171–180 of 255 posts
"But in the grand scheme of things, the traffic both ways has been modest. That is, American English and British English remain distinct dialects, with little danger of being homogenised."
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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?
The article starts off with "run-up." What's the origin of that? I have heard of run-up in cricket.
Brit living in the US here. Despite being here 7 years now i'll every so often have an American point out how odd something I say is. Recently it was me saying "I'll need to head home and get my swimming costume before heading to the pool". To which the response was "wow wow wow, "swimming costume"? Really? A costume. Not a uniform but a costume; something you wear for halloween? OMG that's adorable" Turns out Americ…
Maybe "swim suit"? "Suite" is something else, no?
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.
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I'm fairly certain "dump" is the more commonly used word in the UK. There's the classic children's novel "Stig of the Dump" published in 1963. There's definitely cases where UK English has adopted a new word but American English hasn't. I was surprised to see the word "coupon" used in old UK literature. "Voucher" is the more common word nowadays. People would accuse you of being Americanised if you said coupon.
I’ve never met a fellow Brit who would say ‘dump’ instead of ‘tip’ in this context. I also call my discount-loving fellow Brit friend ‘coupon boy’ rather than ‘voucher boy’!
It was always the dump when I was growing up (mid 70s, northwest.)
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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.
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Can you say that out loud in a sentence please?
We say it how we spell it and so do americans.
I've got a fairly plain accent, fairly close to Received Pronunciation or BBC/Oxford English, Americans never have a hard time understanding my pronunciation, and even I sound closer to 'aluminyum' or maybe 'aluminiyum' more than a clean 'aluminium', though it still sounds much closer to correctly pronounced British word than to the American version.
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> 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
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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.