Defending the Queen's English

What is it about American phrases and spellings that some Britons find so offensive?

Extremists (loyalists even?) might refer to British English as “The Queen’s English”.

You lazy Americans are distorting the language and thereby insulting the Queen. Our Queen! Treason! Off with their heads!

Why lazy? Does it really take all that extra effort to type the u in “colour”. Having said that, the addition of that letter u does little to help some of my countrymen pronounce the word correctly. All too often you will hear “culler”, which has an entirely different meaning.

There are occasions when British spellings win out. Take for example “meter” (a measuring device) and “metre” (a unit of distance). Here there is a useful distinction in spelling what are two essentially different, but related, words. Hang on, maybe it’s not so useful after all. Americans favour imperial measurements just as much as the British and will rarely measure distance in metres anyway (aside from the fact that the context will usually tell you what sort of meter we are talking about). The only difference being that the British occasionally get forced to use the metric system by those nasty bureaucrats in Brussels.

Other British objections to Americanisms are also arbitarily unreasonable . Take these two examples that follow a similar structure

Write me (surely that should be write to me?)
Call me (this is acceptable and call to me is a mistake you’ll often hear non-native English speakers make)

The differences between American and British English are relatively few considering the number of words in the English language. There are the obvious choices between words such as “sidewalk” and “pavement” or “elevator” and “lift”. American pronunciation is an area that causes a certain amount of consternation for me. Do I pronounce “schedule” as skedule or shedule? I honestly don’t know any more. I really do watch too many American films and sitcoms.

This is where the American z (zee to Americans, zed to everyone else) can come in useful.

Initializing (American spelling, the letter in pronounced as a z)
Initialising (British spelling, pronounced as a z, but written s, pure crazineness!)

Let’s not get carried away with this useful aid to pronunciation, otherwise it could have far-reaching rezults.

From reading the article so far you might think I am more in favo(u)r of American English than British English. Perhaps, but right now I’m in the United Kingdom, drinking tea and complaining about the weather and advocating the use of British English, original and best!

American English

There are about four times as many speakers of American English as there are of British English. The differences between the two include vocabulary and idiomatic phrases but the most obvious and easily noticeable is probably in the accents. As a result of overwhelming numbers of American English speakers and the economical and political importance of the US, forms of English used in Britain, Australia, Canada etc. have become less distinct.
Historical background In the 17th century British people went to the US. They spoke a variety of different dialects but after they reached their destination, their language started to develop independently and began to have less and less to do with British English. A lot of new words were added to their vocabulary, often borrowed from Native Americans. Later on, in the 19th and 20th centuries, the language they spoke was affected by French and Dutch settlers along with various other immigrants coming to the US.
Dialects and regional differences The main differences between regional dialects are based on accent but also vocabulary used. General American English (GAE), derived from the Midland dialect group, it’s the dialect closest to standard, spoken widely in the Midwest but used in different parts of the country too. Similar but not quite the same, the Midwestern accent is common across the northern states. Northern dialects spread west from New York while New England has its own accent. The Bostonian accent is rather distinctive and spoken by rich families from the Boston area. The influence of Mexican Spanish on south-western dialects can be seen. African Americans still live in the US and their accent seems to have a lot in common with southern accents. I also found this video with an adorable British boy trying to put on American accent and it really made me laugh although he mostly tends to imitate southern accents more than anything else. These are most distinctive and often work as a stereotypical American accent. It is by no means a reliable sample of American English; however, it is really pretty funny and sweet how he tries to do it. I just love the way he says “squirrel” and “how are you doing?”!

Written American English
There is also a distinctive way in which Americans spell which British people seem to consider wrong. As long as they may accept –z- for –s- in words such as realise (realize) and –t for –d in past tense of certain verbs such as learned (learnt) they often frown upon –or- for –our e.g. colour (color), -x- for –ct- e.g. connection (connexion).There is a war over past participle of a verb ‘to get’. Americans say it’s gotten and British say it’s got. Also, American English seems to be much more direct and polite forms used commonly in British English, decorated with pleases and thank yous as well as polite questions such as would you mind if… are very unnatural to Americans. It is basically a very British phenomenon as these over-polite forms seem very fake for native Polish speakers as well.

The True Meaning of Ignorance

My cliché-radar has been working overtime recently. There seems to be a real profileration of native English speakers who are misusing the word ignorance. I'm terribly sorry to inform you, but a person who does not reply hello to you is not being ignorant. You are being ignorant yourself, however, for not knowing how to use your own language. Although the person who is ignoring you might be ignorant about good manners, chances are they are simply being rude. The definition of the word ignorant is less informed or lacking in knowledge. We all exhibit a degree of ignorance in different areas - nobody knows everything, therefore calling someone ignorant is not even a proper insult, despite some people construing it as such.

Suppose I couldn't be bothered to speak to you because I don't like you/don't care about you - the silence is just my way of expressing get out of my face. This isn't ignorance at all, this is being honest. You turn round to somebody else and moan to them about how ignorant I am. It doesn't make you look very smart, does it? Before embarrasing yourself again please take my kind advice next time, make an extra-special effort by opening up your dictionary.

Michael Jackson stated in one of his interviews that people were ignorant if they had a problem with him sharing his bed with children. What information or knowledge were we lacking to understand his behaviour? What were we ignorant of? His famous misue of the word ignorant was subsequently spoofed by South Park.

Sometimes foreigners make the mistake of using ignorant as a noun. This is especially common for my fellow countrymen as ignorant is indeed a noun in Polish. Then again, in English, there is the noun ignoramus used to describe an extremely ignorant person.

To sum it up, be careful when using words you're not entirely sure about. There's a similar story with the word hypocrite, but I'll talk about it on another occasion. Take a second before you call someone ignorant and ask yourself this question: is there any specific knowledge they're lacking and therefore ignorant of?