[lg policy] terminology question

[Anthea Fraser Gupta]

I have a question, especially for people in the US.  A speech-language professor in the US contacted me with questions related to Singapore, and used a term that baffled me: "European English". I didn't know if it was regional (how????) or racial (why???) and simply couldn't interpret it. When I asked him what he meant by the term he explained that he "was referring to the English used in the schools in Singapore. Perhaps I should have refered to it as standard European English. Here in the U.S. we have standard American English. My use of European English is more specific than just the general term standard English."

Have you ever come across this term, apparently being used where other people would use 'British Standard English'? Is its meaning clear to people in the US? I find it odd and rather offensive.....

[My regular readers will know that I reckon there is ONE Standard English and that categorical regional differences are tiny and rarely worth mentioning.]

Anthea
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Anthea Fraser Gupta (Dr)
School of English, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT
<www.leeds.ac.uk/english/staff/afg>
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