Newsgroups: alt.usage.english,sci.lang,
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!bb3.andrew.cmu.edu!newsfeed.pitt.edu!gatech!newsfeed.internetmci.com!howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!kreme
From: kreme@netcom.com (Cerebus The Aardvark)
Subject: "Real" English (was Re: Rejecting the Spin-Off Majority (was Re: Is GOTTEN really a word? Just because in dict?)
Message-ID: <kremeDnrwKL.2yq@netcom.com>
Organization: Nyx, the spirit of the Night (telent nyx.cs.du.edu)
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 02:36:21 GMT
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Sender: kreme@netcom12.netcom.com

Avi Jacobson <avi_jaco@netvision.net.il> writes:
>This conclusion -- that Americans think of their language as "American", and of 
>the language of the UK as "proper English" -- has already been challenged and 
>denied by at least two Americans in this thread.  I can provide you with plenty 
>more.  Americans who think of their language as English, usually do so not out of 
>ignorance of the fact that there is an older coutnry in which the language was 
>spoken first (what a low opinion you must have of Americans to think they are 
>unaware that English came from England, or that the British speak differently than 
>they do!), but because they feel that a quarter of a million English speakers who 
>call themselves such, can't be wrong.

I'll assume that "million" is a typo for billion.

And while I'm here, it's actually much higher.  US English (much as the
Brits will deny it) is the standard second language all over the world,
with the possible exception of Europe.  Not only that, it is becoming more
and more pervasive, helped along by the explosion of the Internet and the
rise in computer literacy across the world.  Not to mention the American TV
and Movie industries.


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