminium", to be more in keeping with the other "-ium" elements in the periodic table such as Helium, Calcium, Uranium and so on. This of course altered the pronunciation to "al-yoo-MIN-ee-um". But the American spelling and pronunciation (ah-LOOM-in-um) is the original, and technically the correct, one. I still use the British form however purely out of habit - it's what I was brought up with.

[Art Blade]

Indeed, the double consonants "ss" and "ll" are notable, I too spell it according to BE focussed and travelling which freaked out the spellchecker. I also noticed the "re" and "er" swap. In BE it's centre, in AE center. Or theater and theatre, and more of those. Some words that have "se" in AE like license are spelled with "ce" like licence in BE.

All in all, apparently the American spelling is more phonetic than the British spelling. If you think about it, the Americans of today speak English because back in the day they voted to make English their official language (only one vote more and it would have been German, lol) but obviously not everyone was a native speaker. Those who were, were not necessarily academics and teachers, they were often people with erm, a less than optimal education and spoke a bad English to begin with, and many of them didn't even know how to write. If you consider that mix of languages and backgrounds, it is almost a miracle that American English spelling isn't worse. And it is interesting that somehow they managed to get (and keep) the grammar right

[Dweller_Benthos]

Plus Teddy Roosevelt went on the rampage when he was president and made a case for removing all those "useless" letters in some words, hence the missing "u" in neighbor and color.

[PZ]

Anything to put your stamp on something just to make it different.

[Art Blade]

oh man, tell me about it.

Over the past couple of years, we had several (I think three) reformations regarding spelling, most notably our German ß which is called "s z" (think of old handwriting when a minuscule S within a word would look a lot like "f" and a minuscule Z would look a lot like a "g" -- stick them together and you get "ß") and was used for a hissing sound S. It was replaced in some but not all cases by "ss" which also existed alongside ß. Note that ß only exists as minuscule, if you were to spell it in majuscule, it would become SS.

Confusing? That's why I mention it. We were born and raised with that language and learned the spelling, used it for generations and now some politicians had to change it. WHY? You can't really say it's too complicated for children as they wouldn't know better when they learn how to spell their native language at school. Adults? If they failed, it's their own fault, can't blame the language. Foreigners? Well, why would I want to change MY language if foreigners found it difficult to spell?

It was a political agenda for the benefit of some idiots, both politicians and people who actually liked that idea. The reformation went on by ripping apart words that were composed of several words, like so called compound nouns or verbs. Now they had to be separated. Hey, we stuck them together for a reason, so it made a difference if you chose a separate or compound form. Oh, and the most ridiculous part is to actually allow THREE identical consonants in a row in one word (which, funny enough, occur in a compound noun so why don't they rip that apart?) To give you an example: Sauerstoff = oxygen, Flasche = bottle, flask. So an oxygen flask or air tank used to be a Sauerstofflasche (2x f, because we'd omit a third f so it didn't look ridiculous) but now, they keep the two f from Sauerstoff and keep the f from Flasche and now the correct spelling is Sauerstoffflasche. GEEZ.

Just by the way, Sauerstoff itself is a compound noun. It comprises of sauer = sour, or acidic, and Stoff = stuff, material. Probably describing the corroding effects of it. "It is a highly reactive nonmetal and oxidizing agent that readily forms oxides with most elements" Think of an apple cut in half turning brown when exposed to air for a little while, or how oxygen can turn iron into crumbling rust.

Anyway, back to the reformation. Imagine, ALL the books from before the reformation had to be revised and reprinted. In a big company, all prefab letters, templates, as well as instructions all had to be revised and reprinted. Costs a LOT of money, all in all. And, everyone who was brought up by the old ways of writing, now got very confused. "Is this right, like that?" Some of the *bleep* was so utter *bleep* that the follow-up reformations reverted SOME rules so old rules were re-introduced. They changed other stuff, too. I think today, only people who learned the rules of the last reformation at school know how to spell properly, and perhaps the teachers whose job it is to know the right spelling.

So much for spelling. Hope you enjoyed the rant

[BinnZ]

 

We had the same language reformation in Holland. Some wise people wanted to make confusing spelling less confusing. I think all they really made was confusion. I don't remember much of what was changed but one rule I do remember. It handles about compound words. As well.
We have many many compound words in Holland. We glue together whatever we like, it seems. In many occasions the two words get glued together with the letter 'e' or the letters 'en'. Example: Pannekoek; it means pancake. Also a compound word in English apparently. In the 'old' spelling this was the correct way of spelling it. Rule; if two words are made a compound, we use only the letter 'e' if the first word in this concept has a singular appearance. When you make a pancake you only use one pan, therefore we only add an 'e'. The plural form of the word 'pan' in Dutch is 'pannen', a very common way of making a word plural.
In the 'new' spelling we have to write 'Pannenkoek'. Rule; If the first word of the compound is a noun, the plural form of which ends with '-en', then you add an  'n' in between.
Well; still seems pretty simple. But there are even 5 (!) exception rules to this base rule, where you won't add the 'n' in between
the compound. Crazy. Therefore I stopped caring for the additional 'n' and write the worlds how I feel like. I find the change silly anyway because in most cases with those compounds you don't hear the 'n'.

Funny enough I had a question about compounds in English. Like I said in Dutch we glue together almost every combination as soon as it seems right. my spelling checker however keeps telling me I glue words together in English when I shouldn't. Like the words 'off line',  'any time' and '*bleep* head'. And I'm not sure but I guess even 'multiplayer' was highlighted as wrong but I added this way of spelling to the word list.
I find that confusing because it feels right to glue them together but apparently it's wrong. I have a British English spelling checker. But is there in American English more freedom of making compounds? Or in other words, do there exist more compounds in American than in British English?

[Art Blade]

As far as I know, the grammar is identical, it's just the spelling that differs. Although I can't come up with specific rules, I know that there are "spelling variants" out there. For instance, spellchecker is a compound noun and it is correct to write it as one word. And there are people who write it "spell-checker" which is also accepted.

[Art Blade]

on an aside: Funny how we mean spelling that needs to be checked. Hence it should be spelling-checker. As opposed to a spell which can be cast.

sorcerer: "I want to cast a spell but I don't know whether it's going to turn you into a toad or a prince. I should consult my spellchecker first."

[BinnZ]

 

[PZ]

  

Not just the spelling, but the pronunciations.  for instance in the north d-o-g is pronounced "dog" - in the south it is pronounced "dawg". I think that once upon a time a respected person took up the pronunciation of whatever word/term and pronounced it their way. Because people like to mimic as a sign of respect, soon everyone was pronouncing it that way.

[Art Blade]

I once watched a documentary regarding dialects and some such. Essentially, there are no dialects in the USA but instead, a few changes in pronunciation here and there, those are accents. It was interesting.

I bet even outside the US, there are people who can tell the difference between the accents of someone from Alabama and Texas or California and New York. Nothing major but still. By comparison, take England or the UK in general where there exist real dialects. Just think of London's Cockney and you'll know what I mean -- a probably good example is the film "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels." There are dialects that use different expressions, words and pronunciations that differ so much from "clean" English that you won't be able to understand what people are actually saying even if you're a native speaker. I remember that fragger said even he used subtitles when the Pikeys were talking in the film "Fight Club." And there are a lot of accents. Just think of FC2, our Irish guy. His accent was so thick it was hard to understand at times. Same goes for the Scottish accents. You need some time to get used to them before you start to understand them.

I happen to know a little about how Glaswegian (dialect from Glasgow) sounds and it cracks me up at times In case you never came across it, here's one example: If you see someone (familiar) eating something that you don't know but would like to taste it, you'd ask for a sample. "Gonnae gies a wee dod a that?" would be perfect. ("can you give me a little bit of that?")

[PZ]

So true!  I enjoy language, and finding the origin of terms/phrases that are commonly used. There are so many variations in meaning and pronunciation that I often marvel that we understand one another at all 

[Art Blade]

 

[fragger]

There aren't really any regional difference between Aussie accents to speak of, but there do appear to be generational ones. There were some older Aussies who would pronounce words like "here" or "beer" as "hee-ya" or "bee-ya" (rhyming with "seer", as in a prophet or sage. I never talked that way myself). I've heard some English people pronounce those sounds the same way - once again, they always seemed to be older people. I'm using past-tense here because it has become increasingly rare to hear it. In fact, nowadays I never seem to hear it at all. It appears to have died out, and I'm glad actually - I never did like it.

Some young Aussies are starting to adopt American manners of speech, especially it seems, young girls. Which is not surprising, considering the sheer volume of American content on TV and in the movies. Some teenage girls take on the cadences of their American counterparts with the same kind of emphasis on certain words, the same kind of inflections at the ends of sentences and that sort of clipped manner of speaking (I don't know how else to describe it). And of course they liberally pepper their speech with the word "like". It's like they can't, like, complete a sentence without, like, dropping in, like, a like every few, like, words. And I'm like, knock it off - you're living in Australia, not the flipping OC (I don't really say that to them as I know they'll eventually grow out of it. And though I may drop an occasional "like" in the forum, it's only for fun. In reality I don't punctuate my speech with the word).

It's funny, but if I listen to Aussies from 60-70 years ago (such as early news readers and the narrators of such things as the Aussie version of the old Movietone News films from the 40s) I can hear how much the Aussie accent has changed even during that short time. I guess we're still a relatively young culture and thus still growing. Maybe there just hasn't been enough time yet for regional dialects to develop, but I have a feeling that they never will. Aussies don't seem to have a sense of devotion to one's state/region of birth or adherence to concepts of sovereign statehood that some cultures seem to have. We all consider ourselves Australians, no matter what state we inhabit - in fact, the state of one's birth never matters much, and often never even comes up. Aussies also move around a lot within their own country. There is a little good-natured interstate ribbing, but you never see anything like the almost patriotic devotion to one's state that, say, some Americans (or maybe Americans in certain states) appear to possess. Please correct me if I'm wrong about that, but that is the impression I get, looking from way over here So in view of all that, I can't see any region-specific dialects ever developing here.

[Dweller_Benthos]

Regional dialects and accents usually result from isolation. Long distance communication and travel will blur a dialect or accent and create a more homogeneous sounding language. An example being the teenage girls in Australia sounding similar to the ones in southern California that they hear on TV. If those shows weren't available there would be little exposure to that way of speaking and a more regional sound would take over or continue to evolve. An example is the sheer number of not only accents/dialects but distinct languages in Europe, where populations were isolated and developed their own way of speaking as they had little to no contact with anyone else further away than a day's travel by foot or horse. Certain regions have similar-sounding languages but any physical barrier like a mountain range or large body of water would be the dividing line between sometimes very different sounding languages.

TV, movies and the internet are going to continue to blur the lines between languages around the world and words and phrases will creep into areas that would otherwise have no contact with a person speaking that way.