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BS: American English usages taking over Brit
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: Ebbie Date: 30 Oct 09 - 10:18 PM "And what about "ate" pronounced the same as "eight"? Is that an Americanism or a spelling pronunciation? Or a combination of both? " Great heavens! How do you pronounce "ate" and "eight"? |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: Rowan Date: 30 Oct 09 - 10:26 PM McGrath, guards-van was the word I indicated was obsolete. I don't know if it was ever used in England. It was routinely used in Oz until the van was omitted from most trains; but it is still understood and occasionally heard. Why "the van" should refer to the leaders in an advancing group (as a diminutive of vanguard) rather than occur at the tail end (with the guard's van) bothered me when I was young. If you ever visit Georgia, there is a town named Vienna, pronounced Vi-anna. I take it, Q, that the Georgia you refer to is the one fronting the Atlantic rather than the other. On matters of pronunciation, I occasionally lament the passing of the British and Oz pronunciation of "lieutenant" as "lef-tenant" in favour of the US "loo-tenant". I realise the US version is closer to the original French but my father's generation would prefer to have their rank described the way they knew it rather than in US terms, if they must be reminded at all. Cheers, Rowan |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: meself Date: 30 Oct 09 - 11:06 PM 'And what about "ate" pronounced the same as "eight"?' As opposed to ... ? Oh - "et", I suppose. In Canada, and probably most of North America, that would be considered either the height of pretentiousness or the depth of ignorance. |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: Jos Date: 31 Oct 09 - 05:00 AM That intrusive R in 'Cuber' and 'Alabamer' will be familiar to fans of the BBC's 'The Archers', in which Eddie Grundy refers to his son's partner Emma as 'Emmer' - he is supposed to come from the area east of Birmingham, though other characters from the same area have a variety of accents. |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: Dave the Gnome Date: 31 Oct 09 - 07:02 AM I must accept responsibility for the 'Schoolyard' thread - I started it! I did choose the phrase on purpose. Not for any journalistic or sensation seeking reason but for two very sound reasons. 1. I gathered that everyone from both sides of the Atlantic would understand Schoolyard whereas, although I was brought up with the term Playground, it may have been UK English, or even regional, rather than global. 2. A playground can be part of a school or part of a local park. We used to play on the playground in the park, which contained swings and a slide, as well as run around the school playground like mad people. The thread was specificaly targeted to the school version. Had it been a thread about taps or pavements I would not have used the American idioms but in this case I thought it more suitable. Before you pedants comment that I should have used 'School playground bullying' may I say that a thread title is just that. If MOST people understand it it has done it's job. So, nothing to do with American English useage, just plain common sense. Which, as the thread in question shows, may be quite uncommon nowadays:-) Cheers DeG |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: melodeonboy Date: 31 Oct 09 - 08:14 AM "Great heavens! How do you pronounce "ate" and "eight"?" I pronounce "ate" the same way that most British people did until very recently, and many, including myself, still do, i.e. to rhyme with "bet". Both Oxford and Cambridge dictionaries indicate both pronunciations; the pronunciation that I use is indicated first in both. |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: Will Fly Date: 31 Oct 09 - 08:46 AM Bill Bryson makes some interesting comments, in several of his books, on the differences between UK and US use of the English language. Many "American" terms and words are actually phrases which were brought from Britain and have subsequently fallen out of use in Britain. "Gotten" is an example. However, the point is surely that all languages change and develop at different times, in different ways and at different rates. The English language is hugely open and hospitable to words changes and new words - probably more so than any other language in the world. Change in it is inevitable. This thread is about the "taking over" of the UK version of English by American terminology. I would suggest - if you look at our younger generations, particularly in cities, that there is a much more interesting change to the language which comes from Caribbean and Asian influences in the community. There was a similar set of additions to the language here when my father's generation came back from foreign places after WW2. So my Dad came back saying "let's have a shufti" for "let's have a look" (Arabic shufti=look) and I"M off for a charp" when he meant I'm off for a nap (Hindi charpoy=day bed). Whether these have stayed in current use really depends on your age group. Now I'm off to change my chuddies. |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: Edthefolkie Date: 31 Oct 09 - 08:47 AM Re the pronunciation of "decade", for a few years now I've thought that I was pronouncing it incorrectly as everybody in the UK media uses "DECKade" with the first syllable emphasized. But the other week the Kennedy Man on the Moon speech was on a BBC programme. JFK pronounced it "DeCADE". A belated thank you to Jack for restoring my self confidence. If an upper crust Bawstonian can do it, so can I. |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: melodeonboy Date: 31 Oct 09 - 09:09 AM "everybody in the UK media uses "DECKade" with the first syllable emphasized." Yes, that's the normal British pronunciation! As far as I know, Americans usually stress the second syllable. |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: artbrooks Date: 31 Oct 09 - 09:39 AM Decade, as in 10 years? As far as I know, everyone in the US (Boston Brahmans aside) pronounces it DECade. |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: artbrooks Date: 31 Oct 09 - 09:59 AM American dictionaries state: "ate (āt; Brit. or US dialect, et)" and "decade (DEK ād; Brit. also di KĀD). |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: Edthefolkie Date: 31 Oct 09 - 10:07 AM Maybe it's Robin Hood area dialect in my case, as in "oowerewee?" "E were wee issen!" and "Mek it guh bakkards". |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 31 Oct 09 - 10:17 AM Decade with the last syllable emphasised - sounding like "decayed"? Could be confusing, a bit zombieish - "the musicians of the last decayed..." |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: Alice Date: 31 Oct 09 - 10:31 AM I understood the thread title about bullying, even though we say playground, and even though... a lot of bullying among school children now happens on the internet and can happen away from school, too. Looking at the gripes on this thread, it seems a lot of people are easily annoyed. How can you find peace if such petty things bother you? Language changes over time and it's perfectly natural. A hundred years from now, people will laugh at pronunciations of 2009. Now with the speed of travel and worldwide internet communication, languages will change even faster. |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: VirginiaTam Date: 31 Oct 09 - 10:42 AM weird... grew up in and spent most of my adult life in southeastern and central Virginia respectively. I always pronounced Iraq and Iran as ear rock and ear ran. What about pecan - Peecan or Pehkahn I have always pronounced the latter, because that is the way my family did. But it is not very common, from what I understand. Is it across the Mason Dixon kind of pronunciation? In England I hear it as peecan |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: Alice Date: 31 Oct 09 - 10:49 AM pi-'KAHN here in the northern rocky mountains |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: Dave the Gnome Date: 31 Oct 09 - 11:05 AM Nuts in Salford... |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: artbrooks Date: 31 Oct 09 - 11:43 AM Is that pie-KAHN or pee-KAHN, Alice? I've always used the latter, although I've also heard pee-CAN and PEE-can. I really don't think that there IS such thing as |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: Bat Goddess Date: 31 Oct 09 - 11:45 AM I've NEVER heard decade pronounced any other than DECK'ade. If JFK pronounced it differently, I never noticed. (Guess I should listen again.) Used to get a kick (since I lived in Milwaukee until I was 20 when I moved to the Boston area) out of hearing all the Rs removed from words (such as the infamous "pahk the cah in Hahvahd yahd") placed on the ends of words such as Cuba. (Well, he had to do SOMETHING with 'em.) Regionalisms fascinate me -- since I grew up with so many of them. "Bubbler" for drinking fountain (only in Milwaukee and some neighborhoods of Boston); ruff/roof pronunciation; both soda and pop (or even soda pop) -- "tonic" in Massachusetts; the differentiation between soda crackers and saltines in Massachusetts, but just soda crackers in Wisconsin; purse / bag / handbag / poke; bag / sack; chuck holes / pot holes; ant/awnt, etc. Linn |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: Ebbie Date: 31 Oct 09 - 11:46 AM So 'et' is the common pronunciation of 'ate'? Weird. In the parts of the US with which I am familiar - and in books - 'et' is used to denote near-illiteracy. I grew up saying 'eeRock' and 'eeRon'. |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: Bill D Date: 31 Oct 09 - 12:03 PM "One of the few Americanisms that I do dislike, however, is the way that some foreign names get mispronounced. Oh how I concur with that! It is not universal, but it is much too common. I am not sure what happens in the brain of some people when they hear various foreign words pronounced correctly. They seem to have a filter that says: "I am not going to make those funny sounds, no matter how the natives say it!" I have heard 'news' readers on TV listen to experts say words like Iraq correctly, then they turn around and continue to get it wrong. (To be fair, it is NOT only Americans who are guilty. I posted before of some English reporter for the BBC a few years ago who pronounced Nicaragua as "Nick-uh-RAG-you-a") |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: Ebbie Date: 31 Oct 09 - 12:10 PM I was shocked and offended when I heard President Reagan greet the president of Mexico with the time-honored "Mi casa est su casa". He pronounced it 'cazza'. I still don't understand how a Californian - on the Mexican border - could get it so wrong. However, my son in law made a point. He said, "You mean that we should all pronounce foreign names and words with the correct intonation and pronunciation? What about Chinese?" |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: Alice Date: 31 Oct 09 - 12:14 PM Art, with a short "i", as in pick. pi KAHN |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: Alice Date: 31 Oct 09 - 12:19 PM It is "Mi casa es su casa", not est, but I know what you mean, Ebbie. And yes, it is weird to hear nickaRagyoua, but as I said, different pronunciations are just a part of the natural changes in language, from culture to culture and as time goes on. Things change, people are different around the world. Why would one be annoyed that someone pronounces things differently than the way your family did... it's only to be expected. Alice |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: meself Date: 31 Oct 09 - 12:23 PM To be fair, most people learn to pronounce foreign names and words either the way they hear other people pronounce them - and those people are rarely natives of the foreign locale in question - or the way the spelling of the words or names seems to indicate (to them). And in either case, the pronunciation will be influenced by the speaker's accent or dialect. At present, television and radio journalists are perhaps more to blame than anybody - if an unfamiliar name or word is introduced into the public discourse, they are the ones who most people first hear pronounce it. You would expect them to make some effort to learn the correct pronunciation before teaching the citizenry of a country how to say it. But perhaps that is easier said than done. When I was young, the only pronunciation I ever heard of "Hiroshima" was "hEE'ro-shEE'-muh". At some point, I heard that the correct pronuciation is closer to "her-AW'-shih-muh". The first, apparently-erroneous, pronunciation is the one that comes naturally to me; I have to make a conscious effort to say the second. It is just plain unrealistic to expect most people to make that kind of adjustment. |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: VirginiaTam Date: 31 Oct 09 - 12:30 PM hey BillD it's Jagwar not Jaguah Pokin' ya with the annoying stick. Did it work? :D |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: Bill D Date: 31 Oct 09 - 12:36 PM "Did it work?" "The exception proves the rule." (thus, the more exceptions, the better the rule!) ☺ |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: Alice Date: 31 Oct 09 - 12:48 PM Well if you apply the British nick-a-Rag-you-a (Nicaragua) pronunciation, then Jaguar would be in Brit-speak, Jag-you-ar. |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: Alice Date: 31 Oct 09 - 12:49 PM If you pronounce it like the Spanish, it is HAG-war. |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 31 Oct 09 - 01:01 PM "Jaguar would be in Brit-speak, Jag-you-ar". That is how the car name is generally pronounced. |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: Alice Date: 31 Oct 09 - 01:25 PM Yes, but in Britain, not everywhere else! In the US, Jaguar is close to the Spanish pronunciation except the hard "J" instead of the spanish "H" sound for the "j". |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: Alice Date: 31 Oct 09 - 01:27 PM In Spanish, words are not pronounced with "you" for the "u" sound. There is no "you" sound in Nicaragua, but the British add it in, and the same for jaguar. |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: MGM·Lion Date: 31 Oct 09 - 01:32 PM The pronunciation of foreign words or place names is something of a separate question. Why do some foreign words, like his example 'paella', become anglicised in pronunciation, others not? Only a terrible snob, for instance, would order a bottle of 'shom-pan-ye'; only an ignoramus, on the other hand, would call for a bottle of 'bew-jo-laze'. We put 'mayo-naze' on our salad, not 'my-o-nez'. We used to travel to 'Lions', but now it is to 'Lee-õ'; but still nobody goes to 'Paree', or 'Moskva'. or 'Yerushalayim'. We travel to Florence, not Firenze. It used to be to Leghorn, but now it is more likely to be to Livorno. Why is this? |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: VirginiaTam Date: 31 Oct 09 - 01:33 PM There is a fight in the VirginiaTam / TheSilentOne household re the Jaguar / Jag u ar issue. He says the word jaguar is English and therefore is pronounced correctly Jag u ar. See what these petty squabbles lead to? The break down of a happy marriage... booo hoo |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: Alice Date: 31 Oct 09 - 01:37 PM Technically, jaguar is from the Portuguese, but originally a native language word from a tribe in South America where the wild felines live. My point is, I am not annoyed by words being pronounced in different ways in different parts of the world. I think that is only natural that there would be regional differences in pronunciation. What does kind of annoy me is that one class of people in one country would think they have the ONLY correct way to pronounce a word - and believe the rest of the world is wrong. |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: Bill D Date: 31 Oct 09 - 01:46 PM There are words which get totally assimilated, like Champagne....and there are proper names which, although we may not find it easy to reproduce 'exactly' as native speakers do, should not be subjected to gratuitous mangling: as in Sy-mon Boll-uh-ver |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: Bonzo3legs Date: 31 Oct 09 - 01:59 PM Condom for Johnnie, gay for queer, standing in line for queuing, voice going up at the end of every sentence - complete idiocy.......if I say "I feel a bit queer" a fellow man would immediately stand with his back to the wall. |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: meself Date: 31 Oct 09 - 02:06 PM Um, Bonzo - one of us is a little confused, here - what exactly is your point? |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: VirginiaTam Date: 31 Oct 09 - 02:06 PM voice going up at the end of every sentence That's what I hear when the Welsh speak. A rising inflection. Almost like everything is a question. |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: WalkaboutsVerse Date: 31 Oct 09 - 02:11 PM I brought up this issue as part of a brief talk I gave last Saturday, during BBC Radio 3's "Free Thinking" season at The Sage Gateshead; I called the talk "If you're not American, don't Americanise - for the love of our world being multicultural", and the example I gave was the overuse of the word "like" among American then, soon after, English youth. |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: artbrooks Date: 31 Oct 09 - 02:20 PM WV, I think the use of "like", as in "I'll be there in, like, 20 minutes", has pretty much disappeared in the US - at least among people of my acquaintance. That was TV-talk of 20 years ago, and went along with "fer shur". |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: VirginiaTam Date: 31 Oct 09 - 02:22 PM Superfluous use of the word "like" is part of the Rap, HipHop and RnB music culture of youth around the globe. Ludicrous when adults use it that way, unless they are parodying Yoof. |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: Alice Date: 31 Oct 09 - 02:26 PM I had an art history teacher who was Japanese. He had moved to the US to get his Master's degree and was teaching in Montana. He told me that slang and figures of speech changed so quickly in Tokyo, that when he went back to visit family there, his nieces laughed at the way he spoke. His speech was considered very old fashioned, just after a few years of being away. |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 31 Oct 09 - 02:36 PM Foreign pronunciations- Naow all you iggerants, les be KEErek! Napoli, NOT Naples Wien, NOT Vienna Venezia, NOT Venice Moskva, NOT Moscow (or Fr. Moscou) Kyyiv, NOT Kiev And don't forget the macron over the 'o' in Tokyo! (How come Chichester isn't pronounced Chester?) OH? Different cities? How confusing! Bill D, a fail card for you. The guy's name is See-MON Bo-LEE-var. See yer biographical references. |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: Alice Date: 31 Oct 09 - 02:49 PM Q, Bill D was showing how some people mispronounce Simon Bolivar. |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: Bettynh Date: 31 Oct 09 - 03:42 PM Is it equally annoying when a name/word has been adopted and owned by someone else? As I said earlier, the natives of BERlin live in upstate New Hampshire. There is no BerLIN, New Hampshire. They're not confused in the least, but anyone asking for directions to BerLIN, New Hampshire just labelled themselves an outsider. |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: WalkaboutsVerse Date: 31 Oct 09 - 03:47 PM From: artbrooks - PM Date: 31 Oct 09 - 02:20 PM WV, I think the use of "like", as in "I'll be there in, like, 20 minutes", has pretty much disappeared in the US - at least among people of my acquaintance. That was TV-talk of 20 years ago, and went along with "fer shur". Yes, that's what I meant, AB - but it doesn't seem to have disappeared here, yet. |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: Ebbie Date: 31 Oct 09 - 04:17 PM Bettynh - in Staunton, Virginia, we used to say the same thing. Anyone who pronounced it 'STAUNTon' as in 'daunt' instead of the correct 'STANTon', as in 'ant', hadn't been there long. |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 31 Oct 09 - 04:21 PM Alus, he din't say he din't mangle it otherwise. |
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Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 31 Oct 09 - 04:44 PM Changing the pronunciation of foreign words when they come into the language is a reasonable thing to do. And the same is true when it comes to accepting that certain foreign names have an established pronunciation which has gone native - as for example Paris, or the examples Q gave. But that is different from what happens when politicians and broadcasters impose an invented mispronunciation on the name of a foreign country or on someone from a foreign country who comes into the news. Basic good manners should require that an attempt is made to say such names in a way that is broadly accurate. Failure to do this is either laziness or indicates a lack of courtesy. It seems to be saying, in Bill D's words "I am not going to make those funny sounds, no matter how the natives say it!" At least the BBC makes serious efforts to get these things right - here is a link to the BBC pronunciation unit archive |
