Using British English spelling

Discussion in 'Word Mechanics' started by Paspalum, Sep 18, 2017.

  1. Shenanigator

    Shenanigator Has the Vocabulary of a Well-Educated Sailor. Contributor

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    "FebYEWerry" is what I hear when my relatives from Indiana say it, but they have a couple of Southern states in the mix.

    Library is difficult to describe, but when my relatives say it, their first R is very soft. It's not quite "LI-Berry" yet not with as definite of an R as I use. We definitely sound like we're each from different families (or planets) when we say it.
     
  2. Tenderiser

    Tenderiser Not a man or BayView

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    Oh, it's not just me who noticed that people with American accents can't say squirrel! 'Mirror' is another one.
     
  3. Sir Robin

    Sir Robin Member

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    We people in Baltimore can say squirrel and mirror just fine, thank you very much.

    Of course if you ask us to say spicket (we pronounce is as spiggot) :whistle:
     
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  4. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    Don't you spell it as "spigot" too? What the hell's a spicket?
     
  5. Sir Robin

    Sir Robin Member

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    It's a water faucet believe it or not. :superlaugh:
     
  6. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    That's what a "spigot" is. But I've just googled "spicket" and found that some crazy people actually pronounce the word that way. (When I say "some crazy people" I seem to be referencing a good chunk of the eastern US). Americans - what are we going to do with you?
     
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  7. Tenderiser

    Tenderiser Not a man or BayView

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    I'm gonna need proof.
     
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  8. GrahamLewis

    GrahamLewis Seeking the bigger self Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Contest Winner 2022

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    I had an American-born science teacher who pronounced "sink" like the element, "zinc." Maybe it's a regionalism, I've never researched it. Speaking of regionalisms here in Wisconsin, most natives don't call it a"drinking fountain," but rather a "bubbler."
     
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  9. Sir Robin

    Sir Robin Member

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    It's called Baltimorese. Basically, because of our geography we tend to mix southern slang with some New York mixed in. A lot of us sound like Archie Bunker with a speech impediment. XD.


    Does this help?


    [​IMG]
     
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  10. Radrook

    Radrook Banned Contributor

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    When I moved to Florida they said I had a NY accent.
    When I moved to Pennsylvania-they said I was imitating Rocky Balboa.
    My thought was that if I sounded as stupid as Rocky Balboa did then I had a serious problem.
    One thing's for sure-a British accent of the high class style isn't going to give that brain-dead impression.
     
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  11. GrahamLewis

    GrahamLewis Seeking the bigger self Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Contest Winner 2022

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    Am I correct in recalling that what we Americans hear as the sophisticated British accent is actually an accent that was once that of the lower class?
     
  12. Tenderiser

    Tenderiser Not a man or BayView

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    I don't know - interesting question! I'd have to listen to a sample of the said accent.
     
  13. Radrook

    Radrook Banned Contributor

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    True, many Americans tend to delete the "r". But please note that in the USA "winter" is pronounced "winner" and "winner" sometimes as "winnah" "sure" as "shuah" "here" or "hear" as "heah" " " mother" as "mothah" "you" as "yow" etcetera and ad infinitum depending on the region or ethnic group or both.
     
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  14. GrahamLewis

    GrahamLewis Seeking the bigger self Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Contest Winner 2022

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  15. making tracks

    making tracks Active Member

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    I'm English, there was a book series I read which was American but for the UK publications they changed the words to the UK spellings. I don't know if all publishers would want to go to this effort but I guess it solves the problem?

    Edit: just to add, when I visited America I was to told by different people that I sound like Adele, Kate Middleton and Jon Snow (As in Game Of Thrones). Not quite sure how I managed that!
     
  16. animagus_kitty

    animagus_kitty Senior Member

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    Really funny story about Jon Snow. I don't watch Game of Thrones often, and certainly not every episode; but I know enough about it to know that almost every British accent is fake, except his.
    I don't mind listening to Kit Harington talk, but I cannot stand Jon Snow's accent.
     
  17. Sir Douglas

    Sir Douglas Member

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    Are you writing primarily for Americans or English speaking readers in general? That would include Australians, Canadians, Indians ( from India ), etc. Seriously, some of my coworkers are Indians who struggle with American English. And there's more at stake than spelling: vocabulary, idioms, etc. A number of Americans do read British authors and I suppose it goes the other way. I read both American and British. If in doubt, write as your British self. Or produce two versions if you have idiomatic and lexical differences.

    My concern for my own writing is whether my fellow Americans would have a problem with metric measurement. I favor metric because it's more logical. Also, if my setting is far into the future, I would favor ( favour ) metric. Will the U.S.A. still use the traditional English system 200 years from now?
     
  18. emilycurious

    emilycurious New Member

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    Unfortunately I write in both, and just change my spell checker language depending on who I'm writing to, but sometimes I'm deliberately English for an American audience or vice versa, as I am trying to cause disharmony.
    And my pet hate miss-pronounced America word is ERA - "He's the most famo(u)s man in the common ERROR". And yes they say mirror as mira, library as liberry, bonfire as bomfire (in the UK too) and a myriad other lexicological faux pas, but they say "kiss me" the same way, so everything is okay.
     
  19. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    Over here we call that a tap

    A spigot is a small peg used for venting a cask (also known a a spil ) ... its also the NATO code name for a russian antitank missile
     
  20. Shenanigator

    Shenanigator Has the Vocabulary of a Well-Educated Sailor. Contributor

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    Actually all those pronunciations are extremely regional, and you've got quite a mix of US regions in there.

    Replacing an the a with an r sound and vice versa is a small section of the upper NorthEast. It's pretty much going away; In New York it's now really only the older people who do it. You still hear it in some parts of Massachusetts and Maine.

    Library, I covered earlier in this thread. That's some areas of the South and Midwest. Again, not me, but some members of my family say I sound like a snob for pronouncing the first R. My accent is different from theirs, because I grew up mostly in California then traveled all over the US as an adult.

    Bomfire? I've honestly never heard that one, even though bonfires as a "thing" are popular in the Midwest during autumn.
     
    Last edited: Nov 8, 2017
  21. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Each of these pronunciations is regional, not "American".

    Everybody spells famous as famous. It's not one of the o/ou differences in US and UK spellings.

    Do you consider ALL variations from some single correct accent to be "lexicological faux pas"? What is the single master accent, as far as you're concerned?
     
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  22. Shenanigator

    Shenanigator Has the Vocabulary of a Well-Educated Sailor. Contributor

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    @Sir Douglas Regarding metric, for myself, I'm dyslexic, so the metric system and conversions are lost on me because I have trouble with numbers. When I come across a metric system measurement in something I'm reading I skip over it and hope it's not important. If it's in a listing of something I want to buy on Amazon or Etsy instead of in US measurements, I go to a different listing. I suspect many of my fellow Americans would react similarly due to laziness.

    Edited to change "most" to "many"
     
  23. Sir Douglas

    Sir Douglas Member

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    Pronunciation is not the same everywhere in the U.S.A. My dialect is primarily Hudson Valley, having lived in N.Y State till the age of 9. I have minimal southern influence as a result of moving while still young. I pronounce "winter" as "winter," "winner as "winner," "sure" as "sher," "here" as "here." Interestingly, I pronounce "creek" two ways: "Crick" refers to solid rock-bottom streams in the northeast. "Creek," refers to muddy-bottom streams in the southeast. That is the result of moving halfway through my childhood. On a larger scale: Dialect variations within both U.S.A. and Britain stem from a time before 400 A.D., possibly 200 A.D., in continental northwest Europe. There is a major dialect divide between Frisian versus Saxon. That divide is still somewhat preserved in both Britain and America.
     
  24. GrahamLewis

    GrahamLewis Seeking the bigger self Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Contest Winner 2022

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    It's long been my understanding (I'm midwestern American BTW) that there's often a distinction between old English and the French-imposed language after William the Conqueror. That "cemetery" from the French is more formal than "graveyard" and "cottage" more formal than "hut" and so on. And that for plain, i.e. more casual and perhaps more friendly writing, those derived from old English read better.

    Does anyone else agree about that?

    And when I was a kid in rural Nebraska we said "crick" but once I moved to the big city, it became "creek." I don't have any of the mispronunciations listed by Radrook.
     
  25. The Dapper Hooligan

    The Dapper Hooligan (V) ( ;,,;) (v) Contributor

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    Where I'm at there is the occasional person who calls a creek a crick, but a crick more commonly refers to something like a twist, a know, or a sharp bend, so we say we've got a crick in the back when we pull a muscle or that there's a crick in the rope if we tangle a line. So I guess a crick could be a creek with a crick in it?
     

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