American or English

[mattjohndrow]

is what americans speak american, or english? you tell me, personally, i hava absolutely no idea, but, then again...um, i dunno, anyways, tell me. i'm gonna say probably american is what it should be called.

oh, and if we decide americans speak american, should we create a new language?

[crazychester]

I blame Webster.

[Wrong Robot]

I say Americans speak American English, our languages are not drastically different, but they are also not that similar all said and done.

It's kind of like Classical Music Theory and Jazz Music Theory, it's all the same stuff(for the most part) just the rules and usage are totally different.

[ipodandimac]

language names are just corporate labels thrown on to the simple process of fluctuating our voice patterns to convey ideas. does it really matter what anything is called?

FYI, i feel the same way about clocks and time zones--they're pointless and just an example of how stupid our world is.

[Kickaha]

Wow, how nihilist of you.

American English. Much like Canadian French, a dialect of a mother tongue that has taken on a life of its own... and that the originating country disowns as much as possible. :D

[Wrong Robot]

Originally posted by ipodandimac
language names are just corporate labels thrown on to the simple process of fluctuating our voice patterns to convey ideas. does it really matter what anything is called?

FYI, i feel the same way about clocks and time zones--they're pointless and just an example of how stupid our world is.

I feel similarly about Genre names for music. My philosophy is that if it sounds good, it is good. Now, while Genres and such are useful for organization, too many people define themselves or their listening habits by genres. They like having that 'something' to latch onto I guess. :\

Why do you feel that time zones are stupid? btw

[Wrong Robot]

Originally posted by Kickaha
Wow, how nihilist of you.

American English. Much like Canadian French, a dialect of a mother tongue that has taken on a life of its own... and that the originating country disowns as much as possible. :D

and I thought I typed quickly :grumble:

[Kickaha]

Dude. What's my title again? :D

[BuonRotto]

Don't forget Swiss-German. :)

Do Australians speak Australian? Isn't it all non-inflected Indo-European anyway? :D

[segovius]

I think they're two separate languages.

My father claims he was in the House of Commons in London once meeting his MP when he got talking to some American tourists there. When his MP arrived after a bit, my father shouted 'Neil !' (that was his name) across the lobby and all the Americans got down on their knees.

:D

[podmate]

I vote for American, as long as we can move all the political correct speak and ebonics idiocy out of it.

[drewprops]

We speak English you baboons.

[shetline]

American English is clearly a distinct dialect (set of dialects, actually), but hardly different enough to count as a separate language.

If you take as examples British English as spoken by a BBC announcer, and American English as spoken by a typical network news anchor, both are easily comprehensible by the vast majority of all speakers of English -- words and phrases which weren't clear to all listeners would come up now and then, but wouldn't be major impediments to understanding.

[podmate]

Originally posted by drewprops
We speak English you baboons.

No, we speak a version of English.
I have worked with numerous people from England and I can tell you that there are significant differences in the 2 version of the language. Many words have different meanings and spelling can be quite different.
I remember failing a spelling test because I spelled shop -- shoppe and tire -- tyre. These are proper (although older) English spellings but not proper American spellings.

[Vargas]

Slightly bastardised English

[Fangorn]

It's English. Aside from some spelling variations, the rules of grammar and punctation are the same. Differences in pronunciation and collequial expressions are relatively minor, especially when you consider that such variations exist even within the repective countries. The differences of pronunciation and expression are as different between an American New Englander and, say, someone from the Deep South (Georgia, Tennessee, etc) as they are for someone from any given U.S. region and your choice of places in England. Even within the U.S., the differences within regions can be just a great: a Georgia accent is significantly different from a Texas drawl. And you really don't find anyone outside of Texas who uses the term "yonder" (as in, "it's over yonder."). Futhermore such variations exist even on the relatively small island of England.

That said, I would, however ,argue whether or not what is spoken in Scotland actually qualifies as English. I watched a Scotish movie not that long ago (forgot the title) and the darn thing had subtitles--and it was a good thing because I couldn't understand more than a word or two they said!

[hardhead]

I love my country dammit, but jeeez, are we just arrogant in our ignorance or what?!

Technically Canadian's and Mexican's are also "Americans". You know, as in countries on the "north" American continent. Heh...

Yeah I guess, just call it American instead of English. We have that right, we are God's "real" chosen country anyway...:lol:

[mattjohndrow]

maybe it's English, we're just Americans, well, disoriented, if you will, but, um, yeah, i think it's american

[crazychester]

Originally posted by BuonRotto
Do Australians speak Australian?

Are you fair dinkum sport or have you got a few roos loose in the top paddock?

[billybobsky]

Originally posted by Kickaha
Dude. What's my title again? :D

how fast do you type?

[markjo]

As I recall, there's an old saying about US and England being 2 countries seperated by a common language.

[Stoo]

That said, I would, however ,argue whether or not what is spoken in Scotland actually qualifies as English.

Careful now. You wouldn't want to make us Scoattish go all pure mental.

[ipodandimac]

Originally posted by Wrong Robot
I feel similarly about Genre names for music. My philosophy is that if it sounds good, it is good. Now, while Genres and such are useful for organization, too many people define themselves or their listening habits by genres. They like having that 'something' to latch onto I guess. :\

Why do you feel that time zones are stupid? btw

well our whole time system is messed up. if you and i are on opposite parts of the world and raise our arm or something at the exact same time, shouldn't the numerical time be the same as well? another thing that bothers me is daylight savings time and all of that. its so stupid that we change our clocks and adjust our lives, only so we can "gain" an hour here, even though we "lose" an hour later on. why even bother? if you never changed your clock, the only difference it would make is that you wouldnt be on par with everyone else, its not like you're going to get less stuff done during the day, and who cares when the sun sets and rises according to our clocks? the 12 hour format is another thing i dont like. i've been on military time for about 7 years now: 1 numerical value for each hour of the day--it's just simpler and more accurate (if i tell someone 1400 they know what i mean, where if i say 2, i have to specify AM or PM).

i think we need to move to a system where there is just one time. start at the prime meridian. when it's "midnight" there, the time is 0000. if you're in China, that could be the middle of the afternoon, but it's still 0000--no confusion whatsoever. it shouldnt matter to people what number a clock reads throughout the day as long as its consistent. think about it--call from anywhere in the world to anywhere else in the world, and you know exactly what time you're talking, no conversions of time zones. so anyways, "dinner time" on the east coast might occur at 2300, but who gives a damn. this probably isnt making any sense, but i just hate it when things are way more complicated than they have to be. its seems so obvious that we should have one time, and each hour, minute, and second is unique to one relative point in a 24 hour time period.

my physics class had a positive impact on me :)

-ipod

[PaulP]

English. Plain and simple.

There is no such thing as US English, International English, or British English. No matter what Microsoft would have us believe.

Yes there are grammatical differences and spelling of certain words varies from country to country, but then again it does within the same country too.

If I were to travel just a hundred miles north of where I am in the UK right now the accent would be quite different and I might not even recognise some words.

Why stop at US, International, and British? Maybe we should have London English, New York English, Sydney English... and so on.

[Stoo]

if you and i are on opposite parts of the world and raise our arm or something at the exact same time, shouldn't the numerical time be the same as well?

It would be the same global time (usually GMT or UTC), but it isn't the same local time. It isn't reasonable for all middays to occur at 1200 worldwide for an arbritary locale.

[staphbaby]

Originally posted by BuonRotto
Do Australians speak Australian? … :D

No, we speak 'Strine.

[Fangorn]

Originally posted by Stoo
Careful now. You wouldn't want to make us Scoattish go all pure mental.

:embarrass ;)

[Stoo]

Was the film Trainspotting?

Scottish accents and dialects vary hugely over such a small country: people from the southern central belt can have trouble understanding people from the Highlands (and vice versa), despite speaking English variants (with a much greater variety of word pronounciations and spellings than between UK English/American English) .

I just learned that "braw" (meaning splendid) is a Scots variation of "brave", and brawer and brawest are legitimate words. Ones that I may now have to find use for. :)

[billybobsky]

Originally posted by ShawnJ
Bill Bryson's The Mother Tongue: English and how it got that way (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0380715430/qid=1082186694/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/103-9812731-9275838?v=glance&s=books) is an informative and entertaining book on the subject (the history of the English language). I read it on vacation last year in Hilton Head. Kind of hard to retain anything poolside. :D :D :D I do remember turning the pages though.

Don't vacation at Hilton Head. You have been warned...

[ipodandimac]

Originally posted by Stoo
It isn't reasonable for all middays to occur at 1200 worldwide for an arbritary locale.
right--i'm saying that 1200 would be midday at the prime meridian. midday in the US might be something like 1700.

[n2nrn]

Greenwich Mean Time (GMC), Universal Coordinated Time (UTC), or Military time (Zulu) are all versions of a single time system. You just have to remember your local timezone in reference to Greenwich Time. In New York I'm -5 hours, and other places accordingly.
As an amateur radio operator I am often talking to someone who is in a different time zone, occasionally a different day, and not uncommonly a different season. I had a chat with a gentleman in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. It was early December in Ny and dead of summer there, needless to say I was a bit jealous.

For really esoteric time zones, move to parts of Ohio or Pennsylvania where the Amish have Amish Half Time, a 1/2 hour difference....something to do with farming without electric lights.

As to the language, its all English, patois, dialect, creole, regional vernacular, it's all English

n2nrn

[shetline]

Originally posted by n2nrn
For really esoteric time zones, move to parts of Ohio or Pennsylvania where the Amish have Amish Half Time, a 1/2 hour difference....something to do with farming without electric lights.
Australia's Lord Howe Island is an interesting case. It's 10 hours, 30 minutes ahead of UT for part of the year, but when it switches to Daylight Saving Time, the residents only turn their clocks forward half an hour, so they essentially switch to UT + 11:00.

[ipodandimac]

Originally posted by shetline
Australia's Lord Howe Island is an interesting case. It's 10 hours, 30 minutes ahead of UT for part of the year, but when it switches to Daylight Saving Time, the residents only turn their clocks forward half an hour, so they essentially switch to UT + 11:00.
see this is what i'm talking about. what the hell do people hope to accomplish by adjusting their clocks 30 minutes one way or the other?

[crazychester]

Originally posted by ipodandimac
see this is what i'm talking about. what the hell do people hope to accomplish by adjusting their clocks 30 minutes one way or the other?

Yeah except you can take it for granted that life on Lord Howe is so laid back nobody gives a rat's arse what time it is anyway.

[shetline]

Originally posted by crazychester
Yeah except you can take it for granted that life on Lord Howe is so laid back nobody gives a rat's arse what time it is anyway.
Just in case someone relaxing on Lord Howe Island decides to do a little stargazing, I had to make sure my astronomy software would handle the funky time zone rules there.

As for the Amish... they're on their own.

[crazychester]

Originally posted by shetline
Just in case someone relaxing on Lord Howe Island decides to do a little stargazing, I had to make sure my astronomy software would handle the funky time zone rules there.


Ah that's interesting (just had a look at your web site). Being a navigator's daughter, I spent a lot of time in meatspace planetariums as a kid.

I've got a good view of the heavens where I am at the moment but next weekend I'm moving onto a farm and it should be even better. I'll give it a burl.

[KANE]

Can't we all just get along?

[Celco]

Originally posted by crazychester
Are you fair dinkum sport or have you got a few roos loose in the top paddock?

:lol: But what your really saying is that your a couple of snags short of a barbie...right ;)