Grammar Nazi's of OcUK, your help is needed. "Most vs. Almost".

hibernian1875 said:
Well at being only 26 i was unaware of those changes so it has never entered in to my thoughts to annoy me. If that was how it was traditionally spelt then I would have no problems with people using it, however the difference arises when (like the OP stated) people state that it is incorrect to use the traditional. Also do you have a timetable for when it became defunct as if it was early in our transition to what we consider English then it could be counted as a relic from forming our current language. The States have chosen somewhere in recent history to differentiate from British English for a reason I can only see as being lazy and still call it English.
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What NuclearWinter hasn't explained is that those archaic spellings are really just an alternative spelling from the Middle English Mirour and the French Mireor....and goes back to what I was saying about the evolution of Language earlier....common words are often altered as time goes on and the original root spelling becomes Archaic rather than Convention.....

The same is true of American English, where the Anglo-Saxons took several other languages and added to their Germanic root language Old English(Anglo-Freisan) altering the grammar, spelling and sometimes the meaning of words over time....much of Modern English is made up of Germanic and Romance language words and rules......specifically French, but also Spanish, Latin, Greek, Arabic and the Scandinavian languages.....all entangled in what we now call English.....

No doubt during the Middle English period the very same arguments were going amongst those that were literate and in 500 tears they will still be going on, only in an English that would be largely unrecognisable to you or I....

Such are the vagaries of Languages.
 
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NuclearWinter said:
Our language continues to adapt and change as it always has done. Dropping the U from mirrour is no less "lazy" than dropping the U from colour, regardless of which happened first.

Incidentally, color without a U is the latin root. Is a U getting added in there (probably from Norman influence) any more correct than when the U later gets dropped again? Seems daft to me that people care so much.
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Indeed....the Mirrour example you gave actually had an additional r added to it at some point and then later the u was removed.....which illustrates what you have said.
 
NuclearWinter said:
Our language continues to adapt and change as it always has done. Dropping the U from mirrour is no less "lazy" than dropping the U from colour, regardless of which happened first.

Incidentally, color without a U is the latin root. Is a U getting added in there (probably from Norman influence) any more correct than when the U later gets dropped again? Seems daft to me that people care so much.
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I accept that as languages are formed they will make their own changes and this is natural but to take a language (English traditionally spoken in England) and then alter it and still call it English again seems lazy. Call it American and let them make up all the words or alterations they like.

I've had many Americans pull me up on forums and other online sites for using colour and say I've spelt it wrong... that's where the issue comes in for me. I do personally like our language and its heritage and would like to maintain some aspects of that rather than English being defined by what Americans think it should be and with American Pop culture (TV mainly) English is going that way. Also stating why do people care so much... then why do you care that it annoys me in that case?

EDIT* Really should refresh before I post responses, Castiel in there again :p
 
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To me it doesn't read well or sound correct, as an Englishman I would chose to articulate it differently. Is it right or wrong however is down to where you live as these days the English language has evolved to a point where most everything is acceptable.....innit.
 
hibernian1875 said:
I accept that as languages are formed they will make their own changes and this is natural but to take a language (English traditionally spoken in England) and then alter it and still call it English again seems lazy. Call it American and let them make up all the words or alterations they like.

I've had many Americans pull me up on forums and other online sites for using colour and say I've spelt it wrong... that's where the issue comes in for me. I do personally like our language and it's heritage and would like to maintain some aspects of that rather than English being defined by what Americans think it should be and with American Pop culture (TV mainly) English is going that way. Also stating why do people care so much... then why do you care that it annoys me in that case?
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It is still English, just a slightly different dialect of English. Most, if not all Languages are the same, regional and tribal dialects of the same root language......some of the older languages such as the one I am working on today Syriac, was originally a dialect of Middle Aramaic and in turn has several dialects itself, even with different alphabets, just to confuse you even more......it is a natural evolution of language.

As I said earlier English is actually a very resistant language to whole-scale change when compared to the Romance and Eastern languages......so we have several national dialects that are so similar as to be indistinguishable to the casual listener/observer.....instead we see minor alterations in conventions, spelling and structure which are largely universally understood by speakers of English Globally. Even if we all get wound up over each of our respective alterations....I think that given the Global Community, English's status as the Global Lingua Franca and the way in which the media and modern literacy and widespread access to books etc give widespread access to English...we will see English continue to evolve as a single language rather than the various dialects evolve into separate, distinct languages themselves as may have happen historically. It may well become more American English than British English however.....
 
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hibernian1875 said:
Also stating why do people care so much... then why do you care that it annoys me in that case?
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I don't particularly care that it annoys you, it's just an attitude that bewilders me somewhat. Sorry if it came across as an attack at all :)

I'll just add that having an interest in language myself, Castiel's job sounds fascinating :)
 
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I agree it's still English but being told I'm wrong with my 'traditional' use of aspects is where the issue comes in. The fondness of the language is a personal thing. With globalisation I can see us having a global language (with dialects and regional slang still) but doubt it will be in any of our lifetimes and whether it'll be English, Mandarin or Spanish for the starting point I'm not sure, depends on majority populations and where they're located. The idea of International English (or English as a lingua franca) shows a movement towards this, although there is resistance as stated previously.

Also a personal niggle, I don't like having to put British before English to define that I'm speaking 'traditional' English. Also think we're moving off topic from what was a passing comment about thinking it's a lazy thing.

Back on topic: Addicting just seems wrong to me initially but in the right context can see its uses

NuclearWinter said:
I don't particularly care that it annoys you, it's just an attitude that bewilders me somewhat. Sorry if it came across as an attack at all :)
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Wasn't taken as an attack :) Seemed a mute point to make when choosing to challenging why I think what I do and my attitude towards it. Don't take that the wrong way, nothing wrong with challenging why people think what they do, it's the root for a sensible discussion and hopefully I've explained my reasoning well enough.

Castiel's job does sound interesting, I wish I knew more about languages and their origins :)
 
Hibs, refuse to put British before English. Correct anyone who puts it front of it. When I'm in the states and someone comments on something I say as "British English" I always correct them and say that its just simply English.
 
hibernian1875 said:
I agree it's still English but being told I'm wrong with my 'traditional' use of aspects is where the issue comes in. The fondness of the language is a personal thing. With globalisation I can see us having a global language (with dialects and regional slang still) but doubt it will be in any of our lifetimes and whether it'll be English, Mandarin or Spanish for the starting point I'm not sure, depends on majority populations and where they're located. The idea of International English (or English as a lingua franca) shows a movement towards this, although there is resistance as stated previously.
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You are not wrong, no more than they are...it is simply the way that each of you is attuned to a different set of conventions within the same language....to a lesser extent we see this also regionally in the UK and the US (and other countries, look at South Africa for example and the way in which their languages have evolved with the crossover of English, Dutch and Afrikaans) as a microcosm of the wider picture.

English is already the accepted Lingua Franca globally...it is the most widely spoken language in the world, with it being the third most spoken First Language and the first most spoken Second Language. It is the required International Language of such institutions as Science, Aviation and International Diplomacy.

hibernian1875 said:
Also a personal niggle, I don't like having to put British before English to define that I'm speaking 'traditional' English. Also think we're moving off topic from what was a passing comment about thinking it's a lazy thing.
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In actuality you don't....If you are English then the correct dialect reference for you is English.....British English refers to the wider conventions rather than the dialect...there is also Welsh English, Scots English and so on....to complicate things further there are various regional dialects (or as we would commonly call them in Britain, accents) within those categories which are separated by geographical region for example:

Northern English comprises of among others, Geordie English, Cumbrian, Makhem English, Pitmatic and Lancastrian...

Down here in the south, we have Anglo-Cornish, Bristolian, Estuary, Cockney, Norfolk Dialect and so on...

The one to which you might want to use when trying to wind up Americans is called Received Pronunciation, commonly known as The Queens English.....

You will find the same in the USA, where they have Standard American English, followed by numerous regional and cultural dialects, some of which are almost foreign to what we recognise as English, such as Cajun English.


Castiel's job does sound interesting, I wish I knew more about languages and their origins :)
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NuclearWinter said:
I'll just add that having an interest in language myself, Castiel's job sounds fascinating :)
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My job is fascinating, but also very monotonous and frustrating at times and I don't have much contact with English as such..almost all my expertise is in classical and ancient languages.
 
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The Halk said:
Hibs, refuse to put British before English. Correct anyone who puts it front of it. When I'm in the states and someone comments on something I say as "British English" I always correct them and say that its just simply English.
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Not worth the hassle of pulling others up for it. Previous discussions regarding the English language has usually been with Europeans or Asians and the occasional American who comes over for the Edinburgh festival so get away with referring to it as English most of the time. Was more an observation of how it was referred to (by myself included) in this thread.

Castiel said:
English is already the accepted Lingua Franca globally...it is the most widely spoke language in the world, with it being the third most spoken First Language and the first most spoken Second Language. It is the required International Language of such institutions as Science, Aviation and International Diplomacy.
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Who knows how far China will rise though, could all switch around :p

Castiel said:
In actuality you don't....If you are English then the correct dialect reference for you is English... SNIP
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For convenience (especially when these sort of discussions come up) it's a lot easier to refer to it as English or British English rather than regional dialects. I'm from Edinburgh so Posh Scots (or often no accent) is what other Scots would call us but not sure how it would be referred to South of the border.
 
The example in the OP is something you see sometimes, it's quite old fashioned though.

I read quite a lot of old sci-fi and you see it used quite often there, a lot of it's from the 40s, 50s and 60s and earlier.

It's not wrong as such but I do think it's a bit colloquial and old fashioned.
 
Castiel said:
Down here in the south, we have ... Cockney
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One of my great joys in life is the occasional use of Cockney rhyming slang when meeting with my American colleagues, and then trying to get them to understand the concept if (when...) the ask what I'm talking about. :D
 
Eddie182;21918302/ said:
"Most every switch, dial and button in the..."
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To me that looks awful.
It should be:

"Most switches, dials and buttons in the ...."

or

"Almost every switch, dial and button in the ..."

Just noticed bhavv wrote exactly the same.
 
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