0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
Americans don't have a clue.
As I am an English Make it Lady, I don't understand things Americans say sometimes, either. For example what does "feeling stoked for her" mean? Are you putting air into her fire by means of inserting a metal stick?
Quote from: Eric A. Taylor on 18/02/2010 13:32:40 Americans don't have a clue.Don't you just love context? :-)Anyway, since both 7 up and sprite are lemon and lime drinks what do Americans call fizzy drinks that are just lemon flavoured?(Incidentally, if we agree to include explanations of English words will you agree to spell things like flavour correctly or, at least, to stop claiming that you speak (and write) English?)
Since the Naked Scientists' show is broadcast on the BBC (which has Views about endorsement, or apparent endorsement, of a particular product), and since 7-Up is a brand name, whereas lemonade ain't, I think you're onto a loser here, Eric.Of course, I also think that when Americans start explaining what they mean by "pants" (not what we mean) and other American usages in all radio, TV and film that is going to be viewed/listened to by people in Britain (and I guess Australia and other places) might then be the time to start talking about explaining everything people say on the British-manufactured media.
If you start with English and deliberately change it then whatever you get isn't English.Flavor might be "correct" according to Mr Webster, but it's not the correct English spelling.
Technically speaking, Shakespeare and the King James Bible are Modern English, although someone might feel inclined to call them "early" Modern English. English is an extremely fluid language, even within England. Just recently, in Middle English, various people used egg, eye and eai in reference to those globular foods-in-a-shell that chickens lay. Folks to the north used egg which finally won out over eye used in the south (~London) and eai in the east (I think). Even pronunciation varies. Here in New England, we pronounce "egg" as they do in the South Midlands in England.
Quote from: Bored chemist on 19/02/2010 07:16:16If you start with English and deliberately change it then whatever you get isn't English.Flavor might be "correct" according to Mr Webster, but it's not the correct English spelling.. No one today says "thee" or "thine" but 100 years ago, your own great or great-great grandparents. If one is unintelligible to the other can they both be English?
If one language is incomprehensible from the point of view of a speaker of the other language then they are not the same language.Since this whole thread is about such an incomprehensibility, the two languages are not the same.The language generally used in the US is not English and they should stop calling it English.