What Hath America Wrought, O Language?

Yes, Americans are responsible for many abuses of the English language. Microsoft is largely responsible for this, as all their spelling and grammar recommendations are based on American, not English. I turn off anything that says ‘auto’ or ‘smart’ as I know from experience that it will do the wrong thing. However, ignorant people that are not technical writers or not formally trained in the vagaries of the English language do not turn these things off and they become Americanised.

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Don’t you mean “Americanized”?

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No, that’s another Americanisation.

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Wait, so Americans Americanized Americanisation? What was it before we were around? :slight_smile:

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The original land ownerz of the Americaz were the indianz, then it was discovered by the Spaniardz. Later on, the Pilgrimz settled the land. Before long, foreignerz were moving in left, right and centre and drove the indianz out of their own land. Cortez did his bit to try and wipe out the Aztecz, who are now known as Mexicanz.

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Don’t you mean “center”?

(I agree with overuse of z in place of s. It’s just backwardz.)

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as Naval & Military historian, I wonder if the fuze of the flame bomb is burning or ticking :smiley:

Joking aside, the major s/z issue in IF coding is obvious… aside remembering how to initialise your inform 6 code ! :wink:

ps. in EU, the “correct” English remain the british one, for obvious geographical reasons…

Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.

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As far as spelling goes, stuff like “realisation” instead of “realization” makes sense, and kinda makes me look longingly across the pond.

But what kind of nightmare is “programme”?? There are two consonants at the end, so the final “e” doesn’t influence the preceding “a”. So why is there a silent “e” there?? American English already does this enough; you don’t need more silent "e"s in British English!!!

Honestly, I think English is spelt terribly in every country. If I write in German, I rarely ever have to look up the spelling of a word, and that’s my second language.

Nuts to all of you, I should go write a whole IF game in my conlang Kaskhoruxa, because at least the spelling is consistent there.

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I hope it would not be considered uncivilised behaviour to point out a common thread in these differences of usage, which is that they reflect a specific programme vis a vis the English language… but one originally perpetrated not by us colonial upstarts but by the English themselves.

See, in many of the most prominent orthographic differences (oerthographic?), it’s actually the American spelling that better reflects our language’s Latin and Germanic roots, while the British versions — as the examples above demonstrate — are straight up excrudesences of French.

Now I have nothing against the lovely French language, and of course one of the glories of English is its habit of coshing other languages on the head and rummaging through their pockets for the best bits. But at almost a thousand years on, it seems a bit much to keep torturing the language just to genuflect to the ghost of William the Bastard!

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And with Mike’s response, I’m getting my popcorn.

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Tsk, tsk. Such language. :joy:

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There was a thread recently where folks were mentioning how nice I seem, figure it’s time to throw a few punches to maintain my bad-boy cred.

Sorry! I should have said Guillaume le Bâtard, of course.

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Lemme just find a good seat to watch this from…

Honestly, I’m more fascinated by constructed languages and linguistic mechanics in general. I only have a few complaints about English because I grew up with it, but otherwise I’d be lying if I claimed to pick a side.

(Dodges a few opportunistic punches on my way to the front row seats)

IN THIS CORNER WE HAVE THE PARSER-PLAYING PATRON OF PUZZLES FROM THE HEMISPHERE UNDER ARMAVIR: WWWWAAAAAAAAARRIGAAAAAAAAAL!!!

AND IN THIS CORNER, OUR FEARSOME FORUM FIGHTER, REDEFINING THE “I” IN “FICTA IRAE” WE HAVE: DE-US IR-AAAAEEEEE!!!

IT’S THE FIGHT OF THE SEASON, AND I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT, MY DEAR VIEWERS READERS!!! ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN!!! WHY, WE MIGHT EVEN SEE A FEW OTHER AUDIENCE MEMBERS JUMPING IN FOR A SURPRISE TEAM FIGHT, LATER ON!!! ARE THESE CHAIRS MADE OF METAL OR PLASTIC??? WHO KNOWS!!! I FORGOT TO WRITE A DESCRIPTION FOR THEM, SO YOU WILL JUST NEED TO WAIT FOR THE NEXT PATCH RELEASE OF THIS MATCH!!!

(ding ding!)

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As a technical writer, I love the vagaries of the English language. In Australia, we use ‘program’ in the IT world (such as ‘computer program’) and ‘programme’ in the entertainment world (such as ‘theatre programme’). That’s inconsistent, I know. I had a feeling that ‘programme’ was derived from the French. A quick Google search confirmed this.

The first article I read was from the venerable Macquarie Dictionary. The fifth paragraph in this article sums it up nicely.

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That’s absolutely delightful, actually, having two spellings to differentiate two contexts of the “same word”! Australia knows what’s up!

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I think we can all agree that the only objectively correct spelling and pronounciation of any word is the way it’s spelled and pronounced by people who just happen to live near me. (Except the people near me who say “could of,” but I think they’re doing that to rile me up.)

This is similar to how, completely by coincidence, all the best music was made when I personally was 14-18 years old.

I’m just lucky that way I guess.

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This thread invites an in depth study of the History of English podcast. The first few episodes develop the Indo/European periods.

The series can be found on a podcast app.

In reference to the thread title: England made great use of wrought iron, in America we are forged in fire… :wink:

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We Texans don’t pay no mind to what them Yankees say or how they spell it. All y’all need to do to make English sound right is draw your vowels out a smidge. Texans can do this thing where we say, “Well, bless your heart,” and somehow convey that we’re worried about your IQ.

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I’ve noticed that a lot of great music was made when my best friends were 14-18 years old too. Coincidentally, they’re all about the same age I am. How about that for random good luck in the universe!

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Dang, all the best music was made just before I was born, and also made in a country I’ve never set foot in.

Kinda jealous, ngl

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