Newsgroups: sci.lang,soc.culture.british,soc.culture.europe,soc.culture.usa
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!udel!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!uknet!comlab.ox.ac.uk!sable.ox.ac.uk!ehrlich
From: ehrlich@sable.ox.ac.uk (Charles Ehrlich)
Subject: Re: Differences between American + British english
Message-ID: <1995Apr13.181319.24740@inca.comlab.ox.ac.uk>
Organization: Oxford University, England
References: <795681149snz@duntone.demon.co.uk> <3mensc$1ko@netnews.upenn.edu> <797633329snz@psyche.demon.co.uk>
Date: Thu, 13 Apr 95 18:13:19 BST
Lines: 64

In article <797633329snz@psyche.demon.co.uk>,
Peter H. M. Brooks <peter@psyche.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <3mensc$1ko@netnews.upenn.edu>
>           Feszczak@email.chop.edu "Zenon M. Feszczak" writes:
>
>> > Quite simple. British English is a language that has been learned at
>> > school. American English, on the other hand, is English learned out in
>> > the streets with a bunch of people who can't read or write.
>> > 
>> > Geronimo
>> 
>> From such few words shall wars begin . . .
>> 
>> The rather exaggerated generalizations comprise an unnecessary and
>> not particularly clever insult.
>> 
>
>The whole point of a generalisation is to exaggerate, that is to enhance
>the similarity and reduce the divergence in a population to establish some
>fundamental truth. Why, when people have been enjoying insulting one
>another since before language was invented, you should suggest that 
>insult is unnecessary is beyond me.
>
>Rather than complain about the attack and threaten war, why not come up
>with some figures for the level of literacy in America? The land of
>the free and the brave. So as to refute this allegation as baseless. 
>
>-- 
>Peter H. M. Brooks

I can't say I have the required stats available to me, but I can talk from
the experience of being an American who has lived in the UK for several years.
One of the things that has struck me about the British educational system is
precisely the opposite of what "Geronimo" writes.  

Specifically, in America we have something called "SAE" (Standard American
English) which is taught in grammar classes in all public (that is, state-
operated) schools and most private schools.  British schools, on the other
hand, seem not to teach grammar any more, not even some sort of standard 
British grammar.  It has been explained to me that this is because teaching
a standard grammar would be discriminatory against alternative means of 
expressing oneself, and that students from different backgrounds and regions
should be allowed to use the grammar that suits them.  While British "public"
(that is, private) schools continue to teach proper grammar, those without the
benefit of a private education are deprived of an organized way of learning
the rules of the language, and thus have their usage dictated more by their
background and environment.


Also, to make another point, Peter H. M. Brooks writes above that since 
people have been insulting each other for eons, he does not understand why
anyone should consider insults unnecessary.

This is a very British argument, that of saying that something has always been
one way and therefore should stay that way.  It is why the UK is very slow to
change anything.  Just because people have been insulting each other since the
dawn of time does not mean that insults are necessary.


Charles Ehrlich
Wolfson College (Oxford)

(Did anybody notice that Peter Brooks' last two "sentences" were not 
sentences?)
