One of my favourite jokes: American: Let's take the elevator up to the top floor Englishman: You mean "lift" mate American: Actually no it's called an elevator Englishman: No in English it's called a lift. We're English. We invented the ENGLISH language. American: No. It's called an elevator. Because WE invented the elevator .
@KindredBrujah2 жыл бұрын
Archimedes was American?!
@slinky64812 жыл бұрын
@@KindredBrujah Archimedes invented the motorized elevator?? Or was his just man-powered? Of course you know the "kind" of elevator that's being referred to here. Now run off with your semantic shenanigans.
@greenaum2 жыл бұрын
@@slinky6481 It's not the motori *s* ed, it's the safety elevator. With a brake, where, if the car starts accelerating downward at a certain rate, it causes a weight to rise, since free falling is equivalent to weightlessness. The weight, now weight-less (cos it weighs less), rises up, undoes a catch, and powerful springs jam wooden beams under or over the car, into rails on the wall of the shaft. At least that was Otis's basic idea. Modern ones, I think, still use that principle. Since unlike computerised motion sensors etc, it can't go wrong as long as simple physics remains the same. I think instead of levers jamming in, brakes are applied that squeeze against a girder. Still, needs no power source, easily resettable, foolproof. Before Otis, people worried that the ropes could snap and they'd plummet down to their doom. This limited the height of buildings people could use. So Otis did his demonstration with a big wooden frame and his mockup lift car and safety brake. A man winched the car, with Otis, to the top (again, not so much a car just a few planks making a basic frame with a floor on it), waving and smiling. Then Otis ordered the man to cut the rope, with a big axe! The lift fell. About 6 inches, then the brakes kicked in. Perfect, lots of impressed public and also he didn't die.
@greenaum2 жыл бұрын
BTW if you want a free freefall related factoid... astronauts in space, are not nearly far away enough to be free from the Earth's gravity. They still feel almost all of the Earth's gravitational pull. So they fall. Spaceships are constantly falling to Earth. But if they're moving fast enough, by the time they've fallen a little, they've also moved forward a little. And moving "forward", that is at a right angle to the ground, means the ground underneath is further away, since the Earth is round. Viewed from above it, the ground falls away in every direction, imagine being on a point just above the globe, any direction you move, the ground is going to get lower beneath you. They fall in an arc, like a shell from a mortar. But their arc goes far enough forward that it misses the ground completely and ends up falling round and round the Earth. So gravity pulls you down to Earth, but velocity pushes you forward, to where the ground is that bit lower. They cancel out. Your falling effectively cancelled by your moving forward. The result is, you're constantly falling to Earth, but constantly going forward. So you fall to Earth, but you miss! You keep missing the ground, so stay up there in a circle, or indeed an ellipse. Gravity is still pulling normally. You're falling, the spaceship is falling, the stuff inside the spaceship is falling. Like if you were in a free-falling lift, your feet would leave the floor, objects would float in the air, you'd be "weightless". Except not weightless at all, just in freefall. Gravity is effectively cancelled out, for you, relative to the spaceship and it's contents. But of course it's still pulling you down all the time. If it wasn't, if gravity lost it's grip, you'd zoom off into infinity. It's gravity that gives things a stable orbit, constantly falling, constantly missing the ground. It's how those "vomit comet" aeroplanes work. They're aeroplanes astronauts use to practice weightlessness, effectively the plane takes a free dive downward, and as you'd imagine, everything starts floating around, "zero G". It's _effectively_ zero G but in actuality completely 1G. So you could have zero gravity in a lift with a long enough shaft. For the height you'd need for more than a couple of seconds, it wouldn't be worth it. Unless scientists are allowed to practice in office blocks on weekends. The forward velocity that keeps a spaceship, or a satellite, up there, is what the rocket is for. All that energy isn't to lift the spaceship up high enough. It's to get it travelling forward, fast enough. Every rocket launch, you'll see starts off vertically, but soon the rocket turns to face horizontally. It needs to accelerate to a great speed, the faster you fly, the higher your orbit. Like swinging a weight on a string around your head, if it's further out from the centre, it needs to cover a greater distance, and you need to put more effort into it, or else it will fall. So a correct astronaut will refer to "freefall" but never "zero G" because there's nowhere in the Universe where there isn't a bit of gravity from something somewhere. Well, everything everywhere, technically.
@tonyravioli19822 жыл бұрын
@@greenaum Motorized. Are you sad because you don't have control over you language? Are you sad because you can't make changes like Motorized?
@terrybull29032 жыл бұрын
In America we use an "Elevator", in Britain it is "Lift"..... I guess we are just "raised" differently!
@jmh11892 жыл бұрын
Out
@rbbecker732 жыл бұрын
You win.
@TS_Mind_Swept2 жыл бұрын
I feel like you stole that…butt it’s still funny SuperVinlin
@burke6152 жыл бұрын
I'm absolutely floored by this.
@CasualNotice2 жыл бұрын
@@burke615 Stealth pun for the win.
@opsimathics2 жыл бұрын
The satisfaction I receive from watching people discover "poppycock" not being bri'ish is enormous
@rbbecker732 жыл бұрын
Yeah, that one surprised me.
@warlaker2 жыл бұрын
President Nixon made that word famous/infamous during Watergate saying "That's just plain poppycock"
@georgemaster6892 жыл бұрын
@@rbbecker73 And it's not just solely a snack mix anymore.
@christopherrobinson38572 жыл бұрын
Surprised me too.
@TheHungryReader2 жыл бұрын
It’s derived from Dutch, apparently! It comes from a word that means “soft dung”, or so it says in Bill Bryson’s The Mother Tongue.
@mr.johnson38442 жыл бұрын
One criticism I received from some Brits was for the word "sidewalk." They said it was almost infantile and that we should use the word "pavement" like adults. The thing is, though, we do use the word "pavement" to refer to anything that is paved. That includes roads, car lots, and also sidewalks. The word pavement is ambiguous in many cases. If I say, "Let's meet out on the pavement," you may think I'm talking about the parking lot outside the office, the sidewalk just off the property, or (less likely) the street.
@ChrisMichael2 жыл бұрын
They ridicule “side walk” but then without irony will say “car park” - I’d call this a draw
@lhaviland86022 жыл бұрын
Interesting. I think of "pavement" as being almost synonymous with "asphalt" as in the substance. I'm from New England so maybe that's why.
@thebigmacd2 жыл бұрын
@@lhaviland8602 same here in Ontario. Pavement nearly always means asphalt, not concrete. But then we say "tarmac" when it could be either asphalt or concrete. Sometimes you just have to have everything backwards :)
@fearlessfreap80932 жыл бұрын
I'm sure it is different in various locales in the US. But for the most part in Missouri we consider pavement as a construct meaning anything paved. However paved isn't restricted to asphalt. Concrete is always pavement, but asphalt may be pavement but many times it is referred to as asphalt. We also use tarmac but not as much and it doesn't differentiate between concrete and asphalt.
@Carolmaizy2 жыл бұрын
Sidewalk reminds me of the British car park. They're both logical.
@robertcampopiano60012 жыл бұрын
To our British friends: we call the rearmost compartment of a car a “trunk”, because in the early days of automobiles, it was a literal trunk (usually a small steamer trunk) that was strapped to a rack mounted on the back of the car. When designers began incorporating it into the body of the car, the name stuck.
@thebuzzah2 жыл бұрын
Does that mean that the British would afix boots to their automobiles and fill them up with things?
@derekchristenson57112 жыл бұрын
@@thebuzzah How else would Father Christmas be able to give them gifts on the go? ;-)
@LouieLouie5052 жыл бұрын
@crash burn "...the boot was so named..." Still waiting to hear why 'boot' is the term for all that you described. The US uses 'trunk' because it used to be a trunk, so Brits say 'boot' because?????
@jmo27522 жыл бұрын
@@LouieLouie505 on smaller [horse drawn] carriages - ie. the precursor to the private car - boots were kept in a locker under the rear facing seat (at the back of the carriage), so that passengers who had to disembark in muddy conditions didn't mess up their smarter dress shoes.
@LouieLouie5052 жыл бұрын
@@jmo2752 "... boots were kept in a locker..." Ah-- now I see.
@ParallaxRS2 жыл бұрын
As a brit, I’ve always thought the US got the naming of public and private schools right… private means you have to pay to get in, public means it’s provided for the public
@Bacopa682 жыл бұрын
Yeah, we got that right.
@stillmagic7142 жыл бұрын
Yeah, that's so strange to me about British schools.
@mournblade10662 жыл бұрын
Well what is the difference between public and private in Britain?
@stillmagic7142 жыл бұрын
@@mournblade1066 a public school in Britain is what Americans would call a private school but it's "public" in the sense that anyone with sufficient funds can go. What Americans would call a public school would be (I believe) called a state school.
@brianmcdonald65192 жыл бұрын
Same in Canada!
@AshtonCoolman2 жыл бұрын
The word "okay" is now pretty much universally understood. It's such a fascinating yet simple word that meets a linguistic need across cultures.
@VoidHxnter2 жыл бұрын
Yeah, until I started listening to subbed VTuber clips, I thought it was an English only thing, or at least English related. Then I heard Japanese people saying “Okay” and I thought they were just using the English word for their version of “okay”. Nope, they actually use it. lol
@zacharymogel95002 жыл бұрын
@@VoidHxnter it’s oké in Dutch, same pronunciation
@rbbecker732 жыл бұрын
The most useful thing to ever come out of the state of Oklahoma.
@AshtonCoolman2 жыл бұрын
@@rbbecker73 President Martin Van Buren was from Kinderhook, New York. His nickname was Old Kinderhook aka OK. Another possible contributor to the idiom was "oll korrect" which has a story of its own. Neither of these have anything to do with that abomination of a state, Oklahoma (yes, I'm a Texan😜).
@urphakeandgey63082 жыл бұрын
@@VoidHxnter "Nope, they actually use it." The same way English speakers _"actually use"_ the word "tsunami." They're called "loanwords" and all languages have plenty. Just putting this out there because I see a lot of "fun facts" that say stuff like "did you know Japanese doesn't have a word for 'pepperoni?'" So some people get this weird impression Japanese just has no way of saying many things.
@aarondeifel63572 жыл бұрын
Honestly one of the most fascinating things to me, is how “OK/Okay” has permeated throughout such a huge portion of the world. Watching foreign shows in many countries, I often see/hear them say it. Such a useful yet simple word.
@codiefitz38762 жыл бұрын
“Hi!” “ok”
@Ballaurena132 жыл бұрын
@@codiefitz3876 And yet Google is offering to translate these words to English.
@andrewthezeppo2 жыл бұрын
British people: there are so many different local accents and dialects in England Also British people: American's are pronouncing that word wrong
@johnsaia97392 жыл бұрын
The United States has many different accents and words in different regions. Compare a Boston accent to an Alabama accent and you will hear the difference. English doesn't really have dialects.
@IceMetalPunk2 жыл бұрын
@@johnsaia9739 "English doesn't really have dialects"? 😕 What makes you think that?
@andrewthezeppo2 жыл бұрын
@@johnsaia9739 England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, North Ireland all have many accents as do America and Australia and other English speaking nations. My point is within these countries there are multiple accents so one country should never say something is pronounced wrong when it is pronounced in different ways throughout their country.
@rapa28942 жыл бұрын
The funniest part to me is they somehow assume England is magical and the only place with many accents and dialects. A lot of English people refuse to accept there's more than 2 or 3 accents in America. There is more than that in my state, plus more than one dialect. Idk why they revel in their ignorance on this one.
@andrewthezeppo2 жыл бұрын
@@rapa2894 lol yep, I worked in London for a while and just on my floor of the office different people pronounced things in really different ways. I know I have kind of the generic newscaster Midwest American accent but I have family on both coasts and the way they talk is really different.
@denisemusicnut2 жыл бұрын
It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him.” -George Bernard Shaw
@allanrichardson90812 жыл бұрын
“The Scots and the Irish leave you close to tears. There even are places where English completely disappears. Well in America it hasn’t been used fir years!” Same character, but modified for the musical “My Fair Lady”
@bookmouse27192 жыл бұрын
@@allanrichardson9081 Pygmalion😁
@allanrichardson90812 жыл бұрын
@@bookmouse2719 The original play by Shaw was Pygmalion, which was adapted in the US by Lerner and Lowe in the 1950s into the Broadway musical, later made into a movie, “My Fair Lady.” Rex Harrison played Prof. Higgins, speak/singing the words I quoted as part of a song. I never saw or read the original Shaw version, so I don’t know the exact context of the quote in it, or even whether it was a song, so I quoted from the movie version, which I did see. I knew that Shaw wrote the original, but I never read it. Without the music I never would have remembered that much of it!
@GingerRazz6232 жыл бұрын
I feel like you need to be made aware of a southern colloquial hyper-contraction if you aren't aware of it. I think it's linguistically amazing for English. That word is: Y'all'd've. In its complete form without contraction, it is: You all would have. I just find it amazing at how that word rolls off the tongue and is very nearly a complete sentence. Edit: I know it could be a full sentence, but it's never used alone. It's always at least "Y'all'd've, too"
@anerdwithaswitch96862 жыл бұрын
Even better is the negative form, contracting you all would _not_ have: "Y'all'dn't've"
@UdderlyEvelyn2 жыл бұрын
I love these so-called hyper-contractions. I've been using "I'd've" for years now and it only occurred to me the first time when I went to write it that it isn't accepted syntax (yet). xD
@bbgun0612 жыл бұрын
Is it really a hyper-contraction or just natural tendency to shorten speech. Almost everyone learning a foreign language thinks that native speakers speak too fast or don't enunciate well.
@Metal_Auditor2 жыл бұрын
I even use y'all'd've in text messages.
@VoidHxnter2 жыл бұрын
I live in the South, and I never realized that this wasn’t as common as I thought. I thought everyone used that hyper contraction until I started paying attention to speech on the internet more. Us Southerners like to make everything to most efficient and to the point as we can be. From farming equipment to speech.
@R.F.98472 жыл бұрын
Thank you for this. Linguistic superiority always irks me and I blame schoolteachers for the way they teach the scholarly register as though it were the only correct way. Non-standard does not mean incorrect. Dialects abound, each with their own storied history. None are the standard dialect with errors. And then there's this meme fodder: Brits: "American English sounds so childish!" Also Brits: "Brolly. Cuppa."
@notmyfullname5982 жыл бұрын
the reason why, I believe at least for all of this linguistic superiority is the american's massive amount of soft power, and since the younger english people (like me) grew up hearing the american pronunciations more than the english pronunciations, making us use some of them. This then leads to the older ones getting really defensive because they feel like their dialect, which came first, is being erased by these americans saying the words differently, the people who get corrected the most I think are actually the English kids
@I_Have_The_Most_Japanese_Music Жыл бұрын
I'm not so accepting, but I'll agree that English teachers generally piss me off.
@JMPschool17 ай бұрын
Brits are also out there saying fizzy drink for soda, cheese toastie for grilled cheese, telly for TV, wellies for rain boots, and washing up liquid for dish soap. It's almost like they're trying to sound adorable lol
@R.F.98477 ай бұрын
@@JMPschool1 Well, "wellies" is short for "Wellington boots", after the Duke of Wellington who popularized them in the early 1800s. We all judge other dialects against our own. Of course the way "they" talk is strange, because we're not accustomed to it. The term "soda" comes from the sodium salts used to decrease the acidity. It's oddly specific and honestly a strange way to refer to a category of beverage. At least "fizzy drink" is more usefully descriptive. And yes, I was born and raised and I live in the USA.
@JMPschool17 ай бұрын
@@R.F.9847 I really enjoy the kind of whimsical impression many British words and phrases provide my American ear. I never knew American English could be perceived as childish by some, so I found it funny. Putting an ie or y at the end of things is generally cute and diminutive to us, and British and Australian English has a lot of that. In a very similar way, Swiss German sounds cute to Germans because they often use a diminutive suffix with a long ee sound like li or i, so it would almost be like if someone said bread-ling instead of roll/bun lol.
@trinkab2 жыл бұрын
Different is not wrong, just different. A lesson we should apply in more situations than just linguistics.
@rae1957tn2 жыл бұрын
AMEN !
@adedow13332 жыл бұрын
Preach! Well said!
@howtubeable2 жыл бұрын
No, there are many situations today where different is dangerous. I cannot "agree to disagree" with people who sexualize children or want to refuse healthcare to the unvaccinated. Ideologies which endanger innocent people must be opposed and defeated.
@JudgeJulieLit2 жыл бұрын
@@howtubeable Agree, but for that healthcare workers themselves have a right not overly to endanger their own health by chronic close personal exposure to adult patients who (heedless of the health of their healthcare workers) refuse vaccination against COVID, for too many proven a lethal and/or lastingly disabling infectious disease.
@KairuHakubi2 жыл бұрын
@@howtubeable Boy I was with you for the first part of that post.
@GlamourNNail2 жыл бұрын
"As long as we understand each other, that's all that matters." For some reason that made me tear up. I think people forget that the purpose of language is to understand others. Being so caught up in semantics undermines the very reason we speak. A little bit of understanding goes a long way.
@caynidar62952 жыл бұрын
This is one of the things that stuck with me from the cultural anthropology course I took in college. What really matters in a language is mutual communicability and how well the language serves to enhance a people's ability to survive and thrive within their given environment.
@ianmontgomery75342 жыл бұрын
the art of communication is to get the message across - not to get it correct.
@Jamesvandaele2 жыл бұрын
What?
@JimC2 жыл бұрын
Words are the way we try to understand each other. If you want to communicate something, it is *your* sole obligation to make yourself understood, in terms the listener will underatnd, *not* the listener's obligation to understand *you.*
@nitrogenbubbles45552 жыл бұрын
@@JimC yeah that kinda falls apart when they do actually understand you but are simply being obstinent.
@FatLabRat2 жыл бұрын
I love it when I run into this dude at Kroger. He nods then keeps on with his shopping. He’s learned how to be an American and I’m so proud.
@PoofyKittyPants2 жыл бұрын
It's pronounced K-Rodger
@redmasq2 жыл бұрын
The people that actually recognize the brand near my area pronounce it as "Crow-ger." Most Kroger stores in this area are franchised convenient stores (read: gas station; they all are mini-marts that have fuel pumps... most here have heard the term petro, but never use it unless imitating a Brit) juxtapose to the full grocery supermarkets.
@frogsnack70722 жыл бұрын
But does he do the city folk up-nod? xD
@coreyhaskins77682 жыл бұрын
It is crow-ger...
@PoofyKittyPants2 жыл бұрын
@@coreyhaskins7768 How do you pronounce Kmart?
@Qualnias2 жыл бұрын
I literally bust out laughing and could not stop for a minute or two (am American) at the fact that Americans added hangover to the English lexicon. Sounds appropriate.
@benwhite88632 жыл бұрын
Well, it sure wasn't going to be a Scot or Irishman that admitted liquor got the better of them!
@urphakeandgey63082 жыл бұрын
@@benwhite8863 American the next day: I'm in pain because I have a hangover. Irishman the next day: I'm in pain because I'm sober.
@BabayBunny2 жыл бұрын
LOL proud to be an american
@candyboyer2 жыл бұрын
@Qualnias I thought the same thing
@stockinettestitch Жыл бұрын
And yet people like to give us shit about prohibition…
@keiththorpe95712 жыл бұрын
Well, here in America, we felt the need to differentiate between 'herb', as in the dried, minced plant life one might sprinkle on food, and 'Herb', the shortened nickname of someone named 'Herbert'.
@ogrejehosephatt372 жыл бұрын
I mean, it's not like we don't have other homonyms/homophones.
@hughdanaher27582 жыл бұрын
dropping the h in herb is more recent than you would believe.
@easternsecrecy97772 жыл бұрын
There used to be an old commercial where a wife corrected her husband by saying, "It's ERBAL, Herb."
@cobbler882 жыл бұрын
Yeah. Once we're out of Herberts (likely sometime in 2037) we'll totally go back to using "herb" with the "H" sound. :D
@oaf-772 жыл бұрын
Herb’s herb garden.
@JosephRobinsonSMBX2 жыл бұрын
Sometimes I feel like I'm the only British person who really doesn't care at all about differences between British and American English
@deborahdanhauer85252 жыл бұрын
So nice to find people like you!🐝🤗❤️
@novacorps24682 жыл бұрын
As you Brits say "good on you." Aren't there as many differences within the UK as to pronounciation and use of words? I find it strange that the British would criticize America for it.
@johnsaia97392 жыл бұрын
English unites all we English speaking peoples no matter the differences.
@Tuvok_Shakur2 жыл бұрын
jokes are fun though. like "manoeuvre" lol come on guys wtf is that
@RobinMarconeCassidyRN2 жыл бұрын
Your definitely not the only one Joseph 😉
@christopherverhoef91122 жыл бұрын
"Every now and then, I'll be on Twitter, which was my first mistake..." Heh.
@hayindahiz44442 жыл бұрын
My favorite difference is math and maths. There was an old Numberphile video on it (featuring CGP Grey) that explained that the difference is pretty much down to the fact that English generally doesn't have a set rule for abbreviation, and the abbreviation of mathematics came when universities created course catalogs in the late 1800's/ early 1900's. American universities preferred a four letter code for course subjects, so mathematics became just MATH, and English universities preferred 5 letter codes, so MATHS because there is a 's' at the end. As a person who works in math and has worked with many British people they will sometimes defend it by saying that math should be pluralized either because there are multiple steps in most math or because it refers to the multiple disciples and subjects under the banner or "mathematics". To that that numberphile video points that that most British people would say "maths is hard" rather than "maths are hard" and similarly treat it grammatically as a singular term.
@comma_thingy2 жыл бұрын
Most people I know would defend maths as being the way to say it since the word mathematics ends with an s. Mathematic sounds weird and archaic
@JimMonsanto2 жыл бұрын
@@comma_thingy Just as not all that glitters is gold, not all words ending in an s are plural. Mathematics isn't plural, nor is physics, linguistics, and politics.
@john_titor12 жыл бұрын
@@comma_thingy Yeah, but you don't keep the 's' normally when shortening words, do you? Like, why cut out most of the middle bits, but keep the 's'? Is linguistics 'lings'? Is politics 'pols'?
@mkshffr49362 жыл бұрын
@@JimMonsanto Yep mathematics is a single subject like physics.
@KDawg50002 жыл бұрын
There's also "hospital" vs. "the hospital". British might say, "He went to hospital". Where Americans would say "He went to the hospital".
@Terriblegam2r2 жыл бұрын
Laurence is America’s biggest advocate, and this is why we love him ❤️
@FireCracker32402 жыл бұрын
Yes! I love how much he loves and respects us. He defends us when we're right, has no problem poking fun of us when we're wrong. He's our biggest champion and is with us through the highs... and lows. He really is like the best friend who loves us unconditionally, isn't he?
@itschelseakay2 жыл бұрын
He needs to be protected at all costs 🥺
@trickygoose22 жыл бұрын
I like the way he defends the US without prosecuting the UK!
@timothyjones34102 жыл бұрын
I think the US invented "weekend", too. In France it's become something like L'weekend, which drives the purists crazy which is another reason to be proud of it. The only difference that puzzles me is the US saying "transmission" while the Brits say "gear box". Seems like it should be the opposite. A gear box is knowable whereas a transmission is something only elites can comprehend.
@fredeaston39882 жыл бұрын
Americans know how to properly use a collective noun. ex the family IS on vacation not ARE on vacation. So it has to be THIS family . Brits would have to say THESE family.
@Scuuurbs2 жыл бұрын
Herb vs ‘erb has never bothered me, but “haich” makes my eye twitch (as does, to a lesser extent, “zed”)
@danieljensen26262 жыл бұрын
TBH haich and zed still mostly get the "oh, look at the cute little British/Commonwealth person with their funny words" response from me.
@candybluebird2 жыл бұрын
not a fan of haich, but honestly I prefer zed over zee
@tylermc117952 жыл бұрын
@@candybluebird Well then we should just say “bed” “ced” “ded” too ;)
@bitharne2 жыл бұрын
Can anyone actually explain both or either of these to me? Zed I accept…it’s silly to me but whatever; add extra sounds that aren’t related in any possible way I guess. Also; would brits watch Dragon Ball Zee or Dragon Ball Zed? The narrator tells you the correct thing to say but how far do y’all go 😅 Haitch just reeks of wanting to be posh.
@dartholemewspaceinvader63332 жыл бұрын
@@bitharne Haitch is the opposite of posh, it was working-class Irish Catholics who popularised the pronunciation. Look it up. In fact I believe Ireland is the only country where it is the accepted pronunciation, certainly isn't in Received Pronunciation.
@BaePlatinum2 жыл бұрын
The “fanciful words” bit made me laugh really hard. I say “doohickey” a lot, but it looks I’m gonna need to use the word “poppycock” more often.
@olainfree9052 жыл бұрын
A thingamajig is the same as a doohickey
@Blondie422 жыл бұрын
Whatchamacallit might also be there, but I don't know 🙃😉
@hellzoneUK19912 жыл бұрын
I used to be the sort of person that would find Americanisms annoying, but I think at some point I realised that there's a lot of internalised classism going on in that irritation, and that isn't healthy. These days I'm super psyched when I hear the way people around the world use English words and grammar in really unusual ways - it feels like English is really going back to its mongrel "3 three languages in a trench-coat" days now that its become such a global standard. I want it to keep evolving until we reach an international English that's simplified enough for people of almost any culture to take up and enrich with whatever words and concepts they need!
@Ryan-cb1ei2 жыл бұрын
Classism is definitely the right word. It seems much of the way British English evolved is when a group of people wanted to differentiate themselves from others, usually they upper-class from the working class, and it’s the source of a lot of differences between American and British English now. Shame how most British people don’t seem to understand that and instead claim Americans are somehow wrong… The attitude itself is inexcusable no matter what though.
@douglasskinner2 жыл бұрын
To borrow from Orwell, simple English makes for simple thoughts. That isn't good. Personally, I miss the Received Pronunciation which used to be common in public discourse in the UK (aka England).
@lurategh Жыл бұрын
I've always said most people hate on American English simply because it's American. Other English-speaking countries have their own quirks when it comes to the language but most people just find them charming.
@SiriusMined2 жыл бұрын
Any time someone gives me a hard time about "herb", I say to them "Honor the Hour Honestly", and I don't drop the "h" to make the point.
@jessejayphotography2 жыл бұрын
Some king or queen probably accidentally pronounced the H in herb and all the upper class started repeating it and looking down on those that didn’t.
@laurencefraser2 жыл бұрын
You may notice a rather distinct difference between herb and honor/hour/honestly, though. The 'e' in herb? At least in my dialect, which I'll admit is neither British nor American, is very awkward to say as the initial sound of a syllable (and very few words are pronounced that way, none of which are spelled with an h), but follows from h very nicely (as it does in 'her' and 'heard'), where as the o in those others words is very easy to say as an initial sound but ends up awkwardly (in a way that causes physical discomfort) swallowed if I try to precede it with a pronounced h (a sound made mostly in the throat rather than the mouth). I should note that hour has two syllables (the h is silent, the o is more of a short 'ah' sound, and the ur somehow becomes more of a wh' (that ' is a schwa)), while our has only one (the whole word is just a single diphthong). The joys of dialects.
@ANTSEMUT12 жыл бұрын
1. The other dialects that drop or de-emphasize the H aren't as annoying as the Americans or as self important. 2. The name Herby is still pronounced with a H.
@jessejayphotography2 жыл бұрын
@@ANTSEMUT1 Clearly you can't take a joke.
@NieroshaiTheSable2 жыл бұрын
@@laurencefraser I wonder if that would make hurban development more difficult.
@roldanbelenos15492 жыл бұрын
Mr. Brown, This reminds me of another "Lost Memo" for you: In my earlier years, I strived to speak better English, and worked to replace "fall" with "autumn" in my vocabulary, feeling that "fall" was just kind of like American slang or something. ... and then I discovered the truth of the matter. "Summer" and "winter" have ancient roots in proto-Germanic. The names for the other two seasons are newer. People in 16th Century England began to refer to the "spring of the leaf" and the "fall of the leaf", and that's how we got "spring" and "fall" for the other two seasons. And that's what the anglosphere was using at the time of the American Revolution, and for some time afterward. For whatever reason, in the 19th Century, British people in both the British Isles and elsewhere in their empire started using the Latin word "autumn" instead of "fall". And today I hear from a lot of non-American English speakers how it seems that Americans are just wrong for using "fall" for the season of the year we're now experiencing. Except, that the U.S. did not get the memo, and continued to use the original English word for the season and did not adopt a foreign term like everyone else did. With that in mind, and still endeavoring to speak better English, I defenestrated "autumn" from my vocabulary and embraced "fall" as the true English word. And thus, it's an example of Americans speaking better English than... the English.
@ZakhadWOW2 жыл бұрын
as someone who speaks the 3 main Romance languages (Spa/Fre/Ita) I continue to use Autumn in more highfalutin conversations :P ALso, Astronomy user the term "Autumnal Equinox" so that reinforces also
@bibliophilelady61062 жыл бұрын
English is not a romance language though, so his point stands. He is trying to speak better English, not Italian or French.
@ZakhadWOW2 жыл бұрын
@@bibliophilelady6106 what the fuck are you on about? o.0 I was commenting on MYSELF< not him Jeezus get a clue
@goodmaro2 жыл бұрын
It's not just the *names* of "fall" and "spring" that are recent, it's also the *concepts." Spring and fall/autumn didn't need names back when people didn't have much use for the concepts and tended to divide the year in half, the only seasons being winter and summer.
@Jackilichous2 жыл бұрын
The idea of true English is impossible, it never can be pinpointed to an exact moment like you're saying it can be. If I started speaking Early English/Anglo-Saxon, by your logic I would be speaking better English than the English. It is with this that English will always be English for the English and anything else is different English.
@insertwittyname56492 жыл бұрын
I honestly found this really fascinating. I'm American and my uncle (not blood related, but still family) is from London. He always told me not to worry about Brits making fun of how I talk because of the same stuff in this video. But they never offended me. Mainly because when I get told I don't speak "proper English" my mind instantly goes to Australia. My uncle's daughter was born and raised there and when I met her I could tell she was struggling not to use a lot of slang. I was a kid at the time and I probably wouldn't have understood 😅
@jasonpatterson8091 Жыл бұрын
My favorite word that British people get ruffled over but which actually makes far more sense in American is "math" vs "maths." The word that's being abbreviated, mathematics, isn't a plural, it's a Greek word that happens to end in S (much like "physics"). So when it's abbreviated, why on Earth would you include a random letter from the end of the word? We both call chemistry "chem" rather than "chemy" and nobody loses their mind. My usual response when someone complains about this online is to ask them which is their favorite mathematic.
@CraneArmy2 жыл бұрын
I just want to see a cajun and a scott try to talk to each other. I feel like the world needs this.
@kyungrix11122 жыл бұрын
You could say that about a Cajun and almost anybody else... 🤣🤣🤣
@billbadson75982 жыл бұрын
"Herb" is a really funny one because, as an American, I associate dropped H's at the start of words VERY strongly with British accents. "Ello, 'Enry! 'Ad an 'orrible experience 'ere today, I 'ear!" _edit: Although reading back, the class thing makes a lot of sense, because that sentence sounds like something that only an orc or a chimney sweep would say._
@yeetthegargantuanleviathan62162 жыл бұрын
Yeah, it's similar to accents, modern 'american' accents were the accent commoners spoke with, modern English accents being old upper class accents that spread to the rest of England, figures some of them would get self important.
@jerikropp63942 жыл бұрын
Very cockney.
@corn_or_khorn58172 жыл бұрын
My guys speaking ork
@matthewparker92762 жыл бұрын
Or a bobby.
@CeeJayThe13th2 жыл бұрын
Yeah "herb" has always been the weirdest one to me. It seems to be singular H word where Brits insist on pronouncing the H regardless of regional accent.
@rampart64 Жыл бұрын
I appreciate these distinctions because I moved from NYC to London at age 13 and had quite the time learning how to speak and listen all over again. Eventually I resorted to mimicry being careful not to over-do it. Some accents remained impenetrable even after years, like Scottish or Cockney. The way the recording on a busy-signal phone call said "The line is engaged" was so damn posh!
@Palendrome2 жыл бұрын
Don't forget a great American word "Hootenanny" Similar to a ho-down, but very distinct also
@Blondie422 жыл бұрын
Seems like a whatchamacallit to me 😉
@matthewireland11252 жыл бұрын
What is a constant irritant to me about British English is the lack of a collective singular. Thus you get "the family are". While I get the concept that a family is a group of people it is also a unit in and of itself. So one family is and two or more families are. The British way makes subject/ verb agreement break in my American ear. Ah, well. Two peoples separated by a common language and all that, I guess.
@tonygumbrell222 жыл бұрын
I noticed the same thing a long time ago. Our way has logic on it's side but sounds wrong to the Brits.
@vera-vf4we2 жыл бұрын
@@tonygumbrell22 Australians do the same thing, I think. I watch some Aussie beauty gurus and every time they say "This brand are..." my mind immediately goes 🚨🚨🚨
@Markle2k2 жыл бұрын
@@vera-vf4we That has the smell of hypercorrection on it. A company is clearly a group of people, but a brand is a brand. Most corporations, if they brand their product, have multiple brands that may overlap personnel in charge of them.
@KairuHakubi2 жыл бұрын
Yeah that used to bother me, then I listened to more british stuff and now I'm irreparably muddled, I can't stick to either standard. and I've noticed others around me not doing it consistently either.
@KairuHakubi2 жыл бұрын
@@Markle2k well that's why it's easier to just stick with the actual noun you're using, not what it represents. because one's quite objective and the other's subjective and vague.
@westvirginiaglutenfreepepp70062 жыл бұрын
My favorite is when Brits make fun of Americans saying "fall" for autumn because it's basically just the old British version.
@Ryan-cb1ei2 жыл бұрын
A lot of things are the old British version it seems, yet they poke fun at it. Soccer, fall, the English/imperial system of measurement…
@tonyravioli19822 жыл бұрын
@@Ryan-cb1ei Worst part is the american system lbs for example are metric.
@A_nony_mous2 жыл бұрын
@@Ryan-cb1ei British Imperial is different to American Imperial, eg a British Imperial Tablespoon is 4 teaspoons, an American Imperial Tablespoon is 3 teaspoons with both teaspoons being 5 milliliters in the Metric system. A British Imperial pint is 20 fluid ounces but an American Imperial pint is 16 fluid ounces, which in turn makes quarts and gallons quite different. It makes following recipes dreadfully complex, a real case of trial and error unless you know from where the recipe originates.
@Ryan-cb1ei2 жыл бұрын
@@A_nony_mous Bruh you know what I mean. It’s still called the English system, all that crap originated there
@A_nony_mous2 жыл бұрын
@@Ryan-cb1ei sorry mate I'm Aussie, please explain. We went metric back in the 70's.
@EibhlinBradford2 жыл бұрын
Interesting! Thank you! If you haven't already, read the history of our Noah Webster. He was bright & made significant reforms to our education system in the early days of our country. He went on to write dictionaries - the first collecting all unique American words & standardizing spelling. We have Noah to thank for dropping all those u's (honour, colour) and adding words unique to us like skunk and squash (the New World food). His influence on our language came just as our nation was developing and is really central to how we speak today - and he did it all for clarity & consistency, for education.
@gurrrn11022 жыл бұрын
which still failed. license/practice is my fav0rite example
@jobethk5882 жыл бұрын
This was useful to me. I had no idea there was method to the madness of ending a word in -ize or -ise. Thank you.
@adedow13332 жыл бұрын
I do rather adore that glorious list of fun American words at the end. This was well written, Lawrence. Well done indeed!
@sferg95822 жыл бұрын
I totally agree.
@protorhinocerator1422 жыл бұрын
We owe a great debt to the many Americans like Jerry Seinfeld over the years, who just invented words and phrases because they wanted to. Close talker Pinch weasel Master of my domain
@theagespot97172 жыл бұрын
I'm American (Colorado) and I love the word 'conniption'. It's like, "Dude! Don't have a friggin' conniption."
@O2life2 жыл бұрын
Another for you, which is my favorite: *Scrumdiddlyumptious!* Though popularized by Roald Dahl in *The BFG,* this term started as an American slang improvement on the British *Scrumptious*
@agoogleuser44432 жыл бұрын
Instead of doohickey, my dad says doomaflotchey. Where he got that one I have no clue.
@-Subtle-2 жыл бұрын
'erb is the best, like honor and honest. I don't get the brits: 'arry, grab 'ermione, and 'arriette, so we can go to the grocery and buy some hhhhhhhhherbs.
@a-drewg17162 жыл бұрын
Well they pronounce herb with so many h's they had to steal them from other words.
@starofdabloc2 жыл бұрын
Thank you! 😂
@hugehappygrin2 жыл бұрын
The practiced dropping of consonants. Posh = no R's. Common = no T's. Common faking Posh example (butter) bu'uh. Also the practiced UK of dropping the middle of a word. Example: Lancaster Shire becomes Lanka Sheer.(I know that you can see what is missing.) Apologetics claim that it's the accent. Bullocks!
@erinmiller14332 жыл бұрын
In ‘artford, ‘ereford, and ‘ampshire, ‘urricanes ‘ardly hhhever ‘appen.
@sarah-janelambert89622 жыл бұрын
You need to hear English accents other than cockney.
@IlrysKadiatu2 жыл бұрын
As an American, the word "herb" has always had two meanings in my own lexicon - one is a flavorful plant, the other is a shortened form of the name Herbert. I drop the H when talking about the plant, but not when talking to or about my neighbor Herbert.
@JojoZXA2 жыл бұрын
I was hesitant to click this video at first, because as an American I'm... quite frankly sick and fucking tired of being pointlessly thrashed for things like American English. But you presented the topic in a neutral and ultimately educational manner; so thank you, and keep doing you.
@mena94x32 жыл бұрын
1:30 . . . Oh my gosh!!! He said ‘aluminum’ instead of ‘al-ooo-min-eee-um’ and he said it so naturally and freely!!! He’s been here long enough that now he’s one of us and must be protected from judgmental Brits when he goes back for visits!
@susanunger22782 жыл бұрын
I noticed that, too!
@shannonjones88772 жыл бұрын
TBH, i find "aluminum" kinda bothersome. We have so many other metals that end in "ium", but then for some reason that particular "i" got dropped...
@burke6152 жыл бұрын
@@shannonjones8877 The element was originally called "alumium" when discovered. From that, the two current versions sprang. So the "i" wasn't dropped; a second "i" just wasn't added when the "n" was added. In that sense, the American version is closer to the original in spelling, having only one extra letter. And most interesting to me, it was a Brit, chemist Sir Humphry Davy, who coined "alumium" and later changed it to "aluminum". He's also the one who coined "sodium" and "potassium" so it's a bit odd that he chose not to go with "-ium" for aluminum, but there it is. He discovered the stuff, so I'll stick to calling it what he did. (In truth, I'll call it aluminum because in my society, that's just what we call it. 😉)
@suddenlyezra57822 жыл бұрын
I specifically have not done a linguistic degree because I want to preserve the joy I have for it. I admire your ability to do that and this channel, which so often involves linguistic differences.
@shura01072 жыл бұрын
I took courses in Linguistics and it's made accents fascinating. Not just how it arose, but when you hear people speak, you're like "ooh, they have a ____ accent" and you'll notice what makes it unique, not just in how they say words, but in their word choice, too.
@Sharon-pb7so2 жыл бұрын
My son double majored and linguistics was one of his majors. It's actually an interesting major. He was recruited by the FBI, he wasn't interested in joining that particular organization, but it's surprising how many different fields are interested in linguistics students. His text books looked like ancient Greek writing me.
@stephanginther90512 жыл бұрын
Another reason why spelling in English, both British and American, can be so weird is because we used to have 9 more letters in our alphabet that were used for multiple specific sounds that are now shared by a single letter or group of letters. For example the hard 'th' sound in the word 'there' and the soft 'th' in the word 'thought' used to each have their own letter.
@rayh9662 жыл бұрын
Fun fact: You're referring to the letter "thorn" which was difficult to print properly, and was printed with a 'y' with an 'e' over it to signify it. That's how we ended up with "Ye olde ___." It was never supposed to be a 'y' it was a "thorn" which was 'th' in pronunciation. So the signs actually would be read "the olde" not "ye olde."
@stephanginther90512 жыл бұрын
@@rayh966 *Thorn* thats right, I completely forgot what the letter was called. That's pretty cool.
@aninnymoose7202 жыл бұрын
this is the most fantastically positive channel. much needed in society here in USA. Satire is hilarious, delivery is good, animations are captivating enough i don't look away, and it keeps my attention. hard to find that lately.
@bw52602 жыл бұрын
Brits: Americans don’t pronounce the H in herb, how daft. Also Brits: I’m from Chippenum, but now I live in Totnum. My mate from the University of Birmingum is originally from Cheltenum, but now he lives in Twickenum.
@Dhalin2 жыл бұрын
Also brits: "'ello 'enry, 'ow is it that you don't pronounce the 'aytch' in the word Herb!?"
@thebigmacd2 жыл бұрын
@@Dhalin the funny thing is a lot of Brits (and Maritime Canadians) call the letter "haitch".
@Dhalin2 жыл бұрын
@@thebigmacd Must be regional dialects, I have heard it both ways before.
@paulreed12 жыл бұрын
Ok if we give 'erb to the Americans they can pronounce the 'erb Basil not Baysil
@Dhalin2 жыл бұрын
@@paulreed1 Is that why half the streamers that I watch play OMORI pronounce it "Bass -il"? Always wondered about that.
@Kaufeetimevideo2 жыл бұрын
Gen. Patton said If everyone is thinking alike then someone isn't thinking.
@kennyholmes51962 жыл бұрын
It's only true if everyone is thinking in the exact same way. But he had the general idea down in that different people think in different ways.
@dawnmarie526 ай бұрын
Don't allow past bad experiences to shut you down, so when something wonderful comes along you're not open to receive it.
@ShawnReidyKofC2 жыл бұрын
Noah Webster had a a lot to do with many American spelling of words during the early part of the 1800s.Allegedly, he wanted to make American English, distinct from British. Since there wasn’t exactly a consensus from lexicographers, either in England or the USA, Webster proceeded to create his own dictionary, especially to cater to an American audience. His eponymous dictionary became the standard then, as it does today.
@omnipitous46482 жыл бұрын
Language is always evolving. It still fascinates me how Latin morphed into Spanish or French or Italian. What happens when 2000 years transpires?
@E4439Qv52 жыл бұрын
Anybody's guess.
@JP-pq9xi2 жыл бұрын
I don't believe it will evolve as fast as it did in the past as we have standardized and written the English language so well.
@omnipitous46482 жыл бұрын
@@JP-pq9xi Yes, there is truth to this. The change the world is undergowing is at a pace which is frightening. Anything is possible.
@alexandercruz37962 жыл бұрын
A Brit bringing vindication to the American English is priceless 😀👍🏾 Great content Laurence 🙌🏾
@Neelo50002 жыл бұрын
I remember hearing somewhere that "cahoots" is actually just a mispronunciation of "cohorts" that caught on and became its own word, similar to how "varmint" came from "vermin."
@Al3saMarie2 жыл бұрын
I think that's just folk etymology (cahoots, not varmint).
@Dover782 жыл бұрын
I will never in my life stand for my language being criticized by the people who decided that "Worcester" should be pronounced "Wooster."
@anthonydelfino61712 жыл бұрын
Grew up in the UK but am from the US. My favorite method where my mother did something similar was with the pronunciation of schedule, which we pronounce like skedjule instead of shedjule. One of the ladies in my mother's social group started making a big deal of this and belittling her for it asking her where she learned to pronounce the word so poorly, and without blinking, my mother looked at her and said (spelled phonetically) in shule (instead of skool) for school. Remembering this since it's one of the big inconsistencies I always remember with UK English, despite them saying we're inconsistent :)
@raeperonneau49412 жыл бұрын
In my youth, I lived in Australia, and we fought regularly about the correct pronunciation of Aluminum. It took us almost a year to figure out that the English and American versions of the word were spelled differently thus the different pronunciation. We all had to agree that we were both right… and that’s super cool.
@Ni9992 жыл бұрын
Americans use the original spelling and pronunciation of aluminum, as established by Humphrey Davey. The royal science club decided that aluminium sounded more posh and Davy said, ok fine. We didn't feel like going along with the change. Eventually all of Europe agreed on the new, posh spelling. By that time we were all the way to not giving AF about everyone else liking the posh version and have been waiting for the UK to get over it ever since.
@owenshebbeare29992 жыл бұрын
@ملقرت ملك صور So's Arabic, so what goes around....
@catgirl68032 жыл бұрын
I mean do we really even say aluminum that much anyway? It’s definitely not an everyday word. When would you even use it? In US we call aluminum foil “tin foil” anyway. When else would you use it?
@catgirl68032 жыл бұрын
@@Ni999 I totally don’t get the whole “posh” thing.
@Ni9992 жыл бұрын
@@catgirl6803 In Davy's first paper to The Royal Society he called it alumium - and no one objected. In his 1812 book of discoveries he called it aluminum - that's where the world at large learned about it and that's what everyone called it. The Royal Society decided that henceforth new discoveries ought to have Latin or Greek sounding names because that would somehow make them sound more legit. I am not making that up. The Brits changed it to aluminium because to them, the big experts, it simply sounded more posh, more upper drawer, more expensive school. That's what they decided to foist off on the rest of the world and they went along with it. I don't know why we didn't. Maybe on the third name we decided to wait until the royal science club was done being fickle. Maybe we already had signs painted. I don't know. I only know that we never cared. There's a lot of crown worshiping in America today but it wasn't always that way. We used to be proud of being free of royalty, now we're the opposite, go figure. I was raised calling it tin foil. Haven't heard that term in decades, we call it aluminum foil. Everyone who cares about what things are made of, or who work in metal production, products, or maintenance very probably uses the word quite often. If I had to guess how often I've said it out loud or to myself I'd say it's probably better than a few hundred times per year.
@davidbarker14292 жыл бұрын
Brilliant! (In both British and American senses!) I wish I'd had access to your videos when I was still teaching Linguistics to teachers of English Language Learners. Great fun and insightful!
@samlukas22992 жыл бұрын
I'm sure someone else has already posted but another reason we dropped the U is telegraph used to charge by the letter. Color was cheaper than colour
@brianboru76842 жыл бұрын
The British only started to object to 'soccer' in the '80s because they didn't like the North American Soccer League.
@KalebMarshallDulcimerPlayer2 жыл бұрын
Sounded too NASL
@darkjedi742 жыл бұрын
@@KalebMarshallDulcimerPlayer I see what you did there!
@trickygoose22 жыл бұрын
I think that the internet has meant that us Brits are more aware of it, but the word as another name for the game is something I've been aware in a purely British context for all of my living memory (going back to the '70s).
@rogink2 жыл бұрын
Possibly. But around the same time we became more aware - through TV - that Americans had their own game they called football (which it patently wasn't!)
@travissmith28482 жыл бұрын
@@rogink And decidedly distinct from rugby as well. An odd hybrid of rugby and association football with some unique twists evolving from resultant inconsistencies and problems of the fusion.
@elliebellie78162 жыл бұрын
You might be interested in researching an American named Melville Dewey and his ideas about spelling. He wanted to get rid of all unnecessary vowels and renamed himself Melvil Dewe. Yes, this is the guy who invented the Dewey Decimal System used by librarians.
@ub3rfr3nzy942 жыл бұрын
That guy's rap is burned into my brain.
@m1k3droid2 жыл бұрын
love your positivity about the differences and enthusiasm for the US and our version of english.
@lorigraham24962 жыл бұрын
US English speaker here. My language is my slave not my master. It is here to serve my linguistic needs. I don't feel I need anyone's approval. I enjoy learning about the variations among my native English speakers near and far. I'm sure we will continue to develop more variations as time goes by and as more immigrants and technology work their magic.
@clintshiplett85482 жыл бұрын
Thanks to you I just learned that a "snollygoster" is a shrewd, unprincipled person. Proud to be an American!
@LindaC6162 жыл бұрын
I, as well, and I shall use it daily! 😅
@thephidias2 жыл бұрын
@@LindaC616 I second that.
@elultimo1022 жыл бұрын
I had to look it up and also found "throttlebottom, a bumbling inept character holding public office--That sounds a lot like....
@MyName-nx1jj2 жыл бұрын
@@elultimo102 ... we voted in a Throttlebottom to replace a Snollygoster!
@elultimo1022 жыл бұрын
@@MyName-nx1jj The throttlebottom was installed by machines, illegals, and DEAD people. His predecessor MAY have been cunning in his personal business dealings, but cares about the country, in a way no other has since Reagan or Truman.
@deborahdanhauer85252 жыл бұрын
That last part you said Laurence, (As long as we understand each other, that’s all that matters), needs to become our mantra.🐝🤗❤️
@rd62032 жыл бұрын
To be fair, tho... we don't always.
@deborahdanhauer85252 жыл бұрын
@@rd6203 Of course we don’t. That’s why It needs to become our mantra. Our world would be a much better place if people actually tried to understand each other instead of just yelling at each other.🐝🤗🤗
@rd62032 жыл бұрын
@@deborahdanhauer8525 ☺☺ Actual "conversation" i have had "Saying it louder isn't going to make him understand English any better" "Well, yes, but i don't know how to say it in Spanish "
@deborahdanhauer85252 жыл бұрын
@@rd6203 lol!! That about sums it up…. Btw, I got across Mexico once by using the three or four Spanish words I knew, and a lot of pointing and pantomime. I looked a fool, but it worked!🐝❤️🤗
@rd62032 жыл бұрын
@@deborahdanhauer8525 I have learned two things in my life... well, I have actually learned a great many things in my life, but two pertinent to the subject at hand: The *vast* majority of people will make a genuine effort to understand you if you make a genuine effort to be understood. My personal assumption is that this tidbit of human nature is responsible for the birth of language in the first place. And most people will help, if you ask. And if they can't, they'll usually try to direct or pass you to someone who can But also, some people won't 😟
@timthatshim80372 жыл бұрын
I hate it when Jeremy Clarkson says that Americans are wrong when they say gas instead of petrol, petrol is short for petroleum and gas is short for gasoline. Gasoline is a distillate of petroleum that we use in our vehicles petroleum is not what we put in our cars, it has to be distilled first so the English are wrong and the Americans are right
@kevinbyrne45382 жыл бұрын
... and the word "gasoline" originated in Britain.
@joelambert71282 жыл бұрын
He says it because he knows it will piss someone like you off. He should carry on saying it.
@jackcolson47452 жыл бұрын
@@kevinbyrne4538 Yet the Brits can't even use their own word.
@moledaddy2 жыл бұрын
As an American, I agree we should stop using the word soccer. We should stop playing the sport so we don't have to mention it ever again!
@michaellutes10572 жыл бұрын
Honestly, I really appreciate the multitude of English variations, as it gives depth and dimensions to the language as a whole
@Blondie422 жыл бұрын
Growing up, in the PNW of the US in a rural town, the "big" department store in town had an employee who was from England (I never thought to ask and she may no longer be with us) I always enjoyed listening to her speak. Many people even here in the US are mean and will say "You talk funny," or "You have a funny accent." Not me, to me that lady had a beautiful accent.
@dannyjorde2677 Жыл бұрын
I appreciate the variations in vocabulary, but not in spelling. That just drives you insane.
@derekchristenson57112 жыл бұрын
This is all excellent, and I enjoyed it. But, I have a small confession to make: Years ago, I read politics at the University of Bristol. As an Arizonan, I found everyone's English to be varying degrees of foreign, but I didn't have any trouble understanding until... I had to do a group presentation on the early Soviet Union (1920's I think it was) with a classmate from some Northern hinterland or other, and... I quite truly couldn't understand a single word he said! :-O I looked around the room for signs that someone, ANYONE would understand my plight and find some polite way to help, but nobody else looked even remotely baffled. I briefly considered trying Spanish (which I did much classwork in back home) but quickly decided that was no good. I was so embarrassed, I couldn't bring myself to actually TELL him that, though, so I just "repeated back" what I assumed he had probably said, then "agreed" to it as to which parts we would each cover. To this day, I have no idea what his part of the presentation was about. I could read Spanish going back to medieval times with little trouble, but I had found mutual incomprehensibility with a native speaker of English from... somewhere in England.
@DeadGamesSociety2 жыл бұрын
I have heard from japanese english speakers they find British English difficult to understand
@douglasskinner2 жыл бұрын
To my ear a lot of British country (as opposed to urban) dialects sound mumbled, similar to what I hear from older inhabitants of Appalachia, where I live. I find it hard to understand either.
@Ceerads2 жыл бұрын
This is hilarious (though I bet it wasn’t at the time).
@ChrisMichael2 жыл бұрын
Interestingly, I’ve noticed more Brits spelling “judgment” the American way and most Americans barely even know we’re supposed to spell it “glamor.” The -ize to -ise was a Victorian choice, I’d read. More continental to look like French or German, which is why Canadian English still uses the original British spelling of -ize, whereas Aus/NZ and ZA use the more recent -ise. Around the same time as the posh pronunciation of tomahto and banahna came into use. But how in the hell did North America coin “Hello”?? I felt like that was universally Germanic. (And thank you, anyone, if you got this far in a rando youtube comment. Cheers.)
@Pyrois2 жыл бұрын
It seems like it was "hallo" way back when, and that morphed into "hello" in American English sometime in the mid-1800s. Interestingly, from what I found in my quick search, "hullo" is even newer than that!
@nahnope85812 жыл бұрын
Hello was basically only accepted after the invention of the telephone, it was almost ahoy instead!
@A_nony_mous2 жыл бұрын
Hello. I read somewhere, years ago, before the internet existed as we know it today, that "hello" started as a question called down the telephone line "hollow?" meaning "is anyone there?". It could well be an urban myth but it sounded logical to my mind, might be why it stuck there all those years. It mutated thru hallo to hello over time.
@susanwallace2258 Жыл бұрын
I have bought one of your wonderful T-shirts, and every time I wear it, I get asked over and over and over all about you--Laurence--and your wonderful show! I am spreading the word!!! Thank you for all the information and fun. Hi Tarah!
@anthonyburke56562 жыл бұрын
As Churchill said, two peoples separated by the same language. That said, US English is often the older version of English, the US didn’t mutate the English in the same way as the English.
@MaoRatto Жыл бұрын
Well that's extremely true even within the same country. As a Southern Appalachian speaker, we're stuck with an even older form of English. Mainly for over-articling, definite nouns vs. indefinite, and having more than a few anachronisms, despite being a dying dialect. It's hard to understand General American English speakers passed the mid-USA line when they're writing. Mainly the grammar is too simplified.
@pamelareynaud85022 жыл бұрын
This is one of my favorite subscriptions. Love his unique take on things. Brilliant sense of humor. Uhm.... humour. 👍😊
@emilytopham50692 жыл бұрын
Your linguistic background really comes out in how you talk about all varieties of English as equally valid! No variety is inherently better than another, they're just different! Even within huge national varieties, smaller differences can also be fascinating, it's fun to notice a quirk of someone's speech or writing and think "ooh, that's a feature I don't have! I wonder where it came from?"
@BugTheRoot Жыл бұрын
Great stuff, Sir. I have a friend here in Florida who is an amusing Brit and have shared your site with him so we can chat about the language. I get a kick out of imitating his accent periodically....and to our amusement he responded by imitating my American accent. Ah now we're having fun, mate!
@IceMetalPunk2 жыл бұрын
You just blew my mind by pointing out that "hello" is an American word! I would have thought it was much older than even the existence of the US, but no, I've looked it up and you're right: 1826 Connecticut was the first time it was used 🤯 Also, this video just reminds me of Eddie Izzard's bit on American vs British spellings, and how Brits are just trying to cheat at Scrabble 😂
@weirdlanguageguy2 жыл бұрын
There used to be many variations of the word: hullo, hallo, etc. (Many other Germanic languages say similar things). It's pretty cool that the variety that won out came from these United States.
@TwistedSynn2 жыл бұрын
It pretty much became a thin, derived from the native American Hao of how ever its spelled same with waving hi
@davidmarquardt24452 жыл бұрын
@@weirdlanguageguy I have heard that hello came into common usage with the advent of the Telephone. When people were first exposed to the telephone in around the 1880's, they didn't know how to react to this strange talking machine. So they had to give lessons in how to use a phone, when you hear the bell ring, pick up the speaker and hold it to your ear and then speak into the microphone. Some people thought "Ahoy, Ahoy" was the greeting that should be uttered (sounds like a Maine fishermen came up with that). Others thought "Hello" was the logical response to a call, and soon after hello won out as the proper response. Now after nearly 140 years no one would believe that any other greeting was ever used.
@weirdlanguageguy2 жыл бұрын
@@davidmarquardt2445 I heard about that too
@travissmith28482 жыл бұрын
Scofflaw is a US invention originating in the 1920s! You'd think as old as "scoff" is that the term would be quite old itself clearly referencing someone who holds the (or a) law in low regard not worth following but it was a contest winner for a new word to describe those not following prohibition!
@peteengard99662 жыл бұрын
Well that was a load of poppycock. I said that last week and my grandkids just loved it. Nana was reading a book to my 6 year old grandson last night and he said." Nana that sounds like poppycock." I couldn't stop laughing 🤣
@johnsaia97392 жыл бұрын
Oh bullfeathers....LOL!
@ryandavis75932 жыл бұрын
Oh, horse fritters!
@elultimo1022 жыл бұрын
My first sight of "Poppycock," was an ad for an very pricy Crackerjack-like snack.
@mjengel842 жыл бұрын
@Pete Engard There isn't a right or perfect pronunciation/dialect, but there is sometimes the perfect word for a situation.
@lancebaxter27072 жыл бұрын
I always thought Poppycock derived from the Dutch Pappe Kak
@THEDeathWizard872 жыл бұрын
I actually noticed another quirk/difference at 5:49 when you write “every day words” instead of “everyday words.” I’ve always seen “everyday” (one word) used when it’s acting as an adjective, like it is in that caption; while “every day” (2 words) is when it’s used as an adverb. Is this another difference between British and American English or it it just a typo? So interesting to learn about the origin of things like this
@japcar84 Жыл бұрын
Yes, great stuff Laurence! Keep in mind that most pilgrims were poor, uneducated farmers. American English evolved out of those peasant/working class dialects, whereas British English was modeled more after wealthy Londerners.
@TWX11382 жыл бұрын
Many years ago I saw a British standup comedy monologue where the comedian discussed American spelling, and how in many cases it really was easier. Words like plow instead of plough were some of his highlights.
@wendymccourt99792 жыл бұрын
I always thought the word "plow" is a verb and plough a noun as in, "You plow the field using a plough". English is difficult to understand sometimes
@shoredude22 жыл бұрын
The first time I realized that the word we spell in the US as maneuver was spelled in the UK as manoeuvre, I yelled "why the f would they put a 3rd consecutive vowel in there."
@dustinclouse68882 жыл бұрын
@Garrett W. Pluff 😂😂 my American brain reads it that way too! Same as rough or tough
@urseliusurgel43652 жыл бұрын
@@shoredude2 Because manoeuvre is a French word adopted into English.
@LouieLouie5052 жыл бұрын
@@shoredude2 "...why would they put a 3rd vowel..." The Plantagenets maintain their grip hundreds of years later
@NuckinFuts22152 жыл бұрын
The fact that my English husband went into a convenance store here in the US and asked the guy for free packs of Marlboro lights, then the guy gave him a really weird look and said we don’t have free cigarettes here. 😂 Was seriously one of the funniest moments! FYI for any of you that don’t get it, he was actually saying three not free. Lmao!
@KindredBrujah2 жыл бұрын
Born within earshot of the Bow Bells, was he?
@greggv82 жыл бұрын
Has he ever asked for four candles? kzbin.info/www/bejne/nZrCZ4aXpruEidk
@mkshffr49362 жыл бұрын
Kinda like Marty asking for a Pepsi Free in back to the future. Of course I always doubted that Pepsi was really a thing in the 50s but never looked it up... Probably should.
@NuckinFuts22152 жыл бұрын
@@mkshffr4936 Actually Pepsi has been around since 1893.
@NuckinFuts22152 жыл бұрын
@@KindredBrujah maybe, I’ll have to ask him. Is that close to Chelsea. That’s where he grew up. Lol!
@_0______00__________0_______02 жыл бұрын
I have to admit, the way many Brits pronounce "Vitamin" drives me up the wall. The word is a portmanteau of "vital minerals", and to me it makes more sense to keep the pronuncation similar to the two combined words.
@urphakeandgey63082 жыл бұрын
I thought that too, but nah, it's wrong. "Vita-" is from Latin meaning "life." The "-amin" comes from English "amine" because vitamins were originally thought to contain an amino acid. Turns out "vita-" in Latin would be pronounced closer to how the Brits say it. You can even see that Latin word in other Romance languages like Spanish's "Vida," meaning life.
@Andrew-it7fb2 жыл бұрын
@@urphakeandgey6308 That's an interesting and well reasoned argument for that pronunciation. Counterpoint: It sounds dumb.
@StarWarsomania2 жыл бұрын
Isn’t it actually a Polish word in the first place?
@tjanke422 жыл бұрын
I think you're exactly right: "As long as we understand each other..."
@jross46222 жыл бұрын
Thank you, I get tired of hearing "Americans are the only one's who call it soccer"
@StoneE42 жыл бұрын
Does Spain whine and cry over the way Mexicans use Spanish in the same way that Brits whine and cry over the way Americans use English? What about Portugal in relation to the way Brazilians use Portuguese? Also... Does Canada, New Zealand, and Australia receive the same kind of scorn from Brits over their use of English that Americans do?
@allanrichardson90812 жыл бұрын
No, but some slang words may be misunderstood in another Spanish speaking country. Commonly, a word such as “chica” could mean just a young woman in one country, but mean a prostitute or a loose woman in another!
@cobbler882 жыл бұрын
People complain about Americans in this respect for the same reason they make countless top 10 lists about the United States. The U.S. - above all others - matters at this time.
@roldanbelenos15492 жыл бұрын
This was back in the 1990s, but I was at work talking to a co-worker from Mexico... in Spanish so I could practice... when another co-worker from Puerto Rico stopped by and joined in. I used the word "cerro", at which point the Puertorriqueña corrected me with "cuesta". La Mexicana then corrected her with "No, he's right, it's 'cerro'!" The two ladies started bickering over "cerro" vs. "cuesta" and it was growing rather heated when i just quietly stepped back and away, and wondered if I'd just initiated an International Incident simply by discussing my outdoor activities the previous weekend.
@cobbler882 жыл бұрын
@@roldanbelenos1549 Look at it this way. Neither nation has demonstrated in the modern era the kind of initiative to actually escalate. Chances are better that everyone involved would just talk themselves out by mid-afternoon, then knock off for a siesta and forget all about it. Trying to First World is hard. :)
@LouieLouie5052 жыл бұрын
France doesn't mess around with its language. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acad%C3%A9mie_Fran%C3%A7aise
@katherinemcintosh72472 жыл бұрын
The different pronunciations of “herb” have a similar history as the pronumnciation of “Missouri.”…Missouri is commonly pronounced as Missouree or Missourah. The common pronunciations went back and forth between the wealthy city dwellers and the rural in habitants of Missouri several times before the Missouree pronunciation became the commonly used one and Missourah seems to be used mostly by some who live in rural areas or people who have moved here from the South (like my parents.)
@MaoRatto Жыл бұрын
That's due to the French influence from what I remember.
@ravenmills77772 жыл бұрын
I had a friend from Europe ask me about all these sales happening But it didn’t say what the sell. I had no clue what she meant.. until she pointed out the sigh “lot for sale”
@dadoctah2 жыл бұрын
That "-ise"/"-ize" thing causes problems for musicians. In American, "vocalize" is a verb meaning to do something with your voice; "vocalise" (pronounced "-eez") is a noun meaning a performance using the human voice to do something other than make words (think Bobby McFerrin beatboxing, or scat singing). The distinction is lost in the UK where both meanings are spelled with an S. BTW, I'd love to get a clear overview on the US/UK differences on certain adjectives like "quite", "a bit", "rather". It's been my experience that the relative degree of such modifiers doesn't come in the same order on opposite sides of the pond ("quite hot" is more so than "rather hot" in one country but less so in the other).
@ZakhadWOW2 жыл бұрын
actually the technique youre referring to is spelled "Vocalese" see the Manhattan Transfer album of the 80s
@Ceruleanst2 жыл бұрын
In the US, "quite" means "rather" or "entirely". In the UK, "quite" means "a bit" or "sort of". This is apparently the result of it losing its way in too many layers of ironic understatement and overstatement. Both sides agree that "not quite" means falling short of a mark. This indicates that the US meaning is the original one (or at least the obvious argument that it means "not completely" is more believable to me than "slightly not").
@jaggedtoothgnash2 жыл бұрын
I have never throughout my participation in choirs and vocal training never heard an American or anybody say "vocalise". In looking it up it seems primarily a noun, and as a verb almost entirely British. I think (as an American) it's not being used has more to do with us being unsure of what letters we are meant to be hearing at the end; if written we would rarely read with "eez" as the perceived pronunciation but literally as "ise" which would be difficult to communicate give "ize", and would certainly cause spelling confusion about ending the word in "ice". For what I have heard we just use the word scat or scatting instead to avoid confusion. Only in scholarly music circles would I expect to hear vocalise used at all.
@juliaf_2 жыл бұрын
Never had that issue here in Canada. We seem to be used to using se and ze spellings interchangeably :)
@tkynerd2 жыл бұрын
@@juliaf_ I have never forgotten this sentence that I read in a book when I was a kid: "Canadians live with compromises like 'tire centre.'" 😊
@Tuvok_Shakur2 жыл бұрын
handing out dictats sounds like something that would get the cops called on you
@grantrichards49502 жыл бұрын
You do that on Halloween and you'll have some sore boys and angry parents!
@robotplays346 Жыл бұрын
I genuinely believe the American English is better and honestly makes more sense than British English.
@stevendhall81 Жыл бұрын
I'm glad that you worked the word plethora into this video. It means a lot to me.
@jeremyphillips78272 жыл бұрын
I wish everyone were as enlightened as you and as accepting of the differences between their own flavor of English and that of others. It's depressing the number of times someone online, almost invariably from England, has told me that I don't speak "real English" or has retyped my comments with all of the spelling "corrected." There was one guy in South Africa who told me that what Americans speak is literally a different language than that spoken by the rest of the Anglosphere. He was very upset that he had to learn "another language" (American English) just to use the Duolingo Spanish course for English speakers. I guess I'm lucky to have always had access to British TV and radio programs and books here in Florida and to have worked with a number of British and Irish expats over the years. I've never found British English strange or unpleasant, and not because I consider it purer or more prestigious, but because I'm used to it. It's familiar. If you haven't done one already, I'd love to see a video that mentions the migration of the Angles to Great Britain from mainland Europe and the naming of the language and the country after them. Thanks! Love the channel. ❤
@LindaC6162 жыл бұрын
Yes. And the equivalent of that gent's problem is an immigrant to the US from Brazil studying for the Citizenship exam, using CDs....that ask the ?s in a Britiah accent....🤷♀️
@abbycross902102 жыл бұрын
It's not like the rest of the planet is unfamiliar with American English or something. We've sent our language around the world via Hollywood for a century. That gent honestly has little excuse. It's to the point where other English- speaking countries honestly think they know what America is like based solely on our film industry. Americans know it isn't an accurate representation, but the rest of the world doesn't.
@connorharris21192 жыл бұрын
I’m an Englishman from Shrewsbury and I love the differences I’m only 18 but I do think there’s some words which are weird. Like I prefer how you Americans spell centre as center theatre however is weird being spelt as theater
@alton7912 жыл бұрын
By that logic, there’s more than 1 American English just based on American geography. How many words or phrases are used in a certain region in America not used elsewhere? Examples include the plural of you (y’all or you guys & others) & what a soft drink is called. To me, they’re all cokes regardless of brand.
@LindaC6162 жыл бұрын
@@abbycross90210 actually, these days, it's based on the news....which is worse
@cuttwice39052 жыл бұрын
The earliest use of the word "erb" that I can think of off the top of my head is from the cookbook "The Forme of Cury", very late 14th century. My favorite Indian English word is "prepone", the rushing to do something instead of postponing it.
@kkarllwt2 жыл бұрын
15th century, unless the cookbook was hand made by scribes.
@ZakhadWOW2 жыл бұрын
Preone should logically exisdt; but then we dont go around saying someone is a very couth person, as an example LOL
@grampsinsl52322 жыл бұрын
I would love to see a 3-way examination of not just British and American English, but the Australian variety as well.
@trien304 ай бұрын
British English speakers say "an historical" or "an hotel" while American English speakers say "a historical" or "a hotel." American English: honor, color, jewelry British English: honour, colour, jewellery Modern French: honneur, couleur, bijou.
@gregmuon2 жыл бұрын
I enjoyed this nerdy linguistics oriented video. It's what originally interested me in this channel. Keep it up. 😁
@seanheath44922 жыл бұрын
I recall a (possibly apocryphal) story about how some of the... simplification? of American English spelling happened. Basically, when the first American dictionary was being created, there was supposedly a concerted effort to try and make the spelling more closely match the pronunciation. Which is why, according to the story, American English doesn't have a lot of the silent letters that British English has.
@robotplays346 Жыл бұрын
As an American, whenever I read colour, honour, favourite, etc. I always pronounce them how they’re written. The American versions make more sense
@vicroc411 ай бұрын
I do know that some of our Founding Fathers were in favor of spelling reform. Ben Franklin comes to mind - iirc he supported making the words look like they sounded (e.g. "soop" instead of "soup").
@atimholt2 жыл бұрын
I understand that “hello” was specifically invented by Alexander Graham Bell as something to say when answering the phone.
@RickJaeger2 жыл бұрын
Here's an interesting thing about r-dropping: in America it was incomplete in some areas. We keep most of our r's, BUT some of our oldest words (kept in parts of Appalachia esp.) they're preserved in an r-less state. The word "passel" is an example of that; iirc, it's the same word as "parcel," but with the r dropped. I don't know, but I imagine that it's related to whence the Brit (or Irishman?) came or when they came to the USA.
@jeremias-serus2 жыл бұрын
Typically the example that people give is the Italian New Yorker accent.
@lhaviland86022 жыл бұрын
I'd say Boston is way more well known: Pahk ya' cah in the Hahvahd yahd and all that.
@Ghosting20242 жыл бұрын
When I read British stories or hear British people talk where they use “was sat”, I cringe and immediately I know the person isn’t American.
@LindaC6162 жыл бұрын
Yorkshire has "it were nice"
@MON-ud7sw2 жыл бұрын
Australians never say “was sat” either. The participle of the verb to sit is sitting, yet even some educated English people seem to say “was sat”.
@anthonydelfino61712 жыл бұрын
The one that always sticks out to me is "this is different to that" as opposed to "different from that"
@jwb52z92 жыл бұрын
Laurence, you're always very useful. :) There's another channel owned by a British man who just began a similar journey to yours when you moved to the US. He met his American wife online through a dating web site crossover. He's still getting used to American terminology and made a video today about just that very thing. He's only been in the US full time for just over a month, so it's all extremely new to him. His subscribers help him as much as we can with language explanations. I have you to thank for the help I can give him, really.
@davidcruz86672 жыл бұрын
Really? I'd like to check it out, if you could tell me the name of his channel. Besides Lawrence, I also watch Kabir Considers, Your New Zealand Family, German Girl in America (excuse me, her channel is now called Feli from Germany), and when I can stand her Irish Girl in America. She's a little too ditzy for me sometimes.
@deborahdanhauer85252 жыл бұрын
What is his channel/name?
@webbess12 жыл бұрын
What's the name of the channel?
@IceMetalPunk2 жыл бұрын
@@davidcruz8667 "German Girl in America (excuse me, her channel is now called Feli from Germany)..." Ugh, I despise that entire situation. Copyright trolls deserve a special place in hell otherwise reserved for people who talk at the theater.
@davidcruz86672 жыл бұрын
@@IceMetalPunk yeah, she explained what happened. In my opinion she did a far better job at being the German Girl in America than that other lady that complained, especially since the other girl was basically an American girl with German parents, I think. Either way, Feli gets my vote as being cooler and more informative, as well as more authentic.
@117johnpar Жыл бұрын
One difference I've found very odd is 'Own' For Americans and 'Owin' for a lot of brits. Usually alterations in pronunciations stem from shortening or slurring the word, or even taking out syllables, This one Adds a syllable. "Blowin up" instead of "Blown up", "Knowin" vs "known".
@nocalsteve2 жыл бұрын
I'm genuinely impressed with the amount of work that must have been put into making that soccer / football map.