I like "Old Tricks". I learn lots of British english idioms. I'm from NYC
On Mon, Mar 2, 2015 at 10:45 AM, Chris Angelico <ros...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Tue, Mar 3, 2015 at 1:39 AM, Steven D'Aprano > <steve+comp.lang.pyt...@pearwood.info> wrote: >> Whereas the comparatively small differences between British and American >> English are all the more important because they distinguish the two. Nobody >> is ever going to mistake Finland and the Finish people for Americans, even >> if you learn to speak American English. But for Britons to use American >> English is, in a way, to cease to be Britons at all. > > Which, I suspect, is part of why the pound is still alive and well, > and hasn't been replaced with the euro. Maybe some other countries > don't mind becoming the United States of Europe, but the British > resist the encroachment, and rightly so. > >> ... a mass or uncountable noun, like air[3], milk, music and >> housework. You cannot have "three milks", you have to add some sort of unit >> to it: three litres of milk... > > And yet, oddly enough, you wouldn't bat an eyelid if someone asks for > "two sugars" in his tea. Or his hot chocolate... mmm, time for me to > go make myself one, I think. Two sugars, a splosh of milk, caramel hot > chocolate powder, and butter. Not "one butter", because that concept > doesn't exist, but very definitely "two sugars", because the sugar > comes in discrete units. > > (Not "discreet units", mind, although I do trust my sugar not to blab > about the sorts of drinks I put it in.) > >> [1] Yes, I watch as many American movies and television shows as the next >> guy. I'm allowed to take the parts of their culture I approve of and reject >> the parts I don't. > > Part of resisting monoculture is accepting other people's cultures, > not just sticking with your own. Embracing that difference. So go > ahead: Watch "McHale's Navy" and "Yes Minister", and appreciate the > comedy of both - decide for yourself which one you find more to your > liking, but know that they both exist, and they represent different > styles. > > (Aside: Even in an American TV show like Once Upon A Time, it's > possible for non-American accents to be welcomed. Belle is played by > an Aussie, and her distinctive accent is commented on in-universe. > Somehow, she picked up an accent that's completely different from her > father's and her mother's, but is its own particular style and speech. > Maybe she learned the accent from one of her books.) > > We embrace Unicode in Python 3 because it allows us to welcome > Russian, Icelandic, Arabic, and Chinese programmers and allow them to > write variable names in their own languages, using their own scripts > (or, in the case of Icelandic, a script very similar to ours but with > a few additional letters). We should equally embrace American and > British English - and Indian English, and Australian English, and any > other variant that people want to code in. You want to write your code > in North-East Scots? Sure. You want to write your code in Gaelic? No > problem (though personally, I prefer garlic to Gaelic). You want to > use "colour" instead of "color"? Also not a problem, and should be > easy enough for someone to understand who normally spells it the other > way. > > ChrisA > -- > https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list -- Joel Goldstick http://joelgoldstick.com -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list