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The differences between English usage on this side of the big pond and on that side are a source of constant fascination to me so I thought a thread here might be a good place to collect notable instances thereof.

A couple to get the ball rolling:

US "I could care less" - in Britain this is met with puzzlement. We say "I couldn't care less" which seems to us to make perfect sense, whereas the US equivalent doesn't. Is it considered correct stateside?

US "washing up" seems to be used for washing your face, hands, clothes, or the dishes after a meal. In the UK, "washing up" only ever refers to tableware and kitchenware - after the meal you 'do the washing up' or you 'wash the dishes' - interchangeable terms. Shops sell 'washing up liquid' to make this task easier. We scratch our heads when we read about Americans washing up before a meal...

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A) Although most folks over here could care less about the correct form for this usage, the proper and polite utterance requires that you append an acknowledgement of your audience, such as "I could care less, ya'll," or "I could care less, sugar dumplin'."

B) Due to our long tradition of hearty backwoodsmanship, we Yanks feel it is important to indicate to our hostess the fact that we have cleansed outselves, as in "Now that I've washed up, what's to eat?"

Thank you for your interest in our culture, Bruin. Ya'll have a nice day, now.

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The differences between English usage on this side of the big pond and on that side are a source of constant fascination to me so I thought a thread here might be a good place to collect notable instances thereof.

A couple to get the ball rolling:

US "I could care less" - in Britain this is met with puzzlement. We say "I couldn't care less" which seems to us to make perfect sense, whereas the US equivalent doesn't. Is it considered correct stateside?

US "washing up" seems to be used for washing your face, hands, clothes, or the dishes after a meal. In the UK, "washing up" only ever refers to tableware and kitchenware - after the meal you 'do the washing up' or you 'wash the dishes' - interchangeable terms. Shops sell 'washing up liquid' to make this task easier. We scratch our heads when we read about Americans washing up before a meal...

I've heard, and probably said, both could and couldn't care less. They've come to mean exactly the same thing, one simply being more sarcastic than the other. I have no idea which nation uses sarcasm more freely than the other. But don't be discombobulated with the usage. Over here, use either for the same purpose and you'll be understood as long as you avoid saying it in a Georgie accent. Geordie? Something where you have to roll your tongue around a lot and perhaps bite it while speaking.

I must admit to never having heard an American say 'wash up'. We ask our kids to wash their hands, wash the dishes, wash the car and wash the dog. This 'up' of which you write must be cleaner here than there because no one here feels the need to wash it. Or perhaps this is an outgrowth of the British need to add superfluous prepositions to their statements. The Brits never tell people to come; they tell them to come through. The 'through' isn't needed to make their request understandable, any more than the 'up' adds anything to the hygiene of any situation where washing is involved.

C

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The one that often strikes me is the British expression along the lines of "my brother and his friends were sat in the lounge watching television." The US would not use "sat" in that manner.

I've also noticed a great reluctance to use the subjunctive. Thus in British writing I'll see "George suggested that I went with them" whereas in the US the subjunctive would be used to produce "George suggested that I go with them."

R

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Of course it all gets so much more complicated when common usage (either side of the pond) is so often incorrect usage. For instance, as Rutabaga says, Brits say 'Johnny was sat on a chair'. I occasionally do it myself although I know it's wrong. It's bad grammar in Britain, but it doesn't stop the Brits speaking (or even writing) like that.

On the other hand I think anyone who said 'George suggested that I went with them' would be censured for their incompetence with the language; perhaps 'George had suggested that I went with them' would be okay, though.

I'm surprised, Cole, that you don't hear Americans say 'wash up'. I read that all the time in stories! We do, certainly, add things to verbs such as 'come'. The only time we use come without a qualifier is when... well, you know...

Another usage I come across a lot in US stories is 'he looked out the window' or 'he threw it out the window'. Again, Brits say that a lot, but here it's bad grammar - the correct form is 'he looked out of (or threw it out of) the window'. Is that true in the States too?

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When I hear 'defenestrate', I think Czech Republic.

I don't think it's incorrect grammar except with really touchy pedants to leave the 'of' out of 'he looked out the window.' It might be accused of being vernacular speech, but that's not much of an insult.

I suppose 'wash up' would qualify that way, too. The phrase sounds very rural to me, and if it is used here, perhaps Appalachia or parts of the Midwest would be where you'd hear it.. I don't see it all the time, or ever, in what I read, but I don't read much William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe, Tennessee Williams or Robert Penn Warren or similar people who might have a twang in their writing.

I know it's common usage in Britain. Just like 'come through' is. That always sounds so quaint to me.

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Aussie usage of the English language is concurrent with both U.S. and British influence. Whilst we might understand and even use Americanisms, we tend to use British English definitions as our formal base.

I could go on to describe this combination of the three nations, such as we Australians say, "I'll do the washing up," meaning that I'll clean the dishes, but I'm much more interested in the corruptions of English that gain common usage. Such common usage can surprise local communities when a scholar announces so-called 'correct' pronunciation of well known names. Take for instance the name of Othello's wife, Desdemona. For many years as evidenced in old movies as well as the classroom of the fifties the name was pronounced Desda - moan-ah, emphasis on the moan. Today we are told it should be pronounced, Des - dem - ona, with emphasis on the dem.

Also the famous Queen of the British Iceni tribe was commonly known as Boa - de - sea - ah, Boadicea. However it is also spelt Boudica and we are told that it should be pronounced as Boo - di - ka.

These are merely names and there are many more complex examples that confound not only scholars, but also our own teachers, and I believe that gives us a clue to what went "wrong."

But first we have to overcome the idea that the way we speak is the correct or the only way a word, or phrase should be spoken.

Take the prefix "anti-". Americans say ant- eye, Aussies and Britains say "ant-ee" or anty. This is the best example of what I believe happened in the home-schooling of American pioneers/pilgrims. Isolated across the prairies of the American plains, parents with only a smattering of grammar and lingual form and usage taught their children to read from their early understanding of vowels. "a, e, i, o, u," as in, a as in cat, e as in met, I as in pin, o as in dog, and u as in *uck.

I have watched many people who have only this level of education in reading and writing begin reading from the basis of these vowel sounds; when they really needed to use the more sophisticated vowel sounds like, a as in hay, e as in tree, i as in high, o as in hoe, and u is in you.

Then there is the need to understand which syllable should be accented in any word with two or more syllables.

Combine the above with the multitude of immigrants from nearly every nation, tribe and with varying dialects and it is not surprising that Americans have formulated their own set of English rules and colloquialisms in speech.

In case you haven't understood that I am not attacking American speech, let me add that the Australian accent is also due to an inept laziness, compounded by a total lack of teaching voice production, something that the BBC over-does it, even if I do prefer it to the nasal mumble of Aussies or the drawl of the American Southern states.

The real problem however, is with the arrogance that has become endemic in some people because what they hear in the local community has to be correct by virtue of "it's how we have always said that." No it isn't, it's just different, and to pursue an understanding and acceptance of that difference will enrich our understanding of what is fast becoming a love of the diversity of the various way we use a common language, even when we find those differences frustrating.

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Well, the fact is, when it comes to pronunciation, we do it correctly and the Brits don't. For example, take the very simple word 'been'. Every time I hear a Brit say it, it comes out 'bean.' Every time. Every person. Quite obviously the word is correctly pronounced as we do it: 'bin'.

And don't try to confuse the issue by saying 'seen' is pronounced 'scene', so 'been' should be pronounced 'bean'. The two have nothing to do with each other and the argument is irrelevant.

C

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It's, more or less, this kind of argument, I was hoping to allay in the hope of encouraging all of us to become appreciative of the differences, the origin and evolution of our language.

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Here's an interesting pronunciation variant that's become accepted here. It's route. I was raised to pronounce it rawt, not root, both at home and at school. In middle school we were told that there were two pronunciations: rawt and root, and that rawt (or rowt) was the preferred pronunciation. (I went to a Catholic elementary school where I learned the rawt pronunciation, so it's obvious that rawt is the way God wants us to pronounce it.) :rolleyes:

Directions for travel are a route (pronounced rawt, IMO never root). A tool for chamfering the edge of a board is a router (pronounced rawter, never rooter). A device that forwards packets of data between networks is a router (pronounced rawter, never rooter). This is consistent with the pronunciation of similarly spelled words like out (awt, never oot), outer (awter, never ooter), rout (rawt, never root), shout (shawt, never shoot), pout (pawt, never poot), tout (tawt, never toot), flout (flawt, never floot), etc. etc.

Those who insist on pronouncing it "root" should spell it the way the source was spelled, rute (French, 12th century, from the Online Etymology Dictionary). :icon13:

Colin :icon_geek:

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Those who insist on pronouncing it "root" should spell it the way the source was spelled, rute (French, 12th century, from the Online Etymology Dictionary). :icon13:

Have any idea how many words in English are not pronounced how they are spelt? It's that kind of logic that caused the ITA (Initial Teaching Alphabet) to be foisted on kids. See the Wikipedia article for details:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_Teaching_Alphabet

I'll raise you cholmondeley... (pronounced chumley)

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Have any idea how many words in English are not pronounced how they are spelt? It's that kind of logic that caused the ITA (Initial Teaching Alphabet) to be foisted on kids. See the Wikipedia article for details:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_Teaching_Alphabet

I'll raise you cholmondeley... (pronounced chumley)

It's probably easier to count the words that are pronounced exactly as they are spelled.

Part of the problem/joy of English is that it's a living language with no central controlling authority like the Académie française. Thank God!

Colin :icon_geek:

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(I'm assuming that throughout this thread all of us have our tongue at least partly in our cheek...)

Thanks to Colin for raising the spectre of route...

As I had understood it, the pronunciation rawt is American; in the UK we say it root, aware of the derivation from French la route. This applies to all meanings of route or router that derive from the French la route.

The carpentry tool that cuts channels out of wooden surfaces is called a router and that's pronounced rawter in the UK although every other meaning of the word router is pronounced rooter. There is a reason for that - the carpentry router comes from the word rout, not from the word route. As in 'the battle turned into a rout'. Rout means to chase away and that's basically what a router does - it chases away the wood material in its path.

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If we're going to include proper names in our discussion (re: Cholmondeley in Nick's post above) we can have enormous and endless fun.

How about Farquhar - pronounced Farker (and in some regional accents that 'ar' sounds similar to a 'u' which gives rise to offence...)

Or St John pronounced Sinjun?

Or Ioan Gruffudd, the star of the BBC's Hornblower series and more recently a number of Marvel movies, who is pronounced Yowan Griffith!

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I actually love the British dry wit and humor and usage, Rick. If Dave used 'wash up' it's because of the insidious way your usages creep into our heads and lodge themselves there. I do it, too—find myself indulging in British usage. I'm sure it goes both ways, that you find yourself slipping into Americanisms. This makes both our languages more ecumenical and colorful.

C

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Aw James, I much prefer the word Lorry to Truck, which sounds to my ears aggressive, whereas Lorry reminds me of the toys I used to push around the bedroom floor before CB Radio was even invented!

Now Trucker, on the other hand, conjures images in my mind of.... well, you know...

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