The "What Are You Doing This Moment" Thread

[unknown]

Accents have nothing to do with language. A language is a grammar (the rules) and a lexicon (the words). An accent is just how a person or group of people sounds when putting said words into sentences. The reason American English is closer to 18th century English from England was because we had no other English speaking countries around us, so it became fossilized, so to speak. That was it. That was the only English we had. The people to the north spoke French, and the ones to the south spoke some form of Spanish, and the native heathens had their own languages. Meanwhile, back in the UK, the Queen's English carried on its merry way encountering other English speaking countries that neighbor England. American English has evolved in the past 200 years to include new slang, but that's what languages do. Check out John McWhorter if you want an accessible linguist

 

[SentinelSlain]

I think Modern British English may well use different grammatical styles than older forms of English, but I doubt that's due to Scottish or Welsh influence (there are zero other English speaking countries "neighbouring" England) and I doubt the Irish had that much influence either. Contact with entirely different languages does tend to create changes in both, actually, people in border regions of Europe often speak odd versions of the national language. The point I'm making is that it seems pretty likely to me that the many other nationalities that migrated to America probably have influence American English and they've probably influenced it about as much as Scotland and Wales have influence modern English. I think you're overestimating the importance of Scotland and Wales anyway, they have tiny populations and make up tiny percentages of the British economy, the accents are associated with poverty and backwardness.

 

[Omni]

Language historians don't agree with your opinions, so you can stop acting indignant about it already. It's getting annoying.

 

[Nephilim96]

Cold pizza is the best.

cold pizza is digusting.

 

[CiG]

If it's the case that American English is closer to original English because America was isolated in terms of language influence, why is it that Australia speaks a much more British form of English compared to America?

PS: cold pizza rules.

 

[Omni]

Australia is historically less isolated from Britain than the United States and was also settled later than the United States.

 

[Dak]

I provided links that have explained pretty much everything on the subject since my post.....

 

[CiG]

Oops I didn't see them.

 

[SentinelSlain]

The second link seemed to suggest its more of a mixed bag.

 

[voilenoir]

At work. Back is killing me. Must see my chiropractor soon!!

 

[CiG]

Dude my back is mangled, I swear yesterday my massive headache was entirely due to my fucking back.

 

[Krigloch the Furious]

back pain is the absolute worst!

someone buy my fucking house! We're so poor!

 

[Serjeant Grumbles]

It's actually been demonstrated to be an accurate statement that the typical American English is closer to the language's earlier form. It's something to do with neighboring countries influencing the British English language over time.

That said, America also has dialects of English that are greatly different from each other as well.

You are generalizing too much to speak of "British English" as a whole, since some varieties of British English are definitely more old-fashioned than pretty much anything you'll find in North America.

 

[SentinelSlain]

i think "closer to the original English" is just a meme that American nationalists embrace in order to minimize what would be rational ideas about cultural indebtedness to the English.

 

[Omni]

i think "closer to the original English" is just a meme that American nationalists embrace in order to minimize what would be rational ideas about cultural indebtedness to the English.

You're being weirdly indignant. Nobody said that using either way of speaking made someone better, but you keep specifically responding as if that's being stated and ignoring research that was done by people of credibility.

You are generalizing too much to speak of "British English" as a whole, since some varieties of British English are definitely more old-fashioned than pretty much anything you'll find in North America.

I would agree that you are right, but the context of the conversation makes it 100% clear that we're referring to the most typical modern American and British English as has been explicitly mentioned more than once during this conversation. I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish by ignoring that and stating something that nobody denied.

 

[Funerary_Doom]

My bestie came over yesterday and like she always has me walk on her back because she has terrible back problems. I suppose she should see a chiropractor as oppose to having me worsen her back by walking on it.

Chilling at the moment about to listen to some tunes

 

[tagradh]

I would agree that you are right, but the context of the conversation makes it 100% clear that we're referring to the most typical modern American and British English

I don't know what typical British English sounds like.

Received Pronunciation gets taught to people learning English but very few people in the British Isle actually use it. It's basically just news readers and such.

 

[Baroque]

Sometimes I come up with metal band names, and type them in metal archives to see if someone came up with the name before me. Unfortunately, Gorenado is not a band that exists yet.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

Why is that unfortunate?! Now you can form the band.

 

[Omni]

Laughing at things people stated about me while I was inactive.