As in the Group we are studying Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, our second American writer this month ( The first was Edgar Allan Poe in January ), I thought it would be a good opportunity to discuss the differences between American and British English.
There are many guides online explaining how British and American English are different so here I would like to try to give some insights into why, how we got to where we are now. Generally people believe that American is a ‘simplified’ rather ‘dumbed down’ version of British English, but watching ‘The Adventure of English’ by Melvyn Bragg on Youtube recently I discovered that this might not be the case after all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBqlVl0K9tw Reading the dialogue of Ethan Frome we can find a lot of informal language common to both British and in American English. I will speak more about this next Monday. But the narrative appears more standard. What is the reason for this? Well, Ethan Frome is set in New England, where the Puritans first landed in 1620, searching for the freedom to worship how they pleased using their English language Bible, and the language remained an important symbol of freedom for them. Since its origins, English had incorporated many words from the languages of the many invaders of the British Isles, Danish, German, French, Latin but in America at first it adopted very few from the Native Americans. The settlers avoided any interference to keep their language pure and defend themselves against the natives. They also wanted their children to speak English well and education and a good standard of language were important. Lord Gordon, British politician commented in 1764 that the Americans spoke English better than the British! It was in Noah Webster’s “American Spelling Book” 1783, that changed the spelling of some words that he considered illogical. This was when many words with ‘ou’ lost the ‘u’, for example ‘colour – color’ or ‘honour – honor’. Another change was the reversal of ‘re’ endings to ‘er’, for example ‘centre – center’, ‘theatre – theater’. The original spellings follow French, so maybe he had something against the French! In English two of the same consonant together have the same pronunciation as one, so he omitted one, for example ‘traveller – traveler’. Some words ending in ‘ce’ were changed to ‘se’ which is more phonetic, like ‘defence – defense’, whilst some silent letters such as the ‘e’ in ‘axe’ were axed! But in other aspects the language remained pure, and Americans continued to use old words that the British had dropped. I thought that calling ‘autumn’ ‘fall’ was another example of American simplification, but as it turns out, the British also used to use the word ‘fall’ in the past, perhaps adopting ‘autumn’ from the fashionable and more elegant French. It was when settlers began to expand west that the language started to change and take on its own character. Immigrants started to come in not only from England but also from Scotland, Ireland, France expanding as far as California and thus absorbing Spanish influences. American became more ‘Wild West’, ‘cowboy’, ‘gold rush’ and ‘railroad’ and less ‘Puritan’. This resulted in the increase in American substitutes for British words. There are many words that are different today between the two languages. ’Cookie’ instead of ‘biscuit’ or ‘subway’ instead of ‘underground’ are commonly known and understood but watch out for misunderstandings when talking about ‘pants’ ( which means underwear in British English and trousers in American ) or ‘rubber’ ( better say ‘eraser’ in American English or they may think you are referring to a rubber sheath! ). A language changes when speakers of other languages enter a country bringing their view of the world with them. The influx of immigrants to the US from Europe is perhaps the cause of another important difference between British and American English, that the Present perfect ( have/has + past participle ) is used less in American English. The present perfect is used to join the past and the present and it is used in American English too to talk about something that started in the past and continues in the present. For example the question ‘How long have you lived here?’ is the same in both dialects. But in American English the difference between finished and unfinished time is less clear, probably because this concept is not present in other European languages; for Americans ‘What did you do yesterday?’ and ‘What did you do today?’ Is the same but for the British the second question should be ‘What have you done today?’ Less use of the present perfect could also be the explanation for the American preference for ‘have’ instead of ‘have got’. Often it is said that ‘got’ is used for emphasis but actually when we say ‘I have got a car’, we mean ‘I have obtained a car in the past and I still have it now’. But the differences are not as clear cut as they may seem in the many guides you can find online. They are of course cases when Americans use the present perfect and they use ‘have got’ also. Some differences are associated with spelling. The fact that some verbs are regular in British English and irregular in American English is probably largely a spelling issue. Standardization of spelling is a fairly recent phenomenon. ‘Dreamed’ and ‘dreamt’ both appear in Shakespeare for example. I have said before that a language is like a person, it is unpredictable, does not respect rules and is always moving. As the language travels it mixes with others as is transformed by them and this is particularly the case with English which is now a global language, used by each person in his own way. The important thing is to communicate your message correctly. English has changed greatly over the years and is still evolving so don’t stamp your feet get on board and enjoy the ride!
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What is this?When I started lostinclassics I looked for language lessons in the books I was reading, such as for example the use of phrasal verbs or inversion in conditionals and I explained them through examples found in the text. I also did reviews of the books I read and tried to give some advice on how to read classics using the various resources I know of. Then I switched to just reviews and lately I have been doing a bit of creative writing inspired by my reading. Who knows what I will come up with next! Archives
September 2020
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