Americanisms....Tom A toe, Tom Ah Toe.

[Georgiatec]

There are many liberties taken with the English language by our American brothers and sisters. The one that annoys me the most is dove, as in the past tense of dive. The correct word is dived.....dove is one of our feathered friends as in white, collared, turtle etc.

"The man dove into the pool"
"The golf ball dove into the hole"
"The man dived into the pool"
"The golf ball dived into the hole"

Rant over...thank you.

 

[fitz288]

The one that annoys me the most is dove, as in the past tense of dive. The correct word is dived...

Not that I care, but for the sake of pointless argument.
Dove as the past tense of dive is not incorrect, it's a regional dialect variant.

Same thing for tomato, btw.

 

[playloud]

I like "`erb" and "fillet" said the French way.

 

[paul-e-mann]

What are y'all talking about?

 

[Geeze]

Damn, I dove in, er, dived in thinking we were going to make fun of the way people talk. I guess we're only allowed to make fun of them incorrect people @Georgiatec has pointed out...

Here's one for the non swamp texans - 'Tump' as in you turn and dump your boat out - hence tump.

Russ

 

[livebiz]

Language grows and evolves. If something sounds better, it eventually becomes the standard. Dove sounds better than dived so it should be used until the awkward sounding dived takes its rightful spot on the island of archaic words.

 

[fitz288]

Jeeze, nunna yinz guys know hadda tahk...

 

[playloud]

Language grows and evolves. If something sounds better, it eventually becomes the standard. Dove sounds better than dived so it should be used until the awkward sounding dived takes its rightful spot on the island of archaic words.

It's like that with food too. Neapolitan pizza was all well + good, but who doesn't love Pizza Hut?

 

[Matthews Guitars]

I detest the usage of the improper word "snuck" as the past tense of "sneak". You SNEAKED in. "I snuck into my parent's closet and watched my baby brother being conceived" is incorrect.


Americans and the British: Close relatives divided by a common language.

I prefer the spelling of grey rather than Gray. My oldest brother prefers colour to color.

We fill our car's fuel tank with gasoline, not petrol. Our cars have a hood in front and a trunk in the back, not a bonnet and boot.

Although we spell the metal as "aluminum", "aluminium" actually is more in line with the spellings of other elements such as vanadium, magnesium, titanium, strontium, niobium, etc.

Americans still mostly identify with Imperial measurements as being our native choice. We like our feet and inches. We like our pounds and ounces. I certainly connect better with temperature expressed on the Farenheit scale. I totally understand when my outdoor thermometer says it's 102 degrees. That's a very hot day indeed but it can get hotter here in Florida in the summer. But to say it as 39c doesn't tell me much. I have to convert it. (Multiply by 1.8, add 32.)

I personally have an interesting talent: Pick any random length of wire or string up to roughly 2 feet in length and hand it to me, and I can determine its length by eye to a consistent accuracy of 1/32nd of an inch. But I don't do it in metric.

 

[Georgiatec]

Language grows and evolves. If something sounds better, it eventually becomes the standard. Dove sounds better than dived so it should be used until the awkward sounding dived takes its rightful spot on the island of archaic words.

Not to my ears....drove is correct, dove is still a bird.
When I'm watching the US PGA golf on TV and the pundit says the "ball dove into the hole", I cringe.
To me it is the same as playing the wrong notes instead of the right ones.

 

[Matthews Guitars]

The only thing consistent about English is its inconsistency!

Deer is singular. Beer is singular.
Deer is plural. Beers is plural.

"I'll have two beers."
"I shot two deer."

Who came up with that? I want to slap him. Pick a rule and stick with it!

 

[mcblink]

What's really going to piss you guys off is when you learn that a word doesn't have to be "correct" in order for it to become a legitimate word. All that has to happen is get used enough.

Look up "irregardless". Totally not a word. Regardless, is a word, the proper word, yet "ir"regardless has now made it into the lexicon as a real word.

That's hardly the only one.

Dove, yep, bird, but also past tense of dive. Not incorrect. Same with snuck, hung, etc...

Today's English is absolutely nothing like yesteryear's. And it's constantly and continually evolving still. Also, American English is separate from UK English. There is a reason that they're differentiated from one another. Extremely similar, yes, closely related, yes, but no longer the same language.

You might find this video interesting, as I once did:

 

[Matthews Guitars]

Of course the language evolves. Or devolves, depending on your viewpoint.

Who would have thought, 30 years ago, that "blog" and "yeet" and many other internet-derived words and phrases would be part of our vocabulary?

I still think it's kind of funny that after all these years, we still have some obviously French words in the English language, because we've
found nothing better. Such as "rendezvous". Of course there are other examples. Nearly every language borrows words from other languages.

I'm glad we're not speaking the 1500 version of English.

 

[Kinkless Tetrode]

What's really going to piss you guys off is when you learn that a word doesn't have to be "correct" in order for it to become a legitimate word. All that has to happen is get used enough.

Look up "irregardless". Totally not a word. Regardless, is a word, the proper word, yet "ir"regardless has now made it into the lexicon as a real word.

That's hardly the only one.

Dove, yep, bird, but also past tense of dive. Not incorrect. Same with snuck, hung, etc...

Today's English is absolutely nothing like yesteryear's. And it's constantly and continually evolving still. Also, American English is separate from UK English. There is a reason that they're differentiated from one another. Extremely similar, yes, closely related, yes, but no longer the same language.

You might find this video interesting, as I once did:

Interesting that the 1766 London accent is almost like American English or mid western American English. I once read a paper which claimed that hill billy English is closer to proper old English than the more evolved forms. The author hypothesized that some societies evolve their speech more, as means of setting themselves apart from societies they don't want to be associated with.

In modern American English, the word dove (the bird) doesn't have an oh sound to the O vowel. If speaking of the dove bird, it would be Duv (uhh sound, not as in Hugh for the U sound).

When I began to study Japanese, other Japanese speakers would sometimes mock me because of my American English starting points for most vowls. So to illustrate, or to elaborate on the topic, how sounds in languages differ and evolve, I'm going to talk a little about speaking Japanese.

In most American English the common vowels sound:

A=aay as in hay field or hey there.
I= aye as in aye aye sir or a tear filled eye.
o= uh, or oh, or ahh
E= ee or eh
u=eew or you

In Japanese the five vowels are:
A= ahh
I=ee
o= oh
E= aay or ye
U= eew

In English diphongs are very common. A diphong is two or more sounds blended together in the same space in time. In Japanese, diphongs are not allowed. Each sound or sylllable occupies one space in time. It's like musical notatation with a constant cadence or beat. (Tokyo dialect can sound like shred guitar it can be so fast) English speeds up and slows down almost at random, with accents and emphasis placed on certain vowels. Also, all words in Japanese must end in a vowel sound, or in N, to comply with the cadence. In English, words can end in any hard consonant, or in N. Or if it is a vowel, the vowel is usually silent. English is like playing along with a drummer who can't keep time.

There are of course diphongs introduced into Japanese through forgein accents. This was the case when people immigrated to Japan from China (the two languages have no common origin and have nothing in common outside of loan words) and when Japanese families started sending their kids to study in Chinese universities during the 15th century. The Japanese nation was called Yawa meaning the land of peace in the native accent. But in the Chinese accent, or on (pronounced own) reading, it had a diphong, so it was pronounced Yamatai. Therefore, the Japanese changed it to Yamato.

Incidently, the Japanese word for yes, or hai, sounds a lot like hi or high. This is not a native diphong, but occurs because after positioning the tounge, and shaping the mouth, to make the ah sound followed by the ee sound, the ee sound becomes unvoiced, whith the ah cut short, and together it sounds like hi or high.

Also it depends on the level of politeness to how vowels are pronounced. The to be verb: Desu, sounds like Desu at high levels of politeness, but sounds like dess, the U being unvoiced, at lower levels of politeness, but could be just da during causul speech. There are also, just like in English, some rather profound regional differences.

 

[PelliX]

Americans still mostly identify with Imperial measurements as being our native choice. We like our feet and inches. We like our pounds and ounces. I certainly connect better with temperature expressed on the Farenheit scale. I totally understand when my outdoor thermometer says it's 102 degrees. That's a very hot day indeed but it can get hotter here in Florida in the summer. But to say it as 39c doesn't tell me much. I have to convert it. (Multiply by 1.8, add 32.)

Fortunately the British are moving to the metric system. An inch at a time.

 

[mcblink]

Interesting that the 1766 London accent is almost like American English or mid western American English. I once read a paper which claimed that hill billy English is closer to proper old English than the more evolved forms. The author hypothesized that some societies evolve their speech more as means of setting themselves apart from societies they don't want to be associated with.

In modern American English the word dove (the bird) doesn't have an oh sound to the O vowel. If speaking of the dove bird, it would be Duv (uhh not as in Hugh for the U sound).

When I began to study Japanese, other Japanese speakers would sometimes mock me because of my American English starting points for most vowls. So to illustrate, or to elaborate on the topic, how sounds in languages differ and evolve I'm going to talk a little about speaking Japanese.

In most American English the common vowels sound:

A=aay as in hay field or hey there.
I= aye as in aye aye sir or a tear filled eye.
o= uh, or oh, or ahh
E= ee or eh
u=eew or you

In Japanese the five vowels are:
A= ahh
I=ee
o= oh
E= aay or ye
U= eew

In English diphongs are very common. A diphong is two or more sounds blended together in the same space in time. In Japanese diphongs are not allowed. Each sound or sylllable occupies one space in time. It's like musical notatation with a constant cadence or beat. (Tokyo dialect can sound like shred guitar it can be so fast) English speeds up and slows down almost at random with accents and emphasis placed on certain vowels. Also all words in Japanese must end in a vowel sound or in N to comply with the cadence. In English words, can end in any hard consonant or in N, or if in vowel the vowel is usually silent. English is like playing along with a drummer who can't keep time.

There are of course diphongs introduced into Japanese through forgein accents. This was the case when people immigrated to Japan from China (the two languages have no common origin and have nothing in common outside of loan words) and when Japanese families started sending their kids to study in Chinese universities during the 15th century. The Japanese nation was called Yawa meaning the land of peace in the native accent. But the Chinese accent or on (own) reading had a diphong pronouncing it Yamatai. So the Japanese changed it to Yamato.

Incidently, the Japanese word for yes or hai sounds a lot like hi or high. This is not a native diphong but occurs because after positioning the tounge to make the ah sound followed by the ee sound, the ee sound becomes unvoiced and together it sounds like hi or high.

Also it depends on the level of politeness to how vowels are pronounced. Desu sound like Desu at high levels or politeness, but sounds like dess, the U being unvoiced, at lower levels of politeness, but could be just da during causul speech. There are also just like English some rather profound regional differences.

Fascinating! I don't know anything about languages that aren't English, Spanish, or Canadian.

 

[saxon68]

I think my great grandpappy shot some people over some tea and because he didn’t care for the Queens English…..

 

[MonstersOfTheMidway]

Regarding those Americanisms of the English language being discussed: they really drive some people crazy. To my ears (spoken language) and eyes (written language), it's all fine. Moreover, the clarity of the point being made is chief.

One thing I loved was reading misplaced modifiers; those sentences are a little entertaining.

1) Jane read the book on the table. (kinda akward and uncomfortable to sit on a table rather than a chair or nice sofa)
2) Jane read the book that was on the table.

Both are grammatically correct (e.g. subject/verb agreement, spelling, punctuation, etc.), but it's the meaning that is a little off the rails in a funny kinda way.

 

[JohnH]

I enjoy all the differences, having lived in four English speaking countries (and California!). I'm English though, and how I speak is how I learned at my rather expensive schools.

In the US, my accent was a huge advantage in business. People thought I knew what I was talking about because I sounded like Sir David Attenborough!

Doesn't work quite so well down here in Oz though....

 

[Dogs of Doom]

All American language is a slang derivative.

What gets me though, is all the Brit's that don't know English... ...