American and British English!!!

[Dawnstorm]

Or maybe it's because France and Britain aren't exactly culturally enarmoured with each other? Except for the Concorde.

Austrian teacher's, in my experience, emphasise British English (and so, generally, do schoolbooks). But teachers normally accept American English, too, without any fuss.

 

[MrBF1V3]

On the other hand, try to use an anglicism in an American school, ... the resulting blow up is well worth the detention. I often note the differences in spelling, and treat it about like I would treat someone speaking with an accent.

(...Or is it an anglicizm?) I guess here they emphasize American English.

B5

 

[kged]

I hate to sound parochial, but I do hate it when Americanisms come into common speech over here. "HAPP-ynooyear" is common here now (stress on the "HAPP", for some ungodly reason), and the correct pronunciation of the word "project" ("pro-ject", not "prodject") seems to have disappeared entirely. I blame Friends.

Note: anyone annoyed by my pettiness in this post may take reassurance from the fact that I grew up in central Manchester, and my natural accent is almost completely incomprehensible to anyone born more than 2 miles from Piccadilly Gardens, thus rendering my complaints about pronounciation entirely invalid.

 

[FuzzBunneh]

the correct pronunciation of the word "project" ("pro-ject", not "prodject") seems to have disappeared entirely. I blame Friends.

I wasn't even aware that pronunciation existed!

 

[Optimutt]

To say nothing of slang!

I've got a Brit buddy here who whips out random tidbits like "boot", "fag", ""rubbish", "fanny", "la" like it's second nature. For we ignant Americans, they are, respectively, "car trunk", "cigarette", "crap/trash", "pussy", and... who knows WHAT "la" is. It sounds cool when Sean says it, though. Kind of like a random dialectical ending for the sake of it, much in the same style as the Canadian "Eh?".

Still good fun. And for the record, I dig the Brit spellings of things like "colour", though their "aluminimuminuminumin" is a walking engma.

 

[kged]

But it IS "aluminium", just like it is plutonium or polonium - you damned foreigners don't say "plutonum", do you?

 

[MrBF1V3]

I'm not a foreigner, but around here (the center of the world) we say "aluminum".

And we don't say "plutoninium".

Also, we don't say "nucular".

B5

 

[Dawnstorm]

When I first heard "aluminum", I thought it was a joke.

It's even "aluminium" in German. I mean the Germans and Brits agree, so I assumed it was pretty universal.

Not so.

And you know what? It turns out that "aluminum" is the older word:

1. alumium (coined by Sir Humphry Davy)
2. aluminum (amended by Sir Humphry Davy)
3. aluminium (amended by the Quarterly Review, a British Mag)

See here. They give the first known "aluminium"-quote as well.

 

[Firesong]

People can spell differently european language originates from latin or ancient italian

 

[Severn]

Bah, I get mixed up all the time now. I've married an American, and read so many things written in American English, that I truly forget. For example. I'm honestly not sure if I should write 'defence' or 'defense'. Occasionally I'll write 'ize' instead of 'ise' and am suitably horrified. But you'll never find me saying 'zee' instead of 'zed'!

 

[Firesong]

I do. Who says zee and whom says zed

 

[Miriamele]

We say "Zed" in Canada.

 

[Firesong]

I say Zed TOo

 

[vicki_girl]

One that I have noticed lately is "prize", as in...

"He used the crowbar to prize open the box."

Is this a British phrasing? In this case, I would use "pry".

(I'm American, in case you hadn't guessed.)

 

[Firesong]

In england we use prize as in competition

pry as in to spy on someone

and prise as in to open a box or crate

 

[vicki_girl]

In england we use prize as in competition

pry as in to spy on someone

and prise as in to open a box or crate

The first two are the same here. However, we don't use "prise"; we would use "pry" (again).

Based on your post though I went and checked where I had just seen "prize".

Now they would be coming to prize him from this warm, cushioned shell to cast him shivering into the real world, all because he had made one tiny mistake.

This from Recursion by Tony Ballantyne. I'm guessing that they changed the -ise to -ize for the American printing. It would have made more sense though to change it to "pry".

 

[Dawnstorm]

This from Recursion by Tony Ballantyne. I'm guessing that they changed the -ise to -ize for the American printing. It would have made more sense though to change it to "pry".

The Oxford Dictionary of English gives "prize" as the American variant spelling for "prise", and "pry" as a predominantly American version of the word ("chiefly N.American", as they say).

confirm another source