Moore wrote:I also love how this thread some how turned into Canadians chiding Americans over the use of the English language. Languages change all the time it's only fitting that English is spoken a tad bit differently in America than in Canada or Britain given our histories.
Also I'd appreciate if you guys would stop taking jabs towards Americans it is really going to broil this thread down to each side insulting the other.
It was never my intention to insult Americans. I don't hate Americans, in fact, some of my best friends are American. I was just pointing out the historical reasons why certain particulars of our language use differ.
The only thing that puzzles me about the whole topic is how decisions made centuries ago can affect how a person is 'wrong' or 'right' today. Soooo...the people who lived in my country decided to create new cultural spellings almost three hundred years ago. It IS the way things are done today here. How does that make me 'wrong' spelling 'color'? The same applies to Canadians. You guys break away from American soil and keep your ties close to Britain. You go back to spelling things like 'colour,' a few centuries ago. Generations of Canadians are raised to spell it 'colour' or 'programme.' You do what you are taught. How does it make you any more right or wrong than an American spelling as they are taught?
The reason why I said the British and (most) Canadian spellings of words is the "right" way is simply because the language is called
English. It was developed in England over hundreds of years, long before any Europeans lived in North America at all. Therefore, what is agreed upon in England as the "correct" spelling of any word
is the correct spelling, with any other varients being just that -- varients. If the Oxford English dictionary (published in Oxford, UK) says that the correct spelling of "colour" is with a "u", then that is the correct spelling. Needless to say, "correct" spellings of words themselves is a relatively recent invention. I have read several copies of Elizabethan manuscripts in school, and their spelling can be quite atrocious by modern standards (i.e. an overfondness for sticking the letter "e" on the end of words, whether they needed it or not).
Once again, it comes down to a matter of rhetoric -- the context of your writing and who your audience is. If you are writing solely for an American audience, then American spellings of words are appropriate. If you're writing dialogue for cowboy character, for example, then words like "ain't" and "y'all" are not only acceptable, but you'd probably be criticized if you didn't use them. However, if your work is intended towards an international audience, on a relatively serious matter, then out of repect for the language and its country of origin, then you should use Proper Standard English, which is British English.
Wait, let's just clear something up: Canada did not "break away from American soil". We did not "go back to spelling things like 'colour'". Canada was never part of the U.S., nor did it ever have any political ties with the U.S. The U.S. tried to invade Canada and failed. We have remained neighbours, and since developed into the single largest trading partner to the U.S. (apparently, entirely unbeknownst to both former President G.W. Bush and secretary of state Condoleeza Rice, who claimed the U.K as the United State's "best friend" and the longest undefended border between two countries as that between the U.S. and Mexico).
Very true. While the United Empire Loyalists may have been from the Thirteen Colonies, they were from the
Thirteen Colonies when they were just that -- colonies of Britain. No part of what is currently Canadian soil has ever been part of the United States for as long as both our countries have existed as independent political entities (or Canada's British colonial history before 1867), with one sort-of exception. Louisiana and the Mississippi Basin were once a part of the French colonies in North America, along with Quebec, but France ceased to be a major political player in NA quite a few decades before American Independence. In fact, I believe part of the reason the Thirteen Colonies began to be taxed (one of the contributing factors to the American Revolution) was in part to pay for the particular French/British war that ended with British victory on the Plains of Abraham, near Quebec City.
Americans appear to have a shocking lack of knowledge about their neighbour to the north.
Even Sarah Palin, who resides on what USED to be Canadian soil!
Actually, Alaska used to be Russian soil. Still, considering how close Alaska is to the Yukon and British Columbia compared to the rest of the United States, the Alaskan Governor
should be more knowlegable about her neighbours. Although what should be and what actually are tend to be completely different things.
