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The other British invasion: how UK lingo conquered the US

theguardian.com

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Re: The other British invasion: how UK lingo conquered the US

#161

Post by pasc1878 »

laurencerowe wrote: post #119
dataflow wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you live in the US, I agree that you must use American English. Why though? I think you missed my point with the rationale for this. See below. > But even us people that live outside of the US/UK/related countries often got errors marked, because we used the wrong regional variant... In Europe, British English is used as a reference point, but I had a similar problem as GP. That makes perfect sense though? The p…

As a computer science student in England we were told we should use ‘program’ rather than ‘programme’ since that was the convention in our subject. If I remember correctly BBC Basic accepted COLOUR as well as COLOR keywords to be more approachable to primary school children who were native English speakers.

Surely for the BBC Minor COLOUR was always the correct way.

It was a bad show that they allowed COLOR as well.

As each keyword was saved as a code - did COLOR and COLOUR really map to two different codes?

Re: The other British invasion: how UK lingo conquered the US

#162

Post by rprwhite »

Lio wrote: post #156
rprwhite wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dump and tip have different connotations. The tip is where one deposits refuse/rubbish. Whilst a dump and is a pile/collection of unwanted things, not necessarily rubbish. It’s a small but often important distinction.

Not always. Fly tipping is an unwanted problem. Most people would prefer you take it to the dump. I suspect might be one of those regional things like scone/scone[1]. 1. It’s pronounced “scone” and I will fight anyone that says otherwise!

Challenge accepted - “scon” is the only way! Why? Absolutely no logical reason, but it is, how it is.

Re: The other British invasion: how UK lingo conquered the US

#163

Post by diggan »

bloqs wrote: post #139
yesco wrote: post #27

Having grown up in the US with what I would consider a higher than average exposure to the early 2000s internet, at least compared to other peers my age, much of my ability to read and write actually came directly from social media, instant messengers and online games rather than books. This meant I often found myself struggling with spelling errors in English class which sadly resulted in deducted points from my ess…

I find it fascinating that anyone in the US has this issue, as a Brit this was an issue for anyone with early internet exposure, but I hadn't considered the volume of British/Canadian/Aussie English to have an impact the other way round!

> as a Brit this was an issue for anyone with early internet exposure

Same here as a Swedish person who grew up with American media + eventually getting into Internet communities. English exams felt great when I took them, I knew all the answers after all.

But then getting the results back was always disappointing, as Swedish schools teach "British English", not "American English", so you better use the British spelling and pronunciation, otherwise it's completely wrong obviously and you deserve punishment.

Re: The other British invasion: how UK lingo conquered the US

#164

Post by diggan »

hanniabu wrote: post #103
yesco wrote: post #27

Having grown up in the US with what I would consider a higher than average exposure to the early 2000s internet, at least compared to other peers my age, much of my ability to read and write actually came directly from social media, instant messengers and online games rather than books. This meant I often found myself struggling with spelling errors in English class which sadly resulted in deducted points from my ess…

I can never remember if I should use grey or gray

> I can never remember if I should use grey or gray

Become a web/CSS developer and it won't matter anymore.

Re: The other British invasion: how UK lingo conquered the US

#165

Post by hermitcrab »

As a Brit, I feel the cultural traffic is more from the US to the UK. But that is hardly surprising given the larger American population and outsize influence of Hollywood.

Ps/ Americans, please keep saying "bummed". It is a constant source of amusement for immature Brits like myself.

Re: The other British invasion: how UK lingo conquered the US

#166

Post by rprwhite »

Lio wrote: post #156
rprwhite wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dump and tip have different connotations. The tip is where one deposits refuse/rubbish. Whilst a dump and is a pile/collection of unwanted things, not necessarily rubbish. It’s a small but often important distinction.

Not always. Fly tipping is an unwanted problem. Most people would prefer you take it to the dump. I suspect might be one of those regional things like scone/scone[1]. 1. It’s pronounced “scone” and I will fight anyone that says otherwise!

As a less confrontational reply: from my point of view “unwanted fly tipping” is talking about rubbish. The concept of depositing unwanted, yet usable, not rubbish, things somewhere is not something that would happen (outside of the rather recent disposable culture context). As to your sentence (which is perfectly fine), the use of words avoids possibly confusing repetition. Atypical use would be preferred to “no fly tipping, take it to the tip”.

Re: The other British invasion: how UK lingo conquered the US

#167

Post by trollied »

hermitcrab wrote: post #165

As a Brit, I feel the cultural traffic is more from the US to the UK. But that is hardly surprising given the larger American population and outsize influence of Hollywood. Ps/ Americans, please keep saying "bummed". It is a constant source of amusement for immature Brits like myself.

I've heard a few Americans say "wanker" recently. It just doesn't sound right in their accent.

Re: The other British invasion: how UK lingo conquered the US

#168

Post by dullcrisp »

rjsw wrote: post #60
carstenhag wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you live in the US, I agree that you must use American English. But even us people that live outside of the US/UK/related countries often got errors marked, because we used the wrong regional variant... In Europe, British English is used as a reference point, but I had a similar problem as GP.

> If you live in the US, I agree that you must use American English. Unless you are writing International Standards. ISO requires British English spellings in documents.

Also if you’re invited to tea with the Queen

Re: The other British invasion: how UK lingo conquered the US

#170

Post by itohihiyt »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #71

The article didn't mention what is by far my favorite British lingo: "faffing about". It's just so damn useful! I know that there are other phrases which work, but for whatever reason none of them really hit for me like "faffing about" does.

Someone who's actively engaging in faffing about: faffer.
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