English

[Wildcard]

   George Bernard Shaw once remarked that the United States and the United Kingdom are 'two countries divided by a common language.' His toungue-in-cheek summary is actually very accurate. American English(AmE) is a regional dialect of 'The
Queen's English' (British English, or BrE). Differences between the two include pronunciation, grammar, punctuation and more. There are vocabulary differences even outside of jargon or slang - words that exist in one, that do not exist in the other. And we cannot forget about Australian English.

   Australian poetry, such as The Man from Snowy River, and folk songs, such as Waltzing Matilda, contain many historical Australian words and phrases that are understood by Australians even though some are not in common usage today.

   One beautiful thing about this forum is the multicultural, tolerant attitude maintained throughout. From time to time, playful teasing occurs after a perceived spelling error is revealed to be a simple spelling difference, but the air is free of tension and inspiration rules. In the spirit of cooperation and communication, I would suggest that we all declare our preferred dialect to help everyone express themselves selves better: in poetry and in critique. (All you guys from the UK don't get mad cause I called the original a dialect ) I've gathered up a few links to check out if you are unfamiliar with the differences. They are at the bottom of the page.

Here is a quote from an article from Wikipedia that sums up some of the ambiguations between BrE and AmE:

Words such as bill (AmE "paper money," BrE and AmE "invoice") and biscuit (AmE: BrE's "scone", BrE: AmE's "cookie") are used regularly in both AmE and BrE but mean different things in each form. As chronicled by Winston Churchill, the opposite meanings of the verb to table created a misunderstanding during a meeting of the Allied forces; in BrE to table an item on an agenda means to open it up for discussion whereas in AmE, it means to remove it from discussion, or at times, to suspend or delay discussion.

The word "football" in BrE refers to Association football, also known as soccer. In AmE, "football" means American football (although "soccer", a contraction of "association (football)", the standard AmE term, is also of British origin, derived from the formalization of different codes of football in the 19th century, and was a fairly unremarkable usage (possibly marked for class) in BrE until relatively recently; it has latterly become falsely perceived as an intrusive Americanism).

Similarly the word "hockey" in BrE refers to field hockey; in AmE "hockey" means ice hockey.

Other ambiguity (complex cases)Words with completely different meanings are relatively few; most of the time there are either (1) words with one or more shared meanings and one or more meanings unique to one variety (for example, bathroom and toilet) or (2) words the meanings of which are actually common to both BrE and AmE but that show differences in frequency, connotation or denotation (for example, smart, clever, mad).

Some differences in usage and/or meaning can cause confusion or embarrassment. For example the word fanny is a slang word for vulva in BrE but means buttocks in AmE—the AmE phrase fanny pack is bum bag in BrE. In AmE the word fag (short for faggot) is a highly offensive term for a gay male but in BrE it is a normal and well-used term for a cigarette, for hard work, or for a chore, while a faggot itself is a sort of meatball. In AmE the word pissed means being annoyed whereas in BrE it is a coarse word for being drunk (in both varieties, pissed off means irritated).

Similarly, in AmE the word pants is the common word for the BrE trousers, while the majority of BrE speakers would understand pants to mean underwear. Many dialects in the North of England agree with the AmE usage and use pants to refer to trousers; this is often incorrectly considered an Americanism by people from elsewhere in Britain. The word pants is a shortening or the archaic pantaloons, which shares the same source as the French for trousers, pantalon.

Sometimes the confusion is more subtle. In AmE the word quite used as a qualifier is generally a reinforcement: for example, "I'm quite hungry" means "I'm very hungry". In BrE quite (which is much more common in conversation) may have this meaning, as in "quite right" or "quite mad", but it more commonly means "somewhat", so that in BrE "I'm quite hungry" can mean "I'm somewhat hungry". This divergence of use can lead to misunderstanding.

. . .

In the UK the word whilst is historically acceptable as a conjunction (as an alternative to while, especially prevalent in some dialects). In AmE only while is used in both contexts.

In the UK generally the term fall meaning "autumn" is obsolete. Although found often from Elizabethan literature to Victorian literature, continued understanding of the word is usually ascribed to its continued use in America.

In the UK the term period for a full stop is not used; in AmE the term full stop is rarely, if ever, used for the punctuation mark. For example, Tony Blair said, "Terrorism is wrong, full stop", whereas in AmE, "Terrorism is wrong, period."

Links:
American and British English Differences: Wikipedia, eHow.
Australian English
Spelling Differences

Oh and by the way, I use flawed American English . . . kind of.

[billy]

i speak a rather unusual version of the queens (original almost) English. my language is in variably blue though until i get to know someone in real time i can curtail the expletives, (though not for long) I've had many a pious person saying fuck off
i prefer the english spelling of words of course, center will never be centre for me nor will the 'our ending words with the "u" such as colour.
that said i can understand both as well as each other so am good to go.
as for auzzy words, many are self explanatory so there's not much trouble reading and understanding them.
i think the real trouble for many are when the Cornish, Scots or Irish come to town. burns "to a mouse

[b]Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murd'ring pattle!

is fairly able to be interpolated but some dialects such as jordy speak. heres biffer from "viz" a comic that uses satire for humour; the guardian is one of the better newspapers on the english scene



i'me sure the yanks have really strong dialects as well. personally i love reading such stuff.

[Leanne]

You're so high-broo, billy

I don't really have any trouble with British English or American, because most people outside America are aware that you yanks mangle the language and make an effort to work out what you're saying... mostly so we can correct you :p.

On a site that shall remain nameless, I did have a well-meaning American kindly tell me that he was surprised to find I'm Australian, since I wrote so well in English

I can deal with pretty much anything but txtspk. That makes me slightly homicidal.

[billy]

a short lifta and the very least (shirt lifter)
same here i never text unless i can't phone and it's an emergency.
i love the nuances of the language where ever it's spoken. and i admire non english speaking poets who use it
it has to be hard, i'd never attempt to write a poem in tagalog even though i know it (a really little bit hehe)
10 years almost and i know about 30 words

as a rule i'm pretty good ate understanding dialects.

[abu nuwas]

Without wishing to make an inaccurate caricature of myself, I can best hint at my own speech thus: when deriding some loud-mouth speaking to the public at large, although theoretically to his companion beside him, about his time on 'Rodney's Ocean Racing yacht'. my own children give me a funny look, and the more forceful say that it's fine for me to talk. Yet I do speak with a London twang; if the Queen keeps on the way she has been going, we shall meet, linguistically.

There are many accents in Britain, some quite incomprehensible: a strong Jordie accent, some Glasgow accents, and the accents of the Northern Isles. As to America, that piece reminded me of the joke about Americans getting the check and paying with a bill, and British people getting the bill, and paying with a cheque. I suppose everyone knows that what Americans call an eraser, the British call a rubber, which must have given rise to some raised eyebrows over time. (Imagine asking your new American colleague casually for a rubber-- that must have earnt more than one slap in the face!) And what's all that drug-store nonsense?......

[Wildcard]

I don't really have any trouble with British English or American, because most people outside America are aware that you yanks mangle the language and make an effort to work out what you're saying... mostly so we can correct you .

Americans are lot of things, but we are mostly self-centered. To believe that our way of speaking is correct is second nature. Americans have access to all forms of culture and entertainment, but inside this 'Hollywood' bubble, the rest of the world gets a little blurry. Chatting internationally is a good way to get your eyes open to a lot of things.

(Imagine asking your new American colleague casually for a rubber-- that must have earnt more than one slap in the face!)

Those kind of embarassing misunderstandings are what prompted me to start this thread. Until I started looking into it, I didn't know some of those differences.

[Philatone]

loosely related to the discussion. this is a website that gives samples of accents from around the world. Basically, these researchers asked people from different countries to all read the same passage in English. Thus, you can get an idea of some phonetic traits of different areas. Or laugh because of how different people can sound! It can also break areas down by region: for instance, you can compare new yorkers versus people from Los Angeles, northern england vs. southern, etc.

http://accent.gmu.edu/browse.php

just thought I would pass it along

[Leanne]

That's a really interesting site, thanks Philatone.

In a multicultural poetry forum, accents are often important to consider, especially when it comes to rhyme. I remember a very pompous critic from New York (I know, I didn't really need to use the word "pompous" there) going crook (which means "admonishing me") because I'd used a "near rhyme" in a sonnet full of true rhymes -- but the rhyme in question was sparse/pass, which is a perfect rhyme in my accent. Of course I straight away fired off an email informing him that there are different accents in the world and I can't write for anyone's but my own -- and of course he remained silent and aloof

Just for future reference, I try to always allow that someone pronounces something differently when it comes to rhymes, although I've seen some that have no chance on earth of being close. The same little differences will apply to meter, when some people pronounce all the syllables of a word fully and some elide, or squish them together, as in every/ ev'ry.

And I will continue to honour the superfluous "u"

[billy]

i had a look at the site,, i wonder if there are sites that translate too and from different dialects within a country. it would be great to write a poem like biffa out of viz.
moved because it feels more to do with the poetry side of the forum/admin

[Wildcard]

Philatone what a nice reference! Thanks for the contribution. A very interesting way to compare spoken English.

[abu nuwas]

I agree with Ava, as Aish likes to call him....it was fascinating! The Belgian snippet was very similar to 'Allo, 'allo (TV series) and the late Peter Sellars .

I think Americans can be self-centred, but linguistically, I fancy every native English-speaker is. Off-topic, the mind does boggle in a cliche kind of way, at the parochial world-view which sometimes emanates from the US, which I put down to not travelling outside the country. It is hard, when abroad, not to get into the stuff that concerns the natives: when I had a flat in France, I turned to the French press, and the things which were of importance to my neighbours, (or layabouts at the Cafe du Quartier) and made up my French political mind with just a hint from the values of home.

The idea of tracking people by accent was of course at the heart of Prof Higgins in Shaw's 'Pygmalion' /'My Fair Lady', an excellent production of which I saw at the Old Vic a couple of years back, done by Peter Hall. I can detect a certain type of East Ender, of the old sort, as they find difficulty with 'l' 'r' and 'w'.(eg, 'Alright Terry?' has to be 'A wite Te-w?' My grand-daughter, on the other hand, had tears streaming down her face have been 'South of the Wa'er' (where I live) and heard some old girls extolling their meal 'wiv red sauce 'n awl'. I privately thought she was bang out of order.....

[Wildcard]

On a site that shall remain nameless, I did have a well-meaning American kindly tell me that he was surprised to find I'm Australian, since I wrote so well in English

Some friends and I were in a sports bar watching last year's NCAA National Championship game. The waitress had a beautiful Australian accent and as we were being seated, the guys from the next table were yelling over for here to 'say something in Australian!!!'

[Leanne]

One of the great Australian movies on the problems with only learning "proper" English

[youtube]9IF92uEctBc[/youtube]

[billy]

what is these a crust?

[Wildcard]

I thought it was 'what d'ya do fer a crust?'

[Leanne]

This is by the same bloke -- John O'Grady (who wrote "They're a Weird Mob" under the nom-de-plume Nino Culotta)

The Integrated Adjective

I was down on Riverina, knockin' round the towns a bit,
An' occasionally restin', with a schooner in me mitt;
An' on one o' these occasions, when the bar was pretty full
an' the local blokes were arguin' assorted kinds o' bull,
I heard a conversation, most peculiar in its way,
Because only in Australia would you hear a joker say,
"Where yer bloody been, yer drongo? 'Aven't seen yer fer a week;
"An' yer mate was lookin' for yer when 'e come in from the Creek;
"'E was lookin' up at Ryan's, an' around at bloody Joe's,
"An' even at the Royal where 'e bloody never goes."
An' the other bloke said "Seen 'im. Owed 'im 'alf a bloody quid,
"Forgot ter give ut back to 'im; but now I bloody did.
"Coulda used the thing me-bloody-self; been orf the bloody booze,
"Up at Tumba-bloody-rumba shootin' kanga-bloody-roos."

Now their voices were a little loud, an' everybody heard
The peculiar integration of this adjectival word.
But no one there was laughin', an' me I wasn't game,
So I stood around an' let 'em think I spoke the bloody same.
An' one of 'em was interested to ask 'im what he'd got-
How many kanga-bloody-roos he bloody went and shot-
An' the shootin' bloke said, "Things are crook; the drought's too bloody tough;
"I got forty-bloody-seven, an' that's good e'-bloody-nough."
An' this polite rejoinder seemed to satisfy the mob,
An' everyone stopped listenin' an' got on with the job,
Which was drinkin' beer and arguin' an' talkin' of the heat,
An' stickin' in the bitumen in the middle of the street;
But as for me, I'm here to say the interestin' news
Was "Tumba-bloody-rumba shootin' kanga-bloody-roos."

[billy]

nice ihad no trouble with it. i did notice that they drop the aitches like we do in the north west of the uk

[Leanne]

In the bush -- that is, the Outback -- the accent is closer to Cockney, except it's a whole lot slower.

[Wildcard]

I love Outback . . . have you tried their onion rings?

Hey on topic, what about some more movies that you think represent a good example of certain dialects. For instance, when someone thinks Australian (where I'm from) they think Crocodile Dundee, but on the movie clip you posted it sounds much smoother (as well as more intelligible :p)

[Leanne]

I know people who speak like Mick Dundee, but Paul Hogan isn't one of them when he's not putting it on for the yanks It's very much a country accent, which is pretty much the same as the city accent only slower. A lot slower.

Gallipoli is fairly indicative, or The Man From Snowy River (which has the added bonus of being inspired by one of the definitive Australian poems) -- or for city accents, Two Hands with the brilliant Heath Ledger and equally brilliant but not dead yet Rose Byrne.