Why do Americans adulterate English?

Geoff1131


Joined: 12/07/2007
Posts: 276

Message Posted:
01/03/2011 10:40

Haveing watched Hilary Clinton giving a speach about Libya. I was struck again by the way the Americans alter the pronunciation of certain countries names. We have already had the I-raq and I-ran syndromes. Now we have her calling Tunisia Tune-eeesa. Why can they not conform to the everyday name of countries or is it an insult in some way?

malsancak


Joined: 23/08/2009
Posts: 2874

Message Posted:
01/03/2011 10:57

Geoff, I-raq is the everyday name of the country for 200m+ Americans. The Iraqis call it http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/Ar-al_Gumhuriyah_al_Iraqiya.ogg

martinD41


Joined: 06/09/2010
Posts: 3001

Message Posted:
01/03/2011 11:02

One think the USA is not good at is conforming,mind you the British used to be as bad,,eg KENYA became KEEEENYA, MOMBASA became MOMBARRSA, But keep in mind,as Bush said,if your not with us your against us.

Sundance


Joined: 15/07/2010
Posts: 213

Message Posted:
01/03/2011 12:17

Hi Geoff, There,s not much hope for me with the Queens english being a thick mick from Belfast,



Sundance

fiendishpaul


Joined: 18/05/2008
Posts: 1720

Message Posted:
01/03/2011 13:07

Geoff



Our own countrymen do a good enough job of murdering the english language without worrying about the Americans.

shrimp


Joined: 01/09/2010
Posts: 939

Message Posted:
01/03/2011 13:13

I am now told that Penge is now pronounced PonJe......Battersea, is now pronounced Bat-er-si-a........etc.

MsGarnet


Joined: 04/01/2009
Posts: 989

Message Posted:
01/03/2011 13:17

Msg 6 - Balham is Barm and Clapham is Clarm and Dachet is Dash-et - but going back to American, can't stand skejoooooooooooooooooool instead of schedule (why do so many English people now pronounce it that way too)? and alooooooooooominum instead of Aluminium......one could go on and on........

brother



Joined: 29/01/2010
Posts: 446

Message Posted:
01/03/2011 13:50

There is nothing wrong with how American's pronounce words. It's not English anyway......it's American ;-)

I have no issues with how they speak and I know how they love and are soooo confused by the English accents from UK (notice the 's' after 'accent' and 'UK').



The thing that I personally get confused by is how they can ask a question when they make a statement.....it was very fashionable with the youngsters in the UK for a while

TopTen


Joined: 15/04/2009
Posts: 1246

Message Posted:
01/03/2011 14:02

And a bath is a bloody bath not barth

Carndi


Joined: 12/06/2009
Posts: 613

Message Posted:
01/03/2011 15:01

Sundance. Belfast brogue is not so bad, just slightly ( tounge in cheek ) worse than us Ards folk.

CJtill


Joined: 02/05/2008
Posts: 836

Message Posted:
01/03/2011 15:04

Subtitles are normally required from most inhabitants north of....now where was it...somewhere on the M25 and I am sure it began with a W.

Michael

mahdel


Joined: 28/05/2009
Posts: 255

Message Posted:
01/03/2011 15:37

A better question would be why don't some British people understand the concept of dialects. There is no one English, even in England.

phylray



Joined: 21/09/2007
Posts: 1727

Message Posted:
01/03/2011 16:49

I think because so many are not originally English speakers and, especially in the spelling,

they have tried to simplify a very difficult spelling system. But, I notice they use 'practice'

whether verb or noun, and yet 'advice and advise' are kept as original. Seems illogical.

Pronunciations are bound to be different. Just look at the differences we have in our own

little islands!

Sundance


Joined: 15/07/2010
Posts: 213

Message Posted:
01/03/2011 17:00

Msg 10

Hello Bob, I know ards well having family there, and me being once a wise man from the east,

Sundance

kaiserphil


Joined: 14/12/2008
Posts: 1096

Message Posted:
01/03/2011 19:06

You should hear my other half. Orange is 'ornge', mirror is 'mirr', and worse. It's Pittsburgh-ese!

IbrahimAbi


Joined: 24/10/2010
Posts: 245

Message Posted:
01/03/2011 21:35

for me it;s not just the pronounciation but the choice of words,

To hear president Bush and his generals in the Gulf war talking about the 'Persian Gulf' was priceless knowing ho much it upset his allies who would consider it the 'Arabian Gulf'



Atlases with 'Persian Gulf' were banned for years in Aran countries and here was the hero of the day spouting it out on world-wide tv without a clue, on a daily basis.

jimchris09


Joined: 13/02/2009
Posts: 547

Message Posted:
02/03/2011 03:36

I find it amusing that there are so many comments on how British people find American English so unacceptable.



Think carefully about the steady decline of spoken English in the UK media in the last 30 years or so. Just one example is the invasion of the glottal stop. Another is the "Eastender" influence so that "F" replaces "th" and "k" the "g" in "..ing". The combinations of the above are horrendous!



Remember also...the majority of people in the UK under 50 haven't a clue about basic punctuation such as the apostrophe. In addition I think I read somewhere that the majority of 16 year olds leaving school couldn't hold up an unlabelled world map the right way round!



"Those who are without sin...." ?

jimchris09


Joined: 13/02/2009
Posts: 547

Message Posted:
02/03/2011 11:31

BTW...just noticed... HavEing...in the opening to this thread .....mmmmm!

mollycorbin


Joined: 12/03/2010
Posts: 390

Message Posted:
02/03/2011 11:37

Spot on! What an ASS. Er I mean arse.

jimchris09


Joined: 13/02/2009
Posts: 547

Message Posted:
02/03/2011 12:13

Just accept what someone once said; basically that the Americans and the British are two peoples divided by the same language.

jimchris09


Joined: 13/02/2009
Posts: 547

Message Posted:
02/03/2011 12:14

Have a nice day,now,y'all!

kaiserphil


Joined: 14/12/2008
Posts: 1096

Message Posted:
02/03/2011 12:39

jimchris09 - That was Mark Twain, who said that. He also wrote a very funny article about the German language.

jimchris09


Joined: 13/02/2009
Posts: 547

Message Posted:
02/03/2011 13:02

Thanks Kaiser..I'll remember that for the next quiz!

kaiserphil


Joined: 14/12/2008
Posts: 1096

Message Posted:
02/03/2011 14:43

jimchris - have a look at this link:

http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/awfgrmlg.html#x1

kaiserphil


Joined: 14/12/2008
Posts: 1096

Message Posted:
02/03/2011 14:46

Just read something that suggests that Mark Twain may have taken it from somewhere else.

Groucho



Joined: 26/04/2008
Posts: 7993

Message Posted:
02/03/2011 14:48

The Yanks don't murder English half as much as the readership of Cyprus44 do!

Geoff1131


Joined: 12/07/2007
Posts: 276

Message Posted:
02/03/2011 16:02

Thanks for all the comments, even those from jimchis09 mess 18 or should that read cooments? and from mollycorbin mess 19 how is your friend the shepard? We can all make typo errors and its easy to find them eh.

jimchris09


Joined: 13/02/2009
Posts: 547

Message Posted:
02/03/2011 17:36

Yes, and correct them yourself. Just an opportune moment, considering the topic.

Panchocat


Joined: 29/11/2009
Posts: 1333

Message Posted:
02/03/2011 23:04

Well the long vowel rule and the short vowel rule in English vocabulary states that a double consonant after a vowel makes it a short vowel sound.

If the short vowel rule was followed it would be Irran and Irraq.

Theoretically then the Americans are right, I ran and I raq with the long vowel sound.



An American once said to me he knew I was English when he heard my accent. I told him that I didn't have an accent he did!

He didn't get British humour either!

shrimp


Joined: 01/09/2010
Posts: 939

Message Posted:
02/03/2011 23:19

message 20, a good american friend of mine once told me she had left her spare pants in her purse...............

what she meant was that she had left her trousers in her handbag...... we still laugh about it now.

No1Doyen


Joined: 04/07/2008
Posts: 16617

Message Posted:
02/03/2011 23:34

I'm amazed at the foolishness of undetermined perplexities, far from the nearness of all that could be.

Brinsley


Joined: 04/04/2009
Posts: 6858

Message Posted:
03/03/2011 00:23

The BBC buggered it all up when they changed 'Uranus' to 'Yrinis'! Bring back RP as a mainline course in Primary & Secondary education!



Richard

Turbo


Joined: 24/12/2006
Posts: 833

Message Posted:
03/03/2011 02:46

I think some English films should be subtitled...

and you talk about the Americans talking funny...