Thursday, July 21, 2011

Why Can't The English/Americans?

Oh, goodness - I haven't blogged in a week!  Shame on me.  And lo, I have time to blog tonight - except that I'm going to spend the whole evening catching up on other blogs instead.  I've got to know the word on the street, yo.

Oh, hey, that sounds like an Americanism (or two)!  What, you haven't heard the furor online about the English/American language divide?  Catch up here:

- original BBC article
- UPenn Language Log rebuttal
- BBC follow-up article
- the Ecomist Language blog rebuttal
- Separated by a Common Language blog commentary

Oy vey.

Doesn't anyone remember that Lerner and Loewe addressed this issue decades ago?

4 comments:

  1. It's interesting cause even within America or within England there are so many different dialects/accents/slang terms. When I ask my husband where certain accents are from, he always says "Northerners" lol. My favorite are the East Londoners like my mum-in-law. But my mom always watches The Eastenders on PBS with subtitles on. Too bad we can't have subtitles in real life conversation with people, I could really use it sometimes! hehe

    Amanda :-)
    amandamolly.blogspot.com

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  2. Yeah, the English can be like that, can't they. Discussing ~foreign affairs~. ;) *whistles, strolls off, remains smugly Scottish re this issue*

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  3. Megan, that's exactly the right way to look at it! Haha.

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  4. It is the best way, I reckon! :D

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