American and British English spelling and pronunciations
American and British English spelling and pronunciations
What are some words you feel sound more right in both the American and British English?
I use a mix of the two depending on the word.
For example, I stand by pronouncing words like “Amazon” with an “ehn” sound at the end ovet an “ohn” sound, prefer spelling colour and flavour with a u, and also like using double Ls for words like travelling. Also, it is “grey”. (British English)
However, I pronounce Z as “zee”and call them fries rather than chips.
There are also spellings where I sort of alternate between depending on my mood, such as “meter” vs “metre”and“airplane” vs “aeroplane”
Are there any words that you think sound better in British and American spellings/pronunciations?
Wait? Do you guys not say your aed bed ceds?
Either is right for me and it entirely depends on whatever I'm vibing with at the time!
I use a mix of the two depending on the word.
Hello, may I introduce you to Canadian English?
Eh?
Do you by any chance know where I could read a good introduction to Canadian English?
I can write fluently in UK and US English but Canadian sometimes has me stumped.
I'm not sure about online sources, but this is a solid reference book: https://editors.ca/publications/editing-canadian-english/
I prefer Traditional English over Simplified.
It's "grey" not "gray". I don't know which side prefers which, I just know what I prefer.
They're different words. Grey is more of a dark white, while gray is more of a light black.
But for real, to me grey is a name and a feeling, and gray is a color. And I have no idea why.
I prefer one L in traveling. There's an unstressed shwa sound and it makes no sense to double the consonant after. It almost implies the stress falls on the vell part.
When I am talking about fibrous material, like individual strands of carbon in a composite, I naturally type “fibre” but when I talk about nutrition or the internet it’s “fiber”
I also tend to spell armor armour and color colour despite being American.
Oh and I write grey instead of gray.
I also catch myself writing units like metre and litre instead of meter and liter sometimes.
It really all depends on if there’s a spellchecker turned on that will tell me I’m spelling things wrong.
Strong chance op is a millennial who grew up reading Harry Potter.
Nope, gen z, and I haven’t actually read any of the Harry Potter books myself.
But you’re on the right track; I think it was reading The Hobbit that did me in lol
Colour and armour is insane especially if you’re American lol
I propose a combined American, British, Australian vernacular only using the word with fewer syllables. (New Zealand and Canada are welcome too)
British Wins:
- lift not elevator
- chips not french fries
- bin not trash can
- torch not flashlight
- loo not toilet/restroom/bathroom
- pram not stroller/baby carriage
- tap not faucet
- petrol not gasoline
- chemist not pharmacy
- sweet not candy
- jug not pitcher
American Wins:
- fall not autumn
- hood not bonnet
- truck not lorry
- pants not trousers
- cart not trolley
- subway not underground
- eggplant not aubergine
- sink not washbasin
Australian Wins:
- thongs not flip flops/slippers
Since your Australia section is lacking, here’s a couple:
transport > transit
ute > pickup truck
bogan > redneck
metro > subway
cyclone > hurricane
"Thongs" could be misinterpreted in a hilarious way though.
Re fall/autumn - is there a US equivalent for the work autumnal? Falllike doesn't seem quite right, nor fallish, nor fallumnal.
I've only ever heard Autumnal used for the equinox. Otherwise Autumn and Fall are also used as adjectives in American English. Fall colors. Fall planting. A cool autumn breeze.
But how do I differentiate between visiting the chemist and visiting the chemist?
A big shout out to Oxford spelling which mixes American and English spelling and is incredibly hard to find a spell check for. It gives you all the extra u's and z's you could ask for.
Oxford spelling, Oxford comma: what's not to like?
Anything with a United Nations style spellcheck will sort it for you.
Somehow even as a kid in America I always had a preference for the OED at my library. It just exuded this sense of supreme rightness to me.
Never occurred to me that normal grade school kids don't all have a favourite dictionary. Ah well.
Herbs, because there's a frikking h in it.
Thanks Eddie Izzard for her skit, that still stuck with me.
Is that the one about the monkey in the tree? I remember absolutely cracking up at that.
Possible. It's been years since I watched the show on YouTube.
Great Britain is a stone's throw from France but their use of French loan words is attrocious.
like I spell it as “centre” and it seems perfectly fine even though phonetically it doesn’t make much sense
The most noticeable for me are privacy /ˈpɹɪv.ə.si/ and urinal /juːˈɹaɪnəl/. I can't say I feel any of them are right or wrong, though, it's just a bit of colour in the language.
I will spell out aluminium, but when I have to pronounce it I go with aluminum.
It was found in alum, so it should really have been alumium all along.
Advertisement sounds better in British pronunciation. Adver-tis-ment (/ədˈvɜː.tɪs.mənt/) as opposed to the American Adver-tize-ment (/ˌæd.vɚˈtaɪz.mənt/).
I'm British and have never said the first one you mentioned and don't think I can recall hearing it. Nearly everyone one will use the second version - adver-tize-ment, although it's most common to hear ad or ad-vert.
Edit: just asked my great granny who is 99, and she pronounced it adver-tize-ment, so not a generational thing.
Huh! Weirdly, it was definitely pronounced ad-VER-tiz-mint on a lot of the '70s UK TV shows we imported to the US in the '80s. Britain is a big place, though, in terms of dialects, so you and your great granny don't necessarily rule it out for everyone. Out of curiosity, do you then shorten it to ad or advert?
Think it depends where you put the stress.
I'd say "Ad VER tis ment"
But if I was stressing the tis part, a "tize" sound would feel more natural.
That's how I would say advertising, for example, "adver TIZE ing"
I work in healthcare and it's an append-i-cectomy not an appen-dectomy. It should have the i pronounced. The Americanised version is just lazy.
There's often words that trip me up and I can't remember which is the Australian English spelling.
It doesn't help that devices are often misconfigured to use American English spell checkers.
I don't "feel" as though different spellings are more correct in these cases.
Schedule, I have to say the correct pronunciation every time I hear it said differently.
Glad you agree on the correct pronunciation of schedule. Fuck the people that say schedule.
Damned right
Me too. It's the one word that triggers something in my brain.
As the Countess in Roman Holiday tells us, either way is correct :-)