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Post
by:
manhphu
member
ID 16988
Date: 05/19/2008
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American English
American English
In July 1994 a British MP proposed in the House of Commons a bill banning the use in English of words borrowed from French. There was laughter in the House as he spelled out the implications: no more croissants or baguettes, no hors d'œuvres, no visits to cafés or brasseries; in fact, no restaurants. No more rendez-vous, affaires, or ménages à trois.
The point of the MP's proposal, made tongue in cheek, was that the French were being chauvinist and absurd in their attempts to keep English expressions out of French. Words taken from other languages can be useful if they label aspects of our experience not already named, or if they provide an enlivening or entertaining metaphor, or an attention-grabbing phrase. Borrowings can enrich a culture. No language is an island, and where two cultures meet, words cross over.
1. Vocabulary The British MPs laughed at the proposal to ban French words from English, but would they have responded with such hilarity to a proposal to ban Americanisms from British English? American English, like French, has given us many useful words. Surely British English would be the poorer without boarding house,; commuter; flashpoint; gimmick; punchline; snoop; teenager; or expressions such as face the music; be out on a limb; pull the wool over someone's eyes; take a back seat.
Which of the following words or expressions have come into British English from American English? influential; reliable; grapevine; to advocate; to bark up the wrong tree; hangover; to knuckle down; lengthy; live wire; immigrant; hot air; to make up your mind? Well, all of them, actually.
The assimilated words remain because they are useful; and the process of transfer goes on. There are various reasons for this. The USA is the dominant world power. It exports its way of life – so we gained burgers and chewing gum, motels and BLTs (bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches), gameshows and chatshows.
The USA leads the world in many technologies. Thus we gained many computer terms, for example GIGO, an acronym that stands for 'Garbage In, Garbage Out', and sums up a basic principle of computer use.
Political events in the USA are news in most countries. From Watergate we gained the combining form -gate, which can be added to any name around which a public scandal centres. For example, for a brief period British newspapers were full of Dianagate when an alleged tapescript of a private conversation of Princess Diana's was published.
The USA has a flourishing literature, which is widely read in other English-speaking countries. It is a big producer of English-language films and television programmes, which it sells abroad. The USA is a dynamic culture, creating new words because it is constantly creating new products and new ideas.
Some words are easily recognized as American: bimbo, cop out, and guy, for example. The word scam, meaning a swindle, was felt to be sufficiently foreign to be put inside quotation marks when it was used in an article in the Times in 1994. Rubbernecking is an American coinage that means turning your head and staring, especially when you are a driver. Traffic news on British radio sometimes now mentions rubbernecking accidents, that is, new accidents caused by drivers turning their heads to look at accidents on the other carriageway.
Most of us know certain American words not used in British contexts, words for everyday things having a different British word. There are, however, many more words that are quite run-of-the-mill words for Americans, but which are unknown to mostBritish people. Are you familiar with the boondocks (an uninhabited area where the vegetation is thick) or a duplex (an apartment on two floors with stairs to connect them)?
Words which exist in British English, but which have a different meaning in American English, can be very confusing. For a British person a purse is a small container for coins, not a handbag, as it is in the USA. In the USA pants are trousers, not underpants. A word which is a particularly nasty trap is billion, which means a hundred thousand in the USA. In Britain it used to mean a million million, but British usage is now increasingly following American.
British English has always taken words from one word class and made them work in another. Nouns often become verbs. We bottle fruit, catalogue goods, and floor our opponents. But it is thanks to American facility in this kind of word formation that people park their cars, journalists interview people, and politicians advocate sanctions.
Some words have entered American English from the languages of its non-British settlers. The Spanish patio came into American English in the 1820s, macho in the 1920s. Italian has given much to American cooking, and the borrowings from Italian reflect this. Bologna, for example, is a cooked and smoked sausage made from minced beef and pork. French has given chowder, a soup containing fish, milk, and potatoes.
2.Grammar Grammatical differences between British and American English are minimal. Perhaps the main one is the American use of the past tense where British English would use the present perfect tense. An American might ask, Did you collect your ticket yet? where a British person would ask, Have you collected your ticket yet?
The present subjunctive is used more in American English than in British English, for example He proposed that she remain in charge. A British person would be more likely to use He proposed that she should remain in charge.
A few verbs are different: American English has snuck where British English has sneaked, and dove where British English has dived. And everybody knows about gotten, which for most senses of get is an alternative to got as the past participle of get in American English, although its use is criticized by some Americans.
In British English the general personal pronoun one is used, by the upper classes and educated people, as in this example: One doesn't like to interfere. After all, one wouldn't like to be accused of exceeding one's brief. American English would start with one in the same way, but would follow it with he and possessive his.
Americans say Do you have ...? where many British people say Have you got ...? And there are a few differences in the use of prepositions. American English has different than and meet with where British English has different from and simply meet (someone).
3. Spelling There are a few regular differences between British and American spelling. American English keeps a single consonant where British English doubles in all forms derived from words ending in l: traveled;traveling; traveler. However, the following words have double l:enroll; enrollment; fulfill; installment.
British English -our is American English -or: color; humor. Words that end in -re in British English have -er in American English: center; theater. However, -re is used to show the hard sound of a preceding c or g: acre; ogre.
Americans are more inclined than British people to use e rather thanae or oe: hemoglobin; peony. They prefer -ize to -ise at the end of verbs: organize. They are less likely to use hyphens in compound nouns: lookout.
4. Summary American English should not be regarded as a corrupt form of British English. Since the major settlement of the USA by English speakers, the two varieties have evolved separately to some extent, though continue to influence each other. The USA has its own standard grammatical forms, spellings, and pronunciations, and these are taught to young Americans with rather more conviction than standard English is taught to young Britons. In some cases, the word gotten for example, it is American English which has retained old usages, and British English which has changed.
Source: http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/dictionaries/english/data/d0081550.html
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