[geeks] New Tech Schools: Digital Harbor in Baltimore

[Sandwich Maker]

" Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2007 21:35:48 +0100
" From: Mike Meredith <very at zonky.org>
" 
" On Fri, 13 Apr 2007 14:14:47 -0400 (EDT), Sandwich Maker wrote:
" > and, ironically, brits who decry american slang while lacing their
" > speech with words the doughboys left behind.
" 
" Fortunately English is democratic, so the great unwashed can ignore the
" 'educated' and enrich the language by doing as they have always
" done ... using words they shouldn't :)

it does bother me when the unwashed invent a new way to say something
there's already a word for, just because they don't know it.  the
whole concept behind a common language is that we all have the -same-
words for things!

" As long as I can carry on spelling it 'colour', I don't care. In my
" first few years at school I was told it was spelt 'colour' for two
" years, 'color' for another two year, and then 'colour' again. I ended
" up being so confused that I tried logical spellings :)

that's a clear nonstarter for english!	;^>	it has too many
parents for any one way to be completely logical.

i have a photographic memory for spelling which makes reading poorly
proofread books [i've seen a few] painfully distracting, but i have
both 'color' and 'colour' [and 'couleur'] 'registered' as contextually
correct.  i can read dialectic misspellings and get the flavor - or
flavour - of the language.  it's hard to read bad spelling.  like
'britney'.  couldn't her parents spell 'brittany'?

i guess we know where she got her brains from...

" As long as American English and British English don't get too close ...
" there's too much possibility for humour in the differences. The English
" went to a film called "Shag" expecting a hard-core porn film (well ...
" not really, but it does get the point across).

and what about 'free willie'?  bit of a clanger, what?	;^>

i'd be more worried about american and british drifting too far apart.
american english is drifting into regional dialects, and as far as i'm
concerned it mostly just makes life more interesting, but if it goes
too far...  and didn't britain have some 50-odd english dialects as
late as 1950?
________________________________________________________________________
Andrew Hay                                  the genius nature
internet rambler                            is to see what all have seen
adh at an.bradford.ma.us                       and think what none thought