American Versus British English (Containing Examples Of X Rated Words)

[ColumbusGuy]

I've not read the Tarakian stories, but I did run across 'drug' the other day, and even referenced it in one of my chapter of Jay & Miles, which is set in the Mid-West.  Being from Ohio, I heard it a lot, but never used it much myself.  We use a dialect which is a mix of Southern and Northern for the most part, which can lead to some nice-sounding dialogues.  The rise of the Internet and television has somewhat lessened the regionality of languages, but only officially--the 'hoi polloi' will say things as they hear them at home. 

 

Timothy M., is my souce for anything Danish for my story, and advisor on European things if I can't figure it out myself...and Headstall of course, is my 'man man' 'head honcho' when it comes to making sure I don't use too many exclamation marks or write myself into an incomprehensible circle.  So what if he's Canadian--from my BA in English Literature, I'm used to his extra 'u's--and he hardly ever says 'eh' at the end of a sentence!

 

It's scary when a college goy can mis-use or mis-pronounce a word in a class--particularly in a small creative writing course!  Trust me, I know--I'd read it a lot, but never had to say it, and the idiot side of my normally accurate brain scanned it as I say it in my head.  I can only hope the ten other people in the class weren't scandalized/traumatized by it.  That professor was the one who convinced me to keep writing when I was about to give up--so I went from bad sci-fi to much better historical fiction.  

[MrM]

"He done drugged it out acrosst the flo', I reckon." < My Awntiee who done lived in Mississippi for a time or t'other,.

[Sasha Distan]

In reply to the OP:

 

Trust me, English guys jerk off just as often as they have a wank.

[Kitt]

My turn to toss something new in the pot and give it a stir.

 

Regionalism and country of origin is not the only thing to consider. A characters relative intelligence and level of schooling is going to affect his speech patterns. Nothing turns me off a story faster than a high school drop out that speaks more "correctly" than a Harvard graduate.

Edited February 19, 2017 by Kitt

[Hudson Bartholomew]

Throwing a Canadian perspective into the mix... from my experience linguistic differences between Canada and the US are fairly minor since so much of our media comes from the US and a lot of Canadians travel in the US. 

 

What's a little more challenging, I find, is the spelling. It's not really the extra "u" that's we've inherited from British spelling--all Canadians will use "favourite" rather than "favorite." But the use of "er" versus "re" varies; for example "center" or "centre"? The same thing for certain past tenses: "spelt" versus "spelled," "dreamt" versus "dreamed."

 

I always switch back and forth between British and American with these things. 

 

The other interesting thing with Canada is the regional similarity we have with parts of the US. I find that people from the West Coast of the continent (I'm thinking Vancouver and California) speak more similarly than people from Vancouver versus Toronto, etc. 

[darkfirewolf]

You have to consider that US - english is heavily influenced by immigrants which dont spoke english as mothertongue.

[AK79]

I do want to point out a few pet peeves I've encountered with how people misuse English.  These probably apply universally though.

 

The past tense of hang (as a form of execution) is always, always, always "hanged".

 

EX:  They hung Jimmy for his crimes.

 

Is incorrect and it drives me up a wall when I see this.  I've even corrected people on this more than once by telling them "Pheasants are hung, peasants are hanged."

 

"Drug" and/or "drugged" as the past tense of 'to drag'.  This is not correct even in Southern American Dialect!  The only time it is acceptable to use it in fiction is in cases where the speaking character is of very low social class and/or educational level.  The reason is because drug used as a verb always indicates that someone is introducing a foreign substance, usually psychoactive, into someone else's system.

 

EX:  I drugged him with codeine.

EX:  I dragged the carpet to the dumpster.

 

"Y'all" being used singularly. "Y'all" is a contraction for "you all" and is therefore only plural. 

EX:  Correct:  "What y'all doing?" I said to the group of teenagers.

Incorrect: "What y'all doing?" I said to Jimmy, who was sneaking around the side of the barn.

 

Caveat:  Y'all can be used if there is an implied plural formation at some point.

EX:  <sentence establishing that Jimmy is about to go somewhere with a group of friends> "And what y'all gonna do there?"  I asked Jimmy.

 

Snuck instead of sneaked.  I can't tell y'all how much this sets my teeth on edge when I hear it.  If I see it in a piece, and its not used as part of dialog to indicate that the character using it is of low social class and/or educational level, I will stop reading the work immediately.

 

Edited April 29, 2017 by AK79

[Cia]

4 hours ago, AK79 said:

I do want to point out a few pet peeves I've encountered with how people misuse English.  These probably apply universally though.

 

You're making a mistake far too many people who know 'the rules' make. You're assuming that your version of writing, or reading, or editing, or just how you were taught, is the 'correct' way. The rules and even English dictionaries vary, and it usually depends on the publisher what the various spelling and meanings of words that are considered acceptable. I use Merriam-Webster since the eBook publisher I contract with uses it as their spelling standard.  Per MW, hung is 'past tense and past participle of hang' and is used along with hanged. Snuck is an accepted past tense and past participle form of sneak, and the definition of sneaked actually includes snuck as well. You are correct that drug or drugged means the (past) act of giving someone a drug substance and that 'dragged' is the past tense verb of drag, the motion of moving someone.

 

And while "y'all" is meant to indicate a group, I've heard it used far too many times to count by southerners who simply don't seem to have the word 'you' in their vocabulary. In that sort of instance, it is important to consider the characterization when it comes to usage. With situations like that, and so many other instances of grammar, it's important to remember that the rules you think you know are not always right or wrong and should be tailored to the author's editing standards, if they have an established dictionary and grammar source, as well as the character voice, plot, regional setting, etc....

 

 

[sanmariano]

17 minutes ago, Cia said:

 

You're making a mistake far too many people who know 'the rules' make. You're assuming that your version of writing, or reading, or editing, or just how you were taught, is the 'correct' way. The rules and even English dictionaries vary, and it usually depends on the publisher what the various spelling and meanings of words that are considered acceptable. I use Merriam-Webster since the eBook publisher I contract with uses it as their spelling standard.  Per MW, hung is 'past tense and past participle of hang' and is used along with hanged. Snuck is an accepted past tense and past participle form of sneak, and the definition of sneaked actually includes snuck as well. You are correct that drug or drugged means the (past) act of giving someone a drug substance and that 'dragged' is the past tense verb of drag, the motion of moving someone.

 

And while "y'all" is meant to indicate a group, I've heard it used far too many times to count by southerners who simply don't seem to have the word 'you' in their vocabulary. In that sort of instance, it is important to consider the characterization when it comes to usage. With situations like that, and so many other instances of grammar, it's important to remember that the rules you think you know are not always right or wrong and should be tailored to the author's editing standards, if they have an established dictionary and grammar source, as well as the character voice, plot, regional setting, etc....

 

 

Yes! I totally agree. There are no 'real' rules in English anymore, spelling, tense, definitions or grammar. It is spoken in almost every country in the world by a big percent of the population, and they all give it their little twist. Even spellcheck programs disagree on spellings. And you'd better aim your formality and grammar at the audience you are writing for or you'll lose half of them. It is good to know the rules but it's best to know some of the different sets of rules. Then you break them in order to make your writing palatable to your readers. Nothing can turn off readers as quick as the prose being too formal or even too informal. One of my fave examples was in an Aussie book I was reading - the MC went out for a run wearing a beanie and singlet. Here in the States that's a skull cap with a propeller on it and the tight sexy garment a wrestler wears. Down under it's a cap and a sleeveless t-shirt.

[AK79]

6 minutes ago, Cia said:

 

You're making a mistake far too many people who know 'the rules' make. You're assuming that your version of writing, or reading, or editing, or just how you were taught, is the 'correct' way. The rules and even English dictionaries vary, and it usually depends on the publisher what the various spelling and meanings of words that are considered acceptable. I use Merriam-Webster since the eBook publisher I contract with uses it as their spelling standard.  Per MW, hung is 'past tense and past participle of hang' and is used along with hanged. Snuck is an accepted past tense and past participle form of sneak, and the definition of sneaked actually includes snuck as well. You are correct that drug or drugged means the (past) act of giving someone a drug substance and that 'dragged' is the past tense verb of drag, the motion of moving someone.

 

And while "y'all" is meant to indicate a group, I've heard it used far too many times to count by southerners who simply don't seem to have the word 'you' in their vocabulary. In that sort of instance, it is important to consider the characterization when it comes to usage. With situations like that, and so many other instances of grammar, it's important to remember that the rules you think you know are not always right or wrong and should be tailored to the author's editing standards, if they have an established dictionary and grammar source, as well as the character voice, plot, regional setting, etc....

 

 

 

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say "use/misuse English".

 

I'll deal with sneaked v snuck first since Marriam-Webster actually has an article on this issue.  Link

 

According to this article, 'snuck' first started appearing in the late 1800s in the United States while the regular past tense and past participle of sneak is sneaked using the -ed suffix is far older.  I would venture to guess that snuck appears in American English due to a language corruption of some sort.  I'm not going to get into any theories as to why that language corruption happened, that is above my pay grade, but it is most unusual for a regular verb to transform over time to an irregular verb.  In fact in most cases it is the opposite.

 

At most we can probably say using snuck instead of sneaked is poor style.

 

As to hanged v hung:  It is technically correct to use hung when describing a death by hanging.  However, I would also argue that it is also poor style.  Much like it is technically correct to have double negatives in a sentence, it would also be poor style.  Even MW's style guide admits that their position on the use of hung where hanged is usually preferred goes against the grain of most other style guides. MW on Hung v Hanged

 

That being said, dialect does matter, especially in the case of dialog.  Being a life long Southerner, only leaving for short sojourns in such godawful places as Hell New York City I usually set most of my stories either in the South or lower Mid-West (where there strong Southern Dialect influence).  I do this for one extremely good reason:  it makes it easier for me to write dialog, and it is definitely clear what the dialog means when I read it aloud (part of my editing process incidentally).  My boyfriend for example is from Utah and no matter how may times I've explained to him my mother saying "bless your heart" to him is an insult (she's calling him stupid) he still doesn't pick up on it.

 

As to Y'all, I don't know what southerners you've been talking to, but that could be case of specific dialect or misinterpretation.  There are several different sub-dialects of Southern English.  However, MW has done us a favor by defining the word y'all:  [url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/y'all]Y'all[/url]

 

Unfortunately they inserted the word 'usually' into the defintion.  However, as a Southerner I can tell you that this is incorrect, as the word itself is a contraction for you all.  Many people who are not southerners do often confuse the phrase "all y'all" to be singular when it is not.  It means "all of you all".  And the word 'ya' doesn't help as it is a corrpution of you (singular)

 

There is perhaps room to debate as to whether English lacking a central governing body, as to its standards, unlike French, German or Spanish is a good thing or a bad thing.  On the one hand it does cause a great deal of confusion for non-native speakers in attempting to speak standard English. Or for that matter for native English speakers having to switch dialects, for example I simply can't speak Southern American English with my boyfriend; he's lost three sentences in. (I'll give an example below.) On the other hand it allows each English speaking nation, and regions in those nations to develop their own accents, usages, customs and neologisms; I would argue that is a good thing it keeps the language from ossifying.

 

An example of Alex confusing his boyfriend by speaking Southern, translation into standard English is in brackets:

Me:  Billy-bob, Ju et?  [Billy-bob, have you eaten?]

Billy-bob: Naw. [I have not eaten.]

Me:  Ya aunt'to? [You want to <meal implied due to context>]

Billy-bob:  Aight. [Yes.]

Boyfriend:  Um, Alex, what was all that?

Me:  I asked Billy-bob out for lunch.

 

[Brayon]

As the saying goes, "I'm American by Birth, and Southern by the Grace of God." Cia is correct, "Y'all" is used for both in the singular, and plural around these here parts. Only those Yankeefied individuals and Carpetbaggers would disagree. Bless their hearts. Every Soda is Coke, the only Tea is Sweet Tea, and if you don't have a Cake on the table, you're the low class one.

[Cia]

I might have been born in the south and raised by some southern swamp folk, even if I spent most of my life in the Pacific NW.   My speech is a mix of accent, word pronunciation, and phrases from both regions, plus I spent summers in the DC area. I've edited for many authors from a host of US regions as well as international, learning many variations of what is and isn't used locally. What I've also learned is that adhering too closely to technicalities when it comes to proper speech just doesn't read naturally--hence the issues 'modern' readers have with Hawthorne, Shakespeare, hell... King James. Language is ever evolving, and the written word must follow suit. Proper usage isn't always the only correct choice and that must be considered, otherwise authors run the risk of becoming pedantic.

[sanmariano]

On 2/19/2017 at 4:55 PM, Hudson Bartholomew said:

Throwing a Canadian perspective into the mix... from my experience linguistic differences between Canada and the US are fairly minor since so much of our media comes from the US and a lot of Canadians travel in the US. 

 

What's a little more challenging, I find, is the spelling. It's not really the extra "u" that's we've inherited from British spelling--all Canadians will use "favourite" rather than "favorite." But the use of "er" versus "re" varies; for example "center" or "centre"? The same thing for certain past tenses: "spelt" versus "spelled," "dreamt" versus "dreamed."

 

I always switch back and forth between British and American with these things. 

 

The other interesting thing with Canada is the regional similarity we have with parts of the US. I find that people from the West Coast of the continent (I'm thinking Vancouver and California) speak more similarly than people from Vancouver versus Toronto, etc. 

 

I grew up in Ohio and used to go up fishing in Ontario a lot and did some hanging around in Toronto. To them I had a Southern accent, although, to me, it was Midwestern. The people in Kentucky and West Virginia had the Southern accent, we Ohioans thought. The Ontarians had the 'Canadian' accent, the 'oot and aboot' instead of 'out and about'. Either that or they were so Scottish sounding I could scarcely understand them. The accent in western Canada seemed very mild compared to eastern, not that noticeable, but then I did not ever get to Victoria, which I understand is very British. I had to spend every minute I was there in Vancouver, it was so wonderful.

[AK79]

2 hours ago, BHopper2 said:

As the saying goes, "I'm American by Birth, and Southern by the Grace of God." Cia is correct, "Y'all" is used for both in the singular, and plural around these here parts. Only those Yankeefied individuals and Carpetbaggers would disagree. Bless their hearts. Every Soda is Coke, the only Tea is Sweet Tea, and if you don't have a Cake on the table, you're the low class one.

 

Bhopper, As an Alabamian, I agree on all points except one.  Y'all is always plural.  As for the cake, that cake had better be home made cake too.

[AK79]

Cia, I more or less agree on the broad points.  I would still say that the pet peeves I indicated though are those which for me stick out sore thumbs.  Now people can split infinitives and use unnecessary auxiliary verbs around me all day without me batting an eyelash.  I would say that part of that may be because my people weren't swamp people but descended from the planter class. 

 

I would reckon (and yes I do use that word fairly regularly in every day speech) that the Southern Dialect has several sub-dialects.  Some of them based on geography, and some of them based on social class.

Edited April 30, 2017 by AK79
adding

[Ron]

10 hours ago, sanmariano said:

I grew up in Ohio and used to go up fishing in Ontario a lot and did some hanging around in Toronto. To them I had a Southern accent, although, to me, it was Midwestern

I grew up in Ohio, too (around an hour southwest of Cleveland), and I lived in Toronto for three years and not once, never, no way did any Canadian ever say that I had a Southern accent. Ohio was considered, once upon a time, to be the ideal state to hire radio and television news people from because an Ohioan's spoken words were deemed to be neutral—and therefore listenable (inoffensive) to most parts of the country. Much has changed over time as news channels today try to enforce an image of being "Your local news source" and do hire those who use at least a little of the local dialect and pronunciations.

Edited April 30, 2017 by Ron
Spelling

[Wicked Witch]

The problem I have is being an Australian raised by a Yorkshire mother. My slang is all over the place, as is my pronunciation and my spelling. I have many pieces from my mother, whose side of the family are nearly impossible to understand with their thick north yorkshire accents, and much from my father (whose family is Australian through and through). Add to the confusion of living in the island state of Tasmania, which has its own slang for things due to isolation from the mainland of Australia.

 

A local town is called "Ouse". Everyone outside Tasmania pronounces that as Ou-se. We pronounce it the same as Ooze.

It at times leads to people thinking I'm misspelling things when it is the usual local spelling for me, and rarely I confuse even locals with pieces of my mothers slang (having never visited England, I'm unsure if they're usual or just her families sayings).  One that springs to mind is "He's gone pot herb" = He's gone crazy.

 

@AK79 - Australia is a mess for hung vs hanged. Either is used quite regularly even in the media. Snuck is the most common form in Australia, though even local dictionaries say not to use it in formal usage, it inevitably ends up being used in such a way instead of Sneaked. 

Edited May 3, 2017 by Wicked Witch