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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Starfallen Groupie United States Joined 5809 days ago 43 posts - 49 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese | Message 9 of 31 17 March 2009 at 4:07pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
It does. I'm American and I occasionally find myself using British or Aussie expressions for things. I do like British tv, but I think it has more to do with influence from the internet... It's just the effects of globalization and mass media, I guess. It's happening more and more. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6003 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes  Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 10 of 31 17 March 2009 at 5:48pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Och, there's no such thing as "etymological correctness". If the way it used to be spelled was more correct, we'd be eating "etymologically correct" boeuf in our hamburgers, after all. The change to "-ise" was arguably a Latinism, but it is supported by the orthographical conventions of English.
But it's their (logical) attempt to regularise/ize spelling, which is the same thing we did by adopting the -ise spelling.
Trivially, yes, but I find that people who learn in a non-rhotic accent often never get the hang of the subtle difference between a plain vowel and a vowel modified by R, whereas those who learn with a rhotic accent are able to modify their accent later. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Dark_Sunshine Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5757 days ago 340 posts - 357 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 11 of 31 17 March 2009 at 7:30pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I don't even know what 'rhotic' means, but my edition of the OED lists both -ize and -ise spellings. Though interestingly, it doesn't have the (US) symbol after the -ize entry like it does for other Americanisms. It doesn't have an entry for 'rhotic' either, so maybe it's time I upgraded! Edited by Dark_Sunshine on 17 March 2009 at 7:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6901 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 12 of 31 18 March 2009 at 1:52am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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"Rhotic" basically means that the /r/ is pronounced everywhere, e.g. caR, dooR, huRt, wateR, buRn... while "non-rhotic" means that it's pronounced only when followed by a vowel sound in the same syllable (Real, Rhotic, iRRegular...vodka-r-and ice).
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| delta910 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5867 days ago 267 posts - 313 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Dutch, German | Message 13 of 31 18 March 2009 at 3:43am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I'm from the U.S and I find the British accent more enjoyable to listen to, and it sounds more educated,in my opinion. For American accents, I prefer the northern states accents better than the south. The south sounds horrible, hard to understand, they sound really uneducated, and they basically kill the English language where in the north I can actually understand what people are saying! I remember once when I took a trip to southern Illinois,almost into Kentucky. A person stuck up a conversation with me and the first words out his mouth I could not understand at all.I asked him to repeat what he said,and he looked offended when I did.
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| kaikai Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5747 days ago 27 posts - 28 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: German | Message 14 of 31 18 March 2009 at 3:49am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I agree with Delta. I am an American and in my opinion, non-native speakers of English whom speak with a British accent sound more eloquent. Edited by kaikai on 18 March 2009 at 3:54am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6003 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 15 of 31 18 March 2009 at 11:42am | IP Logged | ||||||||
That's because the -ize spelling was once the normal spelling in the UK. We changed -- the Americans didn't. Neither is inherently superior.
...who speak with... In this case, we're talking about the subject of the sentence so you've got a choice between "who" and "that". What you've done is called "hypercorrection". You're so used to being told that the way you speak is "wrong" that you try to correct things even when you're unambiguously correct. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Dark_Sunshine Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5757 days ago 340 posts - 357 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 16 of 31 18 March 2009 at 11:59am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Thanks! I suppose then that some accents of the UK could also be considered rhotic, like the South West England accent, and also Scottish. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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