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Which just proves that comedian telling the story of the 3 little pigs at Quotes and Jokes post 16,710 was not totally joking when talking about the modern US vocabulary.
 

Amen to the bold. Add to that all those political words/phrases like misspoke meaning lied and fake news meaning the truths that I refuse to admit to.

I tend to think English first became bastardized around the time of the Roman occupation and then as the Empire spread it started to import words from every country they traded with and fought against as well as those they conquered. Name almost any country (maybe even every country) the English were at war or peace with since the Romans and you will find words from that country in the English language. Actually you can possibly go back further given all the Scotch, Irish and Welsh words that have been absorbed. The English language is like a Hienze dog (57 varieties) only far more so. No wonder the spelling and grammar is so sexually distressed.

All the Americans have done is stick religiously to some long improved English words (ancient English had gotten which became got in modern English) and to religiously bastardize other words for no valid reason. As prime examples the principle alloying element in aircraft structures is called aluminium in 192 countries but the US, and only the US, must be different. Likewise the prime measurement for distance is metre in 192 countries but spelled the same as the word meaning a type of instrument (meter as in thermometer, hygrometer, ohmmeter, etc) in the US.

SOME of the American spellings I totally support - thru as an example because it is far more logical - but most changes are what can best be called petty bastardry. Surprisingly the US gallon is an example in reverse. At the time the US standardized on the US gallon the Brits were using three different gallons and the US picked the one that was most common. Naturally the Brits decided that they could do "reverse petty bastardry" and later standardized on a different gallon.

Another area the US screwed up was threads. The US initially adopted Whitworth and then changed the angle to make it stronger but also changed from the round tops and bottoms on the threads to square tops and bottoms which is structurally weaker and produces stress raisers that lead to failure. Both countries developed fine thread bolts, and small diameter threads, later and independently.

In November 1946 both the US and Britain standardized on Unified course and fine threads which merged the best features of both threads and which uses American spanner sizes. The Brits had different spanners for coarse and fine threads but fortunately the fine thread bolts used one size smaller spanner than the Whitworth threads so you only needed one set of tools.

Australia, of coarse, still uses Whitworth threads in many industries and Australia is the only country in the world that has 13mm bolts - which coincidentally have exactly the same dimensions as the 1/2 inch Whitworth thread that the Brits (who invented it) had phased out of the automotive and all other major industries before 1955.

To keep things stuffed up when the US, Britain and Australia decided to go metric they made the threads the same as the International Standards Organisation (ISO) thread but went for totally different spanner sizes which proves stupidity is not limited to just one country. Then they wonder why when they export things to any ISO countries the mechanics hate the the product and charge more to fix them because they have to buy a whole new list of spanners.

I even know of one Australian company who got a large contract with a large US hardware chain in the 1980s and lost it within hours of the first shipment arriving because they used 100% Whitworthless hardware and the customer rejected the product because none of their staff or customers had whitless spanners and none of the tool stores sold spanners that would fit.
 
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While I have, enjoyed this foray into the linguistic jungle of languages as spoken in XYZ vs the language of ABSee. I graciously acknowledge our debt to the Old World's British English and its many, many fermentations and despite its the quixotic quagmire of extraneous "vowel-age", as a useful basic primmer for any of the worlds non-English speaking peoples. Thus may they may start their pilgrimage toward the linguistic nirvana of American English. It gives me great satisfaction, dare I say pride, to know the default lingua franca of the modern world is American English. In closing I wish to acknowledge the contributions of the various languages in the world in fashioning our grand language into the colorful, and comprehensive thing of beauty and "rightness" it is today.

I thank you for the complements you may feel a need to heap on me, but I am only a humble messenger so your good praise is more than enough.
Your most humble servant
Prop Duster





 
Just curious, what language is this?
 
Just curious, what language is this?
It is a language that can only exist in American English, does anyone discuss speaking Dutch Spanish in the Netherlands. My self taught English translator in China was proud to read her favourite poem, "How Do I Love Thee" by Elizabeth Barret Browning, in my experience it isnt true that American English is dominant.
 
It is debateable - there are a squillion Americans so they may outnumber those who read write and speak real English and Microsoft have spent the last 30 years forcing US spelling on those using their products so their dumbing down of the world is another factor.
 
The population of what used to be India, now India Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka is 1.8 billion.
 
When I was in Eastern Europe several years ago, we were having brunch when Rosi said "oh, there are Americans at that table".
After listening for a few moments, I said "nope, Canadians".
She listened to them for a moment and then asked how I knew because she couldn't tell.
I laughed and said "just trust me on this".

It's hard to explain, but many Canadians (and some north-central americans) have a certain way of talking.
 

Every sentence ended with "eh"?

 

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