NationStates Jolt Archive

Why did the English Language and other such things split into the American and English difference today.

Examples:

American : English

Color : Colour
Center : Centre
Honor : Honour
etc

And the date from the English day/month/year to the American month/day/year.

Myself doesn't see why America would make these changes, day/month/year is simple and straightforward, why change it? and if you split the the words up like "Hon-or" and "Hon-our" it sounds better as Honour, so why change stuff like this too?

Does anyone know why/when these changes occured?

It's actually more likely that is is the Enlgish who have made the changes.

Does anyone know why/when these changes occured?

As far as I'm aware at about the time when America was being colonised there were numerous different spellings for such words, americans took certain spellings while the brittish took the others - and then changed them again in some cases.

And the date from the English day/month/year to the American month/day/year.

I think it's the Americans' fault. Day/month/year is common throughout Europe

English spelling was like that before the days of America even existed.

Not at all, American spellings have remained for more constant the English ones.

Why did the English Language and other such things split into the American and English difference today.

Examples:

American : English

Color : Colour
Center : Centre
Honor : Honour
etc

And the date from the English day/month/year to the American month/day/year.

Myself doesn't see why America would make these changes, day/month/year is simple and straightforward, why change it? and if you split the the words up like "Hon-or" and "Hon-our" it sounds better as Honour, so why change stuff like this too?

Does anyone know why/when these changes occured?


What about Canadian? and Australian. Of course we didn't rebel against our British roots. The Americans are also screwy in their measurments US gallon vs British Gallon vs rest of the world Liter. I think that the US also has different weights for oz and Mile compared to the British standards. :sniper:

Not at all, American spellings have remained for more constant the English ones.

Remember, American's are British historically. After earning independence, the American gov't wanted to create their own identity. Before standard rules for spelling, everyone did things thier own way. The "Standard" measurement system as opposed to the Metric system, as another example. We have no real history aside from the British history (which is our history, too, when you think about it.) The day/month/year and month/day/year thing actually isn't a standard in the U.S. It all depends on what school/business/organization you fall under. The U.S. military uses day/month/year, for example, as well as the metric system.

Edit: For uncomplication purposes, basically, U.S. made their own grammar and measurement rules within the first 250 years of independence.

I beleive it was Webster or one of those other dictionary writers in the 18-18th century who didnt like the British and decided to be patriotic by distancing our words from theirs.
Apparently it caught on :P

Actually, during the American Revolution the colonies split from the British breaking their connection. Since they didn't have the same ties to Great Britain as they had before, they didn't necessarily do things the same way. For example, dialects of English changed. And when this happened people usually spelled words the way they were pronounced. Also, when dictionaries started being made, this froze the spellings of words. So the changes in dialects created changes in spellings which were then made (almost) permanent by the creation of dictionaries.

Up until very recently there wasn't really any universal spelling of pronounciation of words and they varied wildly even from county to county in the UK, the American colonists merely spelled words the way their dailect eveolved, which is by now actually closer to the older forms of English than the Enlgih we use in England...

Is what i meant :P.

As far as the missing 'u' in many words, it is the Americans who actually use the purest form of English, and the 'u' was a 19th Cenutry addition, not an American abbreviation as most people think.

Not at all, American spellings have remained for more constant the English ones.

Incorrect, it is Americans who have deviated from the standard.

As far as the missing 'u' in many words, it is the Americans who actually use the purest form of English, and the 'u' was a 19th Cenutry addition, not an American abbreviation as most people think.

The U is actually much older than that, as Chaucer and SHakespeare would likely tell you. It is actually a french influence on Old English which dates back to Chaucer.

Incorrect, it is Americans who have deviated from the standard.
Incorrect, there is no such thing as the standard.

Also significant beginning around 1600 AD was the English colonization of North America and the subsequent creation of a distinct American dialect. Some pronunciations and usages "froze" when they reached the American shore. In certain respects, American English is closer to the English of Shakespeare than modern British English is. Some "Americanisms" that the British decry are actually originally British expressions that were preserved in the colonies while lost at home (e.g., fall as a synonym for autumn, trash for rubbish, frame-up which was reintroduced to Britain through Hollywood gangster movies, and loan as a verb instead of lend).


This here (http://www.wordorigins.org/histeng.htm#amer) is actually very informative if you want the correct information. It is where I got the quote from. And as you can see, Americans didn't actually 'deviate' from the language, we just tweeked it a little for our own use (as we do with nearly everything). We've even incorperated Spanish and Native American words into our langage because it suits our purposes. So actually, we aren't deviating from anything, we are adding to it.

Language is leaky. It is constantly changing no matter where you are. It makes pretty good sense that it would change differently in two countries separated by an ocean, especially when you take into account that they were being influenced by different cultures.

There is another one,

Why is it Pedophile instead of Paedophile like in Britian and Europe including the Greeks in which "paedo" means children and "phile" as in "lover of".

There is another one,

Why is it Pedophile instead of Paedophile like in Britian and Europe including the Greeks in which "paedo" means children and "phile" as in "lover of".

The same reason it is fetus instead of feotus. We Americans are lazy and don't like all the extra letters. =)

I don't know how it's done in America, but basically, if its in the Oxford English Dictionary over here, it does exist as a word and it is spelt like it is wrote in it.

Like people have said, spelling standardized in the mid 19th century, after the US-UK split. I think it was Andrew Jackson who said he didn't much respect the intellect of a man who only knew one way to spell a word.

I don't know how it's done in America, but basically, if its in the Oxford English Dictionary over here, it does exist as a word and it is spelt like it is wrote in it.

You mean, "written" in it? =)

There is another one,

Why is it Pedophile instead of Paedophile like in Britian and Europe including the Greeks in which "paedo" means children and "phile" as in "lover of".
Well, we say "ped" is the prefix used for child, like in pediatric.

Well, the US and Britain are different countries, geographically separated by a big-ass ocean. It's just evolution in a linguistic sense.

Webster made an american dictionary, while in England they made the (unequivocally superior) Oxford English Dictionary. The american spellings of words were set as a result of this.

American v. English idioms simply deleveped on different paths because of geographic seperation.

Well, we say "ped" is the prefix used for child, like in pediatric.

Hehe, the British use paediatric.

At least we're all consistent =)

Here's my question, what's with the weird ae combination letter you see in some (especially older) writing?

Here's my question, what's with the weird ae combination letter you see in some (especially older) writing?


It is a dipthong and essentially used to be represented by one letter.

It is similar to how "th" has a letter in greek.

and if you split the the words up like "Hon-or" and "Hon-our" it sounds better as Honour, so why change stuff like this too?

Uh.. what? No one pronounces the "u", not even the Brits or Canucks who still write it. U.S. dictionary writers simply removed an entirely useless and extraneous latter ('course, they could have ditched the H too, but they never got around to messing with the abberant spellings of individual words, just common suffixes).

It's the same with "ae". How do you pronounce that? Answer: you don't. So it's down to E.

"Centre" is also an obvious choice for revision, since it's pronounced "cent-er," and doesn't have the long vowel sound which would justify putting the e on the end.

And the date from the English day/month/year to the American month/day/year.

Myself doesn't see why America would make these changes, day/month/year is simple and straightforward, why change it?

Are you sure it was changed? I always assumed the American version was the older as it seems more naturalistic to put the month first (the season, as indicated by the month, being more important to an agrarian people than the precise day). And really, the Euro version is not better in any appreciable way. I mean, you could argue from aesthetics, that day/month/year better represents the way we divide time into hierarchical sections, with one contained in the next contained in the next, but even then there's still a deficiency in that it's backwards. Which means, among other things, that if you try to sort a list of Euro dates it sorts on the *day*, which is rather pointless (a much better system for you if you're going to argue from that angle is ISO, e.g. 2005-04-17). And anyway, the American version is more aesthetically pleasing -- it's based on how we say dates, and "April 17th" unquestionably sounds better than "17 April."

Also, an only semi-relevant but fun link:
http://www.peak.org/~jeremy/dictionary/dictionary/

I got a question - how do you spell through? Like <<that back there, or does the word 'thru' actually exist? If it does, I need to destroy it. Please.

It's called language change, and it's why the idea of 'standard English' makes most linguists laugh.

Take English as a living language, spoken by many people in real life situations (as opposed to Latin), add in British and American notions of deciding that it would be fun to sail around the world reguarly and and teach other people English and pick up some of their slang, a dash of non-standardized spelling until very late in the game, and a heap of slow communications due to slow transportation and you get the many dialects of English. It's why England used to be a patchwork quilt of regional variations, and the same can be said of America running from the East coast to the Mississippi.

The scary part isn't so much that we spell and say things different, it's that with the Internet, phones, TV, and world wide movie releases, we're all starting to sound the same.

Why did the English Language and other such things split into the American and English difference today.

Examples:

American : English

Color : Colour
Center : Centre
Honor : Honour
etc

And the date from the English day/month/year to the American month/day/year.

Myself doesn't see why America would make these changes, day/month/year is simple and straightforward, why change it? and if you split the the words up like "Hon-or" and "Hon-our" it sounds better as Honour, so why change stuff like this too?

Does anyone know why/when these changes occured?

Why stop at spelling. Why not go into why the various dialects of English popped up. (for example, cockney, southern english, Afrikaans [not entireley english but a mix], and english spoken in the carribean, and any thing I left out)

Why did the English Language and other such things split into the American and English difference today.

Examples:

American : English

Color : Colour
Center : Centre
Honor : Honour
etc

And the date from the English day/month/year to the American month/day/year.

Myself doesn't see why America would make these changes, day/month/year is simple and straightforward, why change it? and if you split the the words up like "Hon-or" and "Hon-our" it sounds better as Honour, so why change stuff like this too?

Does anyone know why/when these changes occured?

This reminds me of the American-British "wardrobe dictionary".

American: British translation:

Vest Waistcoat
Suspenders Braces
Derby hat Bowler hat
Baseball cap No British equivalent
Rhinestone-studded jumpsuit No British equivalent

:D

As far as the missing 'u' in many words, it is the Americans who actually use the purest form of English, and the 'u' was a 19th Cenutry addition, not an American abbreviation as most people think.

Sorry, the u existed in 1704 when Locke published his two treatises of government.

In the first treatise, chapter 5, para 67 line 18 is written Honour thy Father and Mother. In the Cambridge University Press facsimilie copy. It is not, then. a 19th century invention. You will find it in printed texts dating back to the 16th century (Hobbes). I chose Locke as the example as he was a favourite of the Americans.

Hmmm its the same as why America plays American Football and Baseball instead of Rugby and Cricket they couldnt accept Britishness!

Do people have difficulties reading or saying words with another u or other sightly different spellings? If not, I don't see the point of the discussion.

Do people have difficulties reading or saying words with another u or other sightly different spellings? If not, I don't see the point of the discussion.
Aparently, the addition and/or subtraction of the 'u' in the suffix '-o(u)r' is by far the most drastic change ever in the entire history of the English language.

i noticed the Vatican had the Word 'Honor' but the French use 'Honoeur'?

As I understand the major differences can be attributed to folks like Daniel Webster.

Face it, I love English, but it is a screwy language when it comes to rules, spellings, etc. Many words are not pronounced at all like they used to hundreds of years ago in Old English. Webster was aware of that and believed that through simplifying the spellings and making the language, as Americans knew it, more straightforward, it'd be easier to teach and therefore increase literacy. Also, being one of the first authors of the dictionary in the US, he started implementing them in his own works and they became accepted spellings over here. He wanted to go even further than he did, so if he had been totally sucessful, American English would have been more similar to Old English, as spellings would be dictated by phoenetics.

Honour became Honor

Centre became Center

etc.

Today's halfass shakey history lesson I guess. I know the story is much more complicated but that's it in a nutshell.

I beleive it was Webster or one of those other dictionary writers in the 18-18th century who didnt like the British and decided to be patriotic by distancing our words from theirs.
Apparently it caught on :P

Changing spelling just to be "different" and/or "patriotic" is one of the most retarded things I've ever heard of.

I just thought the changes happened over time because, once cut off from the vigourous British Empire, Americans became lazy (first mentally, as is evidenced by different spellings, changed more generally to how they sound; then second physically, as is visible today [talking very generally here of course])

Why did the English Language and other such things split into the American and English difference today.

Examples:

American : English

Color : Colour
Center : Centre
Honor : Honour
etc

And the date from the English day/month/year to the American month/day/year.

Myself doesn't see why America would make these changes, day/month/year is simple and straightforward, why change it? and if you split the the words up like "Hon-or" and "Hon-our" it sounds better as Honour, so why change stuff like this too?
--snip--


Month/Day/Year is simple. Someone decided it should be written numerically the way it's usually spoken. Only the military (as far as I've ever heard) will say "twenty-nine September, 2004" -- the rest of us say "September twenty-ninth, 2004." The numbers just followed suit. I do agree that D/M/Y makes more sense and is easier to solve should the second or third datum be garbled or otherwise omitted. If I say "29--" and I get cut off, there's only 11 days in the year it can be (12 if it's a leap year). Whereas, if I say "Sept--" and get cut off, that's 30 possible days. It's a stretch and I doubt anyone considered it, but there it is.

Now to this whole craptacular part you wrote about "honor" sounding better as "honour" -- uh...really? Seems to me they're pronounced identically, hence the question about the variant spelling (did you mean to say "looks" better as opposed to "sounds" better? I hope so...). In fact, if the Norman French "u" were pronounced as it really should be, you'd get "on-OOR", not "ON-ur". I've always wondered why the Brits and their commonwealth cousins keep the spelling if they never pronounce those words that way. It's a small wonder, to be sure, but I wonder it anyway.

A number of the spelling changes make perfect sense in the modern world, removing the u is not one of them. When I say colour and color, I say two different things.

On another message board we were discussing movies, in particular zombie movies. On the mention of Shaun of the Dead, there was this one American poster (English, first language) that said he had to watch it in subtitles as he couldn't understand their English accents. I was in disbelief.

Here's my question, what's with the weird ae combination letter you see in some (especially older) writing?

It's Latin from Greek, and if you're into diction, like I had to be for my degree in choral conducting, it has it's own sound.

Latin: Modern US English
fac : fock
fec : feck
faec : fake, with the first vowel sound, no diphthong (so not "fay-eek"). It's a very subtle difference and only real sticklers and those merciless harridans on all of my voice juries will hear the difference on its first iteration.

Latin had no "long" or "short" vowels, and as a result added these characters (which, for you Scrabble players are called by how they look...useful two letter words, those are), which were printed as a blended vowel. Rather smart, I thought. Saved the Romans from having to invent a whole new character for non-diphthonged vowel blends -- the cruel teachers of vocal diction and inventors of the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet, not India Pale Ale, THOSE blokes are saints) went to the trouble of inventing them. Bastards.

There's more, but I'm tired, and nobody but confirmed logophile geeks like me really give a shit.

There's more, but I'm tired, and nobody but confirmed logophile geeks like me really give a shit.
No no no, you have explain something else too.
so æ explained but what about œ?