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This blog is written in en-GB

shkspr.mobi

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Re: This blog is written in en-GB

#181

Post by sgt »

mghackerlady wrote: post #58
sgt wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may be true, but in practice, US english has no taken over as the de-facto English. All thanks to the Internet. I am glad someone is pushing back on this, though, and I want more multi lingual sites on the Internet in general.

No, no I don't think it has. Americans are vastly outnumbered by commonwealth states using and teaching standard English

See my other comment, the world follows the US. It's about where the influence is primarily coming from, and that is currently America. And in terms of English it has a distinct advantage in that it is full of native speakers. Many Indians are proficient in English but they're not native speakers.

Re: This blog is written in en-GB

#182

Post by mattlondon »

biofox wrote: post #28

I am the only Brit in the department I work in. No one gets the cultural references or British idioms I use, and I've found myself significantly changing the language I use to a very utilitarian and direct style to prevent the endless blank stares... reading this blog post just made me realise that this self-editing has made my interactions rather more 'flat' and unnatural, as they now lack spontaneity, with everythi…

+1 very similar situation, one of only two Brits the rest from all.over who speak "international English"

Despite all the woke stuff I still have to hide my en-GB background in my BigCo

Re: This blog is written in en-GB

#183

Post by elAhmo »

jdw64 wrote: post #159
prima-facie wrote: post #149

If you are from Europe, even if you're not living in the UK, the en-GB locale will feel a lot more familiar to you than the en-US one. It uses the dd-mm-yyyy date format like the rest of Europe, the start of the week is on Monday (vs Sunday in the US), the default paper size is A4 (vs US letter), measurement defaults are metric (indeed UK roads use imperial, but the default is otherwise metric), the time format uses…

So in East Asia they basically teach British English. Seeing that made it clear to me.

Same as in Balkans. We literally used coursebooks from Britain.

Re: This blog is written in en-GB

#185

Post by edent »

tjpnz wrote: post #161
myrmidon wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding spelling: As an unbiased foreigner, many American variants seem superior to me (color, defense, program, meter) with british just being weird (and/or tainted by the french). Regarding Rowling: It seems to me that she gets more pushback/hate being, say "50% modern left-ish" than people that are even less aligned with left values. This gives me kinda medieval religion vibes (better an unbeliever/outsider than…

Counter example: Richard Dawkins and Robert Winston have both said similar things to Rowling and are on the left (one is a Labour peer). Neither have received anything resembling the backlash she has.

They both have received significant opprobrium. But she's the one funding a massive hate campaign.

Re: This blog is written in en-GB

#186

Post by tialaramex »

toolslive wrote: post #114
pjmlp wrote: post #78

Fully agree with the author, just like I write Portuguese in European Portuguese, not Brazilian Portuguese, African Portuguese or any other variation, just because our population is smaller. Incidently I always change automatic language correction tools to English GB, I live in this side of the Atlantic, and that is variant I learnt while growing up.

I always put my locale in Ireland: I want - "proper English" - metric system - Euro It's amazing how many web applications give me a broken experience because of it.

That's not a bad hack, thanks

Re: This blog is written in en-GB

#187

Post by [deleted] »

dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #142
onionisafruit wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes Americans wonder why English characters start talking about a basic cable channel when they really should be seeking medical help.

As a non-American I don't know what "basic cable" is (or what the other tiers are), just that you don't have free-to-air TV

[deleted]

Re: This blog is written in en-GB

#188

Post by Deebster »

drcongo wrote: post #145
hennell wrote: post #131

I think idioms and cultural references are fine - the rest of the world has worked out what US baseball and football cliches likely mean, people can decode most references with context. But there are some interesting issues with UK US english, things like 'quite' which works in different ways in each locale. I was also very surprised to discover the difference in what we consider a frown - which makes a lot more sens…

What's the "quite" difference?

Roughly:

British "quite" means somewhat.

American "quite" means very.

A Brit saying a suggestion is "quite good" is actually saying it's not good enough, whereas a US listener will think they've been told the opposite.

Re: This blog is written in en-GB

#189

Post by WithinReason »

TimK65 wrote: post #176
prima-facie wrote: post #149

If you are from Europe, even if you're not living in the UK, the en-GB locale will feel a lot more familiar to you than the en-US one. It uses the dd-mm-yyyy date format like the rest of Europe, the start of the week is on Monday (vs Sunday in the US), the default paper size is A4 (vs US letter), measurement defaults are metric (indeed UK roads use imperial, but the default is otherwise metric), the time format uses…

So thankful that we use the correct date format (yyyy-mm-dd) in Sweden.

That's also the ISO standard since it sorts correctly

Re: This blog is written in en-GB

#190

Post by pezezin »

prima-facie wrote: post #149

If you are from Europe, even if you're not living in the UK, the en-GB locale will feel a lot more familiar to you than the en-US one. It uses the dd-mm-yyyy date format like the rest of Europe, the start of the week is on Monday (vs Sunday in the US), the default paper size is A4 (vs US letter), measurement defaults are metric (indeed UK roads use imperial, but the default is otherwise metric), the time format uses…

I prefer en-IE, which is the same plus Euro as the default currency.
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