Why American English is Highly Misunderstood

[@raziel710]

In line with the whole "America changing things based on the word's origin" I had a British friend who would try to call me out on the American spellings of things like color, armor, and other words that the Brits add a U into. I knew it was a word originating from Latin and that Latin didn't use the U. So I got to researching why the Brits add it, I found it was part of the French rule of England in the 1300s where they mixed a lot of French into English as it was used in royal court and other official settings. When America went independent Noah Webster took on a life long mission of making the American Dictionary to standardize language within the new nation and part of that was reverting some words back to their origins. The next time after I learned this that my friend tried to mess with me telling me I was spelling words wrong I informed him that in fact he was the one spelling things "wrong" and when I told him he was using French spellings he had a mini meltdown (he hated the French.)

[@indrast5203]

Then again the o and ou in colour and armour sound like an a and in some cases the last r dissapears completely from pronounciation , also one funny thing for you who likes Latin :Aeroplane,Aeternal.

[@angeldude101]

I've also gotten to the point where I'll sometimes call British spellings of things the "French spellings." "And we all know how much you Brits like the French. :P" Living in Canada, there is no consistency between the English and French spellings. I'll sometimes not even notice which I'm using, or I might intentionally switch mid-message just to mess with people.

[@kennyholmes5196]

I get particular fun in teasing the brits about that inserted U whenever they get uppity. Pronounce it the way that it's spelled and they shut up real quick.

[@heroslippy6666]

That'll show them brits

[@EpicCorn0]

​@@kennyholmes5196I could say the same thing about color. It isn't pronounced 'col-OR' but that's what it looks like to me when I read it. We all shouldn't engage in this bs, it's so trivial. There's no wrong way. Just different ways

[@Tbill6763]

I don’t know if it holds true today but I was taught that English was a living, breathing language that adapts easily. We were taught to be proud of our common language.

[@whoviating]

@teresabillings8378 I remember being taught that an unusual facet of English - or maybe better said, English speakers - is the willingness to freely adopt words from other languages.

[@voluptuousvince6522]

It's absolutely true. Moreso than most of the European languages, it has absorbed and crossed many empires and cultures and other languages.

[@DaisyCloverbee]

I saw on the internet, so it must be true: English will follow another language into a dark alley, bop them on the head, and go through their pockets looking for more spare words.

[@LindaC616]

​@@DaisyCloverbee😅😅

[@whoviating]

@@cancermcaids7688 Maybe not. According to an article in the Boston Globe from 2014, 42% of modern English is loan words. But that was 10 years ago; maybe Japanese has caught up. :-) The same article also says English is now the world's biggest source of load words. The evolution of language is a cool subject.

[@richardkev3077]

I was once ridiculed in a bar for saying “Peter” in all its rotic glory. One of the the British lads said, “I can’t believe you pronounce it “Peterrrrrrr.” He then added “What gives you the idear it sounds acceptable?” I answered, “I reckon I prefer to keep my ‘R’s where they are instead of donating them to words that don’t have any, like “idearrrrrr”.

[@RRaquello]

The English don't pronounce "T"s either. That's why they pronounce "bottle" as "bah-oh".

[@Watthead80]

They also had the fad of pronouncing "R" as "W"..Like Elmer Fudd.

[@zaphodbeeblebrox3986]

Well, that should have started a nice fist fight LOL.

[@marvindoolin1340]

@@RRaquello I can imagine that one, but I think the more common Brit pronunciation would emphasize the t's. In the US we tend to turn them into d's, at least I do. Eg: butter is pronounced more like budder (by most everyone I know), while a Brit would likely bear down on the t's, but turn the r into a schwa.

[@InventorZahran]

@@RRaquello"Bo'oh o' wa'ah?"

[@claytonmiller3898]

To know that 'belittle' is an American word makes me appreciate 'embiggen' all that much more

[@a.katherinesuetterlin3028]

Oh, and then there's the recent hilarious addition of "bigly." And one would have to have been hiding under a rock or out living like a hermit somewhere not to know where that "gem" came from. 😂😂

[@THall-vi8cp]

_Bigly_ dates back to the early 14th century.

[@sunderzilla]

"could of fooled me" -americans

[@THall-vi8cp]

@sunderzilla That one makes me want to bang my head against a wall. To be fair, when _could've_ is spoken, it does sound like "could of" which means many of my countrymen don't understand grammar and can't write properly.

[@sunderzilla]

@@THall-vi8cp I'm sorry I meant no offence in that whatsoever I just find it funny that it's so prevalent among americans.

[@GaryBirdmin]

To quote my grandmother "The British pronounce words 'properly'. The Americans pronounce words 'correctly'."

[@thematthew761]

Where's she from?

[@GaryBirdmin]

@@thematthew761 Holland

[@thematthew761]

Ah@@GaryBirdmin

[@sammiller6631]

@@GaryBirdmin The actual province of Holland? Or somewhere else in the Netherlands?

[@GaryBirdmin]

@@sammiller6631 I don't know. She passed when I was still in grade school. My mother always said that grandma is from 'Holland'. As far as I know I could be Holland Iowa.

[@jeffdege4786]

I've sat through international business meetings with Brits, Americans, Germans, Japanese, Thais, etc. We all spoke English, because it was the only language we all shared. And we all understood each other, except the Brits and Yanks, who sometimes descended into idiomatic language that confused the rest. The odd thing was that the Brits and Yanks generally understood each other's idioms, even when they were different. E.g., Americans could figure out "Bob's your uncle" and Brits "screwed the pooch", but hardly anyone else could.

[@randlebrowne2048]

I part of it is the fact that Brits and Americans consume each other's media. We may not actually use certain phrases ourselves; but, we hear them often enough to have some familiarity.

[@Colorado_Native]

I lived in Japan and we would go to the local bank to pay our utility bills, etc. This poor Japanese girl could not understand what the British girl was saying. I actually stepped in and 'translated' for them.

[@bethpike3833]

Hm, I'd never figure out such idioms. Sounds idiotic to me. I'm American

[@Ayverie4]

Those are both very standard idioms, if a bit outdated. You might be quite young if you've never heard those. But I would hope, with context, you could figure them out.

[@jeffdege4786]

​@@Ayverie4But if you were a Thai who'd learned English as a second language?

[@MellowYellowCJ7]

My dad talks about meeting a man in the Virginia mountains when he immigrated to the USA from England in the 60’s. He assumed the man was also from England. The whole mountain town had a British accent.

[@icantollie]

Wait till you visit Tangier Island, which despite it being part of Virginia is linguistically far from

[@petertrudelljr]

Bless James D Nicoll for his oft mangled quote. “The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.”

[@CatTheRoundEarther]

One such modern addition is "Emoji" which if you asked any rando the etymology, they'd probably say it's derived from "Emoticon" when it's actually a loan word from Japanese that just happens to sound like emoticon.

[@ukyoize]

anglish or bust

[@andrewt3768]

That is hilarious. I'm stealing that.

[@numbersix9468]

i was too. i thought Terry Pratchett said it, but no@@FalconAndTrident

[@angeldude101]

​@@CatTheRoundEartherEmoji is a perfect example of English just stealing words rather than translating them. "Emoji" literally translates as "picture character", because that's what they are: pictures encoded as characters. There are already several words in English suitable for this, like "pictogram". (Even though "pictogram" isn't English either. It's an unholy fusion of a Latin word with a Greek word.)

[@PopeLando]

A writer in the Daily Telegraph wrote about "insupportable Americanisms like 'gotten'" and I almost wrote to him (this was before X) "America has undoubtedly inflicted many barbarisms upon the English language, but GOTTEN ISN'T ONE OF THEM! Or have you... forgotten?"

[@sillypuppy5940]

Gotten vanished in England after the settlers moved west - and they kept it.

[@paddington1670]

Or "funnily" what the heck is even that

[@music79075]

​@@paddington1670many Americans hate "funnily" too.

[@rateeightx]

@@paddington1670 If I can't say "Funnily" what on earth am I supposed to use as the adverb form of "Funny"? I can't say "He pronounced that funny", It just sounds wrong, "He pronounced that funnily" sounds way better.

[@FlintTD]

You can still call it Twitter. "X" is just harder to comprehend as a proper noun in text.

[@altortugas5979]

My favorite explanation of dialects and regional accents: Rose Tyler: “If you are an alien how come you sound like you're from the North?” The Doctor: “Lots of planets have a North!” Still, so many Brits just won’t come off it.

[@hcaelbxorolc]

And they all want independence...

[@a.gillmax4173]

Classic British humor. It gets me everytime!

[@zera6994]

Old English sounds like a good thing to me!

[@glenmale1748]

You can never, ever disown soccer. You invented the word and you own it.

[@deanosaur808]

We can and we will! 🤣 Now put a sock in it 😛

[@matthewsteele8448]

Need to change it to "Childs game #4"

[@icantollie]

Soccer is for kids whose moms don't let them play football

[@TheRealAmusableBman]

@@deanosaur808 Don't you mean "Puh ah sawk innit"?

[@Poughdg]

​@@icantollieand american football is for future nursing home residents with brain disorders

[@Anna-B]

Sometimes British people in KZbin comments (usually not these comments) will act as though current Americans are the ones that changed the language. And I’m always like, I learned to talk like this as a baby, just like you did

[@andirandolph8830]

If Americans changed the English language, then so have all others that speak a different dialect of their language, which is the entire world.

[@Blondie42]

I once worked (I'm from the US) with a group of folks from the UK and they were blaming me for the incorrect "state" of US English. An absolute shame that back then I wasn't watching Lost in the pond.

[@LillibitOfHere]

The British superiority complex is strong.

[@jaxxon98]

Innit?@@LillibitOfHere

[@gnarthdarkanen7464]

@@Blondie42 Had that conversation a few times, too... I like retorting a big thanks for their confidence as if I could actually be responsible for hopelessly mangling the natural tongue of about 2/3 of a continent single handedly... AND then I threaten to take up residence in THEIR neighborhoods to see how far I can thoroughly force my linguistic influence JUST to mess their lives up even worse... haha ;o)

[@RookRiot1]

The best way ive ever heard the construction of English as a language was simply this. "English doesn't borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over and goes through their pockets for loose grammar."

[@adamh1228]

haha, thats great

[@timmcdaniel6193]

The original is from James Nicoll. With the typo corrected: The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.

[@janelliot5643]

This made me laugh for a solid minute because I know history

[@aaronpalmer7425]

Will tell you that 50% of English is still English its the other 50% that is odd, fun fact all non foreign influence words follow the laws of Grammer and spalling *spelling* didn't even notice that it was misspelled

[@Boxygirl96]

Personally I prefer the wording from the commonly shared tumblr quote “Because English beats up other languages in dark alleys, then rifles through their pockets for loose grammar and spare vocabulary.”

[@uncralph4354]

Love the saying attributed to Sir Winston Churchill " Britain and the US, two countries separated by a common language"

[@sillypuppy5940]

It was George Bernard Shaw

[@ahorsewithnoname773]

@@sillypuppy5940 It must be, for all quotes in the English language are eventually attributed to either Churchill or George Bernard Shaw.

[@ZER0ZER0SE7EN]

@@ahorsewithnoname773 If you don't read the KZbin comment section you are uninformed. If you do read the KZbin comment section you are misinformed. ---- Mark Twain

[@mattlivingston2192]

@@ZER0ZER0SE7EN aaand now I believe that Mark Twain wrote about KZbin. Thank you very much!

[@anitapeludat256]

@@uncralph4354 I thought that was George Bernard Shaw .

[@sunflowervibes3041]

The retort given for Thomas Jefferson's word "belittle" actually serves as the very definition

[@dropthatshi]

Literally, its in the name!! haha

[@Finia-vj3lx]

I bet he was laughing himself to sleep some nights after he got that note lol

[@vinnypharmacist]

Embiggen - The Simpsons

[@dunbar9finger]

"belittle" is perfectly cromulent. You can understand it the first time you hear it if you encountered the many other words that work the same way. The prefix "be-" to mean "bestow this property on something" is very common so the meaning is obvious that you are diminishing something, making it little. This is one thing German is better about. If you paste together combinations of words properly by the patterns the language uses so people will understand it, then it's considered normal and proper even if it's the first time anyone has ever made that exact combination of things into a word. This idiotic idea in English that it's only a word if other people did it before you, not if you're the first, is just so antithought and idiotish.

[@beenaplumber8379]

@@dunbar9finger It's perfectly okay to make up a word in English if others haven't used it as long as your meaning is clear. In fact, we have a word for that. We call it coining. A coined word is one that's not already in common use but was constructed to conveniently convey a specific meaning. "Antithought" and "idiotish" are both examples, as I think you already knew. "Idiotic" is a common word that would be more immediately understood than "idiotish" without distracting attention from your point, which is the risk of using coined words. People might pay attention to your novel construct than to the point you were making. Linguists have for several decades emphasized the importance of clarity of meaning over pedantic correctness, and that's being taught in colleges, and maybe primary and secondary schools. But jawohl, as always, German is better. Whatever. I prefer words that have fewer than 20 letters. 😛

[@LateBoomer-sl1dk]

If you can get past value judgments, linguistics is fascinating. I love that all those dialects exist.

[@daffers2345]

It's funny how they carry. I have had people guess I am from further north than I really am, as I drop my Rs a lot and sound more like a "no'the'n" Pennsylvanian than from where I was born and raised, which is in the Amish Country! I have no idea how I picked up this accent.

[@SoozBeez]

I lived in Britain for a couple of years and tried to take all of the grief I got for my accent in stride, but didn't take it terribly well when a woman berated me over using the past participle "gotten" as if it were some ugly thing we invented rather than the British dropped it.

[@jamessmithson-br7rm]

They are only trying to help you. As a UK person I would assume anyone saying “gotten” is not very intelligent and rather slow. It is just “got”.

[@pacmanc8103]

@@jamessmithson-br7rmFascinating - I’ve heard the word ‘gotten’ used by BBC newsreaders and correspondents. Perhaps they didn’t receive your silly memo.

[@sandrawoodard8597]

"Gotten" comes from Yorkshire. I'm an American and my British/Australian mum could not help but comment on it frequently.

[@ravenoctober9936]

​@@jamessmithson-br7rmor they could choose not to be rude and keep to themselves? Thats never hurt anyone

[@chaost4544]

@@jamessmithson-br7rm it's silly to assume one's intelligence just by the way someone speaks.

[@foxxinrox]

Remember, the chemist who first named the element Aluminum originally called it Alumium, but then later settled on Aluminum. It was a completely different person who decided to call it Aluminium. The Americanism of calling the 13th element 'aluminum' that many Brits lambast, was started by a British man. The first to name the element even.

[@mack.attack]

also it was following the logic/pattern of platinum

[@Channel-23s]

Just to try to make it sound Latin man they make changes for such odd reasons

[@StarkRG]

It wasn't even a chemist that suggested the change, it was a letter to the editor of a political-literary magazine.

[@fist-of-doom487]

Good to know the British have always been this way

[@alexlaw1892]

Damn I had no idea about that. Thanks for the info. It's rare to learn something from a KZbin comment.

[@diane1390]

I loved your video on Mourning Doves. Thanks, it was fun. 😊

[@JedRothwell]

American English is closer to Elizabethan English because the English settlers who came to North America were isolated. They were in small communities, where language changes slowly. Back in England, there were large cities where new trends and fashions -- and language -- spread rapidly. The same thing can be seen in Japanese dialects in emigrant Japanese communities in Los Angeles and in South America. The Japanese Rafu Shimpo newspaper has been published in Los Angeles since 1903. Until a few decades ago it still used the old pre-WWII orthography and characters, and it read like something from the early 20th century. In short, emigrants who go in small numbers to isolated communities tend to preserve older dialects.

[@johnl5316]

Most of the females in the early English colonies were named Elizabeth, actually.

[@jayc1139]

Yep. I've seen that the English only started dropping the 'r' during the industrial revolution.

[@johnl5316]

too busy in factories to pronounce the R@@jayc1139

[@katherinetutschek4757]

Similar to food, too. I remember seeing an article about a layered cake from I think Sweden(?), which has since morphed into something else in Sweden, but in Canada descendants of Swedish immigrants still make it the old-fashioned way.

[@RonSparks2112]

Many of the early settlers from Britain had two books, if they had any at all; the King James Bible and the works of William Shakespeare. When I studied Shakespeare in college I found to my surprise that a number of expressions used in his plays were ones that I heard my family use all of my life.

[@margeoconnor166]

I had a communications professor who suggested that American pronunciations in major immigration areas (NYC, Boston, Philadelphia, Etc) kept changing with each wave of new citizens. But those who moved inland to more isolated areas, took their accents with them and those accents did not change much. She also said that the advent of Radio and TV changed the way accents were perceived and modified.

[@SkipGole]

Yes, this is so true. When I was young, I visited my relatives (great grandma, uncles) in Eastern Kentucky who called the 'trunk' of a car the 'boot end'. They also called a 'bag' a 'poke' and older styles of English were used as well. I wished I could've recorded them speaking, so I could get their speech patterns, but I was just a kid. Hindsight.

[@nedludd7622]

I'm from the upper Midwest, but don't have the accent now. If people ask, I tell them I speak Disney as I watched a lot of those programs on TV as a child.

[@cvawesomevideos3746]

Oh, the upper Midwest has an accent and I thought for a long time that I didn't either, but I can pick out a Northern Midwest accent now faster than others lol. This isn't meant to be rude at all, my mom would always say we spoke flat English and don't have accents (we are actually almost in the geographic middle of the country, but I still can hear more of the northern Midwest accent versus going a state below us). I didn't think I ope, I definitely ope and it's a very northern thing that's almost involuntary so I didn't even realize how much I do say it. It's just one of those things, certain pronunciations give it away no matter how much you thing you don't have an accent.

[@corinnepmorrison1854]

@@nedludd7622Excellent “come back”…Ned!! ❤️🇺🇸❤️

[@thomasbeach905]

When I was a doctor on a reservation, the elders would tell me how in the 1930’s, the Progressives would try to force them to drop their native language for English. They failed. Since then TV and radio have so extinguished the old language that it now has to be taught as a second language.

[@TheOz91]

The most interesting thing here is how they tried to mock the word "belittle" by actually giving the word meaning in action and context. In other words, they defined it excellently. And from the perspective of someone who is neither British nor American who also has experienced the American accent via native speakers outside of the US and living in the Midwest for almost a decade, it is interesting to see how English has changed over the years. There are also plenty of Americanisms that Brits used recently without question, like the word "truck" has now overtaken "lorry" (and official British word for that is "HGV") and everybody now "gives it gas" to make the car goes faster. Perhaps another thing to touch on is "football" vs "soccer." Brits argue that "football" is the only correct way to say it but British immigrants to American who came over decades ago said that "football" and "soccer" were used interchangeably. And of course, America uses it to easier differentiate it from American football. Canadians, too, who have their own version of gridiron football.

[@stromthetroll]

soccer is a british word short for association as in association football then used by americans like you said to disguish american football and soccer also canada like you said and australia there is australian football, not rugby nor soccer

[@adamk.7177]

I was going to say, they belittled old TJ for making up the word belittle. That's like scoring a goal on yourself to spite the other team.

[@DanielJoyce]

The Brits invented the term soccer then moved on when the poors started using and playing soccer ( used to be a private school game ) so then the rich people called it football.

[@apmanda]

@@adamk.7177 lmao! true

[@neolmas]

European Magazine and London Review accidentally mansplaining Jefferson's word to him.

[@4Grace4Truth]

6:20 love the British bicycle helmet labeled "nutcase!"

[@EricaGamet]

It's a great brand of helmet!

[@EarlFaulk]

We even get blamed for natural linguistic changes, somehow not surprised we get hate for something we have no control over

[@CreeseDF]

it's cool to hate americans for whatever reason

[@brocksanders5135]

The northerners hatin to they destroying the southern accent

[@liviwaslost]

They forget that we are literally called a “melting pot”.

[@LtBasil]

People love hating on other people for stupid reasons. That's nothing new.

[@Touma134]

Don't worry though you'll still be called the asshole even though most Americans don't care or enjoy the differences. Heaven forbid we make fun of beans on toast that's just too far. I've seriously seen Brits give us shit for that.

[@necrothitude]

I love how painful the "marry-mary-merry" bit was for you. I, a Californian, recall being in a college class. My professor was from New York City. He wrote those three words on the board, and of course we all said them as homophones. He then proudly pronounced them completely distinctly in that unmistakable Bronx accent.

[@nez_ic]

Funny enough, I was raised (and spent most of my life in) the Bronx yet I also pronounce all three words as homophones. Although I think my accent was influenced more from TV and school growing up than the people around me

[@RadioactiveEggplant]

To me a metro New Yorker it seems that one of the primary features of NY English is resistance to vowel mergers. I have no marry-merry-Mary, hurry-furry, or cot-caught mergers. To Brits reading being a non cot-caught merged North American also means I have the LOT-CLOTH split like the queen did and the Irish do, similar to the TRAP-BATH split; loss rhymes with Sauce, gone rhymes with lawn not con. Hence coffee as cawfee. Often and Orphan are homophones in non-rhotic New York accents. Some New Yorkers even lack the father-bother merger, which in North America is only also found in Boston/New Hampshire/Maine!

[@jonesnori]

My speech has a lot of those mergers, though I'm not sure about some of the obscure ones mentioned. However, I do distinguish which and witch, although I believe most Americans do not.

[@ErekLich]

Sooo.... serious question: how else are you supposed to pronounce them? I can *kinda* see how marry and merry could be further distinguished but how could "marry" and "marry" sound different?

[@jonesnori]

@@ErekLich It's merry, marry, and the name Mary. I can't answer how because I don't distinguish them myself.

[@GriffonSpade]

Fun thing about season and series is how they are used differently in the US. "Season" refers to a single run, often a quarter or half year. While "series" refers to discrete groups of seasons in an IP: Star Trek, for instance, has multiple series, like the original series, the next generation, deep space nine, voyager, enterprise, etc., each containing multiple seasons.

[@davidh.4944]

And in baseball we have multiple series within a single season. 😁

[@MightySchoop]

​@davidh.4944 there's even a difference how "series" used between sports in America. In Baseball, where the same teams usually play each other multiple games in a row, thar grouping of games is called a "series" In American football, the term "series" is used to refer to the all-time record between two teams. E.g. "the Packers lead the lions in the series 36-23" (which I did not look up, just pulled numbers out of the air)

[@GKplus8]

You get that with anime as well. Easy example is with the Pokemon anime, where there are generally 3 or 4 "seasons" in one "series" with the series in that case being which setting/game the story is focused on.

[@empice2k]

Since English doesn’t use accent marks to the extent that some European languages do; as a result certain English words are spelled the same, but are pronounced differently depending on their usage. EXAMPLES: LIVE- I live in this house. NBC is doing a live broadcasting of the show. CONTENT- Have you seen the contents of this box? Are you content with your new puppy? WOUND- I wound up the old clock yesterday. I have a wound on my leg. WIND- The wind is blowing hard. I’ll wind up that toy for you. PRESENT- Thank you for the present. I will present the gift to him. MINUTE- Now wait just a minute. That matter is a minute issue. POLISH- Did you polish his knob? That guy is Polish. PROJECT- My science project won first place. I can’t find the film screen so we’ll have to project the movie on the wall.

[@mikespearwood3914]

I wished you'd used "present" instead of "gift to blow people's minds. 😆

[@capnkwick4286]

I first ran into that type of difference back in grade school. The word was "minute" in one context it's mi-nute and in the other, it's min-ute.

[@Minty738]

My dyslexic-self struggled trying to find the past tense of "read" until I realized it's spelled the same way not matter the tense.

[@Paul71H]

One of my favorites is polish / Polish. It might be the only English word that changes both pronunciation and meaning based on whether or not the first letter is capitalized.

[@empice2k]

@@Paul71H I just added POLISH.

[@kimberlyperrotis8962]

When I read British books from a century or so ago, they mocked the “American” words “fun”, “note-paper”, “mirror” and “weekend”, among many others, or considered them low-class. I don’t think anyone in UK now would think twice of saying any of these. The recommended, more British and upper class recommendations were: pleasant/delightful, looking glass, writing-paper, and Saturday to Mondays, they even tried Sats-to-Mons, good luck with that one, respectively, which all sound stilted or cumbersome nowadays.

[@frankpaiz5657]

As Maggie Smith (as the Dowager) asked, "What's a "weak end"?"

[@thewingedporpoise]

delightful still is a good substitute imo, otherwise yes

[@UnkemptDan]

British people don't use notepaper though?

[@Channel-23s]

They make fun of us for describing things with words while they do the same thing to try to act fancy

[@lodragan]

Bless their little hearts. 😘

[@willowthistle3648]

I was pleasantly surprised to hear you mention the High Tider accent. I was born and raised in the area and have friends and family with such thick accents I can barely understand them. I've lost a lot of mine from being around other people. There's also an island off the coast of Virginia, Tangier, that has a similar accent.

[@Pupil0fGod]

Down East?

[@Pupil0fGod]

Mainers in the northeast coast refer to themselves as down east, but in Carteret County NC Down East is specifically east of North River. Which honestly makes way more sense to me. Carteret county NC is one of the places he mentioned that still has that Accent.@@77thTrombone

[@willowthistle3648]

@@Pupil0fGod yes, Down East. Otway, Marshalburg, Harker's Island, Bettie.... I had family from Diamond City.

[@Pupil0fGod]

@@willowthistle3648 Cool, I went to east carteret. small world

[@micheledeetlefs6041]

On the subject of dialects, it never fails to amaze me that the British think there's only one southern accent. And they think that that southern accent sounds exactly like Vivien Leigh in "Gone with the Wind". But she was British and had never even been to the south at that point in time in her life. There's not a single southerner that sounds a damn thing like her. Nor do we sound like Daniel Craig's character in Knives Out, since he was imitating an accent which actually belongs to the early 20th century and is very very rarely heard now. Unless you're in a nursing home in Mississippi.

[@nicolad8822]

Totally wrong there. I’d say a good percentage of the population have never even seen the film or could tell you who Vivien Leigh was. It was made in 1940! More of us would think Dukes of Hazzard or Forest Gump! 🤣

[@fakjbf3129]

The accent Craig uses in Knives Out sounds like someone who grew up with a thick Cajun accent and then went to college where they refined it by adding more French influence to avoid ridicule.

[@micheledeetlefs6041]

@@fakjbf3129 Nope, he's imitating Shelby Foote, a very well known southern writer and southern historian who was prominently displayed in Ken Burns the Civil War. He actually even said his much when interviewed about the accent.

[@joeterp5615]

@@liam3284 I don’t think Americans think there is only one Australian accent, we just aren’t familiar with the different accents. But this is why traveling is fun… or having an Aussie marry into the family! My niece married a great guy who is from the middle of Australia (sorry, I don’t remember the state or region) and he has this amazing dialect and accent - but it is sooo hard for me to understand him. It is nothing like any accent I’ve seen on TV, movies, or KZbin. I feel terrible when I have to keep asking him to repeat what he said. But you are right that Crocodile Dundee is what many of us base our imitation Australian on lol! But it’s done with great love and affection. 😊 I watch a lot of Brit shows, and it’s always interesting to me when a Brit actor plays an American. Some do so well that you can’t tell they aren’t American, and some are just plain awful. Hugh Laurie in the TV show House was amazing, I watched that show for several years and had no idea he was a Brit. On the other hand, the great British actress Emma Thompson played an American in a movie once, and I cringed at her nasally interpretation of what Americans sound like. And yes, American actors sometimes put on such bad foreign accents that even we can tell how horrible they are. I felt bad for Ireland for the dreadful attempt at an Irish accent that Tom Cruise came up with for the movie Far and Away.

[@joeterp5615]

@@micheledeetlefs6041. It sounded very weird and fake to me. But to tell you the truth, I saw a KZbin video recently with this guy who grew up somewhere in the sticks of North Carolina… and if I didn’t know he was authentic, I would have sworn he was putting on a weird fake theatrical accent - so sometimes the real thing can sound “off” if it isn’t an accent we are used to.

[@mumphie79]

My husband and I enjoyed the PBS series, "The Story Of English", and bought the companion book by Robert McCrum. Truly fascinating. We enjoy your take on living in the U.S.

[@Stand_By_For_Mind_Control]

I've never seen an American say they speak English 'better' than the English do. We just demand to be taken seriously is all lol. I think we have a rather dignified manner of speaking. It's just that when we broke away from England, we stopped evolving alongside them and we have different peculiarities. Once you acknowledge that, you can start celebrating both :)

[@alan-sk7ky]

No excuse for horseback riding though is there. I mean how else would you propose to do it...

[@fluffernutter6633]

Nah fam. American English is superior, that's why it's 'American English' instead of just 'English'. The UK can talk smack when they learn how to win a world war.

[@link8689]

English language came from western German

[@battleoid2411]

@@alan-sk7kyYou want to ride a horse? eww thats messed up

[@mgelliott86]

I've seen it

[@reyacastle6456]

As an American w/ a linguistics degree living in the UK, THANK YOU 🙏. Wish I could teleport all this info into every the head of every Brit who is critical of American English, but alas, I usually just roll my eyes & move along as further explanation about why they’re wrong seems to embolden them 😅

[@discreetscrivener7885]

It’s the curse of the linguist to wince every time somebody criticizes another dialect or slang as “bad English.”

[@VoiceOverTrailReviews]

I’m an American and my 22 year old tour guide in London this Summer unquestionably believed my English was wrong. I was quite taken aback at her ignorance and stupidity. She was supposedly college educated. 🤦‍♂️

[@tatianapreobrazhenskaya9777]

@@VoiceOverTrailReviews you colonial upstarts should've known better.

[@Fred2-123]

England is still coming to grips with the fact that it is a has-been country.

[@fartpimpson3843]

​@@tatianapreobrazhenskaya9777 should of*

[@samundef3500]

I think a lot of people miss the fact that a “season” of television is often literal. It’s typically up to 13 episodes. If those are released weekly then it takes a full season to release.

[@Corbal975]

@@troybaxter Common misconception. Cours are tv programming that correspond to the seasons. In anime, season usually refers to a grouping of episodes often based on continuous airing or production, and seasons are often planned to be a certain amount of cours long. So, a 36 episode show that aired over the course of 9 months could have 3 cours and 1 season, or you could have a show without any correspondence to real world seasons that is still called season 1.

[@ElNeroDiablo]

Flip side is shows that run over the course of years and have one season per year telling a serialised story over the length of that year with upwards of 40-50 weekly episodes, like Star Trek, Power Rangers (currently 22 ep/season, first season lasted for 60 weekly episodes when only 40 were originally planned, sat at about 32 episodes/season during the Disney Era), NCIS... That's not counting effing soap operas that run up to 5 episodes per-week across a 50-week year, like "Home & Away" or "Neighbours" (both Aussie) or "The Bold And The Beautiful", or game shows that do a similar 5-a-week/50-week-a-year 'season'.

[@corvacopia]

@@Corbal975that is specifically a term used around Japanese TV production, it is not used with in the industry more broadly

[@Corbal975]

@@corvacopia the comment I was replying to was specifically about anime

[@Paul71H]

You could also think of a TV season as referring to the fact that American TV has historically had one portion of the year for airing new episodes (interspersed with some reruns too), and another portion of the year for airing only reruns (typically summer). In that sense, you could think of a television year as being composed of "new episode season" and "rerun season."

[@a-m7982]

So glad you got to highlight the Okracoke Brogue! Fun fact, areas of the NC coastal plains had publications and church services in Scottish Gaelic well into the late 19th century! There are all sorts of fun linguistic pockets in the US.

[@Handsy_McGee]

My grandma grew up bilingual here in Texas! English and... German. In fact, there are people alive who were born and raised here speaking only German! I'm sure my lexicon has several pidgin German words...

[@thanksfernuthin]

When I was stationed in Greece I had a British girlfriend. I visited her twice for a couple weeks. All of her friends were giving me a hard time about American English, and as an American, it couldn't be US that was wrong! (I gave them the American they expected and enjoyed.) I told them that we took English to America hundreds of years ago and kept it pristine while England had screwed it up in the meantime. We all had a good laugh. Fast forward over a decade later and I was watching Melvyn Bragg's excellent "The Adventure of English" and... you guessed it... I WAS RIGHT!!! 🤣Not in all cases of course but it certainly is the majority of the difference. Americans were obsessed with maintaining proper English.

[@jeffdege4786]

A lot of it had to do with most Americans only having the King James Bible and Bunyan's Pilgrims Progress to read...

[@seanmegan1278]

They were, but not for intellectual or moral high-ground reasons, rather purely for sentimental ones. Or possibly, in some cases, religious/fanatic ones. It's common in emigrated or displaced groups to retain the original version of their language, food and cultural traits, etc.

[@thanksfernuthin]

@@seanmegan1278 I don't know if wanting to maintain pronunciation pristine is intellectually or morally superior. Some might argue it isn't. But it's what Noah Webster and many Americans wanted. Look up "The American Spelling Book". I believe they actually had copies of it in the school when I grew up. It had all the words spelled out phonetically, a rather new concept I believe. And you really can't compare immigrants into a functioning society with Englishmen showing up in America. They WERE the society. Going native wasn't really a thing. They had nothing to protect their culture from. They really did just want all Americans to speak well. I appreciate your well thought out reply.

[@johnl5316]

you are always right

[@thanksfernuthin]

@@johnl5316 Are you picking on me?!! Or have you somehow divined my immense intelligence? (I wouldn't say ALWAYS right.)

[@jeffschrade4779]

When I lived in England, I got so good picking out accents that I told one guy that he clearly hadn't grown up in the area. He proudly pointed out a community he was from -- it was maybe six miles away on the other side of Dewsbury which we could see from the hilltop we were standing on.

[@yorkiegrit]

Sounds like you were near me.😂 I'm pretty sure that this is one of the most divided areas in terms of accent. From where I am, the area I can see has four distinct accents. One of them REALLY distinct and all marvellous

[@ukbloke28]

I used to drink with mates outside of Derby, and they told me about regional variations of slang that were limited to areas of just a few mile.

[@jeffsaxton716]

My DNA analysis says I'm 58% British. When born, I found myself in the Idaho/Wyoming/Utah area. I ended up speaking a heavily rhotic version of English with a few glottal stops in words like " mo-un", meaning "mountain".

[@TheOneAndOnlyNeuromod]

I appreciate your respect for both American and British English - and your open-mindedness contrary to the “groupthink”…on both sides. :-)

[@lobsterbisque7567]

Agreed!

[@yoojin-oi8ij]

AMEN !

[@markpeavy4005]

All of your videos are fascinating. This one in particular. Would love to see more on your observations and research on the South vs. England. And I can hear many varieties of British accents as well.

[@jh115]

This is quite an eye-opener, Laurence!! As a Brit married to an American, I'm looking at this in a new light (and won't rib him quite as much) x

[@Magic.Happens]

Thank you Lawrence-love your videos. I know you love your native England but your fondness for America always comes across in your videos. This one was interesting - you always make me giggle. Much appreciated these days with all that is going on.

[@prjndigo]

A most amazing thing about American English is that a cafeteria in the US and one in Denmark sound _precisely_ the same en masse even tho there are no shared words at all.

[@nevets2371]

I wouldn't be so confident of the "at all" bit, both are germanic languages and so will inevitably share at least a few words.

[@jonesnori]

Pretty sure both languages have the word "pasta", and that's not Germanic at all.

[@Kevin-wq3kj]

I’m often struck by how many Scandinavians prefer speaking in a North American accent when they speak English. I think English has a similar sort of sing-song rhythm to Danish (and Dutch and Frisian too). I was listening to spoken Norwegian for the first time recently and was amazed at how Scottish it sounded. I couldn’t understand any words but still the general cadence sounded unmistakably Scottish to me.

[@cupidok2768]

I wanna live in denmark forever with a danish bf

[@WendyHutchinson-pg7qy]

There are actually quite a few words that are linguistically related but they are not super obvious, you have to dig deep to see the connections

[@lovinsubs]

I once heard someone claim that there was and could never be a true "king's english" because of the profusion of established dialects, the continuous trait of english to adopt or incorporate words from languages it comes into contact with (such as the french and latin you mentioned), however, in American english parlance, spanish is typically the source language for many of our newest and most enjoyed words (especially relating to ranching and livestock work), and a general disinterest in nailing down a specific dialect to construct a specific set of grammar and syntax rules. This person also argued that the failure to create strictures and a strictly refined "proper" english is one of the reasons that aided in its spread and adoption as a trade language, something to which i somewhat agree, although discounting the role of military force behind britain's empire and americas expanding influence in the creation of the modern global trade system would be disingenuous.

[@naranara1690]

Language elitism is weird. The existence of (almost) every modern language is a testament against it - imagine speaking Middle to Modern English to a pre-Norman Englishman, or Brazilian Portuguese to a man from old Rome.

[@timothystamm3200]

The thing is, I know for a fact that the Roman would likely pick up on the fact that he was listening to a descendant of the Latin Vulgate if he was well educated enough and it would piss him off that the Vulgate was acceptable. So, while language elitism doesn't really make sense, it's also nothing new.

[@hideyourwenches]

​@@timothystamm3200great point, one note though, the Vulgate is the early latin translation of the bible, the low version of Latin is called Vulgar Latin

[@danstella6996]

It’s all about control

[@SilVia-hs2kb]

Except brazilian Portuguese isn't a language. And neither is American English. Its Portuguese and English spoken with different accents.

[@Randomdive]

It also depends if it was written or spoken. Written Portuguese is way closer to vulgar Latin than its spoken form

[@Nitehawke]

In Maine, if they didn't adopt an often difficult to pronounce Native American or English place name, we just named towns after entire countries. If you ever want to visit Norway, Peru, China, Mexico, Denmark, Sweden or Poland just cruise around Maine for a couple days (I've been to all of them and can say I spent two years working in Poland and confuse the hell out of people, lol).

[@magicdog9523]

I love Maine.

[@johnnynephrite6147]

I walked across the entire state of Maine in less than a day.

[@clam3974]

Haha lived in the Oxford/Poland/Paris area for a while and told people I was dating a girl from Paris 😂😂

[@magicdog9523]

@@johnnynephrite6147 North to south or west to east...? It's a five hour drive between Presque Isle and Portland.

[@johnnynephrite6147]

@@magicdog9523 thats only 260 miles. dont you have paved roads in Maine?

[@nealwesco7465]

I remember my English and Linguistics professor telling us "If you ever want to piss off a British person talking shit about your dialect then just tell them American English is older than British English" and dear god has that created some meltdowns talking to people

[@Wasserkaktus]

I'm from Phoenix and studied in London in grad school. When I told my professors and other coeds that American English was in fact closer to the more ancestral form of English, they were in utter denial of it.

[@mickistevens4886]

I know British English is older because I watch US movies about the Romans, and they all had British accents!

[@evanburrows1697]

Languages are evolving all the time, so it's basically nonsense in both directions.

[@Temeraire101]

@@mickistevens4886 Just watch Life of Brian, even the Jews spoke English 😁

[@leavingitblank9363]

@@Wasserkaktus I think it's only a specific dialect in the south-- not the whole of the country-- that is closer to "the Queen's English" than modern British English. My friend got a masters in linguistics and she used to like to pull that factoid out from time to time.

[@maerten9517]

Mr.Pond. I love your videos and have watched them for years. I would love for you to do perhaps one long form video, out of character and on a more serious note, about English-English and its dialects, and US English and all the differences and basically elaborate on much of what you fly over in these videos. I know a thesis or book could be written about it, but I often find that I want to know more about the things you say. Just my thoughts. Thanks! PS- I smashed that like but now, three years ago... now. so that must be good for something.

[@leftiesoutnumbered]

Something many Brits forget (or don’t realize?) too is that, for many Americans, we share the same English ancestors, so the legacy of the English language comes from the same place.

[@AzrealMaximus]

Si, ju harr correcto mundo.😏

[@genevalawrence801]

I love the part about dialects. I grew up in Virginia speaking in Virginia Piedmont, with a mother who spoke High Tide (or as we called it, Tidewater English) and a father who spoke Southern Highland Appalachian. And my parents both grew up in the same state in which I was raised. A lot of folks from other areas of the US and abroad consider "Southern" to be a single regional dialect. The true situation on the ground is so much richer and stranger than that.

[@shepberryhill4912]

That coastal dialect from Maryland to Georgia is now recognized as the closest remnant of Elizabethan English existing, including in Britain.

[@njhoepner]

I grew up in Wisconsin until age 12, when we moved out to Washington state...and I discovered that not everyone calls a water fountain a "bubbler." There were even more revelations when I joined the Army...I had drill sergeants I could not understand at all. I gained a lot of physical fitness from that fact.

[@Khardankov]

Yeah "Southern" is more a grouping of similar dialects rather than a single monolithic dialect. I love the way the Piedmont dialects sound. @shepberryhill4912 funny enough, New Zealanders say the exact same thing about their own speech. Nobody would mistake that for the Coastal Mid-Atlantic dialect - but it supposedly has to do with the way they pronounce the 'i' in fish or kid, which is an odd-sounding and rare little morpheme. @njhoepner - I grew up in Boston and still call it a bubbler. I live in Australia now, and have yet to say it without having to launch into a lengthy explanation.

[@morecowbell235]

There is a very good video on YT that where one guy does many of the dialects in the USA. Great watch / listen!

[@davidlaney6153]

the reason the folks from the Upper Midwest have supposedly no "accent" is because of all the Germans, Scands and Poles..however they use words that are definitely not English...

[@JennRighter]

When I was learning Arabic, the most trouble I had was the different dialects. It’s a long story. Standard Arabic is what you’re taught if you’re learning it in America. This dialect is most common in, as an example, Al Jazeera news reports. But I was told by native Arabic speaking friends that the Egyptian dialect is the most widely understood. This is due to most of the Arabic language media like movies and TV being created in Egypt. And the Egyptian Arabic dialect is quite different from standard traditional Arabic.

[@sethjk8871]

I was also told all of this from a friend who had recently moved to the US

[@napoleonfeanor]

Arabic is like Chinese. Not different dialects but whole different languages. It would be like calling Latin and all romance language to be one language with dialects

[@Aresydatch]

​@@napoleonfeanorThey're not as Ununderatandable as Chinese and Latin I'm an Arab and they are mutually intellegable

[@pacmanc8103]

@@napoleonfeanor I’m a second language learner of Arabic and understand almost all dialects, the exception being Moroccan Arabic which is very difficult to follow. But Arabic dialects are understood like British, American, and Australian English dialects (with the exception of certain accents).

[@JennRighter]

To be clear, I didn’t say people couldn’t understand me. Also, I can understand most Arabic dialects to an extent. It’s always funny the “well, actually, 🤓” people that pop up with comments like this. I’m talking about in the very beginning stages of learning Arabic and I’m also talking about how native speakers viewed the way I spoke it.

[@danf.2158]

I enjoyed this video and the comments. So fascinating!!

[@SimonASNG]

I was raised in Zimbabwe (English) and Canada and now live in the USA. I started out a bit on the arrogant side, but quickly realized (like you) that most of my old mis-conceptions about Americans and what they had done to the English language were just sour grapes and group think by my previous countrymen. When I talk with my old friends and family, it is very difficult for them to understand my change in perspective and very few are willing to open up their minds to possibility that their way is no better (and often worse) than the American one. Anyway, point is, I appreciate what you are doing here.

[@Kevin-wq3kj]

This is really refreshing to hear, speaking as an American. If you're interested in exploring this further, HL Mencken's "The American Language" goes into the history of British elitism towards American speech. Published in the 1930s but still very relevant and informative. Two centuries ago there were Brits who were so taken aback by our multisyllabic slang and our borrowed words from Spanish and indigenous languages (eg, "canoe") that they wanted American dialect classified as a separate language lol

[@ThyGeekGoddessMuze]

When I finally found my mothers folks in Canada, my cousin was surprised I didn't sound like a country bumpkin. Since I'd lived in Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache communities after the Y2K layoffs, I'd picked up the habit of ending sentences with, "aaaye" or "ennit". The first time he caught me using a y'all, I had to defend myself that it was a black y'all, not a southern one, but I was raised 30 miles from Antietam just under the Mason/Dixon line. Before the pandemic, I met two Airforce wives from England who thought I was mocking them. But I really wasn't aware I was only drawing from Absolutely Fabulous and Monty Python. My folks actually come from Wales and Hastings, but one great aunt from Liverpool made sure we could hide our Celtic brogue left over from the Great Migration when our cousin US Grant was considered mixed race.

[@loveroflife1914]

Well said!

[@bugglemagnum6213]

i do concur ​@@loveroflife1914

[@user-ks5cg5cd7m]

I love your videos! The Brits “belittling” Jefferson for his use of the word “belittle.” I can’t stop laughing. 😂. I needed a laugh tonight. I just adore your videos!

[@uncletoby-]

Bravo Nephew. Your videos should be used as a teaching aid in schools here and in the UK.

[@Matthew-ix1mq]

U da man, uncle Toby!!

[@MymilanitalyBlogspot]

Actually, I do share lots of them with my students!

[@kevincronk7981]

Wait is this the real uncle toby

[@FriedAudio]

@@kevincronk7981 😲😲😲

[@uncletoby-]

@@kevincronk7981 Yes, it is. Cheers !

[@crunchie83]

I'm not one who believes in conspiracy theories, but the one I might be convinced of is how all my English teachers in school tried to make us believe English has rules.

[@kristend344]

Linguists have said in regards to French - Quebec, and New Orlean's French, are more related to pre-revolution French than modern day France. Eric Singer has a very good 3 part series on American accents, he also gets into how they came into being from their countries of origin.

[@cupidok2768]

French is hot. I need a French bf

[@MacNerfer]

Same with my grandparents, but they were Germans-from-Russia. This is a large ethnic group composed of Germans who were invited in the 1700's to settle in southern Russia by Catherine the Great (herself originally from Germany). They settled in "colonies" with their own schools and churches. In the late 1800's, early 1900's many moved to Kansas and the Dakotas. They spoke old German and had difficulty understanding people coming directly from Germany speaking modern German.

[@TheSuperhomosapien]

My pet peeve is in movies set in medieval times that the actors talk with modern "British" accents. Back then the accent spoke with would sound more like a combination of American and Irish accents. Hiring American and Irish actors and having them use their natural accents would be more historically accurate.

[@yuki-sakurakawa]

And what's with Robin hoods speaking in modern english? Should be Norman French or Chaucer English. I wexe wery of this untreuth in movyng pycteures. And king Arthur movies should be in brythonic for the knights of the round table and Anglo Saxon for the antagonists. Nemas cethar rig Arthur lafaroth saosnec cempren pe nasescos ond Ƿe eac þa wiðersacan sceolon sprecan Eald Englisc.

[@TheSuperhomosapien]

@@yuki-sakurakawa If you put subtitles in there then I'm down with that. I'd actually like to hear what the languages would have sounded like.

[@Dave102693]

Isn’t Modern British English just Normanized English anyways?

[@Fireclaws10]

Not American and Irish, it’s a very specific accent that’s drawn from a language being a bastardised mix of old French and German.

[@TheSuperhomosapien]

@@Dave102693 The accent is the difference. In the 15th and 16th century, dropping consonant sounds became cool to incorporate into languages. French had already been doing this, but leaned heavily into it around this time. French took a huge deviation from other Romance languages like Spanish around this time. English began doing this with r's and then t's and other consonants. The split between North America and Britain happened prior to the accent change really catching on, which is why there is such different accents on both continents.

[@alexlail7481]

As a North Carolinian from the foothills of the Appalachians, when I went to college in Charlotte and worked part-time time in a nearby small town the locals had zero Idea where I'd grown up (about an 1½ NW) but they were certain that it wasn't North Carolina.... I heard guesses daily ranging all-over the gulfstates and southern 'Midwest' ....I would tell them where my home town was and then they would switch to 'OK well then you must have picked it up from a parent or grandparent who was from somewhere else.... nope my last known direct ancestor who lived outside of the area I grew up in lived briefly in Bucks County, PA in the 1740s and moved to NC in the early 1750s roughly an hour east of where my family lives now.... they actually ended as 'next door neighbors' to the Boones for what ever that's worth.... so yes I definitely believe North Carolina is a hot spot for accents....

[@cynsi7604]

Funny, I lived in CLT for 43yrs & then move to my mom’s birthplace in the Foothills of the Appalachian where I now have lived for 13yrs (funny how somethings work out). I always visited during holidays & summers when I was a kid. But it wasn’t until I moved up here that I found out what “Culture Shock” was!!! I couldn’t just hop in the car go around the corner & pick up what I wanted.😩 I had to order it & pay SHIPPING!! 😮 Besides me sounding different than even my youngest Uncle (10 yrs between), he sounded almost “hillbilly” to me. But then again I don’t say “North Carolina” like most either. Mine is more like “NOR CaRA line uh” with it a lil run together. NO IDEA where I picked that up from. Come to think of it I do the same to SC also, just saying the first three letters then the weird Cara line uh, mushed together. My mom blames it on where I was born.😂 ✌🏻

[@skyletwings5711]

I love your enunciation, a pleasure to listen to all those interesting facts. Great video, thank you!

[@maryseflore7028]

I'm a French-Canadian, and our particular French dialect is actually closer to 17th century France than modern France's French. So there's an obvious parallel here - distance made the languages grow in different directions than in Europe. There is a cover of House of the Rising Sun, translated in Old French, on KZbin. The song's lyrics and translation both scroll on the screen as it plays. Reading the comments, so many people from France couldn't understand a thing, except in the written parts, while I was able to understand maybe 15% of the sung words because they sound more like my accent than France's.

[@alexandrahanson-harding4666]

That makes total sense--Colonial peoples will always retain older forms of a language.

[@cinemint]

I'm in the process of learning Louisiana Acadien French, and I've noticed this too!

[@Haverlock]

I'm very sorry to hear that I will pray for you.

[@themarlboromandalorian]

Blame the aristocracy. The French spent a good long time ruining languages. French sounded more like German before the 17th century.

[@tatianapreobrazhenskaya9777]

@Jetsetbob3 "Ca va mon khey" looks like eldar slang from Warhammer 40k. "How are you, mon-keigh?"

[@amyburl3826]

I learn so much from you. Thank you for these educational videos.

[@gatling216]

So, I grew up in the Piedmont region of North Carolina, close to the border with Virginia. My hometown had three different common dialects, and which one you used largely depended on who you grew up around. You could sit at the lunch table in high school and hear three completely different accents out of people who grew up a few miles away from each other, and it was just normal to us. Most of us worked to get rid of our accents when we realized that outsiders automatically subtract ten points off your IQ when they hear a southern drawl, but even decades later, my Canadian wife can’t understand a word I say when I’m around folks from my hometown.

[@renafielding945]

Where? If you don’t mind. I have moved to Virginia near the North Carolina line and there sure are some accents here.

[@gatling216]

@@renafielding945 A little town about 30 minutes south of Danville. Piedmont and Appalachian were the most common, with a strong Black community that had their own thing going.

[@FrankGhal]

I'm in the same boat (west virginia) the kids on my side of town from the country spoke with an Appalachian accent but on the northern side of town you heard more of a Pennsylvania accent

[@renafielding945]

@@gatling216 sounds like here. Danville is the closest place we can recycle glass.

[@yeehaw3792]

You shouldn't let other people's ignorant understanding of your culture affect you. Keep your southern drawl.

[@kathryn1304]

Question. How would/does one pronounce merry, marry, and Mary to make them sound different? As an American I can’t think how they’re different sounding.

[@mags102755]

I have always been interested in the differences and equality of British and American English. I always learn so much about how words and expressions get passed across the pond from you Laurence.

[@whoviating]

A fun thing related to English evolving was The Great Vowel Shift. If you don't know about it, look it up. It's quite interesting.

[@matthewcox7985]

Though for some, it was a vowel movement... 💩

[@gnarthdarkanen7464]

Dr. Geoff Lindsey's channel or Rob Words??? I've seen both on the matter, BUT it might help someone else shorten their research... ;o)

[@raedwulf61]

There is an on-going vowel shift in the Great Lakes region. For example, "bus" sounds increasingly like "boss". Vowels are generally moving back and up in the mouth. No one knows why.

[@sherrybirchall8677]

I tried, but every time I try to listen to a video about it, it puts me to sleep. Well, a lot of things do that now, since I'm 70. One of these days though, I'm going to stay awake and find out what happened with that great vowel shift. 😊

[@gnarthdarkanen7464]

@@sherrybirchall8677 I might recommend Rob Words (channel on YT)... He's fairly glib with a sense of word play, but keeps on point enough to cover subjects in reasonably short and direct explanations. Dr Geoff Lindsey (also a channel on YT) is good, probably more comprehensive and in depth than Rob Words, but that takes time and an almost grinding sense of attention to the details. ;o)

[@FoxWife]

Well done, Lawrence! This kind of content is exactly why I’m subscribed to your channel.

[@chorizojoe8282]

I took an ESL class from a German teacher when my parents first migrated to the US. Her way of teaching me basically included a mix of British vocabulary along with the American English I was learning. I knew of Aluminio in Spanish, so when she taught me to say Aluminium sort of made sense to me. Certain English pronunciations of various words make more sense to me because of the similarities to Spanish. Either way, I think both English and American pronunciations sort of mesh in a fluid manner which made my path to fluency easier.

[@smergthedargon8974]

British spellings might've made more sense to you since they're closer to French, another Latin-derived language.

[@SecretSquirrelFun]

Growing up with an American father and an Australian mother - listening to them “discuss” the “correct” way to say words, or how I should say/pronounce words was a constant theme in my life.x Basically, your KZbin channel is a visual manifestation of that which I have pondered my entire life. 😳 Although not your area of discussion, I do find the way people speak in parts of Canada (the Maritime provinces) particularly fascinating. And now you’ve taught me about High tide English. Brilliant. Thanks for creating and sharing another fascinating video. Much appreciated. 🙂🐿🌈❤️

[@jamessmithson-br7rm]

There is a reason we get all the supervillain roles, our way sounds more intelligent.

[@redrick8900]

@@jamessmithson-br7rm Supervillains aren't more intelligent. They are more arrogant. They think they are smarter than the hero but they almost never are. Magneto always gets outsmarted at the end.

[@Lostsage01]

I had a British boss that used to give me a hard time for pronouncing ‘schedule’ the American way (skedule vs shedule) while simultaneously pronouncing the day after Monday as Chewsday 😂

[@yakitatefreak]

Remind the Brit that "Schedule" is of Greek origin, like "Scholar" and not Germanic like "Schadenfreude" 😂

[@kanaric]

I no joke had someone say the word "Chursday" to me last week and I near lost it.

[@g0679]

The difference in schedule/skedule makes word recognition difficult, don’t it?

[@Lostsage01]

@@g0679 *doesn’t

[@DaBIONICLEFan]

Brits are meant to pronounce it as 'chews-day'...I'm not understanding why this is funny?

[@Channel-23s]

10/10 video bringing up things people either ignore or don’t know of English also has influences from the French too and the amount of words created by America would blow the socks off of many people

[@tonifish3879]

About half of English words are due to the Norman invasion

[@jguenther3049]

A visitor from Germany was surprised to find "gesundheit" in everyday use in the US.

[@Channel-23s]

@@tonifish3879most English kings were speaking French too and even some were living in France even more crazy was how so many kings were related during WW1 too

[@Channel-23s]

@@jguenther3049that’s without bringing up slang and sayings/proverbs and analogies too many of which we use to this day and into the future

[@jamesmcrorie9413]

This was fascinating. Thank you!

[@llareia]

I'm always amused at the British "ownership" of English, that they conveniently forget that who invented the language weren't present-day Brits, but our common ancestors.

[@jaxxon98]

Your common ancestors maybe.

[@llareia]

If you're American then they're your ancestors, too. Culturally if not genetically.

[@jaxxon98]

Sorry, but they're not.@@llareia

[@ArceusShaymin]

Funny thing about American dialects - as you said, because the full country is so large, you might drive hundreds of miles before encountering a dialect that's *significantly* different than one before. But, as we can pretty easily intuit, this also means that "hard lines" between regions and their dialects are much less common (though not always). The farther you travel south, the more southern the drawls become until you reach full-blown Ram-Ranch Texas, and when you start to move towards the coasts from there, you start to notice interesting fusions between the commonly-noted dialects. And then, of course, even in more rural states, once you hit a "big city" there's still one helluva shift (these tend to be the exceptions to the "no hard line" rule of thumb).

[@Hidebehind-500]

Philadelphia for example actually has a distinct dialect from New York City. Contrary to what others may think.

[@susanwhite7474]

"Ram-Ranch Texas"? What does that mean?Also, Southern accents do not, as a rule, keeping getting "more Southern" the further South you go.

[@nealwesco7465]

I grew up in coastal Mississippi and I never realized just how different my "southern" accent sounded from people further north in the state. Everyone kept going "are you from New Orleans?" when I'd talk

[@MacNerfer]

@@susanwhite7474 As a Minnesotan who moved to Texas, there definitely is an experience of "more southern". Kansas doesn't sound like the Dakotas, Oklahoma is getting rather southern, Texas is definitely southern. (It's own type of southern, but definitely southern). But then you get into a big city like Dallas and it's much more metropolitan, many don't have a southern accent at all. But they still called me a yankee, even there. I didn't even know that word was still used like that, I thought it was an 1800's thing.

[@jasonnelson5745]

And don't forget the Canadian accents heard in the far northeast in places like Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York

[@denisepiekarski4159]

Language is a living thing, forever changing. Thanks for sharing your knowledge. Loved learning new things!

[@hhckiss2817]

This is one of the most interesting videos I've seen in a quite a while! 😮

[@tookitogo]

As an American living in Europe, there are far more British expats than American ones, and the British are often insufferable in their open disdain for American English. That’s if they even acknowledge it as being English at all, since many refuse to call it “American English” and instead insist on referring to it as “American”. (That’s just before they then berate us for the arrogance of using the demonym “American”, since we aren’t the only country in the Americas, despite all the remaining countries having more specific demonyms.) We are accused of “butchering” “their” language through “laziness”. (Quotes not misused for emphasis, but used as actual quotes of things I’ve heard.) The fact that both dialects have evolved away from their common ancestor, and that British English has evolved away from said common ancestor more aggressively, is lost on them. As is the fact that they routinely compare slang from the most nonstandard American dialects to RP, while ignoring the myriad non-RP dialects of England _that use the very same non-RP forms they’re complaining about in “American”._ For example “ain’t”, which is not an American innovation, but a longstanding contraction in many dialects of British English. Want to see the Brits lose their shit? Go to the comments section of any video about soldering made by an American. The Brits cannot restrain themselves from whining about how we don’t pronounce the L in “solder”, even though the American pronunciation is actually closer to the source French word, and that the L is the result of the phony-baloney relatinization in the early industrial age. It all gets quite tiring, and even though I shouldn’t let it get to me, it does. I have studied linguistics, so I know what I’m talking about, but to the British, it’s just American hubris, even though British linguists will tell you the same thing I did.

[@theenderdestruction2362]

No one likes being called out as a sinner

[@wolf6195]

As an American, I too complain about the unpronounced L in solder, because nobody *at all* would hear that word for the first time and think, “Oh boy, this is definitely spelled ‘solder’!” Not here, anyway

[@tookitogo]

@@theenderdestruction2362 ???

[@tookitogo]

@@wolf6195 As I said, the L in solder was added _after the fact_ to make it look like Latin.

[@wolf6195]

@@tookitogo I did get that from your original comment. That sort of makes it worse

[@joermnyc]

Hight Tide reminds me of Atlantic Canadian English, there people also have sort of a pirate language, but with much more Irish and Scots Gaelic influences. It does vary from province to province, and the farther east you go the less it sounds like Canadian English. (Example, instead of ending a query with the stereotypical ”eh?” they’ll use “right?”, but in a sentence the word right can sound more like “reight”). I took an experimental course at college on the history of the English language which was more of a linguistics course than history (or English.) I did my term project on just how varied English has gotten up in the great white north with audio/video examples. Playing an ad from Newfoundland confused the hell out of everyone, even with subtitles! Also had to point out the various shifts in vowel sounds and how someone from the Great Toronto area and someone from Vancouver do sound distinctly different, much like a New Yorker vs a Californian.

[@bethpike3833]

Fascinating!

[@Pupil0fGod]

small, isolated fishing villages up and down the east coast tend to have similar roots and hold to their language. I was raised around the Brogue Sounder accent in NC, but very similar accents can be found in Virginia and my current state Maine. It would be quite entertaining to get together some southern Americans and their Canadian brethren and see the shock at just how similar they preserved their language

[@randalmayeux8880]

Hi Laurence, Growing up, I had only heard British English as spoken by the BBC and actors of Monty Python, Are You Being Served, Black Adder and other British comedians. Then I ended up with a roommate from Manchester. While I could understand Ray without any trouble when he was sober, when he had had a few drinks his speech underwent a dramatic transformation. Part of it was the slang, but his pronunciation changed as well and it wasn't just slurred speech. One night he and I went to a party at a friend's house, and my friend had invited Becky, a girl from Bristol. Once the party was in full swing I had a difficult time understanding either of them. In fact, they had a hard time understanding each other!

[@THall-vi8cp]

I had a friend from Birmingham. Easy to understand. Every now and again he'd mess with us and go into full-on Cockney Rhyming Slang. I had _no_ idea what he was saying even though I could hear the words just fine. Sure miss that guy.

[@flickcentergaming680]

I am both fascinated and amused by this particular phenomenon.

[@bluebook709]

Been a fan for years but will have to take a closer look at your shorts. Since you referenced them there must be something worth seeing there.

[@kathleenoconnell1635]

Born and raised Bostonian here. We don't pronounce our Rs. When my nephew was little in speech therapy after suffering hearing loss he got very frustrated with the speech therapist who kept trying to get him to pronounce a hard R. I had to tell her, he's got my Boston accent and he's pronouncing Rs correctly.

[@seancassidy674]

Yeah, Boston is non-rhotic but also transposes Rs sometimes. I didn't have hard non-rhoticity growing up (even though I was raised near Worcester/Wista) but I did take some of those conserved Rs and dump them into words they didn't belong (which happens in British dialects as well) - farther (as in Dad) and aurnt for example.

[@LonghornATX]

You hit it outta the fukkin pahk, kid! Wicked smaht!

[@Ethantreadway8483]

The younger Hipsters w/ their Soy latte's & Avocado toast in that area think they're "Too Cool" to use the Boston accent now, they opt for the Social Media Hard R accent which seems more "trendy" to them. What a bloody shame. Bring it back

[@KrisD007]

My bf in Boston constantly changed er into ah on many words. I’d always laugh when he did it and he’d get mad saying I was hearing things. Yes, I was hearing “ah” LOL

[@Pupil0fGod]

As someone raised in Eastern NC not originally from there, the "High Tiders" also known as Brogue Sounders, or Harkers Island accent is very distinctive and honestly hard to understand even from people who lived around it their whole life. the essentially was caused by 6 or so odd families moving to the area from England in the 1600s and there being almost no new injection of people (isolated poor fishing towns) up until just the last few decades. In college I dated a girl from Cambridge UK, we had long discussions about the various dialects in the UK. you can go 20 miles and not be able to understand what people are saying.

[@apblolol]

I made this argument against a highschool english teacher who would pronounce the H in herbalism, he cited the oxford dictionary and i countered with its french origin and the merriam websters dictionary. Each of the seperate dictionaries have different pronunciations of the word and its one of the many interesting points on how communication has canged.

[@nekrataali]

That's really funny because dictionaries often add words each year so they can update their copyright on the way definitions are phrased. It's why the Oxford dictionary added "bootylicious."

[@ukbloke28]

Amaricans saying 'erb' is so annoying and ridiculous. Like just about every pronunciation is dogmatically phonetic out of sheer literalism and convenenince but yet you decide to pseudo acknowledge the connections to French in this one word?!

[@ServantOfPuppets]

@@ukbloke28 There's just something very linguistically strained in pronouncing both the /h/ and the /r/, bringing it all forward to the /b/. It's like a wave rolling through your whole mouth

[@ukbloke28]

@@ServantOfPuppets yes, we know American culture tends towards the lazy. As my dad always used to say, American food is like baby food - too sweet and too soft. This is the linguistic equivalent.

[@ServantOfPuppets]

​@@ukbloke28 phonetic ease of pronunciation is a natural factor in language change across the globe but go off i guess anyway "herb" really did originate in English from Old French "erbe", which itself dropped the H from Latin "herba". English later re-added the H orthographically to connect it to the Latin word Brits saying 'herb' is so annoying and ridiculous. Like just about every pronunciation is guided by a word's history out of sheer convenience to the many influences on English but yet you randomly decide to pronounce some letters literally?

[@ADDeeJay]

@lostinthepond you really need to do a video about Hawaiian pidgin English. It's probably the most unique version of the language that exists in the states.

[@TheDude-jp6yz]

Laurence - this is such a great channel. Keep up the good work and keep putting out these super informative videos!

[@Giulorma1121]

I heard people in Philly pronounce merry, Mary, and marry differently. However, I definitely don’t and I only live a few hours away. I’m editing my comment because I completely forgot about the wildest American Accent out there for me is the Baltimore Accent. It’s so distinct, but so under the radar. Where the hell did it come from?

[@jcortese3300]

We do -- "Mary will marry merry Murray" and they all sound different.

[@whoviating]

I say them all differently. I recall a story from when I was working at a museum in Massachusetts. Two of the folks on staff were named Don and Dawn. Someone joked to me that I (who grew up on the Jersey shore) and a woman from Cherry Hill NJ (just across the river from Philly, for those who don't know) were the only ones for who those were two different names.

[@Giulorma1121]

@@cancermcaids7688 mirror is a hard one, as a kid I thought it ended in an “a”.

[@arjaygee]

I grew up in the Midwest, but have lived in both Pittsburgh and Philly. All three were pronounced the same way where I grew up, but I now pronounce Mary and marry the same, but pronounce merry as I did in the Midwest.

[@jcortese3300]

@@cancermcaids7688 🤣 I lived in soCal for 26 years, and laughed out loud when you said they had three vowels total! Despite this though, they can somehow give the word "dude" 17 syllables.

[@jonathanfreedom1st]

I think we need to talk about how Larry is Losing his Accent. You're one of us now Bud nothing you can do about it 😂😂😂

[@andirandolph8830]

He’s doomed 😂

[@marywenzel3199]

You can still hear the Grimsby boy when he says “us” as “uzz”. That’s classic Lincolnshire. Also Yorkshire. It’s just refreshing to encounter an Englishman who will defend America to the point of willingly joining the side. Bless you, Laurence. You still sound plenty English to the average American ear, but at home I’m sure they consider you Yankified. I.e., ruined.

[@emilyb5307]

Cue Progressive-esque voice: "we can't stop you from becoming American...but we can all learn what got lost in the pond."

[@bethpike3833]

Don't do it, don't do it! Have two accents. LOL

[@nicolad8822]

He doesn’t sound at all American to me.

[@tracyvis5668]

Omg the nutcase helmet! 😂 I love these videos. 🥰 I grew up in Georgia in the 80’s & 90’s and was reared on British entertainment: Paddington, Monty Python, the Britcoms, etc. And I always thought so much of the way British people pronounce certain words, outside of RP, sounds like Southern pronunciations. You have confirmed this for me! I think especially the Scottish and the Irish must have settled much of the south.

[@xpatsteve]

As an American who teaches English as a second language in Austria, I find your videos on British / American differences in the use of English informative, entertaining, and very useful. My own introduction to the differences came while living in the Cayman Islands in the 90s and it's been a major interest ever since. Love all of your content. Keep up the good work!

[@JohnLumagui]

I had always thought it was just Daniel Webster flipping off the stuck-up sticky beaks in the Motherland. This is a far richer topic than I had anticipated!

[@davidkermes376]

do you mean, noah webster? i can never keep them straight.

[@dunbar9finger]

And the Brits won't admit how much their dictionary writer Samuel Johnson ALSO inserted his agenda into the language and changed things. When they accuse Americans of changing the language they fail to admit they changed it just as much.

[@tfosss8775]

@@davidkermes376 You are correct. Daniel Webster was a stateman from NH. Noah Webster wrote "An American Dictionary of the English Language". They were cousins. Originally words like "defense", "offense", and "pretense" were spelled with "CE", Noah changed them to "SE" He removed the "u" from the words "humor (humour)" and "color (colour)" He removed the "k" from the words "public (publick)" and "music (musick)". He also removed the second "L" in the words "canceled / cancelled" and "traveled / travelled", although both spellings are accepted these days.

[@thematthew761]

Noah Webster but yeah lol

[@nedludd7622]

@@tfosss8775 He also changed "plough" to "plow". He did that with other such words to make them comprehensible.

[@jesstatz8695]

Thanks for pointing out the North Carolina dialects. People were questioning my memory of 40 years ago, there was a weatherman on the hotel tv I was watching in NC with a British accent.

[@Skadagisgi]

In fairly recent years, I have become interested in dialects of English to an extent. Sometimes, I'll go down a rabbit hole of accent tags for accents around the U.S. Sometimes I'll even ask customers where they're from if they have an accent I've never heard of or if the accent sounds familiar but not local. I'm a U.S. Southerner, and every once in a while, I'll detect different kinds of Southern accents or accents from other regions of the U.S. Sometimes, I guess them right, like when I recognized a Louisiana accent because the customer pronounced words like "then" with a D sound like in "den." I'd also guessed a Mississippi accent right once because they sounded almost like they were saying "Ahss" when saying "ice." I did once mistaken a different Louisiana accent for a New England accent, though, because apparently the Yat accent in New Orleans sounds like a Boston accent.

[@JessicaFrameMusic]

Your point on coastal North Carolina is exactly why I couldn’t watch the show “Outer Banks” when it came out. I saw a preview and everyone sounded like they were from Los Angeles. I grew up about two hours from the OBX and it was upsetting to have them not even attempt the accent. Hearing OBX natives speak is wonderful.

[@Khardankov]

As someone who grew up in Boston and used to have a thick Boston accent, I feel your pain. Until Mystic River and The Departed, most attempts at Boston accents in film were essentially war crimes.

[@Dracounguis]

As the old joke... English isn't a language. It's three other languages disguised in a trenchcoat.

[@cannonrange9977]

I like this! And I think it's very accurate. 😁

[@denisegaylord382]

Hold the phones! Hold the phones! We have a winner! You get a 🏆 for the funniest comment. Thank you! 😂

[@the711devin4]

English is the result of melting French, German and Latin together, dropping it on the floor before it’s solid, and picking up bits of other languages as you try to scoop it off the floor.

[@smallguyy]

sorry to be an”erm actually” kinda guy but like that’s literally every language. Every language is other just a combinations or dialect of another language

[@janelliot5643]

​​@@smallguyysorry but I'm going to "erm actually" you, since English is particularly adept at collecting other language words and playing loose. Ask anyone who grew up speaking a romance language. They all complain that it doesn't follow any pattern and it's inconsistent precisely because it's a mishmash of languages

[@Captain_Bad_Bill]

Several years (read decades) ago, my wife and I spent an extended weekend in Springfield Illinois to visit the Abraham Lincoln sights. As we interacted with the local population, I noticed some spoke with the mid-west accent while other with a southern accent. So, I would ask people if they were locals. EVERYONE said yes. I'm still confused as to why there was such variation in accents in such a small city!

[@Katie-hh9eu]

I'm from northern Illinois and when I went to college in the middle of the state I was shocked at how southern some of the accents were from different parts of the state and even different parts of the same area (I was also shocked that some people said soda instead of pop which is not a thing up north). It seems to me that the people who came from more rural places had thicker accents than the ones who lived closer to town and that it was also common for them to say they were from the larger towns in the area if they were from a small community, so that could be why everyone there said they were from Springfield.

[@brendafrazier811]

My dad was raised in a rural area about an hour south of Springfield IL. When he went to navy basic training at Great Lakes they all thought he was from the Deep South. And he didn’t sound southern at all.

[@GriffonSpade]

​@@Katie-hh9euThe soda speaker probably came from St. Louis metro.

[@GriffonSpade]

Happens a lot in crossroads areas. You have the St. Louis metro, the Chicago metro, rustic areas, and probably a couple others!

[@ptorq]

Where I grew up (Northwestern Missouri) the same thing was true, and calling it a "Redneck accent" is fair. I think it was partially a point of pride for the "farm boys" to maintain a way of speaking that was distinct from the "city slickers" and vice versa. And yeah, when asked where I'm from I'll usually say "Kansas City" because the actual name of the community conveys almost precisely zero information to anyone from more than 75 miles away, and I would consider myself a "local" in KC because in the midwest 50 miles is considered a rounding error.

[@jameshitselberger5845]

Well done!

[@JustFluffyQuiltingYarnCrafts]

Very interesting observations. Thank you, Lawrence. 💙

[@sce2aux464]

"One of the things you get used to hearing when you are an American living in Britain is that America will be the death of English. It is a sentiment expressed to me surprisingly often, usually at dinner parties, usually by someone who has had a little too much to drink, but sometimes by a semi-demented, overpowdered old crone like this one. There comes a time when you lose patience with this sort of thing. So I told her - I told them both, for her husband looked as if he was about to utter another fraction of thought - that whether they appreciated it or not British speech has been enlivened beyond measure by words created in America, words that they could not do without, and that one of these words was _moron."_ - Bill Bryson, _Notes From A Small Island_

[@debbiebankscell]

Lawrence, have you done a video about date formats? When and why did the British stop using MMDDYY and switch to DDMMYY? I've found British newspapers as recently as the late 1800s using the "American" format, but I can't find any history about how the decision was made

[@MonsterNaps]

People always hear old English writings and say “wow, everyone back then spoke so eloquently.” But 1) it was quite a privilege to know how to read and write, and 2) in my opinion, how we write today being less formal is more indicative of the language developing and becoming more accessible, not that we are somehow stupider these days. The gap between the highly learned and the common person is much slimmer now, which is clearly not a bad thing.

[@marktrail8624]

"Stupider" is not a real word. It's more stupid which should be used in your context.

[@rebeccabilly7466]

​@BabyGirlDontEvenPlay He received a meager formal education growing up, but like most lawyers of his day, he was mentored in law by established lawyers. Although it is the common narrative, I don't think it's accurate to characterize him as wholly self-educated; his education was pretty typical for his time and field of study. His background differed from what might have been expected of a President. One in his position might have been expected to have attended a prestigious military school--but those were located in the South, and most men of that rank and background sided with the Confederacy, not the Union. The sheer military expertise and strategic knowledge held by the Confederate Army at the time Lincoln came to office might have been enough to win the war--if not for the fact that the war dragged on too long, and the South did not have the access to manufacturing plants in the North. The blunt-instrument approach employed by the the Union Army as it decimated the Southern countryside was a clumsy, brutal approach that required no finesse, military education, or strategic intel. It's the tactic that was chosen because that's basically all the Union had--more men and more supplies. I think Lincoln was a great orator and successful in meeting his goals because he had a brilliant mind and because he had the right kind of "plain-speaking" charisma. I also think he probably would never have become President in a different era.

[@RandomGuyyy]

Some geneticists think IQ maxed out in the 1870s and that there were more geniuses per head at that time than anytime before or since.

[@JohnSmith-me4ik]

"Stupider". The irony.

[@theatheistbear3117]

It wasn’t a privilege. People with little to no education, like Ned Kelley, could read and write very eloquently.

[@pareto9798]

I’m actually stunned at the level of respect you’ve shown in discussing this topic