Talk:American and British English differences

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[edit] Weekends revisited

A recent embedded comment from JackLumber reads Does BrE use "weekends" as an adverb, like "evenings," "Mondays," etc.? There was a brief discussion about this (or something like it) a month or so ago, here. In the light of this I have deleted the embedded comment and amended the text - I hope reasonably accurately. OK, Jack? (though it occurs to me that maybe the AmE use of "weekends", "evenings" etc with no preposition might belong more appropriately in the section headed "Presence or absence of syntactic elements"). FWIW, this speaker of BrEng would say "at the weekend", "at weekends", but never "on weekends" or just "weekends". And I may do something "on Mondays" or "every Monday", but never just "Mondays" - and I do things "in the evening" (in this case always in the singular), but never do things "evenings". Snalwibma 22:32, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

English (the American variety, at least...) has a series of adverbs---Mondays through Sundays, weekends, nights, evenings, mornings, afternoons (I have measured out my life with coffee spoons)---which mean "during every {weekend, morning, etc.}" (or at least "most weekends," etc.) and suggest repeated action---that is, it's not just "dropping the preposition"; they carry a subtly different shade of meaning. Some of these are pretty old (nights dates to C12); weekends is way more recent. JackLumber. 23:38, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
OALD lists mornings and afternoons without comment, but labels evenings and nights "especially NAmE." CALD tends to see mornings, afternoons, and evenings as American---but check out the verbal illustration for nights. JackLumber. 23:57, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
The phrase "I work nights and weekends" is usual BrE. "The library is closed Saturdays" is not. I think the examples used in the article should be changed because they strike me as ambiguous and incorrect. For example "I work nights" is pretty much the only way it could be said, because "nights" are what the shifts are known as, and therefore they are out of context. It's hard to pin down exactly what is standard in BrE and what isn't. "I work Mondays" is standard, but "I go to work Mondays" is not. Needs a bit more research and clarification before it should be included. -- Boothman /tɔːk/ 20:22, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Hi Booth! It's ben awhile. Now I understand why I like to go out nights and sleep during the day is "US" and Because she's a nurse she often has to work nights is not. You know, usage rules. ("Rules" is a verb here.) Usage is what makes words sound wrong, right, quaint, odd, ambiguous. And books are often clueless about it. JackLumber. 21:53, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Interesting, Boothman... My take on this is that nights in "I work nights" is the object of the verb, not an adverb. I work Mondays, but I'd never travel Mondays (though I might travel on Mondays). I think this supports my contention that the adverbial use of unadorned Mondays, nights, weekends etc is a marker of AmE as distinct from BrE. It also strikes me that this discussion could go on for ever. Snalwibma 09:26, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Interesting observation, Snalwibma, and I would add to it that whether it's the object of the verb in any given instance is easy to test for. If you substitute "them" for "Mondays" or "nights" (or whatever it is) and it still works, then it's the object of the verb (i.e., it's functioning as a noun and can thus be replaced by a pronoun), whereas if it sounds goofy then it's probably an adverb.McTavidge 11:55, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bring or take

In the article on Oliver Stone there's the phrase "Stone's father brought him to a prostitute to lose his virginity, in his midteens." As a Brit, this really jarred - I would have used "took" instead of "brought". Is this a difference between AmE and BrE, or is this use of "brought" incorrect both sides of the pond? Jamse 13:28, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

The semantic division between bring and take differs in Ireland; see under Hiberno-English#Grammar derived from Irish. jnestorius(talk) 14:50, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
As an American, I probably would have used "took", but I don't see anything wrong with "brought", so it may be a AmE/BrE difference. --67.165.6.76 03:14, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
As an American, I suspect you're just not noticing the distinction careful speakers (English and American) make between "bring" and "take" and the similar pair "come" and "go." "Lay" and "lie" and "sit" and "set" may also confuse. Quiz: Which is correct: (1) "Between you and I" or (2) "Between you and me"? Fun with language.McTavidge 04:32, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Some more fuel for you guys. Check it out. By the way, British the lie of the land, American the lay of the land. And, between us, all the way ;-) JackLumber. 22:09, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Ahh, I should have known. Things are often not as simple as they seem. Looks to me like the complexities of bring/take/come/go are just part of the language rather than AmBr differences.McTavidge 03:12, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
I suspect it's just bad wording. If Oliver brought him to a prostitute, it implies he was already in the vicinity of the prostitute, and went to get his son there too. And by the way, both "You and I", "You and Me" and "Me and You" are correct, although it is common for schools to teach that "Me" is wrong, regardless of any evidence of that. -- Boothman /tɔːk/ 14:18, 8 February 2007 (UTC).
"You and Me" and "You and I" are both correct but mean different things. You can use "You and I" where you would use "we", for exaple:
  • You and I are going to the cinema tomorrow (we are going to the cinema tomorrow).
You would use "you and me" where you would use "us".
  • There will be plenty of food for you and me (there will be plenty of food for us)
Another way to think of it is to think of the sentence with just "I" or me;
  • I am going to the cinema tomorrow.
  • There will be plenty of food for me.
Adding the "you and" never changes an "I" to a "me" or vice versa.
In common speech (in the UK anyway) people often use "you and me" where in formal speech it should be "you and I". Occasionally you will here someone trying to sound "posh" who says "you and I" where it should be "you and me", which to me seems to be really pretentious. -- Q Chris 10:06, 9 February 2007 (UTC)



Following JackLumber's link ([1]), there is a good explanation of the relationships between "bring" and "take", and "come" and "go" respectively ("causitive transitive forms"). That article ends with the assertion that:
"If you are speaking to someone outside your office community, who will not be accompanying you tomorrow, you would be more likely to say I'll take the sausage to work tomorrow; but you could still say I'll bring it to work, because, after all, you'll be there, and it'll count as moving towards you, the speaker."
To my British ear, I find the second version quite jarring; dare I say it - I think this would be "wrong" in British English. It's certainly something that I've been more aware of in American English, and not a formation that I've been aware of in British English. If this is the case, "take" is acceptable in both, and "bring" is sometimes used in American English. Jamse 09:34, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sources?

I see only three references—Mighty Fine Words and Smashing Expressions, The Oxford Guide to World English, and The Cambridge Guide to English Usage. (All British, I note...) They are listed at the bottom of the article. There are no inline source citations. Presumably then, the entire contents of this article is to be understood to be a compilation from and a distillation of these three books.

But it certainly isn't obvious which of these books is the authority for, e.g the statement that "American legislators and lawyers always use the preposition of between the name of a legislative act and the year it was passed, while their British equivalents do not."

This is a very actively edited page with many changes being made to individual items on the page. The edit comments, e.g. "(Undid revision 104137957 by Moncrief -- no sir, it's BritiCism, not BritiSHism)" don't hint at published sources, either. Presumably both editors would have found the same information if they had consulted the same published source.

This article certainly gives me the impression of largely being original research, based on the personal authority of the contributing editors. If editors don't want to give that impression, they need to be much more punctilious about citing sources than they have been. Dpbsmith (talk) 20:32, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

... Even at the cost of rendering the article unreadable? Snalwibma 22:09, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

All British? Hardly. The author of Migthy Fine Words is American, and the author of the Cambridge Guide is Australian. Briticism is the preferred form in the Oxford English Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, non-Merriam Websters, etc. The parts on grammar are entirely, or almost entirely, sourced. Inline citations? Coming soon. You know, I have a day job. Some of those "anecdotes" may be OR, however; most of them date back to 2003 or 2004. Anyway, a few statements proudly showcase a {{cn}} tag---more coming soon! JackLumber. 22:14, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Tagged the article to at least give fair warning to readers. dr.ef.tymac 17:52, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV

This article is completely NPOV, as it says "those americans" all over the place. Additionally, there are extremely few sources in this, and more need to be introduced. I'll look around myself, but please someone else help to fix this article. Thanks. Imageboy1 07:01, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

The article has "those Americans" only once, and in the instance, "this is generally regarded as sloppy usage by those Americans who consider themselves careful users of the language." It is using "those" to refer to the subset of Americans who consider themselves careful users of the language, rather than indicating that Americans are "other" to the speaker. Since this is the only criticism of the article on NPOV grounds, I am removing the tag, and replacing it by an {{unreferenced}} tag.Atemperman
Agreed.McTavidge 22:35, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Thus far, I find the article remarkably neutral, and true to the ear, to the extent that I hadn't noticed the lack of (obtrusive?) citations at all.
I do have a small question, regarding a distinction under Use of Tenses/Subjunctive Mood, between 'they suggested that he apply for the job' vs. '... that he should apply for the job'. "However, the British usage ("should apply") is also heard in the United States, but is often regarded as erroneous in writing."
I believe that in AmE the added 'should' is often not heard as subjunctive at all, so much as mildly hortatory, as in "ought to", raising a slight doubt of 'his' doing so, and giving slightly more emphasis to the 'suggesting' than to the simple getting of the job. Doubts about using should would probably stem from a sense that, unless some such overtone were intended, the word would be redundant. Perhaps this is related to the similar differences in "shall"? FutharkRed 09:06, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
I wouldn't regard "should apply" as erroneous. FutharkRed is spot on (if I'm borrowing that phrase correctly) in believing that my AmE ears heard the "should" as hortatory. Petershank 00:01, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Month names

In the part about dates formats (the reason why I read this article in the first place), the example of "25 December 2000" is given for the BrE format in some places. Should it not read "25 Decembre 2000"?

And something may be missing in the sentence "It is very common [...] to add a (sometimes superscripted) ordinal ('st, nd, rd' or 'th') to the day number in informal writing (thus "25 December 2000" or "December 25, 2000")." It should read 25th near the end.

Since I am not a native speaker from either AmE or BrE, I refrain from edits. Jcdubacq 17:31, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

As far as I can tell Brits spell December the same way as Americans. As for the line, yes it should have been written as December 25th, 2000; however since it is incorrect (Americans use the same format) I've just removed it. Koweja 17:41, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Asking for the time

I found that there is a significant difference in how people ask someone to tell them what time it is. Being from a commonwealth country, my initial reaction to the American question "Do you have the time?" was to wonder what activity the inquiring person wanted to engage in. I cannot comment expertly on how people ask for time in BrE, but an addition about this would be useful—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.165.27.182 (talk • contribs).

  • Hmmm. I think "Do you have the time?" or "Have you the time?" would be pretty standard way of asking the time in BrE too - so I'm not sure if there's a difference here that fits within the scope of this article. Snalwibma 15:35, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The British do not know how to spell

I am sorry but the British do not know how to spell. When it comes to the English language Americans are usually not only more logical and more phonetic, they are usually more correct. The Webster's dictionary used in the U.S., however, is not that different from the Oxford English Dictionary. In fact in many cases the publishers of the Oxford English Dictionary admit that where there is a difference between normal English and American spelling, the American version is usually preferable or more correct.

Take the ‘–or/-our ‘endings of words like ‘color/colour', ‘favor/favour', ‘endeavor/endeavour' for instance. Fowler's Modern English Usage, published by the Oxford University Press, makes it quite clear that the British ‘–our' endings have no validity; it is simply national prejudice and arrogance which prevents the British from approaching the subject with an open mind. Fowler's then goes on to point out that the ‘–or' endings are much more common than the ‘–our' ones even in U.K., and that the differently spelled suffixes do not ‘serve any useful purpose'. Words like ‘horror', ‘pallor', ‘governor' and even ‘pavior' are given, some of which were once spelt with ‘–our' endings. Fowler's speculates that in any future spelling reform ‘reduction of ‘–our' to ‘–or' will be one of the least disputed items, or that, failing general reform we shall see word after word in ‘–our' go the way of ‘governour.'

Fowler's then refers the reader to the Oxford English Dictionary ‘–or' entry ‘to satisfy themselves that it is right to deny any value to the ‘-our' spelling'. There you have it: the Oxford English Dictionary itself admits Americans are being quite correct to favor ‘-or' in place of ‘-our'. The fact that even in quaint British spelling derivatives of ‘-our' words are, as Fowler's points out, usually spelt with ‘-or' just shows what nonsense the British spelling is

In actual fact most of these words come from the Latin, which was always spelt ‘-or'. The ‘-our' corruption is due to French influence, and has no phonetic value whatsoever. The actual vowel sound is neutral, so ‘endeavor', ‘endever' or even ‘endevr' would represent the phonetics much better than the British ‘endeavour' spelling which is unnecessarily cumbersome. The Australians have progressed a little way towards the more correct American spelling, and at least the Australian Labor Party has adopted the shorter ‘-or' spelling. Increasingly use of the internet has spread the more correct and phonetic American spelling, and indeed more correct American English like the grammatically correct ‘gotten', throughout the English-speaking world.

Some other quotes from Fowler's: ‘cheque' – ‘mereley a variant of check'. The ‘-ise/-ize' choice of endings in words like ‘organize': ‘the Oxford University Press, the Cambridge University Press, The Times and American usage, in all of which ‘–ize' is the accepted form, carry authority'. Fowler's points our that ‘-ise' is a French corruption, as is ‘-re' in words like ‘centre' and ‘metre' (the Americans, of course, sensibly spell these endings 'er' - 'center', 'meter', etc..)

In words which take a double ‘L' in U.K. and one in the U.S., such as ‘traveller/traveler', it is quite obvious the U.S. version is more correct. The British spelling implies the stress is on the second syllable, i.e. ‘traVELLer', as the double consonant tends to come after the syllable which is stressed. Americans, however, reverse the double ‘L' rule when it comes to words like ‘enrol' and ‘instalment'. The preceding are the British spellings, the USA use ‘enroll' and ‘installment, which is far more proper. Amnesty International has adopted ‘program' instead of the very eccentric and weird British ‘programme'. Incidentally, in computer language ‘program' is already used in British spelling, but why not abandon the ridiculous ‘mme' ending completely? The Oxford English Dictionary says: ‘the earlier program… is preferable as conforming to the usual English representation of Greek gramma, in anagram, cryptogram, diagram, telegram, etc.' Once again the OED says Americans are right and it is the British who have corrupted the English laguage with the newer, inconsistent and incorrect ‘mme' endings. People should never use the equally ridiculous ‘–gue' endings the British use, but always ‘catolog', ‘analog', etc. which is used in American english. User:Daniel_Chiswick 29 March, 2007

  • Hi! Yu are entitled to yor opinions, of corse! Plese just keep them here on the tok paje, and doo not insert them into the article. Snalwibma 08:21, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
A spelling is "correct" as long as it's accepted. So -l- and -ll- are both correct---in the US and UK, respectively. Long story short, most commentators agree that American spelling is more regular than British spelling. But the substitution of -er for -re in center etc. was a screw-up. —JackLumber/tɔk/ 22:51, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
While we are all entitled to our opinions, Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines state "Article talk pages should not be used by editors as platforms for their personal views." If there is a general feeling among experts and/or the American public and/or the British public that one system is better than the other, this is worth mentioning: with citations, which may list particular examples. However, the opinion of a single Wikipedian (or even 1000 Wikipedians) is not really relevant in itself, but only in so far as it helps to inform the article. jnestorius(talk) 00:15, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Well I think, along with many others, that American english is more proper because we have eliminated all of the corruptions left over from French. The best example are words that end with "Tre" instead of "Ter", nobody says Thea-treh the way the French pronounce the word, but instead it is pronounced the way it is spelt in American english. The English language is just a mash up of German, Frisian, and French and with British spelling you can really tell that it is made up of borrowed words which seems rather barbaric if you think about it, whereas in American english you cannot tell that the words were borrowed because we droped the French spelling. I have no idea why the British just do not adopt American spelling since it is more correct, perhaps it is just national prejudice? The InternationalMonetary Fund (IMF), World Bank Group, Organization of American States (OAS), North American Free TradeAgreement (NAFTA) Secretariat, Modern Language Association (MLA), World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistrymany other international organizations all use American english because it is more proper and even a few former British colonies like Canada and Australia are starting to use American spelling for that same reason. When people from non-english speaking countries want to learn english abroad they usually choose the U.S. over most other english speaking countries because we spell better and we have the world's largest english speaking population. I would say that American english is international english because it is spoken by far more people and it is used by many international organizations. I do not wish to offend and Britons because I am a huge anglophile but I just want to let people know that British english incorrect and spoken by far less people than American english and that American english should take precedence over British spelling for that reason. User:Daniel_Chiswick 29 March, 2007.

I fink u tok krep. Jooler


Hwen in dh kors v hiumn jvents, it bjkvmz nesiseri fcr wvn pipl ta dizqlv dh politikl baendz hwitsh haev k'nektd dhem widh anvdhr, and tu asu:m amvng dh Pqwrz v dh r:th, dh separeit and jkwal steishn to hwitsh dh lcz v neitshr and v neitshrz Gqd entaitl dhm, a djsnt rjspekt tu dh opinynz v maenkaind rjkwairs dht dhei shwd diklaer dh kcz'z hwitsh impel dhem tu dh separeishn.
That's the first sentence of the Declaration of Independence according to spelling reformer Fred S. C. Wingfield of Chicago (1944). I personally prefer the system devised by James J. Hayes, professor of English at Oklahoma City University. Example: the Lord's Prayer
Our Fadhr hoo [or hwitsh] art in hevn, haelōed bē dhī nām. Dhī kingdm kum. Dhī wil be dun in urth aez it iz in hevn. ...
Yet one of the earliest inventions is to be found in Britain—yessiree, in Limeyland; to wit, in Alexander J. Ellis's "Plea for Phonetic Spelling" (London, 1848), where it is ascribed to William Gregory, professor of chemistry at Edinburgh.
Eye obzerve yew proepeaux two introwduice ay nue sissedem ov righting, bigh whitch ue eckspres oanly theigh sowneds anned knot thee orthoggerafey oph they wurds; butt Igh phthink ugh gow to fare inn cheighnjing owr thymeonird alfahbeat, aned ading sew menny neau lebtors.
Source: H. L. Mencken's Language, Supplement Two. Hey, what did you guys have for lunch? I had ghoughphtheightteeaux. And I'm gonna have ghoti for dinner. —JackLumber/tɔk/ 18:49, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five year phase-in plan that would be known as "Euro-English". In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of the "k". This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have 1 less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20% shorter. In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be ekspekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent "e"s in the language is disgraseful, and they should go away. By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters. After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi to understand ech ozer. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru! And zen ze world! Jooler 10:01, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
English will never be phonetic, and it's daft to try to make it so. You only have to look at honour->honor (not 'onor', duh!). English is one of (if not) the most mongrel language on the planet, with lexical borrowings from most other languages. And each of these will likely bring a new disconnect between spelling and pronunciation. Much better to revel in what makes English rich and bizarre than get wound up in pedantry.
And if by some chance you succeed on your quest, you're only likely to end up red-faced in one hundred years. After all, no sooner had spelling been sorted out after the invention of the printing press, then everybody decides to change the way they say all the words anyway). --Limegreen 11:01, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
I do not wish to offend and Britons because I am a huge anglophile - such a big Anglophile that you don't know the difference between England and Britain. Your opinions, while in good faith, show some remarkable ignorance. -- Boothman /tɔːk/ 11:57, 31 March 2007 (UTC).

[edit] twenty-four hundred

Americans use this pattern more consistently and for much higher numbers than is the norm in British English, referring to "twenty-four hundred" where British English would always use "two thousand four hundred"[citation needed]. Alas, I have no citation to offer, but can observe as a British native-speaker of English that this pattern, eccentric and inconsistent as it may appear - at least to the reader who required the citation - is in fact the usual way we say the higher numbers.

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