Poll: Do you prefer American English spelling or British English spelling?

[Uskis]

Nope, it isn't. You've never learned French, eh?

French is quite possibly the second most difficult language to learn how to spell in, after English.

Way too many silent letters that are just sitting there, with no apparent reason.

I think the danish language qualifies as a challenger..

 

[NeutralDrow]

Linguistic ethnocentrism, huh? Easily one of the stupidest things I've ever seen. The idea that there's a "proper" form of English is sillier than the rule that a preposition shouldn't be used to end a sentence with.

That said, I prefer most American English spelling by default, simply because it's what I'm used to. I think the only British spelling I use commonly is "theatre." (and "-re" only for that word, I'm not sure why).

Side note: I use the British spelling of "aluminium" ('cause it looks nicer and more consistent) and the American pronunciation ('cause it sounds less unwieldy).

sorry its so long, but if i put a hyperlink barely anyone would read it and i think it deserves to be read.

I think you were mostly wrong. Maybe up to a quarter of it deserved to be read (off the top of my head, getting English dialects right). A country that allows people to consider "shin kicking" a sport has no right to criticize American Football, for one thing...

 

[Radelaide]

The british here, and some americans, will find this funny. its John Cleese's notice of revocation of independance.
and remember ITS A JOKE! some people take this kind of thing too seriously

Spoiler

To the citizens of the United States of America, in the light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah, which she does not fancy. Your new prime minister (The Right Honourable Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. You should look up revocation in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up aluminium. Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour', skipping the letter 'U' is nothing more than laziness on your part. Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters. You will end your love affair with the letter 'Z' (pronounced 'zed' not 'zee') and the suffix ize will be replaced by the suffix ise. You will learn that the suffix 'burgh' is pronounced 'burra' e.g. Edinburgh. You are welcome to respell Pittsburgh as 'Pittsberg' if you can't cope with correct pronunciation.

Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up vocabulary. Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up interspersed. There will be no more 'bleeps' in the Jerry Springer show. If you're not old enough to cope with bad language then you shouldn't have chat shows. When you learn to develop your vocabulary then you won't have to use bad language as often.

2. There is no such thing as "US English". We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of -ize.

3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn't that hard. English accents are not limited to cockney,upper-class twit or Mancunian (Daphne in Frasier). You will also have to learn how to understand regional accents - Scottish dramas such as Taggart will no longer be broadcast with subtitles. While we're talking about regions, you must learn that there is no such place as Devonshire in England. The name of the county is Devon. If you persist in calling it Devonshire, all American States will become shires e.g. Texasshire, Floridashire, Louisianashire.

4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys. Hollywood will be required to cast English actors to play English characters. British sit-coms such as Men Behaving Badly or Red Dwarf will not be re-cast and watered down for a wishy-washy American audience who can't cope with the humour of occasional political incorrectness.

5. You should relearn your original national anthem, God Save The Queen but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.

6. You should stop playing American football. There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American football is not a very good game. The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays American football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football. Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at least a US Rugby sevens side by 2005. You should stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the 'World Series' for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.15% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders,your error is understandable. Instead of baseball, you will be allowed to play a girls' game called rounders, which is baseball without fancy team strip, oversized gloves, collector cards or hotdogs.

7. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry guns. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous in public than a vegetable peeler. Because we don't believe you are sensible enough to handle potentially dangerous items, you will require a permit if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 2nd will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called Indecisive Day.

9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean. All road intersections will be replaced with roundabouts. You will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time,you will go metric with immediate effect and conversion tables. Roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

10. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips. Fries aren't even French, they are Belgian though 97.85% of you (including the guy who discovered fries while in Europe) are not aware of a country called Belgium. Those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut and fried in animal fat. The traditional accompaniment to chips is beer which should be served warm and flat. Waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.

11. As a sign of penance 5 grams of sea salt per cup will be added to all tea made within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, this quantity to be doubled for tea made within the city of Boston itself.

12. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all, it is lager. From November 1st only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer,and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. The substances formerly known as American Beer will henceforth be referred to as Near-Frozen Knat's Urine,with the exception of the product of the American Budweiser company whose product will be referred to as Weak Near-Frozen Knat's Urine. This will allow true Budweiser (as manufactured for the last 1000 years in Pilsen,Czech Republic) to be sold without risk of confusion.

13. From November 10th the UK will harmonise petrol (or Gasoline, as you will be permitted to keep calling it until April 1st 2005) prices with the former USA. The UK will harmonise its prices to those of the former USA and the Former USA will, in return, adopt UK petrol prices (roughly $6/US gallon- get used to it).

14. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.

15. Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.

16. Tax collectors from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all revenues due (backdated to 1776).

Thank you for your co-operation and have a great day.

John Cleese

sorry its so long, but if i put a hyperlink barely anyone would read it and i think it deserves to be read.

You, my friend are a winner.

Heh, I have to say it: there is no such thing as American English. Sorry.

With that out of the way, I speak the British English 'cause I'm Australia. Colour has a "u", it's always -ise, and it's not Zee, it's Zed.

Nyeh =P

You realise that just because you don't speak it, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist right? That's like saying there's no such thing as the dialect of Mexican when it comes to Spanish. Colour. Honour. Center Centre.

Fix'd. <3 You Xitel.

 

[Nerdfury]

I speak only the King's English. Never American.

 

[Lewieroo0]

American language mixed with British language screws up spelling and American spelling is ridiculous.

 

[Gmano]

I prefer the Canadian, mainly for the pronounciation, yes, i put an "o" before the "u" in that word.

Do me a favor, pronounce the following:

Spoof, notice how its spOOf with an O sound, why do you guys to the south say roof as "ruff"?

truth = sleuth = goof, phonetically speaking these should all have the same, standard spelling.

Polish (nationality) vs. polish (to make shine)

their = there = where = wear = bear = bare = chair = care. vs. sear = mere...
shouldn't wear and bear = sear?
and there and where = mere?

Also, tear (to rip) vs tear (clear salty liquid that is secreted by the lachrymal gland of the eye). Read (to read a book) vs read (the past tense of the previous).

If a teacher has taught, why did a preacher preach, shouldn't he have praught? On that note, should the present of fraught be freach? but its fret, and caught is catch.

neigh, nae, nay, ney, nai, nei we have stupid pronounciation rules.

English is a stupid language that is ridiculously hard to learn, by comparison French will actually tell you right in the word how to pronounce the word with accents. And its verbs have regular rules to follow.

how does go become went? be, is and are become was?

If you went into all that trouble, I think you will agree the English language is stupid, there is no sense arguing over the missing of a few "u"s here and there (or should that be heer and thier?).
As long as you agree to stop getting mad at me for saying zed instead of "zee".

Oh. One more thing, if anyone could please use the fact that read (pronounced as read) and tear (both pronounciations) to tell me how one pronounces tead.

 

[Booze Zombie]

I can get through this coloured gate just fine without my armour on.

*Cough*

British.

I don't think american counts as english anymore... Perhaps Inglesh would be a better word for it.

Well said.

 

[sune-ku]

While I will defend British spelling/pronunciation to the bone and not tolerate an utterance or misspelling of that American nonsense over here, It's a different country, you're allowed to change a language to suit you (as long it's kept over there!) - and since it's entirely preference, you're almost certainly going to choose to use the spelling/grammar that you were brought up with.

Incidentally I'm a terrible racist when it comes to Americans, I hate you all on principle - it's just so annoying when I meet one of you and find you're actually generally really great people.

 

[sms_117b]

British spelling, the language in most cases, is worth those extra hidden letters.

 

[ParkourMcGhee]

British... especially annoying when firefox tries to correct my spelling into American V_V.

 

[Radelaide]

The british here, and some americans, will find this funny. its John Cleese's notice of revocation of independance.
and remember ITS A JOKE! some people take this kind of thing too seriously

Spoiler

To the citizens of the United States of America, in the light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah, which she does not fancy. Your new prime minister (The Right Honourable Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. You should look up revocation in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up aluminium. Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour', skipping the letter 'U' is nothing more than laziness on your part. Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters. You will end your love affair with the letter 'Z' (pronounced 'zed' not 'zee') and the suffix ize will be replaced by the suffix ise. You will learn that the suffix 'burgh' is pronounced 'burra' e.g. Edinburgh. You are welcome to respell Pittsburgh as 'Pittsberg' if you can't cope with correct pronunciation.

Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up vocabulary. Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up interspersed. There will be no more 'bleeps' in the Jerry Springer show. If you're not old enough to cope with bad language then you shouldn't have chat shows. When you learn to develop your vocabulary then you won't have to use bad language as often.

2. There is no such thing as "US English". We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of -ize.

3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn't that hard. English accents are not limited to cockney,upper-class twit or Mancunian (Daphne in Frasier). You will also have to learn how to understand regional accents - Scottish dramas such as Taggart will no longer be broadcast with subtitles. While we're talking about regions, you must learn that there is no such place as Devonshire in England. The name of the county is Devon. If you persist in calling it Devonshire, all American States will become shires e.g. Texasshire, Floridashire, Louisianashire.

4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys. Hollywood will be required to cast English actors to play English characters. British sit-coms such as Men Behaving Badly or Red Dwarf will not be re-cast and watered down for a wishy-washy American audience who can't cope with the humour of occasional political incorrectness.

5. You should relearn your original national anthem, God Save The Queen but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.

6. You should stop playing American football. There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American football is not a very good game. The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays American football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football. Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at least a US Rugby sevens side by 2005. You should stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the 'World Series' for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.15% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders,your error is understandable. Instead of baseball, you will be allowed to play a girls' game called rounders, which is baseball without fancy team strip, oversized gloves, collector cards or hotdogs.

7. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry guns. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous in public than a vegetable peeler. Because we don't believe you are sensible enough to handle potentially dangerous items, you will require a permit if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 2nd will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called Indecisive Day.

9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean. All road intersections will be replaced with roundabouts. You will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time,you will go metric with immediate effect and conversion tables. Roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

10. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips. Fries aren't even French, they are Belgian though 97.85% of you (including the guy who discovered fries while in Europe) are not aware of a country called Belgium. Those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut and fried in animal fat. The traditional accompaniment to chips is beer which should be served warm and flat. Waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.

11. As a sign of penance 5 grams of sea salt per cup will be added to all tea made within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, this quantity to be doubled for tea made within the city of Boston itself.

12. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all, it is lager. From November 1st only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer,and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. The substances formerly known as American Beer will henceforth be referred to as Near-Frozen Knat's Urine,with the exception of the product of the American Budweiser company whose product will be referred to as Weak Near-Frozen Knat's Urine. This will allow true Budweiser (as manufactured for the last 1000 years in Pilsen,Czech Republic) to be sold without risk of confusion.

13. From November 10th the UK will harmonise petrol (or Gasoline, as you will be permitted to keep calling it until April 1st 2005) prices with the former USA. The UK will harmonise its prices to those of the former USA and the Former USA will, in return, adopt UK petrol prices (roughly $6/US gallon- get used to it).

14. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.

15. Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.

16. Tax collectors from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all revenues due (backdated to 1776).

Thank you for your co-operation and have a great day.

John Cleese

sorry its so long, but if i put a hyperlink barely anyone would read it and i think it deserves to be read.
EDIT: thanks Radelaide. i didnt think about putting it in a spoiler box!

Haha, no problems mate

 

[Higurashi]

I think the danish language qualifies as a challenger..

Quite possible. The Scandinavian languages are hard as hell to learn. More exceptions than rules (not really, but it's nasty). Swedish takes years upon years to learn for immigrants, and it is retarded.

As for the topic, we read British English in school, but most do get exposed to American English more due to media, so I know them both as well. I prefer British English. It looks and feels more proper, and has less redundant "simplifications" and differences that are entirely designed from taste. Like those z's. Ugh.

 

[StarStruckStrumpets]

British

1) I'm english
2) This is the RIGHT way to spell it, I believe we were writing before whites were in america writing. Now, don't take this as a flame, but we were in England before anybody found america. So to be fair, our way was the first way.

 

[Spirultima]

American English is in the bluntest term "the lazy man's English."

It was made to accompany the foreigners to the language. Also, Noah Webster never got permission to change the language, and still to this day it isn't a real dialect, but that fact is overlooked. I hate it when I spell colour the real way and, apparently, I'm "wrong".

Fixed by a lazy man.*

That said, I would like to know who we need to contact to "get permission to change the language". It seems to me that paperwork should have been filled out two centuries ago. We apologize for any inconvenience it may have caused.

Okay, enough snark, on to the real meat of the matter. In case I didn't make things painfully obvious by now, I prefer American English, being American and all. It hasn't failed me in 23 years of use, and I see no reason to change now. That said, spell checkers and teachers should indeed take in to account the variations in spelling in this tortured language we write. If anyone can get me the names and addresses of these clearly wrong people and organizations, I can started on strongly worded letters, starting with the ones Webster should have written to oh-so-long ago.

Also, any use of "donut" outside of the copyrighted name should be met with extreme force.** Just throwing that out there.

[sup]* Your corrections may vary. Correcting my ramblings, to British English or otherwise, should also be met with extreme force.

** The exception being when one points out how wrong it is, obviously.[/sup]

This is a computer the last time i checked, im writing to people who don't care i the least about spelling, so why SHOULD i fix it?

 

[Dys]

I hate American spelling, honestly what is "mom" -_-

 

[abitterich]

British English? Almost as bad, and annoying, as 'International English'.

It's English. The language of England. I don't care who else speaks/spells any variation in whichever part of the globe. It really doesn't bother me. I do prefer my own language, but American English is just a tangential development of English.

All I ask is rename your own version, not ours. Thanks. Appreciated.

 

[epaulet]

American I guess. I don't really care either way.

British English? Almost as bad, and annoying, as 'International English'.

It's English. The language of England. I don't care who else speaks/spells any variation in whichever part of the globe. It really doesn't bother me. I do prefer my own language, but American English is just a tangential development of English.

All I ask is rename your own version, not ours. Thanks. Appreciated.

Well, that's true. But American English is more common on the internet so the term "English" usually implies American English. So it's just natural to specify "American English" and "British English". They're both English either way.

Not sure why we don't have a "Australian English" though. I guess that's just an accent, not another way of speaking English. Do they use the British spellings?

 

[WeedWorm]

I prefer English, the way its meant to be used. I prefer to have colourful, honourable armour, thank you very much. I dont have a problem with people using American English though, its not there fault that their ancestors were idiots. The only thing I hate is text/MSN/AIM speak and when leet speak is used seriously (I only use it when Im taking the piss).

 

[McClaud]

I don't care which you use, since I can understand it.

I do hate, though, bastardized English on the Internet. Like "ur" and "teh" being intentionally used in place of "your" and "the."

STOP FUCKING WITH THE LANGAUGE - IT'S ALREADY BASTARDIZED ENOUGH.

/emote Uses Google Translate
Comme si les Français ne sont pas fait suffisamment de dégâts pour la langue anglaise, les Américains, en ce début de 21ème siècle de détruire ce qu'il en reste, car ils sont le dernier pays de la pure anglais, nerds détruire eux-mêmes.
Any one here wants to translate this message, of which I purposefully made difficult using google translate?

You know, that's funny that you say that (because I speak some French, and although I slogged my way through it - the tenses being rather convoluted in your translation - I finally understood it) because when all is said and done, CHINA is the last bastion and destroyer of the English language. Over 75% of them speak it now, making them THE LARGEST ENGLISH SPEAKING COUNTRY in the world. The nation of nerds doesn't even hold a CANDLE up to the future.

Congratuations, Britain - an old imperial holding other than the US has finally surpassed your expectations and wildest dreams. And they will probably mangle what's left of English until vowels aren't even required to spell anything anymore.