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| So Queens English or "US" English then? |
| I'm a North American, so teach US spelling |
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65% |
[ 19 ] |
| I'm a Non-N.American and I teach US spelling *cough* [i]traitor[/i] |
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17% |
[ 5 ] |
| I'm a Non-N.American and I teach correct English spelling! |
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17% |
[ 5 ] |
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| Total Votes : 29 |
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wylde
Joined: 14 Apr 2003
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 Posted: Wed Jul 21, 2004 5:48 pm Post subject: |
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| dogbert wrote: |
| I like it better than "Sepponian" |
it's done then  |
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Gord
Joined: 25 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Wed Jul 21, 2004 6:55 pm Post subject: |
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| dogbert wrote: |
| A self-styled elitist should know that the superfluous "u" in words such as "honor", "color", and "labor", is merely a needless Frenchification of English spelling. |
And let's not forget that England had a huge dropping of letter sounds back about 400 years ago. Words with silent letters came pretty much all are a result of this.
But then about 150 years about England got on the education bandwagon and tried to give the majority of people an education. Suddenly people start noticing all these extra letters and began to do pronunciations based on how many words were spelled rather than how the masses had been saying them.
So words like "often" which had lost its "T" sound then regained it back. But places like the U.S. which were now removed from this influence maintained their silent letter words and changed sound words (like "water" with the "T" sounding like a "D").
It is the irony of ironies that the generic U.S. accent of today is pretty much what the England accent of yesterday was. |
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prosodic
Joined: 21 Jun 2004
Location: ����
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| Posted: Wed Jul 21, 2004 7:07 pm Post subject: |
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[quote="Gord"]
| dogbert wrote: |
| It is the irony of ironies that the generic U.S. accent of today is pretty much what the England accent of yesterday was. |
It's not really irony. It's fairly normal for outcasts to do this (I'm an American by the way).
The standard explanation is that early colonists were afraid that the English language was going to deteriorate in the colonies and therefore taught prescriptive grammar and pronunciation more rigorously than their British counterparts. This resulted in Americans preserving aspects of the language that were lost or changed in England. It got to the point that by the mid nineteenth century, British elites were saying that you had to go to America to find pure English.
The attitudes toward American vs. British English changed radically in the early twentieth century.
A couple years ago, I was chatting with some actors from the RSC during their tour of the U.S. One of them said something about wishing that he could do an American accent better because the vowels and the r sound are probably closer to the sounds of Shakespeare's time. |
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wylde
Joined: 14 Apr 2003
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| Posted: Wed Jul 21, 2004 7:44 pm Post subject: |
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i'll delete this 1..
the others stand
Last edited by wylde on Wed Jul 21, 2004 7:56 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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paperbag princess
Joined: 07 Mar 2004
Location: veggie hell
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| Posted: Wed Jul 21, 2004 7:51 pm Post subject: |
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i don't think you should say "north american spelling", i'm canadian and have always spelt in the canadian/british manner. us english is us.
i teach my kids both. |
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ajuma
Joined: 18 Feb 2003
Location: Anywere but Seoul!!
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| Posted: Fri Jul 23, 2004 7:54 am Post subject: |
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I teach American spelling/grammar/vocab, but often tell students that British English has different spelling/grammar/vocab. When I taught in Europe, I did the same.
The one especially important thing to teach is the "date order." Many students will be working in companies that deal with foreign companies. The date 1/2/05 can mean January 2, 2005 OR February 1, 2005...depending on it's origination. Students need to know that they MUST get exact dates (in word form) from the "contracting company." |
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wylde
Joined: 14 Apr 2003
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| Posted: Fri Jul 23, 2004 8:02 am Post subject: |
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i agree.. date is important
in australia we work on the fact of order.. smallest to largest or vise-versa..
it is day month year.. i can not see the reason to put the year or month first as we all read left to right.. that would mean a complete waste of time everyday reading a number first that we read yesterday.. and the day before,.. and the day before.. and the day before.. and the day before.. and the day before.. and the day before.. and the day before.. get my point?
but i still educate students for backwards countries |
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