UK English Grammar vs. US English Grammar

[Andres]

We were taught "British English" in secondary school.

Nowadays, I probably use both "American English" and "British English" without realising which English I'm using, since I'm not a native speaker.

[Weebeast]

Errbody need tha chill aight? Yall kno we borrowed words from da Romans? Errthang is correct and we just gotta learn da difference and enlightenize ourselves.

Edit - English is the most inconsistent language that I know of when it comes to grammar and pronunciation. I was walking down the street wearing my new pair of shoes while eating pear.

[Fragony]

Here we seem to be swifting from UK english to US english. When I was in school we had to talk with a british accent, which I always refused, I am Dutch not English so I speak English with a big fat Dutch accent and they can understand me just fine.

[Pannonian]

Here we seem to be swifting from UK english to US english. When I was in school we had to talk with a british accent, which I always refused, I am Dutch not English so I speak English with a big fat Dutch accent and they can understand me just fine.

That's just rude. You should always make an effort to adopt the accent of your listener. Follow the admirable example of Shteve Mclaren.

[Fragony]

That's just rude. You should always make an effort to adopt the accent of your listener. Follow the admirable example of Shteve Mclaren.

If they have a problem with that then that's their problem. Not going to talk as if I have a hot potato stuck in my throat.

[InsaneApache]

If they have a problem with that then that's their problem. Not going to talk as if I have a hot potato stuck in my throat.

An old freind of mine from Aalsmeer said exactley that. Talking English was like talking with a hot potato in his mouth. Serves you all right.

[Louis VI the Fat]

There is another mechanism.


Frenchmen with little education speak American English. (Or no English at all) Highly educated Frenchmen use British English. It is all to do with status.

Even if my English is a potpourri of British, American and other variants, whenever aware of it I will use British spelling and vocabulary. Not to impress the English speakers, or to make myself better understood to them - but to distinguish myself as a person of education and higher cultural norms to other non-native speakers.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Who cares about small minority variants of English, like British or American?

Europe alone has more English speakers than the entire Anglophone world. So does India.


So we'll take it from here, thank you very much.


English will develop further as a minority dialect in Britain and the US. Just like Latin evolved into minority dialects in Rome and Milan, variants that soon were mutually unintelligable to each other. Italian dialects that soon were useless in the world at large.
Meanwhile, the civilized world took over Latin from them. Then build a pan-European civilization around it for the next 1500 years. This is the future of English too. Soon, the English and Americans will have the disadvantage of speaking a useless minority variant while four billion others will speak the global standard English.


(Revenge is ours, we'll beat you at your own game, serves you right for picking the wrong language as the global standard etc etc)

[InsaneApache]

Who cares about small minority variants of English, like British or American?

Europe alone has more English speakers than the entire Anglophone world. So does India.


So we'll take it from here, thank you very much.


English will develop further as a minority dialect in Britain and the US. Just like Latin evolved into minority dialects in Rome and Milan, variants that soon were mutually incomprehensible to each other.
Meanwhile, the civilized world took over Latin from them. Then build a pan-European civilization around it for the next 1500 years. This is the future of English too. Soon, the English and Americans will have the disadvantage of speaking a useless minority variant while four billion others will speak the global standard English.


(Revenge is ours, we'll beat you at your own game, serves you right for picking the wrong language as the global standard etc etc)

and there's more English speakers in China than in the rest of the world put together. Weep you Francophones.