If you are from Europe, even if you're not living in the UK, the en-GB locale will feel a lot more familiar to you than the en-US one.
It uses the dd-mm-yyyy date format like the rest of Europe, the start of the week is on Monday (vs Sunday in the US), the default paper size is A4 (vs US letter), measurement defaults are metric (indeed UK roads use imperial, but the default is otherwise metric), the time format uses 24hrs (vs AM/PM in the US).
The time format in the UK is mostly 12hr, although people are generally aware of 24hr time. In my experience, while there are usually more similarities between the UK and the rest of Europe, Europeans also have more exposure to American English than to British English, so it ends up being a bit of a wash, particularly when it comes to pronunciation, spelling, or idioms.
Not to mention the fact that English basically everywhere else but the US is essentially en-GB with a few choice changes. Consider en-IN, en-IE, en-SG, en-MY, en-AU, en-NZ, etc.
I read several blogs that use British English, including this OP's blog. Some of my favourite blogs in my RSS reader are British English blogs, or at least they use British English spellings and grammar. I find their use of the English language very charming and funny in a unique way.
It surprises me that anyone would feel entitled to ask a blogger to change the variety of English they use. American English is only one of many forms of English. The world is richer for its many varieties of English, and languages, and that diversity makes it more interesting, not less.
Certain cultures teach that diversity is a bad thing to be feared and extinguished. Diversity is only a good thing when your mind has been poisoned by "education" and "experience".
It requires an open mind to see diverse experiences as a good thing, and certain cultures think having citizens with open minds is an unprofitable way to run a society.
I agree in general, but there's one exception: use of the word 'tabled'. This means roughly the opposite in British and US English, and there's often insufficient surrounding context to alert the reader to their error.
(OTOH I don't think you should suppress 'false friends' like biscuits, pants etc.)
Another exception: "moot", as in "moot point". In the UK it means "subject to debate", while in the US it means "inconsequential and therefore not subject to debate".
There are a few others. “Quite” comes to mind — “I am quite hungry” or “that meal was quite good” can mean opposite things, depending on the speaker region and even voice inflexion if spoken.
Right. As a Brit I am entitled to think we speak the best version (because we do; ISE is a close second) but I am not entitled to believe everyone else's is wrong, because that is ahistorical. They have diverged repeatedly.
I am the only Brit in the department I work in. No one gets the cultural references or British idioms I use, and I've found myself significantly changing the language I use to a very utilitarian and direct style to prevent the endless blank stares... reading this blog post just made me realise that this self-editing has made my interactions rather more 'flat' and unnatural, as they now lack spontaneity, with everything passing through a secondary filter before leaving my brain.
I have a cunning plan: Sneak as many Brits into Hollywood as possible, and have them slip in as many British references into American films as they can. Over time, they'll effectively BECOME British, and Robert's your father's brother!
Just whatever you do, don't mention the taxes! I did once, but I think I got away with it...
I live in Sweden (and have for 11 years), a lot of the "charm" in my speech has been filed away, I speak in a very neutral accent (which barely registers as british anymore) and I use americanisms a lot, avoiding "false friends".
(IE; I never use the word "chip" to mean crisps or fries - I will instead use "Crisps", despite it being british, and fries, despite it being American; in order to avoid ambiguity.)
The more difficult one is "pants", I would say underwear or trousers.
It's interesting how I only notice how much it's contrasted when I go back to the UK and hear others, I notice people using words that I've put a mental "X" on, and its only then that I realise that I've put the mental "X" on the word... because it no longer feels natural to hear it.
I live in Denmark, and for such basic words (crisps, trousers, maths, aluminium, football, quid, couldn't care less, fire engine, motorway, petrol, public transport, railway, tram) I use my native British words.
People occasionally comment that it's a British word, but being misunderstood is so unusual I can't remember a recent example. Essentially everyone has read/watched Harry Potter, Dr Who or Midsomer Murders, and they're probably ten times more likely to have visited the UK as the USA.
> (IE; I never use the word "chip" to mean crisps or fries - I will instead use "Crisps", despite it being british, and fries, despite it being American; in order to avoid ambiguity.)
In Australia we don't care about ambiguity or clarity and refer to both the thin sliced cold things and freshly fried rectangular ones as "chips"
I have a similar experience, for the last 5+ years I've worked in companies where very few of the people I work with are British which does require care on both language and idiom. Combined with being older than a lot of colleagues, cultural references need to be picked with care :D
Are your other department members (a) native English speakers, but not British, or (b) non-native English speakers? In my experience, there is a huge difference. I am a native English speaker. When speaking with (a) but from a different region, you can usually speak in your normal style, but don't use too much slang. With (b), I remove any slang and choose my words much more carefully. My goal is to communicate well, even if I need to adapt my style.
I had that when workign with a lot of other Europeans. When I moved to a company where everyone was British I had to re-adapt, particularly because I'd become more direct after working with a lot of Germans.
I've had the pleasure of working with many different people from different backgrounds, including many Brits. I've always found the dry, understated humor from them to be endearing, making casual conversation more interesting. My parents are both from the Middle East, my wife is from Southeast Asia, and I have many Middle Eastern, Desi, African American as well as African (as in continental) friends, so I may not be a "typical" American in that regard.
That being said, don't underestimate the value you bring by sharing your cultural insights. I don't think I told anyone to their face that appreciated their cultural value, but I hoped that my engagement and cheerfulness in dealing with them at least communicated that I was happy with their presence.
It might be that your engagement with someone opens them up to a part of the world they've yet to experience or know much about. Granted, there are lots of places with more gaps than the US and the UK, but there's still value in that and I started with those examples but mentioned it comes from all sides.
> My parents are both from the Middle East, ... so I may not be a "typical" American in that regard.
If you are from Detroit or Houston, then that would sound typically American to me. I say this over and over again on HN: The US is simply too big and too diverse to generalise about. It's better to pick a region, then generalise. The US has roughly 6-8 big cultural zones. In comparison, Europe, which has fifty countries is infinitely more diverse than the US, even if we only look at native Europeans that live there. Think about it: Germany shares a border with France. Literally, it is like Mars vs Venus in terms of their culture and language. And there are many more examples. There is nothing like it in the US.
Cultural insights are one thing but the issue is if you slip into full flow of Britishisms and let your accent loose people who only speak English as a second language can't understand what you're saying.
There's nothing unique about this though, it's the same for every language - it's one thing knowing Spanish well enough to hold a conversation where the other person is speaking slowly and making it easy for you, it's quite another to be able to slot into a group of native Chilean Spanish speakers in full flow.
I travel a lot so I'm used to adapting my use of English depending on who I'm talking to. I find there's a way to express things and still enjoy using the language without making it hard for non-native speakers to understand. But also, when you do end up in a group of entirely Brits it is fun to be able to just let loose
I'm often shuffled into teams where I am the only American and everyone else is Indian, working in India, and I take a small measure of pride in switching to the formal register that Indians like to use in workplace English, and using the idioms they have.
The ultimate irony is that many folks asking for things to be “more inclusive” are asking for someone else to modify their behavior to fit the requester’s preference and definition of the “right” way, which is the literal opposite of being inclusive.
Americans often don't twig how many random american terms we brits have to learn the double meaning of and don't pipe up about. I'm not talking the well-known ones like cookies, but even things like "the ER" meaning "A&E"
If you want to read some hilarious reactions of Americans panicking when they are suddenly exposed to non-American English/British accents, check out these threads:
I'm not sure "panicking" is the best word to describe a couple of parents wondering why the characters suddenly have different accents. But maybe I'm too American and "panicking" means something else for Brits.
As far as I'm aware the US does have free OTA TV. A quick google tells me that basic cable means the cheapest tier of cable. So maybe equivalent to a sky/cable entertainment package?
This French person has taken to writing in en-GB, as a token of protest against current USAian politics. I thank the USA for this step in French-British rapprochement !
Also, in the late 90's, The Register made me love British English... Local accents are great branding.
I really want to see a local Euro English[0] develop as an actual, recognized variant of English. Both because it would be really funny, but also as a way for Continental Europe to develop a common language we can shape our own way
I can’t say I understand this new current of culture/writing. It’s something like: get angry, turn small acts into grand acts of social defiance, and signal your social ingroup by referencing other things we are angry about.
“Do you remember that JK Rowling lady we all hate because she’s an evil witch? Haha, yeah. Anyways, I’m British and I’m going to keep writing like I’m British.”
Edit: I agree with the thesis. You have a culture; don’t filter it. Differences are beautiful. I’d rather live in a melting pot. Etc. Separately this new communication style is hard to stomach. Ive seen it growing in popularity in the U.S. - seems like there too?
Fully agree with the author, just like I write Portuguese in European Portuguese, not Brazilian Portuguese, African Portuguese or any other variation, just because our population is smaller.
Incidently I always change automatic language correction tools to English GB, I live in this side of the Atlantic, and that is variant I learnt while growing up.
I'm using custom en-CH locales, because I want numbers to use the Swiss format for decimal and thousands, € instead of CHF, standard units, and some version of English :p
Being proud of your culture including your language and exercising it, at the risk of readers not understanding everything immediately, is not racism. In the worst case, a non-British gets curious about one expression or the other and looks it up. That's engagement.
It's funny, and perhaps not entirely unwarranted, that "racism" pops up here?
As a Black American, I find the author's idea extremely interesting and naturally began to wonder -- what might this idea (in code?) look like for us?
Owing to history and whatnot, the role "Black American English" might play is of course very much a moving target, but it's interesting to think about.
Is there an internationally agreed upon standard for designating AAV? I suppose it's a large and influential enough dialect it wouldn't hurt to have one
The article strongly implies it is a response to a comment complaining the blog is not inclusive because it uses British English.
There is a constant American assumption that their language and culture is the norm and we should all adjust our language to fit their definitions and culture. I intend to keep eating faggots, having a master branch in git, etc.
> There is a constant American assumption that their language and culture is the norm
You write it like it is a moral flaw in American culture. This cultural phenom isn't special to the United States. In my personal experience, any country with a large population suffers from the same: Russia, Brazil, Indonesia, India, China, etc.
> having a master branch in git
This is a weird cultural battle to pick. In the 2010s, when renaming the git master branch was at its cultural zeitgeist, none of the Americans that I worked with did the rename. It was always someone not from the US who would raise the issue on a team call. It happened so many times that I asked a few of them why they did it. Almost all of them told the same rough story: They say a "nerd news story" about the trend, then did a little bit of reading on Wiki to learn about the cruel history of slavery in the United States. Motivated by this, they decided to do the rename. All in all, pretty wholesome stuff. Never once was it some weird social justice warrior type of bullcrap. But anyway, you do you: Keep rockin' the "master" branch in git.
When I read "inclusive", my mind jumped to accessibility, in that colloquialisms can be difficult to understand for a subset of people with autism (and other conditions), and also that they translate poorly when run through a translator, for those that do not speak English at all.
4.3 Limited Use Nonce Values
The Digest scheme uses a server-specified nonce to seed the
generation of the request-digest value (as specified in section
3.2.2.1 above). As shown in the example nonce in section 3.2.1, the
server is free to construct the nonce such that it may only be used
from a particular client, for a particular resource, for a limited
period of time or number of uses, or any other restrictions. Doing
so strengthens the protection provided against, for example, replay
attacks (see 4.5). However, it should be noted that the method
chosen for generating and checking the nonce also has performance and
resource implications. For example, a server may choose to allow
each nonce value to be used only once by maintaining a record of
whether or not each recently issued nonce has been returned and
sending a next-nonce directive in the Authentication-Info header
field of every response. This protects against even an immediate
replay attack, but has a high cost checking nonce values, and perhaps
more important will cause authentication failures for any pipelined
requests (presumably returning a stale nonce indication). Similarly,
incorporating a request-specific element such as the Etag value for a
resource limits the use of the nonce to that version of the resource
and also defeats pipelining. Thus it may be useful to do so for
methods with side effects but have unacceptable performance for those
that do not.
"There is a constant American assumption that their language and culture is the norm"
This is now far more than an American assumption. I have seen younger continental Europeans bristle at UK English because they grew up in a world of social media that is converging on usage that is closer to US English.
Real question: Post 2010, are there any non-English speaking nations that get most of their English language media from the UK? Since everthing went online after 2010, I assume US has the highest influence (linguistically) only because of "mass". Dear UK readers: Please don't interpret my comment that UK language culture is somehow inferior. HN knows and loves UK humor!
I agree, but some people seem to think it is, which i think what the article is a response to: just just in the comment, but in the wider push to use certain language.
I declared my blog to be `en-GB` as well, but I'm fairly sure it's neither that, nor any other pre-catalogued locale. There's just no way I'm able to know where any of the references I use came from, let alone which weird contortions I came up with by myself. There are probably a few in this short comment alone.
I think idioms and cultural references are fine - the rest of the world has worked out what US baseball and football cliches likely mean, people can decode most references with context.
But there are some interesting issues with UK <> US english, things like 'quite' which works in different ways in each locale. I was also very surprised to discover the difference in what we consider a frown - which makes a lot more sense of the US 'turn that frown upside down'. Interestingly my uncle who'd lived in the US ~20 years had never uncovered that difference till I asked him about it.
So it's good to know differences - especially when you want communication to be clear.
According to wikipedia, there's 128 millions of en-IN speakers, of which only few hundred thousands are native - while there's 248 million native en-US speakers.
You raise a great point here. At what point will a non-English speaking country become the nation with the most English speakers? In my mind, surely that is Indian by 2050. If they can become upper middle income by that time (I am sure of it), then I guess more that half of adults will speak English at least at elementary to middle school level. (Dear reader: Please don't read that as a slight against the English language skills of Indians. I know from personal experience: With five grade level language skills, you can get a lot done!) They would way out number the number of English speaking Americans.
Go to France, or Japan, or Hungary, or somewhere like that. Someone there is visiting a web site that is in English. Now, what English is it most likely to be?
My guess is US English, not UK English, not Indian English, not Chinese English. Sure, they may visit some of those sites, but I suspect that the most frequent will be US English.
In this case, Japan is special. There relationship (post WW2) with the US is unparalleled compared to France or Hungary. It will absolutely be US style. Japan was never very close with the UK.
I'm in IT right now having travelled through FR, DE, NO, PL and half a dozen more countries. When selecting the EN option on a website it is almost 100% of the time with a GB flag. The spelling is mostly en-GB as well.
Correct, generally speaking they will have their own default locales on their computer and local sites will be in e.g. French but going to Instagram it will render in US English - unless the app has been translated, which it probably has so it's not the best example.
See my other comment, the world follows the US. It's about where the influence is primarily coming from, and that is currently America. And in terms of English it has a distinct advantage in that it is full of native speakers. Many Indians are proficient in English but they're not native speakers.
The amount of times that darn keyboard selector appears for no reason in Windows because its once again added en-US as a language, which it then switches to randomly for seemingly no reason and all of a sudden my symbols are all in the wrong places. One day someone at Microsoft is going to look at that bug and fix it....
I discovered just this week that the numbering of weeks within the year is different between US and Europe, thus, cal -w can show different numbers for some years depending on the locale. Outlook can probably also show different things depending on the system settings.
Europe uses the algo according to the ISO 8601 standard, where the week no.1 is the one with January 1st occuring between Monday and Thursday, inclusive. If the 1st happens on Friday or later within a week, it's considered a week no.52 or 53 of the previous year.
US does not use this scheme and (I guess) is numbering week no.1 when January the 1st occurs whenever within that week.
Some companies use week numbers in business talks, planning and scheduling, so be aware who is speaking about which weeks!
I think that by exploring how different cultures and languages communicate about things opens the mind. There are concepts that can't be easily/succinctly explained in English but can in other languages. I think that we should be encouraging such breadth of thought because it allows us to appreciate new aspects of the world we live in.
You could postulate that a language developed specific words for family and relatives because they prized those specific family structures? Or that language copied another language that did.
Similarly, you can categorise languages by how they group numbers, e.g. French is vigesimal while English is decimal.
I don't know. I mean it's not a longing for just a place, as I understand it. I am not even sure that hiraeth is necessarily longing for the beauty of a place or time. Hiraeth, it seems to me, could equally be a longing for the wordless Welsh expressions of emotion, or for rainy days, or damp, or a time that has passed, depending on where the bearer of the emotion is currently feeling it.
(I am not Welsh, but it has been described to me as an ever tightening elastic emotional rope that is anchored in a place and time that it might not be possible to go back to)
OK, here's one: My wife grew up in Latin America. Sometimes, instead of saying "I knocked it over", they say what literally translates to "it fell itself to me". Same idea - it fell - but hey, not my fault, it just happened.
Here's another: "fíjese". It kind of means "you'd never guess what happened". It's like "something that was completely unpredictable and totally outside my control happened, and it negatively affected my ability to do what I was trying to do", except with a lot fewer syllables.
Here's one going the other way: I was talking to a systems engineer about a specific issue, and I said that "we might be able to sweep that under someone else's rug". He was from Russia, and didn't have "sweeping it under the rug" as an idiom, and so didn't know what sweeping it under someone else's rug might mean.
Now, none of these are things that you can't say in another language or culture. You can. They're just a lot more unwieldy to say, and so people express that idea a lot less frequently.
This was my starting point, a belief that other languages were 'better' at expressing different things. However, I have done a few projects requiring translation over the years and I have found European language speakers, notably Italian and German, preferring the freedom of English to the relative straightjackets of their respective mother tongues.
As a Brit I am biased, however, there is a crucial difference between 'free range' British English and 'simplified' American English. Superficially, American English seems the more 'free', with liberties taken to create cool words and brand names. However, American English is constrained by the work of Webster, with there being a definitive dictionary, very much cast in stone, with changes such as 'no u in colour' made purely because of a rejection of everything English, including tea and spellings.
Currently we have something more extreme going on with the language that Ukrainians are expected to speak, with their 'government' seeking new and improved ways to move the language away from Russian. If this was OG English then it would be like getting rid of every French sounding word, so 'beef' becomes 'cow meat', 'mutton' becomes 'sheep meat' and so on. These changes can be made quite easily since it is not a whole new language has to be learned (or unlearned) at once. The lists of banned/allowed words changes all the time, much like Newspeak in 1984.
This won't be the last attempt to determine what a language is by decree, however, the result of such efforts is that languages get stuck in time. Hence the observations of my translation 'helpers', preferring English to their mother tongues.
IMHO American English is British English, stuck in time for 250 years, or whenever Webster got his special dictionary to schools. Meanwhile, OG British English has evolved in its own way, a form of direct democracy, where words change based on how they are used in the here and now.
I don't believe there is such a thing as an actual English word, all of it is 'stolen' from various colonial adventures of the past, or inherited from invaders of the past, notably the 'old enemy', as in the French.
French used to be the language for arts, diplomacy and the aristocracy. But they lost out, in part due to the fixed dictionary. Had they allowed their language to accept English loan words, chances are that French could still be the language it once was.
Currently there is an existential threat to English as the language for science and technology due to the rise of China. It gets worrying when data sheets for Texas Instruments components are released first in Chinese, to be followed up, months later with English translations. Therefore I am rooting for en-GB rather than en-US, due to that minor detail of there not being a 'Webster' dictionary of the past, casting a shadow on our future.
Regarding spelling: As an unbiased foreigner, many American variants seem superior to me (color, defense, program, meter) with british just being weird (and/or tainted by the french).
Regarding Rowling: It seems to me that she gets more pushback/hate being, say "50% modern left-ish" than people that are even less aligned with left values. This gives me kinda medieval religion vibes (better an unbeliever/outsider than an apostate). I think such a valuation system is inherently flawed. Curious about your view on this.
Counter example: Richard Dawkins and Robert Winston have both said similar things to Rowling and are on the left (one is a Labour peer). Neither have received anything resembling the backlash she has.
Should probably have told the writers of Wicked to not associate Elphaba with a (children's book level) evil witch. I think the Wicked Witch of the West is pretty appropriate for JK
I remember a naive cultural bias in the US towards regarding the English as possessing an elevated degree of education and refinement. I would have assumed the greater presence of truly idiotic British figures in American news media and comedy in recent decades might have clubbed that misconception to death like a baby seal.
Oxford spelling, en-GB-oxendict, is a nice halfway house - it uses the same -ize spellings (where etymologically correct) as American English, but doesn't have the simplifications (eg. colour->color).
There's two dimensions here, one is US-American readers, the other is how a lot of the rest of the (non-English) world is mostly exposed to US culture through (social) media.
But that's more of a thing for millennials, I would've thought younger generations get exposed to more diverse cultures / languages / etc.
Anyway, for British-English full of cultural references, watch some of these compilations https://www.youtube.com/@OneGazillionEccentricGoldfish, Scouse is nearly incomprehensible (to my ESL ears). For difficult US-English full of cultural references, watch The Wire or Treme. Try both without subtitles.
The funny thing is for younger British people this tends to be highly asymmetric - we can (sort of!) understand Scouse or Glaswegian due to growing up here, but also almost everyone under the age of 50 grew up on a steady diet of American TV shows, hip hop etc.
I can understand The Wire fine without subtitles because most of the actors just speak relatively generic African American English instead of a proper Baltimore dialect, and that's no problem at all for someone who spent their formative years consuming Nas and Biggie and all the rest of it.
On the other hand Snoop who is the only main character with an actual Baltimore street accent is pretty much unintelligible to me, but I suspect she would be for a lot of middle class americans as well
But they should just stop reading. It's actually not ok that it's unfamiliar, because makes you reread and get confused and distracted, all for some silly reference that doesn't make a big difference. Life is short! You can read the hard stuff when it's worth it, and just skip the rest. Surely that's the most common thing to do.
The answer is definitely still a big no, but for me the reasoning is because it will make it worse. And you apparently aren't the target audience anyway, so why should I care if you stick around.
(Whereas in the case of harry potter, the goal was to sell books, not just to produce something good).
This was a great read and it reminded me of Bill Bryson's book, The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way. Such an awesome overview o how diverse and quirky and globally distributed English has become today. With the web and now the bots herding us into a more homogenized language, I'm a huuuuge fan of what this dude is doing here!!
I would love to be able to write in proper narfuck, and have which ever screen reader read it out in the authentic accent for that area (central norfolk, not norwich, broadlands or the wierdos in the fens.)
There is something deeply joyful (to me) about a thick regional accent.
I decided to have a bit of fun with the Accept-Lang header, if you're british it shows a totally different version of my blog including changing my name to a more british variant, a background including tea, phone booths, kings guards, busses, bulldogs and flags... and the colour scheme changes to RWB.
The original plan was actually to write two variants of every blog post, one where I write using dry wit, banter and colloquialisms, and the other with a more to the point and professional tone.
The reason I chose not to was because I thought it might be confusing when discussing the content on link aggregators (like HN)- I'm not so arrogant as to believe I write anything worth discussing, but it would violate the principle of least surprise... so I chose not to do it.
I'm curious to hear other peoples opinions, since this is the exact right subject to ask the question to relevant crowd..
You might be interested to know that the BBC has a Pidgin version.
> BBC News Pidgin now dey on Whatsapp
> No dull yoursef, be di first to get latest tori, analysis, exclusive interviews and ogbonge coverage of Nigerian and International news from BBC News Pidgin, straight to your Whatsapp.
It reads very similar to the Hawaiian Pidgin Bible.
Da time wen eryting wen start, God make da sky an da world. Da world come so no mo notting inside, no mo shape notting. On top da wild ocean dat cova eryting, neva had light notting. Ony had God Spirit dea, moving aroun ova da watta.
Day Numba One
Den God tell, “I like light fo shine!” an da light start fo shine. God see how good da light. Den he put da light on one side, an da dark on da odda side. Da light time, he give um da name “Day time.” Da dark time, he give um da name “Nite time.” So, had da nite time an da day time, az day numba one.
Day Numba Two
Den God tell, “I like get someting inside da middo fo no let da watta up dea an da watta undaneat come togedda!” An dass wat God do. God make someting fo no let da watta up dea an da watta undaneat come togedda. Da ting inside da middo, God give um da name “Da Sky.” Had da nite time an da day time, az day numba two.
Day Numba Three
Den God tell, “I like da watta unda da sky come togedda one place, so dat get dry land!” An dass wat God wen do. Da dry groun, God give um da name “Land,” an da watta dat wen come togedda one side, he give um da name “Ocean.” God look da dry groun an da ocean, an he tell, “Real, real good, all dat!”
This is definitely manageable: canonical meta tags and other metadata; update the URL to a canonical permalink that encodes the language preference; a banner that informs people that there is an alternate version, etc.
As a speaker of English as a second language and being educated using American English, I find British English richer in a cultural and expressive manner. It also conveys more properness.
I was raised by an English mum[0] (scouse, to be precise -actually, her mum was scouse, me mum was posh).
I've traveled all over the world, and the one place that I've had the most difficulty understanding, was London. Cockney is hard. It's not just the patois. It's the cultural references and slang.
I think that "en-GB" is not sufficiently descriptive. There are 160 dialects of English [0]. Within the island of Great Britain there are three historic countries with distinctive usages of language: England, Wales, and Scotland. There might be more mutual unintelligibility within GB than across North America.
I have to admit I have every device running some sort of voice assistant on en_GB or Australian the American voices always sound like parodies or the Walmart greeter. The intonation is perpetually trying to please me, as if programmed for relentless customer service. It's hard to explain, but there's something exhausting about a voice that's always smiling.
> American voices always sound like parodies or the Walmart greeter.
Timer set for “thirdy minnids”. Unfortunately the others also sound like parodies in their own way — the Californian's idea of en_GB, “Oi, you go' a loicense for that thir'y minute timah?”
TBF, some Australian accents put a rising intonation at the end of sentences, as though the speaker is always asking their interlocutor for approval. Just another thing that's reminiscent of Clive James' remark that too many Australians are descended from prison officers.
There's a surprisingly big cultural chasm here. Acrington Stanley are a football club, that's not so weird - the US has plenty of professional sports teams and distinguishes "major" leagues, but AIUI the US doesn't have anything like the "Football Pyramid": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_football_league_system
If the Green Bay Packers lose every game, I think they're just back next year anyway like nothing happened? If Manchester United lost every game they're relegated and cease to be in the Premier League, some team you've never heard of which won the EFL Championship become a Premier League team next season [subject to various extra rules they can probably meet] and Man U take their place in the EFL Championship.
Excuse me, but I believe you meant to say this bloug is written in en-GB.
More seriously... you know, 30 or 40 years ago, I can sort of understand this attitude. Today, in the amount of time it takes you to complain, you could have popped the word into Google or something instead and learned what it was instead. Probably in less than the amount of time it took you to complain for an online blog. And you might learn something interesting.
When I grew up in the 1980s and 1990s, there was a thing called the "generation gap". It originally referred to something closer to the difference between the Hippies and their Greatest Generation parents, but it was smoothly repurposed into the differences between GenX and the Boomers, and the way we could have slang that was not decodeable by our parents.
I haven't heard the term in a while. The "generation gap" isn't what it used to be and there is less need for a term for it. I'm not entirely certain but I probably heard about "6-7" before my kids did. Urban Dictionary may not be the most reliable source in an academic sense but you can get a very fast sense of what something means from its entries, especially if you read them with a postmodern analysis eye and not just for the plain text.
I also find it a bit weird when people my age or the boomer generation complain about the kid's slang, because it's so easy to decode. You can't possible have a national-level kid's slang without an internet explainer 15 seconds away. It's not that hard anymore.
I've had a weblog since 1999. I know where the word comes from. Try rereading in light of that; if you need more hint consider why the author's spellchecker might put a red wiggly underline under the letters "color".
Maybe I'm stating the obvious, but nobody has any moral obligation to be inclusive in content they share on their personal blog, for free, and nobody should reasonably expect it.
I’ve seen a lot of blog entries using typography so horrible, I had to use reader view to read the page—there was a trend in the mid-2010s to use pencil-thin fonts and there is now and then still a blog out there using one of those unreadable pencil-thin fonts.
However, this blog uses a very readable font called “Atkinson Hyperlegible” and I had no problem reading it. If the color scheme bothers you, click on “eInk” in the theme switcher on the top.
Disclaimers: No relationship to the owner of this blog. No AI used in this posting; I have the em-dash (—) in my custom keyboard layout.
The French didn't like it when the Lingua Franca switched from French to English and the Brits still whine that British English is no longer the dominant variety.
It's a trade-off: you can write in your regional dialect or you can write in a more widely understood global style.
It's not really comparable, almost every native English speaker can understand most British English fine, it's only when people use excessive slang or regional accents that people have issues (and that's an issue with any language - it can easily be an issue among native speakers within the UK!).
It doesn't really matter if you natively speak British English instead of American English, whereas French and English are obviously completely different languages and the switch made French a lot less useful and English a lot more useful
If I (a Brit) moves to the US, I'd absolutely get a Yorkshire-branded tea caddy filled with teabags on my desk. Sometimes you need to live up to the stereotypes.
May be decorative only —- Isn’t it due due to their wimpy electricity that it takes forever to boil a kettle and that’s why everyone gets coffee externally? Or, absolute horror, they microwave teacups….
I've always wondered, do that many brits actually like tea or is it more of a cultural thing? I've very rarely had a tea I like (though, I've never had one I actively disliked), and I can't imagine that's the case for most people but it makes me wonder
I've never heard of this depite being from the UK. It seems to be some ad from 1989. Although I do remember many classic ads from the 1980's I don't recall this. Is it an English / Scottish thing ? Who knows.
Why is Accrington Stanley so famous?
Ian Rush reflects on famous milk advert ahead of Liverpool v ...
Accrington Stanley achieved worldwide fame primarily due to a legendary 1989 television advert for the Milk Marketing Board. In the iconic commercial, two young Liverpool fans debate whether to drink milk. One claims that football star Ian Rush told him, "If you don't drink lots of milk, you'll only be good enough to play for Accrington Stanley". The other boy questions, "Accrington Stanley? Who are they?", prompting the reply, "Exactly". The slogan became a massive pop-culture catchphrase in the UK, turning a then-obscure non-league team into the most famous minnows in football.
My first thought after reading is that I fear for the author's safety. From the outside, this does not appear to be a safe time to express nationalism or cultural pride in the UK. The Internet is not free in the UK and decreasingly so in the rest of the world.
More generally, we Brits draw a measure of distinction between cultural pride and nationalism: the former is good, and we have plenty of it; the latter is viewed with suspicion, for good reason.
If you are from Europe, even if you're not living in the UK, the en-GB locale will feel a lot more familiar to you than the en-US one.
It uses the dd-mm-yyyy date format like the rest of Europe, the start of the week is on Monday (vs Sunday in the US), the default paper size is A4 (vs US letter), measurement defaults are metric (indeed UK roads use imperial, but the default is otherwise metric), the time format uses 24hrs (vs AM/PM in the US).
The time format in the UK is mostly 12hr, although people are generally aware of 24hr time. In my experience, while there are usually more similarities between the UK and the rest of Europe, Europeans also have more exposure to American English than to British English, so it ends up being a bit of a wash, particularly when it comes to pronunciation, spelling, or idioms.
So thankful that we use the correct date format (yyyy-mm-dd) in Sweden.
Can I just say that, as someone born and bred in the UK, YYYY-MM-DD is the only correct way to display a date wherever you live.
Anything else is as bad as using mm:hh...
> Anything else is as bad as using mm:hh...
Please tell me that's not a thing.
I've taken to using the Swedish locale for that very reason (French-American living in the UK).
That's also the ISO standard since it sorts correctly
Not to mention the fact that English basically everywhere else but the US is essentially en-GB with a few choice changes. Consider en-IN, en-IE, en-SG, en-MY, en-AU, en-NZ, etc.
So in East Asia they basically teach British English. Seeing that made it clear to me.
Same as in Balkans. We literally used coursebooks from Britain.
In Europe (at least DE and NL), we also usually are taught British English in schools.
I prefer en-IE, which is the same plus Euro as the default currency.
I read several blogs that use British English, including this OP's blog. Some of my favourite blogs in my RSS reader are British English blogs, or at least they use British English spellings and grammar. I find their use of the English language very charming and funny in a unique way.
It surprises me that anyone would feel entitled to ask a blogger to change the variety of English they use. American English is only one of many forms of English. The world is richer for its many varieties of English, and languages, and that diversity makes it more interesting, not less.
Certain cultures teach that diversity is a bad thing to be feared and extinguished. Diversity is only a good thing when your mind has been poisoned by "education" and "experience".
It requires an open mind to see diverse experiences as a good thing, and certain cultures think having citizens with open minds is an unprofitable way to run a society.
I agree in general, but there's one exception: use of the word 'tabled'. This means roughly the opposite in British and US English, and there's often insufficient surrounding context to alert the reader to their error.
(OTOH I don't think you should suppress 'false friends' like biscuits, pants etc.)
>there's one exception: use of the word 'tabled'.
Another exception: "moot", as in "moot point". In the UK it means "subject to debate", while in the US it means "inconsequential and therefore not subject to debate".
There are a few others. “Quite” comes to mind — “I am quite hungry” or “that meal was quite good” can mean opposite things, depending on the speaker region and even voice inflexion if spoken.
Right. As a Brit I am entitled to think we speak the best version (because we do; ISE is a close second) but I am not entitled to believe everyone else's is wrong, because that is ahistorical. They have diverged repeatedly.
What is ISE?
I am the only Brit in the department I work in. No one gets the cultural references or British idioms I use, and I've found myself significantly changing the language I use to a very utilitarian and direct style to prevent the endless blank stares... reading this blog post just made me realise that this self-editing has made my interactions rather more 'flat' and unnatural, as they now lack spontaneity, with everything passing through a secondary filter before leaving my brain.
I have a cunning plan: Sneak as many Brits into Hollywood as possible, and have them slip in as many British references into American films as they can. Over time, they'll effectively BECOME British, and Robert's your father's brother!
Just whatever you do, don't mention the taxes! I did once, but I think I got away with it...
Is it as cunning as a fox who’s just been appointed professor of cunning at Oxford university?
I live in Sweden (and have for 11 years), a lot of the "charm" in my speech has been filed away, I speak in a very neutral accent (which barely registers as british anymore) and I use americanisms a lot, avoiding "false friends".
(IE; I never use the word "chip" to mean crisps or fries - I will instead use "Crisps", despite it being british, and fries, despite it being American; in order to avoid ambiguity.)
The more difficult one is "pants", I would say underwear or trousers.
It's interesting how I only notice how much it's contrasted when I go back to the UK and hear others, I notice people using words that I've put a mental "X" on, and its only then that I realise that I've put the mental "X" on the word... because it no longer feels natural to hear it.
I live in Denmark, and for such basic words (crisps, trousers, maths, aluminium, football, quid, couldn't care less, fire engine, motorway, petrol, public transport, railway, tram) I use my native British words.
People occasionally comment that it's a British word, but being misunderstood is so unusual I can't remember a recent example. Essentially everyone has read/watched Harry Potter, Dr Who or Midsomer Murders, and they're probably ten times more likely to have visited the UK as the USA.
Wait, "couldn't care less" is British?
> (IE; I never use the word "chip" to mean crisps or fries - I will instead use "Crisps", despite it being british, and fries, despite it being American; in order to avoid ambiguity.)
In Australia we don't care about ambiguity or clarity and refer to both the thin sliced cold things and freshly fried rectangular ones as "chips"
I have a similar experience, for the last 5+ years I've worked in companies where very few of the people I work with are British which does require care on both language and idiom. Combined with being older than a lot of colleagues, cultural references need to be picked with care :D
Are your other department members (a) native English speakers, but not British, or (b) non-native English speakers? In my experience, there is a huge difference. I am a native English speaker. When speaking with (a) but from a different region, you can usually speak in your normal style, but don't use too much slang. With (b), I remove any slang and choose my words much more carefully. My goal is to communicate well, even if I need to adapt my style.
I had that when workign with a lot of other Europeans. When I moved to a company where everyone was British I had to re-adapt, particularly because I'd become more direct after working with a lot of Germans.
I wish you worked with me, in that case.
I've had the pleasure of working with many different people from different backgrounds, including many Brits. I've always found the dry, understated humor from them to be endearing, making casual conversation more interesting. My parents are both from the Middle East, my wife is from Southeast Asia, and I have many Middle Eastern, Desi, African American as well as African (as in continental) friends, so I may not be a "typical" American in that regard.
That being said, don't underestimate the value you bring by sharing your cultural insights. I don't think I told anyone to their face that appreciated their cultural value, but I hoped that my engagement and cheerfulness in dealing with them at least communicated that I was happy with their presence.
It might be that your engagement with someone opens them up to a part of the world they've yet to experience or know much about. Granted, there are lots of places with more gaps than the US and the UK, but there's still value in that and I started with those examples but mentioned it comes from all sides.
Cultural insights are one thing but the issue is if you slip into full flow of Britishisms and let your accent loose people who only speak English as a second language can't understand what you're saying.
There's nothing unique about this though, it's the same for every language - it's one thing knowing Spanish well enough to hold a conversation where the other person is speaking slowly and making it easy for you, it's quite another to be able to slot into a group of native Chilean Spanish speakers in full flow.
I travel a lot so I'm used to adapting my use of English depending on who I'm talking to. I find there's a way to express things and still enjoy using the language without making it hard for non-native speakers to understand. But also, when you do end up in a group of entirely Brits it is fun to be able to just let loose
I'm often shuffled into teams where I am the only American and everyone else is Indian, working in India, and I take a small measure of pride in switching to the formal register that Indians like to use in workplace English, and using the idioms they have.
There's a big difference between live discussion and blog. A blog reader can search what something means, live listeners cannot.
+1 very similar situation, one of only two Brits the rest from all.over who speak "international English"
Despite all the woke stuff I still have to hide my en-GB background in my BigCo
> "Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller."
Think of it as learning a second language. It should be a lot easier for you than most people.
Well, then... G'day, mate! Let's put another shrimp on the barbie!
The ultimate irony is that many folks asking for things to be “more inclusive” are asking for someone else to modify their behavior to fit the requester’s preference and definition of the “right” way, which is the literal opposite of being inclusive.
This blog calls that out brilliantly.
Americans often don't twig how many random american terms we brits have to learn the double meaning of and don't pipe up about. I'm not talking the well-known ones like cookies, but even things like "the ER" meaning "A&E"
Sometimes it's their turn to repay the favour
If you want to read some hilarious reactions of Americans panicking when they are suddenly exposed to non-American English/British accents, check out these threads:
https://www.reddit.com/r/PawPatrol/comments/1q68v16/british_...
https://www.reddit.com/r/PawPatrol/comments/17wcsdm/my_digit...
I'm not sure "panicking" is the best word to describe a couple of parents wondering why the characters suddenly have different accents. But maybe I'm too American and "panicking" means something else for Brits.
Sometimes Americans wonder why English characters start talking about a basic cable channel when they really should be seeking medical help.
Cable channel? Are you talking about fibre-optic frequency channels? What kind of cable are we talking?
Perhaps you can be more inclusive in your language on the future.
As a non-American I don't know what "basic cable" is (or what the other tiers are), just that you don't have free-to-air TV
As far as I'm aware the US does have free OTA TV. A quick google tells me that basic cable means the cheapest tier of cable. So maybe equivalent to a sky/cable entertainment package?
This French person has taken to writing in en-GB, as a token of protest against current USAian politics. I thank the USA for this step in French-British rapprochement !
Also, in the late 90's, The Register made me love British English... Local accents are great branding.
I really want to see a local Euro English[0] develop as an actual, recognized variant of English. Both because it would be really funny, but also as a way for Continental Europe to develop a common language we can shape our own way
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_English (we don't have to take the examples in this page as-is, we can definitely make better local oddities!)
> OK, accents are a whole can of worms. Regional English is varied. I'm not sure if there are any BCP-style tags for intra-country accents.
This comment is written in en-GB-Brummie.
Does en-GB-Brummie cover the whole of the Black Country?
I have sometimes pondered if we could expand the language codes with ISO 3166-2.
Would en-GB-WLL be a valid variant of English?
I can’t say I understand this new current of culture/writing. It’s something like: get angry, turn small acts into grand acts of social defiance, and signal your social ingroup by referencing other things we are angry about.
“Do you remember that JK Rowling lady we all hate because she’s an evil witch? Haha, yeah. Anyways, I’m British and I’m going to keep writing like I’m British.”
Edit: I agree with the thesis. You have a culture; don’t filter it. Differences are beautiful. I’d rather live in a melting pot. Etc. Separately this new communication style is hard to stomach. Ive seen it growing in popularity in the U.S. - seems like there too?
Fully agree with the author, just like I write Portuguese in European Portuguese, not Brazilian Portuguese, African Portuguese or any other variation, just because our population is smaller.
Incidently I always change automatic language correction tools to English GB, I live in this side of the Atlantic, and that is variant I learnt while growing up.
I always put my locale in Ireland: I want
It's amazing how many web applications give me a broken experience because of it.I'm using custom en-CH locales, because I want numbers to use the Swiss format for decimal and thousands, € instead of CHF, standard units, and some version of English :p
That's not a bad hack, thanks
His post inspired me to change form <html lang=en> to <html lang=en-US>, to make it clear I do not write in the British's quaint dialect of American.
Being proud of your culture including your language and exercising it, at the risk of readers not understanding everything immediately, is not racism. In the worst case, a non-British gets curious about one expression or the other and looks it up. That's engagement.
It's funny, and perhaps not entirely unwarranted, that "racism" pops up here?
As a Black American, I find the author's idea extremely interesting and naturally began to wonder -- what might this idea (in code?) look like for us?
Owing to history and whatnot, the role "Black American English" might play is of course very much a moving target, but it's interesting to think about.
As one example I have seen plenty of Code read Color redColour = .....
That is how it often manifests, the bits the Brits get to choose is in their own language and spelling.
Is there an internationally agreed upon standard for designating AAV? I suppose it's a large and influential enough dialect it wouldn't hurt to have one
Not to my knowledge, and I imagine even trying to do this would stir up.. a lot.
The more I think about it, the more difficult it seems. Not that it shouldn't be done, but wow.
Nobody said it was.
The article strongly implies it is a response to a comment complaining the blog is not inclusive because it uses British English.
There is a constant American assumption that their language and culture is the norm and we should all adjust our language to fit their definitions and culture. I intend to keep eating faggots, having a master branch in git, etc.
When I read "inclusive", my mind jumped to accessibility, in that colloquialisms can be difficult to understand for a subset of people with autism (and other conditions), and also that they translate poorly when run through a translator, for those that do not speak English at all.
Equally, I doubt there was a single Brit involved in RFC 2617 Section 4.3 (for example).
I don't understand the reference. I looked it up here: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2617#section-4.3
Can you explain your (assumed) sarcastic remark?Translation for en-US speakers -- Trump is an example of a nonce, as is his buddy - formerly Prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
"There is a constant American assumption that their language and culture is the norm"
This is now far more than an American assumption. I have seen younger continental Europeans bristle at UK English because they grew up in a world of social media that is converging on usage that is closer to US English.
Real question: Post 2010, are there any non-English speaking nations that get most of their English language media from the UK? Since everthing went online after 2010, I assume US has the highest influence (linguistically) only because of "mass". Dear UK readers: Please don't interpret my comment that UK language culture is somehow inferior. HN knows and loves UK humor!
> I intend to keep eating
Wait, isn't that a cigarette? Why would you eat it?
edit: nevermind, it's actually meatballs, the short version is for cigarettes
But being non-inclusive by speaking to a particular cultural reference frame is not the same as being racist.
I agree, but some people seem to think it is, which i think what the article is a response to: just just in the comment, but in the wider push to use certain language.
I declared my blog to be `en-GB` as well, but I'm fairly sure it's neither that, nor any other pre-catalogued locale. There's just no way I'm able to know where any of the references I use came from, let alone which weird contortions I came up with by myself. There are probably a few in this short comment alone.
I think idioms and cultural references are fine - the rest of the world has worked out what US baseball and football cliches likely mean, people can decode most references with context.
But there are some interesting issues with UK <> US english, things like 'quite' which works in different ways in each locale. I was also very surprised to discover the difference in what we consider a frown - which makes a lot more sense of the US 'turn that frown upside down'. Interestingly my uncle who'd lived in the US ~20 years had never uncovered that difference till I asked him about it.
So it's good to know differences - especially when you want communication to be clear.
What's the "quite" difference?
Roughly:
British "quite" means somewhat.
American "quite" means very.
A Brit saying a suggestion is "quite good" is actually saying it's not good enough, whereas a US listener will think they've been told the opposite.
It should be just "en", since we invented and it's the one true version:-)
English (traditional) and English (simplified)
Main branch and the various forks.
Some of the different spellings used by US English are because of changes made to British English that did not happen in the US.
given English evolved from Norman French, it's maybe just a local variation than a true invention? fr-GB feels more correct :)
Do the needful!
Is that an en-IN joke?
That may be true, but in practice, US english has no taken over as the de-facto English. All thanks to the Internet.
I am glad someone is pushing back on this, though, and I want more multi lingual sites on the Internet in general.
By your logic, chinese english or indian english are the defacto as they massively outnumber american english
You just mean that you visit more american sites than other non-US english speaking sites
According to wikipedia, there's 128 millions of en-IN speakers, of which only few hundred thousands are native - while there's 248 million native en-US speakers.
You raise a great point here. At what point will a non-English speaking country become the nation with the most English speakers? In my mind, surely that is Indian by 2050. If they can become upper middle income by that time (I am sure of it), then I guess more that half of adults will speak English at least at elementary to middle school level. (Dear reader: Please don't read that as a slight against the English language skills of Indians. I know from personal experience: With five grade level language skills, you can get a lot done!) They would way out number the number of English speaking Americans.
You're confusing number of speakers with convention or standard setting power.
Look at the places where US english has become the norm or convention; programming, media, apps, business, Internet in general.
And the US is in unique position - it drives technology forward quite a bit, and it's also actual native English speakers.
So in other words got more to do with technological and economic influence, not population size.
Go to France, or Japan, or Hungary, or somewhere like that. Someone there is visiting a web site that is in English. Now, what English is it most likely to be?
My guess is US English, not UK English, not Indian English, not Chinese English. Sure, they may visit some of those sites, but I suspect that the most frequent will be US English.
In this case, Japan is special. There relationship (post WW2) with the US is unparalleled compared to France or Hungary. It will absolutely be US style. Japan was never very close with the UK.
I'm in IT right now having travelled through FR, DE, NO, PL and half a dozen more countries. When selecting the EN option on a website it is almost 100% of the time with a GB flag. The spelling is mostly en-GB as well.
Correct, generally speaking they will have their own default locales on their computer and local sites will be in e.g. French but going to Instagram it will render in US English - unless the app has been translated, which it probably has so it's not the best example.
I've just checked my instagram and it's using the UK spelling "favourites"
No, no I don't think it has. Americans are vastly outnumbered by commonwealth states using and teaching standard English
See my other comment, the world follows the US. It's about where the influence is primarily coming from, and that is currently America. And in terms of English it has a distinct advantage in that it is full of native speakers. Many Indians are proficient in English but they're not native speakers.
This reminds me of the time when I removed en-US from windows, leaving just en-GB, and it blue screened.
It's both surprising and irritating how many US-centric things are just assumed. (Don't even get me started on paper sizes...! ;) )
The amount of times that darn keyboard selector appears for no reason in Windows because its once again added en-US as a language, which it then switches to randomly for seemingly no reason and all of a sudden my symbols are all in the wrong places. One day someone at Microsoft is going to look at that bug and fix it....
As someone that changes the default as well, yep a pain.
I discovered just this week that the numbering of weeks within the year is different between US and Europe, thus, cal -w can show different numbers for some years depending on the locale. Outlook can probably also show different things depending on the system settings.
Europe uses the algo according to the ISO 8601 standard, where the week no.1 is the one with January 1st occuring between Monday and Thursday, inclusive. If the 1st happens on Friday or later within a week, it's considered a week no.52 or 53 of the previous year.
US does not use this scheme and (I guess) is numbering week no.1 when January the 1st occurs whenever within that week.
Some companies use week numbers in business talks, planning and scheduling, so be aware who is speaking about which weeks!
Even the concept "within that week" depends on whether you consider the week to begin on Monday or Sunday. (or elsewhere I suppose)
Yes but for the purpose of mentioned ISO 8601, the start of the week is assumed to be Monday.
I think that by exploring how different cultures and languages communicate about things opens the mind. There are concepts that can't be easily/succinctly explained in English but can in other languages. I think that we should be encouraging such breadth of thought because it allows us to appreciate new aspects of the world we live in.
Nobody's ever been able to explain to me what those concepts are, so I don't believe it.
Family relationships are the first thing that come to my mind.
In Spanish for example, consuegro and consuegra refer to the father and mother of your child's spouse.
The Spanish words succinctly encode that relationship while English requires verbally traversing the family tree.
That's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinship_terminology and yes, you can categorise languages by the extent of their kinship terminology.
You could postulate that a language developed specific words for family and relatives because they prized those specific family structures? Or that language copied another language that did.
Similarly, you can categorise languages by how they group numbers, e.g. French is vigesimal while English is decimal.
its the subject of dozens of listacles.
waldeinsamkeit, saudade, ya’aburnee, etc.
Hiraeth
That one only works when the homeland is that beautiful.
I don't know. I mean it's not a longing for just a place, as I understand it. I am not even sure that hiraeth is necessarily longing for the beauty of a place or time. Hiraeth, it seems to me, could equally be a longing for the wordless Welsh expressions of emotion, or for rainy days, or damp, or a time that has passed, depending on where the bearer of the emotion is currently feeling it.
(I am not Welsh, but it has been described to me as an ever tightening elastic emotional rope that is anchored in a place and time that it might not be possible to go back to)
OK, here's one: My wife grew up in Latin America. Sometimes, instead of saying "I knocked it over", they say what literally translates to "it fell itself to me". Same idea - it fell - but hey, not my fault, it just happened.
Here's another: "fíjese". It kind of means "you'd never guess what happened". It's like "something that was completely unpredictable and totally outside my control happened, and it negatively affected my ability to do what I was trying to do", except with a lot fewer syllables.
Here's one going the other way: I was talking to a systems engineer about a specific issue, and I said that "we might be able to sweep that under someone else's rug". He was from Russia, and didn't have "sweeping it under the rug" as an idiom, and so didn't know what sweeping it under someone else's rug might mean.
Now, none of these are things that you can't say in another language or culture. You can. They're just a lot more unwieldy to say, and so people express that idea a lot less frequently.
This was my starting point, a belief that other languages were 'better' at expressing different things. However, I have done a few projects requiring translation over the years and I have found European language speakers, notably Italian and German, preferring the freedom of English to the relative straightjackets of their respective mother tongues.
As a Brit I am biased, however, there is a crucial difference between 'free range' British English and 'simplified' American English. Superficially, American English seems the more 'free', with liberties taken to create cool words and brand names. However, American English is constrained by the work of Webster, with there being a definitive dictionary, very much cast in stone, with changes such as 'no u in colour' made purely because of a rejection of everything English, including tea and spellings.
Currently we have something more extreme going on with the language that Ukrainians are expected to speak, with their 'government' seeking new and improved ways to move the language away from Russian. If this was OG English then it would be like getting rid of every French sounding word, so 'beef' becomes 'cow meat', 'mutton' becomes 'sheep meat' and so on. These changes can be made quite easily since it is not a whole new language has to be learned (or unlearned) at once. The lists of banned/allowed words changes all the time, much like Newspeak in 1984.
This won't be the last attempt to determine what a language is by decree, however, the result of such efforts is that languages get stuck in time. Hence the observations of my translation 'helpers', preferring English to their mother tongues.
IMHO American English is British English, stuck in time for 250 years, or whenever Webster got his special dictionary to schools. Meanwhile, OG British English has evolved in its own way, a form of direct democracy, where words change based on how they are used in the here and now.
I don't believe there is such a thing as an actual English word, all of it is 'stolen' from various colonial adventures of the past, or inherited from invaders of the past, notably the 'old enemy', as in the French.
French used to be the language for arts, diplomacy and the aristocracy. But they lost out, in part due to the fixed dictionary. Had they allowed their language to accept English loan words, chances are that French could still be the language it once was.
Currently there is an existential threat to English as the language for science and technology due to the rise of China. It gets worrying when data sheets for Texas Instruments components are released first in Chinese, to be followed up, months later with English translations. Therefore I am rooting for en-GB rather than en-US, due to that minor detail of there not being a 'Webster' dictionary of the past, casting a shadow on our future.
>Had they allowed their language to accept English loan words, chances are that French could still be the language it once was.
The Académie française has exactly 0 to do with the fact that French is used less as a lingua franca.
I'm an American (unfortunately). Online, especially in places like HN, I try to use British spelling. It seems more academic if that makes sense
>When The Wicked Witch of the TERFs
Don't associate that cordyceps with Elphaba
Regarding spelling: As an unbiased foreigner, many American variants seem superior to me (color, defense, program, meter) with british just being weird (and/or tainted by the french).
Regarding Rowling: It seems to me that she gets more pushback/hate being, say "50% modern left-ish" than people that are even less aligned with left values. This gives me kinda medieval religion vibes (better an unbeliever/outsider than an apostate). I think such a valuation system is inherently flawed. Curious about your view on this.
Sidenote: If you're referring to the zombie-ant fungus, those go by Ophiocordyceps nowadays (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophiocordyceps_unilateralis).
Counter example: Richard Dawkins and Robert Winston have both said similar things to Rowling and are on the left (one is a Labour peer). Neither have received anything resembling the backlash she has.
They both have received significant opprobrium. But she's the one funding a massive hate campaign.
Should probably have told the writers of Wicked to not associate Elphaba with a (children's book level) evil witch. I think the Wicked Witch of the West is pretty appropriate for JK
I suppose that's fair but it also completely ignores the intentions of the story
> It seems more academic if that makes sense
I remember a naive cultural bias in the US towards regarding the English as possessing an elevated degree of education and refinement. I would have assumed the greater presence of truly idiotic British figures in American news media and comedy in recent decades might have clubbed that misconception to death like a baby seal.
"The idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone, All centuries but this, and every country but his own."
? I just think british spelling looks better and am a whore for internationalism
Oxford spelling, en-GB-oxendict, is a nice halfway house - it uses the same -ize spellings (where etymologically correct) as American English, but doesn't have the simplifications (eg. colour->color).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_spelling
It's often preferred by academic journals, which might be why the original commenter sees it as "academic".
It's also the official spelling used by the United Nations.
Internalized self loathing is a thing
It's a thing, yes. It's entirely irrelevant to the topic though.
There's two dimensions here, one is US-American readers, the other is how a lot of the rest of the (non-English) world is mostly exposed to US culture through (social) media.
But that's more of a thing for millennials, I would've thought younger generations get exposed to more diverse cultures / languages / etc.
Anyway, for British-English full of cultural references, watch some of these compilations https://www.youtube.com/@OneGazillionEccentricGoldfish, Scouse is nearly incomprehensible (to my ESL ears). For difficult US-English full of cultural references, watch The Wire or Treme. Try both without subtitles.
The funny thing is for younger British people this tends to be highly asymmetric - we can (sort of!) understand Scouse or Glaswegian due to growing up here, but also almost everyone under the age of 50 grew up on a steady diet of American TV shows, hip hop etc.
I can understand The Wire fine without subtitles because most of the actors just speak relatively generic African American English instead of a proper Baltimore dialect, and that's no problem at all for someone who spent their formative years consuming Nas and Biggie and all the rest of it.
On the other hand Snoop who is the only main character with an actual Baltimore street accent is pretty much unintelligible to me, but I suspect she would be for a lot of middle class americans as well
But they should just stop reading. It's actually not ok that it's unfamiliar, because makes you reread and get confused and distracted, all for some silly reference that doesn't make a big difference. Life is short! You can read the hard stuff when it's worth it, and just skip the rest. Surely that's the most common thing to do.
The answer is definitely still a big no, but for me the reasoning is because it will make it worse. And you apparently aren't the target audience anyway, so why should I care if you stick around.
(Whereas in the case of harry potter, the goal was to sell books, not just to produce something good).
Do you hear yourself now? "Life is too short to read texts which reference a culture you're unfamiliar with"? Seriously?
This was a great read and it reminded me of Bill Bryson's book, The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way. Such an awesome overview o how diverse and quirky and globally distributed English has become today. With the web and now the bots herding us into a more homogenized language, I'm a huuuuge fan of what this dude is doing here!!
"My mum said that if I didn't drink enough milk then I'd only be good enough to play for Accrington Stanley."
"Accrington Stanley!, Who are they?"
"Exaaaccttlyyy...."
By eck lad, Accrington Stanley?
I would love to be able to write in proper narfuck, and have which ever screen reader read it out in the authentic accent for that area (central norfolk, not norwich, broadlands or the wierdos in the fens.)
There is something deeply joyful (to me) about a thick regional accent.
Remember the scene in Hot Fuzz where the accents are so thick they need 3 layers of translation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hs-rgvkRfwc
> Here's the thing. No.
Hahaha
I decided to have a bit of fun with the Accept-Lang header, if you're british it shows a totally different version of my blog including changing my name to a more british variant, a background including tea, phone booths, kings guards, busses, bulldogs and flags... and the colour scheme changes to RWB.
https://blog.dijit.sh
The original plan was actually to write two variants of every blog post, one where I write using dry wit, banter and colloquialisms, and the other with a more to the point and professional tone.
The reason I chose not to was because I thought it might be confusing when discussing the content on link aggregators (like HN)- I'm not so arrogant as to believe I write anything worth discussing, but it would violate the principle of least surprise... so I chose not to do it.
I'm curious to hear other peoples opinions, since this is the exact right subject to ask the question to relevant crowd..
You might be interested to know that the BBC has a Pidgin version.
> BBC News Pidgin now dey on Whatsapp
> No dull yoursef, be di first to get latest tori, analysis, exclusive interviews and ogbonge coverage of Nigerian and International news from BBC News Pidgin, straight to your Whatsapp.
> Click here to join di channel
— https://www.bbc.com/pidgin
It reads very similar to the Hawaiian Pidgin Bible.
That is magnificent. :-)
Glad that you got the colour scheme changes
I'm very disappointed it didn't translate the $1m story to £747,000
I found it completely unrelatable and couldn't follow it at all, not having any frame of reference for how much a dollar might be worth in real money
Luckily the background reminded me i could go and make myself a cup of tea to feel better
it's made worse that those were Canadian dollars..
now we're all confused.
Pet peeve: If I go to google.ca and ask [1 gallon to liters], it uses US gallons. (But if I ask [1 pint to ml] it gets it right.)
> link aggregators
This is definitely manageable: canonical meta tags and other metadata; update the URL to a canonical permalink that encodes the language preference; a banner that informs people that there is an alternate version, etc.
As a non-brit I feel discriminated against by being unable to see that amazing page.
As a speaker of English as a second language and being educated using American English, I find British English richer in a cultural and expressive manner. It also conveys more properness.
I was raised by an English mum[0] (scouse, to be precise -actually, her mum was scouse, me mum was posh).
I've traveled all over the world, and the one place that I've had the most difficulty understanding, was London. Cockney is hard. It's not just the patois. It's the cultural references and slang.
[0] https://cmarshall.com/miscellaneous/SheilaMarshall.htm
Not many Cockneys in London these days, they're all in Essex
There were reasons that I was hanging with a crowd that was heavily informed by cockneys.
I tend to hang with … interesting … people.
> [Twinkies] seemed like an unappealing foodstuff which, nevertheless, were inexplicably popular.
Well, there's the counterpoint to the whole post. You don't know what Twinkies are.
Brit here. I spent decades hearing about twinkies from US TV so I had to finally try one.
It was the blandest, most solid chunk of cake with a flavourless blob of sugar in the middle.
I more-or-less agree. And it's inexplicable why it's popular?
Describe a chicken nugget next, I bet people hate those too.
(For the record, a proper Twinkie would be fluffy, not a solid chunk.)
I think that "en-GB" is not sufficiently descriptive. There are 160 dialects of English [0]. Within the island of Great Britain there are three historic countries with distinctive usages of language: England, Wales, and Scotland. There might be more mutual unintelligibility within GB than across North America.
0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dialects_of_English
I have to admit I have every device running some sort of voice assistant on en_GB or Australian the American voices always sound like parodies or the Walmart greeter. The intonation is perpetually trying to please me, as if programmed for relentless customer service. It's hard to explain, but there's something exhausting about a voice that's always smiling.
> American voices always sound like parodies or the Walmart greeter.
Timer set for “thirdy minnids”. Unfortunately the others also sound like parodies in their own way — the Californian's idea of en_GB, “Oi, you go' a loicense for that thir'y minute timah?”
When I still used siri I had it be a british woman solely because it made me feel like I was in a James Bond movie
TBF, some Australian accents put a rising intonation at the end of sentences, as though the speaker is always asking their interlocutor for approval. Just another thing that's reminiscent of Clive James' remark that too many Australians are descended from prison officers.
> Accrington Stanley!
Who are they?!
For people who don't get the reference, it's a classic advert for the milk marketing board. It's quite topical at the moment given the Fifa world cup
https://youtu.be/zPFrTBppRfw?si=BaHHYnP52UfWd6Fs
Ian Rush (referenced in the ad) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Rush
There's a surprisingly big cultural chasm here. Acrington Stanley are a football club, that's not so weird - the US has plenty of professional sports teams and distinguishes "major" leagues, but AIUI the US doesn't have anything like the "Football Pyramid": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_football_league_system
If the Green Bay Packers lose every game, I think they're just back next year anyway like nothing happened? If Manchester United lost every game they're relegated and cease to be in the Premier League, some team you've never heard of which won the EFL Championship become a Premier League team next season [subject to various extra rules they can probably meet] and Man U take their place in the EFL Championship.
The generated subtitles show that the translator doesn't know English
Exactly.
Exactly
"This blog is written in en-GB"
Excuse me, but I believe you meant to say this bloug is written in en-GB.
More seriously... you know, 30 or 40 years ago, I can sort of understand this attitude. Today, in the amount of time it takes you to complain, you could have popped the word into Google or something instead and learned what it was instead. Probably in less than the amount of time it took you to complain for an online blog. And you might learn something interesting.
When I grew up in the 1980s and 1990s, there was a thing called the "generation gap". It originally referred to something closer to the difference between the Hippies and their Greatest Generation parents, but it was smoothly repurposed into the differences between GenX and the Boomers, and the way we could have slang that was not decodeable by our parents.
I haven't heard the term in a while. The "generation gap" isn't what it used to be and there is less need for a term for it. I'm not entirely certain but I probably heard about "6-7" before my kids did. Urban Dictionary may not be the most reliable source in an academic sense but you can get a very fast sense of what something means from its entries, especially if you read them with a postmodern analysis eye and not just for the plain text.
I also find it a bit weird when people my age or the boomer generation complain about the kid's slang, because it's so easy to decode. You can't possible have a national-level kid's slang without an internet explainer 15 seconds away. It's not that hard anymore.
Blog, from web log, from log (written), from log (wood), from Middle English logge. No French involved, which is where the `ou` phoneme is from.
I've had a weblog since 1999. I know where the word comes from. Try rereading in light of that; if you need more hint consider why the author's spellchecker might put a red wiggly underline under the letters "color".
No, it's always been blog in en-GB.
Try reading in light of basic facts, if you need more hint consider if a spell checker might put a wiggly underline under the letters "loug".
> bloug
* blogue
Just set the page's theme to "Drunk". It'll be OK.
Somebody once went through one of my Stack* answers and changed (unilaterally edited) every Commonwealth spelling to American spelling...
Maybe I'm stating the obvious, but nobody has any moral obligation to be inclusive in content they share on their personal blog, for free, and nobody should reasonably expect it.
Reader View button is your friend here.
I’ve seen a lot of blog entries using typography so horrible, I had to use reader view to read the page—there was a trend in the mid-2010s to use pencil-thin fonts and there is now and then still a blog out there using one of those unreadable pencil-thin fonts.
However, this blog uses a very readable font called “Atkinson Hyperlegible” and I had no problem reading it. If the color scheme bothers you, click on “eInk” in the theme switcher on the top.
Disclaimers: No relationship to the owner of this blog. No AI used in this posting; I have the em-dash (—) in my custom keyboard layout.
The French didn't like it when the Lingua Franca switched from French to English and the Brits still whine that British English is no longer the dominant variety.
It's a trade-off: you can write in your regional dialect or you can write in a more widely understood global style.
It's not really comparable, almost every native English speaker can understand most British English fine, it's only when people use excessive slang or regional accents that people have issues (and that's an issue with any language - it can easily be an issue among native speakers within the UK!).
It doesn't really matter if you natively speak British English instead of American English, whereas French and English are obviously completely different languages and the switch made French a lot less useful and English a lot more useful
Or more generally: either everyone uses it or it stays the same.
Nobody speaks the One True English. That is its power.
He wants us to be exposed to different ways of speaking, yet he’s afraid to mention a book’s author by name.
Fun post but sort of ironic to end with a lecture on "cultural hegemony" from....a Brit!
sips tea
If I (a Brit) moves to the US, I'd absolutely get a Yorkshire-branded tea caddy filled with teabags on my desk. Sometimes you need to live up to the stereotypes.
May be decorative only —- Isn’t it due due to their wimpy electricity that it takes forever to boil a kettle and that’s why everyone gets coffee externally? Or, absolute horror, they microwave teacups….
Or has the situation improved? :)
I've always wondered, do that many brits actually like tea or is it more of a cultural thing? I've very rarely had a tea I like (though, I've never had one I actively disliked), and I can't imagine that's the case for most people but it makes me wonder
Nothing in this world beats a good sheng brewed in a gaiwan…
> Accrington Stanley
I've never heard of this depite being from the UK. It seems to be some ad from 1989. Although I do remember many classic ads from the 1980's I don't recall this. Is it an English / Scottish thing ? Who knows.
Why is Accrington Stanley so famous?
Ian Rush reflects on famous milk advert ahead of Liverpool v ... Accrington Stanley achieved worldwide fame primarily due to a legendary 1989 television advert for the Milk Marketing Board. In the iconic commercial, two young Liverpool fans debate whether to drink milk. One claims that football star Ian Rush told him, "If you don't drink lots of milk, you'll only be good enough to play for Accrington Stanley". The other boy questions, "Accrington Stanley? Who are they?", prompting the reply, "Exactly". The slogan became a massive pop-culture catchphrase in the UK, turning a then-obscure non-league team into the most famous minnows in football.
I suspect it was England and Wales only.
It was never shown in NI, which had its own Milk Marketing Board. Scotland had a separate one too, so probably didn't get them either.
My first thought after reading is that I fear for the author's safety. From the outside, this does not appear to be a safe time to express nationalism or cultural pride in the UK. The Internet is not free in the UK and decreasingly so in the rest of the world.
You fear for his safety!?
> From the outside
You should try visiting the inside.
More generally, we Brits draw a measure of distinction between cultural pride and nationalism: the former is good, and we have plenty of it; the latter is viewed with suspicion, for good reason.
(Edited for clarity)
> From the outside, this does not appear to be a safe time to express nationalism or cultural pride in the UK.
From outside this dimension maybe.
OP here.
Fuck off.
Yours etc,