7.1663, Sum: British vs. American English

[The Linguist List]

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LINGUIST List:  Vol-7-1663. Sun Nov 24 1996. ISSN: 1068-4875. Lines:  196
 
Subject: 7.1663, Sum: British vs. American English
 
Moderators: Anthony Rodrigues Aristar: Texas A&M U. <aristar at unix.tamu.edu>
            Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan U. <hdry at emunix.emich.edu> (On Leave)
            T. Daniel Seely: Eastern Michigan U. <dseely at emunix.emich.edu>
 
Associate Editors: Ljuba Veselinova <lveselin at emunix.emich.edu>
                   Ann Dizdar <dizdar at unix.tamu.edu>
Assistant Editor:  Sue Robinson <robinson at emunix.emich.edu>
Technical Editor:  Ron Reck <rreck at emunix.emich.edu>
 
Software development: John H. Remmers <remmers at emunix.emich.edu>
 
Editor for this issue: robinson at emunix.emich.edu (Susan Robinson)
 
---------------------------------Directory-----------------------------------
1)
Date:  Wed, 20 Nov 1996 21:55:40 +0200
From:  Hamjohn at alfa.vte.fi (John Hammink)
Subject:  Responses to BrE vs. AmE
 
---------------------------------Messages------------------------------------
1)
Date:  Wed, 20 Nov 1996 21:55:40 +0200
From:  Hamjohn at alfa.vte.fi (John Hammink)
Subject:  Responses to BrE vs. AmE
 
 
I wanted to thank everyone who responded to my query regarding some of
the general dissimilarities on all levels between British and American
English.  The responses were scattered far and wide across the
linguistic spectrum, so here's a (very small) sample of the findings:
 
There are so many overlaps and borrowings between the two that any of
these findings may be, of course, questionable.
 
The Corporal Department:
 
American English uses the corporal singular (The government was...)
British English uses the corporal plural (The parliament were...)
 
The Restrictive-Relative Pronominal Department:
 
British English prefers "which", while American English feels easier
with "that".
 
The Honorifics Department:
 
In a conversation between people of the high professional, economic or
academic stratum, American English tends to use the title and surname
or firstname (Dr. Denning, Keith); British English tends often to use
surnames alone (Seely).
 
The Lexical and Morphological Item Department:
 
AmE........................................BrE
 
buy				          trade
 
trade				          shop
 
store				          shop
 
warehouse			          store
 
gotten				           *
 
get				          get
 
-ize                                       -ise
 
color                                     colour
 
(Of course, there's probably zillions more differences, and even the
ones listed here are influenced by the same temporal forces which
affect language divergence and convergence.  If I've started a major
academic controversy with this puny little list, well, too bad!!!!)
 
 Various Other Linguistic Phenomena
 
It seems that Cambridge publishing house in New York as well as
various publishers use the style manual of the American Psychological
Association (why?). These folks tend to like things in the active as
opposed to passive voice, as well as direct declarations to indirect
past-perfect tense verb statements.  Cathy Ball writes: 'As Chomsky
has argued...' becomes 'Chomsky argued...'  '...as we have seen...'
becomes '...as I have shown...'  Incidentally, many European academic
writers (i.e. the folks at Kajaani and Jyvdskyld polytechnics
seeking a more American model of academic writing) have objected to
the preferred use of the active voice for various reasons.  I have
been able to overrule some of these objections myself.  (More
interested in this viewpoint?  Try reading Writing with Precision by
Jefferson Bates).
 
 
The Selected Bibliography (Department)
 
Below is a list of referred sources.  For reasons of lack of time, I
have left out the publishing house.
 
Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language
 
Quirk and Greenbaum  A Concise Dictionary of Contemporary English
 
Pyles and Algeo  The Origins and Development of the English Language
 
Bates, Jefferson Writing with Precision; How to Write so that You
     Cannot Possibly be Misunderstood.  (A GREAT book, originally
     published in the '80's by Acropolis Books, now possibly out of
     print.)
 
Carnegie, Dale   How to Win Friends and Influence People (touches more
     on issues of cordiality and congeniality)
 
Mencken, H.L.  The American Language (Mencken, like many others in
     time began to minimize the difference between the two national
     standards)
 
Robertson and Cassidy    Development of Modern English
 
Marckwardt   American English
 
Biber, Douglas (1987) 'A textual comparison of British and American
     Writing' American Speech vol.62
 
Cectal English Dialogue Information Exchange.  edie-cectal at sheffield.ac.uk
 
Nilsen, Thor Sigurd British and American English Pronunciation
 
Gramley and Patzold A Survey of Modern English
 
Bengt Altenberg's ICAME Bibliography (Just looking at the titles from
     this one opens up a universe of tiny differences and variations)
     I didn't have time to write this one down
 
Quirk and Marckwardt's A Common Language for the Voice of America on BBC
     Radio, 1964 (I mean, really, I think these guys just couldn't
     think of anything at the time this one aired!)
 
 
Strevens, Peter  (1972)  British and American English
 
Hannah, Peter and Jean  International English
 
Anything by Ulla Connor, Eija Ventola, and Anna Mauranen.....
 
Trudgill, Peter  Dialects in Contact
 
The Thank You Department.....
 
Without these folks, this summary would never have been posible:
 
Gillian Sankoff   gillian at central.cis.upenn.edu
 
Rebecca Meyer  meyerr at mail.sdsu.edu
 
Marie E. Heldt  meh2 at dana.ucc.nau.edu
 
Julie Reid  J.Reid at latrobe.edu.au
 
Christina Gitsaki  cgitsaki at nucba.ac.jp
 
Dr. Roly Sussex  sussex at cltr.uq.oz.au
 
Monique Biemans M.Biemans at let.kun.nl
 
Thor Sigurd Nilsen  Thor.s.Nilsen at hit.no
 
Somebody   DUBARTELL at edinboro.edu
 
Robert Sigley  Robert.Sigley at vuw.ac.nz
 
Catherine N. Ball  cball at guvax.acc.georgetown.edu
 
J.A. Rea  JAREA at UKCC.uky.edu
 
Laurie Bauer  Laurie.Bauer at vuw.ac.nz
 
M. Shuib  M.Shuib at sheffield.ac.uk
 
Matti Koponen majuko at cc.jyu.fi (this person lives in my town and I
STILL haven't met him!!)
 
Jaroslav Mantour  parasite at freenet.hut.fi
 
Dr. Thomas Daniel Seely  Seely at emunix.emich.edu
 
Dr.  Keith Denning  Denning at emunix.emich.edu
 
Kiitos avusta!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
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