It all began with a pregnancy. My friend N posted the following phrase: up the duff and over the moon. I had never heard the word "duff" used before so I Googled it. Apparently N is pregnant and very excited. Up the duff is a term for a usually unplanned pregnancy in a roundabout way because duff = dough = pudding = slang for penis. Uh huh.
I have previously referenced moments where my comprehension of others' English has been tested. T, my Welsh friend, tests my understanding every time he has a few drinks in him. My rugby team in Texas had a few ladies from North-East Texas whose accents were so strong that even the rest of the Texans had difficulty figuring them out. We eventually all picked up the heavy drawl when we discovered that the other West teams couldn't understand us at all and we were able to call out our plays to each other without need for codes.
Let us not forget the colloquialisms. I previously described the weird conversation we had with some finely mannered vertebrate creatures from another rugby club whose smug behavior was lost on us due to a different interpretation of a phrase.
Last night I was chatting with a mutual friend who thought it was hysterical that I had to look up the phrase. "What did you think up the duff meant?" She asked. Well, whatever it was, I was hoping that it was curable. Then a man who was at the table behind us started up very loudly about how American English was terrible, unlike "proper" British English. If I had a nickel for every time I have heard this I would be be able to buy a few more drinks to properly prepare me for hearing this again. Don't misunderstand me- I quite like the British accent. It is different to mine and therefore interesting. I am charmed by the polished, slightly nasal tones and prim facial expressions when you are making fun of my accent but at least no American finishes a statement with innit.
The fact of the matter is that English is a living, evolving language (and no, Sarah Palin, this does not excuse your ignorant fabrication of grammar and syntax). If we were to compare the dialects I think that by virtue of its isolation, American English evolved at a slower rate and may actually be more similar to the original English than modern British English.
According to Spiritus Temporis:
In many ways, compared to British English, American English is conservative in its phonology. It is sometimes claimed that certain rural areas in North America speak "Elizabethan English," and there may be some truth to this, but the standard American English of the upper Midwest has a sound profile much closer to 17th century English than contemporary speech in England. Most North American speech is rhotic, as English was everywhere in the 17th century.
With all the influences upon English from everywhere else in the world, I doubt that anyone can claim to be the possessor of the proper English dialect. From what I remember of Canterbury Tales, proper English disappeared long before Englishmen took the language across foreign seas.
I have previously referenced moments where my comprehension of others' English has been tested. T, my Welsh friend, tests my understanding every time he has a few drinks in him. My rugby team in Texas had a few ladies from North-East Texas whose accents were so strong that even the rest of the Texans had difficulty figuring them out. We eventually all picked up the heavy drawl when we discovered that the other West teams couldn't understand us at all and we were able to call out our plays to each other without need for codes.
Let us not forget the colloquialisms. I previously described the weird conversation we had with some finely mannered vertebrate creatures from another rugby club whose smug behavior was lost on us due to a different interpretation of a phrase.
Last night I was chatting with a mutual friend who thought it was hysterical that I had to look up the phrase. "What did you think up the duff meant?" She asked. Well, whatever it was, I was hoping that it was curable. Then a man who was at the table behind us started up very loudly about how American English was terrible, unlike "proper" British English. If I had a nickel for every time I have heard this I would be be able to buy a few more drinks to properly prepare me for hearing this again. Don't misunderstand me- I quite like the British accent. It is different to mine and therefore interesting. I am charmed by the polished, slightly nasal tones and prim facial expressions when you are making fun of my accent but at least no American finishes a statement with innit.
The fact of the matter is that English is a living, evolving language (and no, Sarah Palin, this does not excuse your ignorant fabrication of grammar and syntax). If we were to compare the dialects I think that by virtue of its isolation, American English evolved at a slower rate and may actually be more similar to the original English than modern British English.
According to Spiritus Temporis:
In many ways, compared to British English, American English is conservative in its phonology. It is sometimes claimed that certain rural areas in North America speak "Elizabethan English," and there may be some truth to this, but the standard American English of the upper Midwest has a sound profile much closer to 17th century English than contemporary speech in England. Most North American speech is rhotic, as English was everywhere in the 17th century.
With all the influences upon English from everywhere else in the world, I doubt that anyone can claim to be the possessor of the proper English dialect. From what I remember of Canterbury Tales, proper English disappeared long before Englishmen took the language across foreign seas.
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