Trans Atlantic interpenetration isn’t just verbal; it’s also scansion. Eg, many members of the young community seem to stress the first syllable of “address”. That’s probably a result of 30 years of hiphop rather than the preppy hegemony of Hollywood. More interestingly one basic instinct of citizenship has changed: who ya gonna call? 999? Quite a lot of people think 911. To such an extent that I’m told if you dial 911 they’ve fixed it so that you get 999. Being pathologically uptight about lawbreaking, I haven’t empirically tested this.
Don’t risk it, David! Re scansion, I think 10 years of “Friends” helped get some of those stresses in different places. Us: WEEKend UK: weekEND US: THANKSgiving UK: ThanksGIVING
And I also thought of something else: “horny” was imported from America and replaced “randy” which now sounds like a word from 1960s British sit-com
I feel so sorry for the younger generation losing the word “randy”. Partly because they’re denied the joy of realising some Americans are called that as a first name. But mainly because the word actually means something different than “horny”. As you say, randy has a playful, seaside, Donald McGill feel to it (as does that other fantastic English word, “rorty”). By contrast, horny sounds menacingly physiological. Why oh why won’t the government do something about this.
I always thought it odd that the nickname for Middlesbrough FC was ‘The Boro’. But it points to the fact that, while irritating, American spellings often make more sense than the original English (that is not to say I would even consider using them!).
Some nice observations about the niceties of language, most of which are abused by Trump anyway. There was an American-British British-American dictionary published about 20 years ago called “Bum Bags and Fanny Packs”, which takes us into the same realm as the ass/arse dichotomy, and explains why the “divided by a common language” thing is a source of such misunderstanding and mirth.
Trans Atlantic interpenetration isn’t just verbal; it’s also scansion. Eg, many members of the young community seem to stress the first syllable of “address”. That’s probably a result of 30 years of hiphop rather than the preppy hegemony of Hollywood. More interestingly one basic instinct of citizenship has changed: who ya gonna call? 999? Quite a lot of people think 911. To such an extent that I’m told if you dial 911 they’ve fixed it so that you get 999. Being pathologically uptight about lawbreaking, I haven’t empirically tested this.
Don’t risk it, David! Re scansion, I think 10 years of “Friends” helped get some of those stresses in different places. Us: WEEKend UK: weekEND US: THANKSgiving UK: ThanksGIVING
And I also thought of something else: “horny” was imported from America and replaced “randy” which now sounds like a word from 1960s British sit-com
I feel so sorry for the younger generation losing the word “randy”. Partly because they’re denied the joy of realising some Americans are called that as a first name. But mainly because the word actually means something different than “horny”. As you say, randy has a playful, seaside, Donald McGill feel to it (as does that other fantastic English word, “rorty”). By contrast, horny sounds menacingly physiological. Why oh why won’t the government do something about this.
I always thought it odd that the nickname for Middlesbrough FC was ‘The Boro’. But it points to the fact that, while irritating, American spellings often make more sense than the original English (that is not to say I would even consider using them!).
Yes, I agree. If you were inventing the language from scratch, you could be tempted to go for the logic of American versions.
eg: sidewalk - the walk along the side, rather than pavement, which derives from Latin pavimentum, then distorted by the French
Some nice observations about the niceties of language, most of which are abused by Trump anyway. There was an American-British British-American dictionary published about 20 years ago called “Bum Bags and Fanny Packs”, which takes us into the same realm as the ass/arse dichotomy, and explains why the “divided by a common language” thing is a source of such misunderstanding and mirth.
I forgot about MATH and MATHS