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UK vs US spelling | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Fiveonefive Diglot Groupie Japan Joined 5694 days ago 69 posts - 88 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Swedish | Message 9 of 23 17 July 2011 at 6:05am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Haha, silly brits. Toyota is singular. Duh. *waves flag 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5670 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 10 of 23 17 July 2011 at 6:56am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Fetus is a funny one, since the correct spelling (from latin) is the same as the US spelling. However, an informal British spelling is indeed often Foetus, which is simply an historical mistake. You will almost always find doctors and medical literature, even in the UK, correcting this mistake and spelling it the latin way. Your encyclopoedia example baffles me a bit, since I have never seen this spelling before. Often, I see it spelled not with "oe" but with the latin "ae" diphthong. This "ae" was a single letter in old English, but nowadays people tend to treat it as two letters, or many even replace it with just the letter "e". However, at least in the UK, some people will not let tradition die. I remember as a schoolboy, writing "anaesthetic" and being chastised by the teacher for writing "ae" as separate letters and not joining them as a diphthong. His strictness still irritates me to this day. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| jarm Newbie Australia Joined 4913 days ago 33 posts - 55 votes Speaks: English* | Message 11 of 23 17 July 2011 at 8:39am | IP Logged | ||||||||
AU is: Toyota makes a good car, however, we also sometimes pluralise some companies when making a generalisation, but probably not in this instance. An example would be McDonalds make good milkshakes, but in this instance, I don't think many people would make a plural out of Toyota, unless they are talking about the individual dealerships. I don't think this is unique to Australian English, though. Just noting it here, in case it is... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| WentworthsGal Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4889 days ago 191 posts - 246 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish, Spanish | Message 12 of 23 17 July 2011 at 11:20am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Silly brits?? But it's the US that is shown as being pluralised...?!! Besides, "Jim" is one person but Jim makes a good car too. In English HE/SHE/IT makes (they are all singular but take an S) and THEY make (they are plural but take no S) so I don't really think it matters whether the object itself is singular or plural? A supermarket chain - Tesco sells good food. So yeah Toyota makes good cars does make sense too... Maybe it all depends on how it sounds in your sentence as to whether you want to add an s or not... 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| jarm Newbie Australia Joined 4913 days ago 33 posts - 55 votes Speaks: English* | Message 13 of 23 17 July 2011 at 3:02pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
The US isn't pluralising anything here. They are using the verb in the singular. I think you are confusing the 's' on the end of third person plurals with the 's' on the end of nouns, which can plural. If I remember correctly, the the third person singular verb marker 's' is a leftover from when English was more strongly inflected. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Lucky Charms Diglot Senior Member Japan lapacifica.net Joined 6950 days ago 752 posts - 1711 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: German, Spanish | Message 14 of 23 17 July 2011 at 3:38pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Ah, that must have been it. My mistake! Both the "oe" and "ae" diphthongs are equally foreign to me, so I must have mixed them up :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Witproduct Triglot Newbie Belgium Joined 5680 days ago 19 posts - 20 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, German Studies: French | Message 15 of 23 19 July 2011 at 6:04pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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It appears I accidentally use the US spelling what past participles are concerned. Have
to pay attention for that. By the way, I remember having used manoeuvre yesterday, because it's the French spelling. The spelling correcter was set on US English (I usually don't use a spelling corrector) and it was label as a spelling error. I ignored it, being more or less acquainted with the French language. Guess it was the right thing to do if you use the UK spelling (which has my preference because that's what I had to use in school).
I think the wrote is as encyclopædia in older texts, nowadays more as encyclopaedia. You're right on manœuvre though, which is now manoeuvre. Even French speakers seems to drop the œ and the capitalised cedilla (Ç) more and more, I notice, because it's a pain to type out every time.
Yes, because Toyota have more than one employee. It's the some logic with words like the police or the family. Slightly off topic. What I prefer about American English is that they use the subjunctive mood more than Brits do. Spelling-wise I prefer British English because it respects the spelling of foreign loan words more. Edited by Witproduct on 19 July 2011 at 6:24pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 16 of 23 19 July 2011 at 6:32pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Actually, the "the" thing is actually a Scotticism in American English, so a lot of those "the" phrases are still current in parts of the UK, to whit: Scotland and Northeast England.
Not quite. All main variations of English spoken by the descendents of English-speaking colonisers* accept both forms. English (like French) allows us to use certain words as either a plural collective or a singular. * I'm not sure whether this holds in places like India, where the English-speaking population is descended from a colonised second-language population. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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