<old fart mode on> I have always considered it thus:
English is the language of England. The clue is in the name. English has
also for some time been the most popular language in the rest of the
British Isles. The language has been taken to other countries through the
vehicle of the British Empire, and over time has become altered in many of
these countries. These different versions are dialects, and should be
distinguished as such by a suitable qualification, such as "Australian"
English. There is no such thing as British English; it is simply English.
There are, it is true, regional variations within the British Isles. The
Scots have a distinct vocabulary of their own (you can still hear "wight"
and "aye" in Scotland, and a female clerk is a clerkess).
As Bob, I think, pointed out, the biggest group of English speakers on the
planet is found in India. Indian English speakers use proper spelling
(rather than the American variant), and have imported many words from
local languages, of which one of the most common is "lakhs", meaning a
great many. A "lakh" correctly is 100,000. In turn, English also has
many Indian imports, such as bungalow, jodhpur, chutney, etc..
One interesting development in America is the way the pronunciation of
certain English words has changed quite recently. An educated American
would not I think have rhymed Moscow with cow until a few years ago, and
route was likewise not always rhymed with rout.
What saddens me, and many other old farts too, I expect, is that many of
these linguistic changes are not, as supporters claim, a sign of richness
or diversity, but of simple ignorance, stemming partly from poor education
and partly from incorrect usage by non-native speakers. "Lense" is a case
in point. "Specie" for "species" is another, and "criteria" for
"criterion" is a third. The worst is "media" for "medium", as in "a
media". The proponents of richness and diversity claim this is just
organic change; I say it is degeneration.
</old fart mode off>
John
On Fri, 27 May 2005 21:46:58 +0100, E.R.N. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Bob W wrote:
Hi,
*no such thing as "British" spelling. There's American English, and
then English used by everybody else in the English speaking world.
"British spelling" implies the non-American version is the minority
version, where in fact the opposite is true.
And that's my pet rant, guys!
ERNR
Well said! Mine too, and thanks for saying it. It DID need saying.
I'm sorry, but there is such a thing as British spelling, and British
English, and British English is a minority variety (I think Indian
English
has the most speakers). There are also such things as Jamaican English,
Australian English, Canadian
English, African American English, Scots English, Estuary English, ... I
could go on. Each of them has its own spelling varieties too.
As I said in my response to Graywolf, I was strictly referring to
SPELLING and to my knowledge are two standards of spelling in English.
Accents, slang, pronunciation and the use of different words for the
same object (e.g. lorry vs. truck) are not included in spelling.
By "spelling" I mean cheque vs. check, tire vs. tyre, and is there a "u"
in colour, honour, armour, etc., and where do you put the R in centre?
Anyway I can knock at least one example off your list. Standard English
spelling in Jamaica is the one that Americans refer to as "British"
spelling.
(The fact that neither major Jamaican newspaper seems to employ a copy
editor does not imply a different spelling standard.)
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