Poll: Elegance versus Simplicity

[scarbunny]

I'm an English teacher so there is no contest. British English is the version for grown-ups.

That is kind of insulting.

It may be insulting but it's also true.

UK English is proper English. Unfortunately the shear volume of Americans spelling everything wrong and producing literary works is causing the rest of the world to spell certain words wrong.

Also what do Americans have against the letter U? Why has it been removed from words such as colour?

Sir I hate to inform you but, there is no such thing as proper English. the language changes around so much based on where you go that your better of prefacing the word English with a region to avoid confusion. I'm sorry to tell you that the British aren't some kind of glorious English master race who's every word like music, deal with the fact that American English and British English are different and neither is "proper".

Oh and we hate the letter "u" because we could, thats right we fought that whole revolutionary war not because we wanted independence but because we were sick of being fined for using words without "u".

I think you'll find that English is the language spoken in England, and recorded in the Oxford English dictionary. Americans speak American, similar to English but different. In the same way the Scottish speak Scottish and the Irish speak Irish.

Its just a shame you cant spell Revolution with out the letter "U" then, unless you were being facetious.

I know I was.

 

[Sane Man]

Yes, Americans early in their years tried to get away as much as possible from Britain and so Webster and others changed the way we spelled words to make us different.

They actually did a study and found Americans are much more of a "stickler" when it comes to grammar than the British. I always thought it was the opposite, so it was interesting.

 

[WheresMyCow]

I personally prefer to write in English English, but if I'm typing I write in American on account of less key strokes. But I also like to write in Olde English on occasion.
So basically I write however I feel like.

 

[TerribleTerryTate]

By the way, I always thought Arse was more of a Scottish thing, or has braveheart taught me wrong?

Being from the UK, English spelling > American spelling. Also, there are many, MANY things that Braveheart taught wrong. Many. 90% of it is complete BS.

 

[Stakhanov]

I was being facetious. Mostly.
I like the complexity, I find the assumption that words must be simplified to be insultingly reductive.

On the ass/ arse debate: In Scotland an ass is a goat, an arse is the wellspring of fecal matter. Asshole is an Americanism. I think 'arse' is as much an English term as a Scottish one though.

 

[traceur_]

Australians use the english spelling and therefore the english spelling is better because everything we do is superior. An ass is a donkey, an arse is one's posterior, the english language has too many homophones as is, there's no need to have more.

 

[Tattaglia]

*shrugs*
I don't mind - I accept both forms anyway. As long as words are spelt right according to their version of English, it's correct. Buuuuuut... because I'm a New Zealander, I'm going to go for the third option and stick with my Aussie brethren. New Zealand is like the nerdier younger brother of Australia, but we don't have any awesome animals.

 

[Labyrinth]

I cannot help but feel my rancour rise at Americanised spelling. Really, it's nothing more than a programmed attempt to rationalise an alternate national identity. Sort of like a rebel child taking up profanity for the sake of parental disapproval, and honestly, it's pulled of about as well.

No doubt my view is coloured by experience and all the rest, but I will retain my excess vowels, my -ise and my habit of using Latin prefixes and suffixes.

 

[RetiarySword]

Over the past few years, I've been typing quite a bit in the English language. Of course, being Dutch, I use a spelling corrector to aid me a bit. Yet some of the things I have learned to be correct, show up as errors on the damned thing! With the spelling corrector defaulting to US, correcting it usually results in a far less pretty word, at least in my humble opinion. I rather change it to UK English, where the imaginative voice in my mind reads the sentence out loud in a pretty accent.

To illustrate, if you have for example Microsoft Office Word, with spelling correction, set the spelling to English (U.K.), and copy the following list:

sulphur ? sulfur
aeroplane ? airplane
favourable ? favorable
anaesthesia ? anesthesia
liquorice ? licorice
cheque ? check
analyse ? analyze
arse ? ass

I'll wait
...
..
.

Now, set the spelling to English (U.S.).

Are you as disappointed as I am by the (subjective) loss of elegance of some of these words in the US? Or do you rejoice in the use of this somewhat simplified spelling? These are just a few examples, and I know that there are examples too where it's the other way around. But it's always a let down for me when I encounter those red lines below a perfectly acceptable, and in my opinion, superior spelling of a word.

I'm from the UK and use the left one. It is just so much better in spelling. Also it does bring out my accent.

 

[Grimm91]

I cannot help but feel my rancour rise at Americanised spelling. Really, it's nothing more than a programmed attempt to rationalise an alternate national identity. Sort of like a rebel child taking up profanity for the sake of parental disapproval, and honestly, it's pulled of about as well.

No doubt my view is coloured by experience and all the rest, but I will retain my excess vowels, my -ise and my habit of using Latin prefixes and suffixes.

Sadly as an American I agree with you. I wish that people over here could speak with British elegance. Nowadays people over here have only the literacy capacity of a ten year old child. It depresses me.

 

[LordOmnit]

I chose other because no matter where you are from there are a massive number of words in English that are spelled in a silly manner. However, I reserve most of my ire for languages for the French language after taking two years of it early in high school and realizing that even English is far well beyond beat when it comes to stupidly spelled words.

[EDIT]Yup, Labyrinth is right for the most part, though.[/EDIT]

 

[ace_of_something]

Both are fine I think it's funny how many of you English are all upset that we Americans have our own dialect of English. Especially considering the united states itself has probably 5 or 6 dialects of English within it. Which from my visit to the Empire taught me that England has a different dialect every 10 miles or so. (This isn't even bring up other English speaking countries) Also funny, most people that support the American style say 'it's simple' or 'it's easy' not saying much about the other style and it's users. Wheres those supporting the English style seem to think that anyone using the American style are idiots and should stop what they're doing right now. You wonder why most Americans think British people are stuck up?

Sorry, that America has been on it's own for hundreds of years and developed a small variation on spelling certain words. If you hate our spelling I'd really enjoy hearing what you have to say about how we speak. Especially people with a yooper or poor southern accent.

There is one specific Americanised spelling which drives me insane - and has, on occasion, been known to make me feel violently physically sick. That spelling is the American alternate of "foetus". While the British spelling makes me think of a perfectly healthy child, the American spelling makes me think of a disgustingly twisted monster.

Here in America the word is spelled 'Americanized.' I having never seen fetus spelled foetus (foe-tus! The Prenatal Supervillain)I looked up the Etymology. Seems that in English it was first translated from latin to Fetus but somewhere along the line some scholar monk thought that doesn't sound right and decided to use a French spelling of f?tus. So, REALLY we're using the original Latin word over here and you're using some crazy (nutter) word.

 

[ace_of_something]

British english as it makes sense and its what I've always been taught its colour damn it not color why did they take out one letter what was the purpose of it?

What was the purpose of having a letter that you don't pronounce and doesn't modify any of the other letters in the word in the first place!?

We questioned your taxes! We questioned your king! Now we shall question your spelling!

We aren't out to piss you off it's all a pigment of your imagination.

 

[Labyrinth]

Sadly as an American I agree with you. I wish that people over here could speak with British elegance. Nowadays people over here have only the literacy capacity of a ten year old child. It depresses me.

Don't underestimate 10-year-olds. I've seen one reading Poe..

 

[bjj hero]

Sadly as an American I agree with you. I wish that people over here could speak with British elegance. Nowadays people over here have only the literacy capacity of a ten year old child. It depresses me.

Don't underestimate 10-year-olds. I've seen one reading Poe..

I'd wager he slept with the lights on afterwards...

 

[Sane Man]

I cannot help but feel my rancour rise at Americanised spelling. Really, it's nothing more than a programmed attempt to rationalise an alternate national identity. Sort of like a rebel child taking up profanity for the sake of parental disapproval, and honestly, it's pulled of about as well.

No doubt my view is coloured by experience and all the rest, but I will retain my excess vowels, my -ise and my habit of using Latin prefixes and suffixes.

Yes, it's terrible that America is the only former colony turned country that wants its own identity. I mean Australia has never done that, nor Mexico, or Canada, or Brazil. Oh wait, they have, that's funny.

 

[Magical Hans]

British English sounds more grown up to me, plus its delightfully British!
I cant get my head around the American misspellings...

cheque != check (and it never should be):/


EDIT:
Ironically i spelled British wrong the second time uh oh

 

[Sane Man]

British English sounds more grown up to me, plus its delightfully Bristish!
I cant get my head around the American misspellings...

cheque != check (and it never should be):/

Perhaps that they aren't "misspellings" will help you out with that. Now, different spellings, we could say that.

 

[FrostyV3]

As a little side note, one thing I hate is Americans taking ownership of 'English'

Example:
Select Your Language:

Chinese (Simplified)
Chinese (Extended)
Dutch
Espanol
Francais
Finnish
English (U.S) <----- GAHH!

I Don't Know, it just annoys me so much whenever I see the list of languages and English (US) is the only English option.

~Frosty.

 

[Cylem]

As long as it's spelled correctly, I don't really care whether it's American or not. I did grow up playing Neopets, so I used to spell almost everything with those fancy, extra letters. I got graded down on all of my papers in school, though... I think that's kind of unfair...

Now-a-days I use American spellings for the sake of consistency.