My two-penneth: I have for years found Americans get hot-under-the-collar about this subject. It must be instilled at school or something that British English is archaic/daft/to be ignored/ridiculed with verve, even labeled [sic!] idiotic.
Maybe it's Americans' gall at the audacity of those Limies who dare to think their version of the language is 'better' because it was the first, or is somehow more refined because of its stricter rules/old-fashioned spellings. Understandable. But equally idiotic. The only real problem really is that time and money are wasted because we have both versions of English. Shame we couldn't just choose one, forget the other, so there are never mistakes mixing up the two, and the differences between the two don't need learning by anyone. If it be US - let it be. ----- Original Message ---- From: Kirill Galetski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, 2 September, 2008 13:15:31 Subject: Expat List Russians' preoccupation with British English Hi, Russians' preoccupation with British English and necessarily having a British is irksome at best, idiotic at worst. As a former English teacher, I take offence [sic] to it. The world standard for business is American English, with all of the trappings thereof. It's not an accident that major non-Anglo corporations such as German concern Bosch have American English as their standard for all English-language communications. To quote Bill Bryson from his book MADE IN AMERICA, An Informal History of the English Language in the United States, "To this day it remains a commonplace in England that American English is a corrupted form of British speech, that the inhabitants of the New World display a kind of helpless, chronic 'want of refinement' every time they open their mouths and attempt to issue sounds. In fact, in several significant ways it is British speech that has become corrupted, or, to put it in less reactionary terms, has quietly evolved." Nevertheless, I believe that when English is taught, both the American and British varieties should be taught in nearly equal measure. This implies having a teacher that is competent to do both, but it certainly does not limit the teacher to being only of the British nationality. Just my two kopeks' worth. Kirill. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [email protected] Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2008 12:03:37 +0400 (MSD) Subject: Expat Digest, Vol 47, Issue 3 > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Mon, 1 Sep 2008 21:37:25 +0400 > From: "Dasha Repina" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: Expat List English tutor > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], "The Moscow Expat List" <[email protected]> > Message-ID: > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > Hi John, > > thanks a lot for your attention, but the requirement of my boss is quite > exact. He wants British teacher. > > All of the best, Daria. _______________________________________________ Expat mailing list [email protected] http://www.lists.ru/mailman/listinfo/expat http://www.expat.ru/forum/ Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Expat mailing list [email protected] http://www.lists.ru/mailman/listinfo/expat http://www.expat.ru/forum/
