Spelling English words properly

[Mooshi]

No, no. This isn't about being flawless to typos, we all make them. This is about for those of us on LTT who are not from the UK, Australia or Canada. (At least I believe Canadians use UK English)

 

I'm American and I try to spell words like they were intended such as "colour" and "grey". I'm too Americanized to catch everything, but I try when I notice stuff. It also irks me that the US even butchered a language to begin with when we seem to be the only ones who try to be special snowflake with altering spelling. Even on forms I fill out, I will try to use proper spelling.

 

Anyone else do this?

 

Note: This has nothing to do with trying to sound "fancy" or emulate another culture. Culture and spelling things as they are in the country of origin are not one in the same. Also, this conversion was intended for English speaking nations and not the dropping of English words into a sentence for no reason or vice versa. The two are also not related. 

[megadarkwood]

I don't understand. 

[naca1227]

No, no. This isn't about being flawless to typos, we all make them. This is about for those of us on LTT who are not from the UK, Australia or Canada. (At least I believe Canadians use UK English)

 

I'm American and I try to spell words like they were intended such as "colour" and "grey". I'm too Americanized to catch everything, but I try when I notice stuff. It also irks me that the US even butchered a language to begin with when we seem to be the only ones who try to be special snowflake with altering spelling. Even on forms I fill out, I will try to use proper spelling.

 

Anyone else do this?

Proper spelling? Lol. Butchered the language? English itself is a very confusing and fucked up language. French and German (Anglo-saxon) don't go together,

 

This is like a UK version of weeaboo. Stop. 

I mean no offense but this is so pretentious and kind of condescending. 

[Titanicium]

I unterstandt verich well

 

But anyway: What is the point about this thread?

[ANUPLUCIFERGAMER]

yea,i also don't understand!

[qwertywarrior]

english is a stupid broken language

dont bother

[naca1227]

english is a stupid broken language

dont bother

Exactly 

[Hyydrah]

Languages evolve; deal with it. 

[Titanicium]

Anyone else then me whom compare English to Android?

[Mooshi]

Proper spelling? Lol. Butchered the language? English itself is a very confusing and fucked up language. French and German (Anglo-saxon) don't go together,

 

This is like a UK version of weeaboo. Stop. 

I mean no offense but this is so pretentious and kind of condescending. 

 

Kawaii Desu Desu ^o^

 

...no.

 

The two are not even remotely the same. One drops random Japanese words into a normal sentence. The other is a complete language where it seems one country is trying too hard to be special while the majority of English speaking nations uses the same English found in its country of origin, England. It was simple to ignore all this as a kid, but as an adult with the Internet more or less bringing people together globally, it's really hard to ignore this.

 

Like, maybe it's cause I had two close friends who were a Scott and an Aussie and over the years, it made me see American English as sloppy.

 

Hey, I was someone back in the day as a kid who used to be like "stop whining" to British kids who were complaining in Nintendo magazine about "Gameboy Color" being spelled wrong.

[naca1227]

Kawaii Desu Desu ^o^

 

...no.

 

The two are not even remotely the same. One drops random Japanese words into a normal sentence. The other is a complete language where it seems one country is trying too hard to be special while the majority of English speaking nations uses the same English found in its country of origin, England. It was simple to ignore all this as a kid, but as an adult with the Internet more or less bringing people together globally, it's really hard to ignore this.

 

Like, maybe it's cause I had two close friends who were a Scott and an Aussie and over the years, it made me see American English as sloppy.

 

Hey, I was someone back in the day as a kid who used to be like "stop whining" to British kids who were complaining in Nintendo magazine about "Gameboy Color" being spelled wrong.

If you really cared about how English is supposed to sound/spell like you would use "thy" and such. 

[Hyydrah]

Kawaii Desu Desu ^o^

 

...no.

 

The two are not even remotely the same. One drops random Japanese words into a normal sentence. The other is a complete language where it seems one country is trying too hard to be special while the majority of English speaking nations uses the same English found in its country of origin, England. It was simple to ignore all this as a kid, but as an adult with the Internet more or less bringing people together globally, it's really hard to ignore this.

 

Like, maybe it's cause I had two close friends who were a Scott and an Aussie and over the years, it made me see American English as sloppy.

 

Hey, I was someone back in the day as a kid who used to be like "stop whining" to British kids who were complaining in Nintendo magazine about "Gameboy Color" being spelled wrong.

Regardless of whether America is trying to be "special", I still prefer to negate unnecessary letters if the meaning still comes across as effectively, which is why I tend to use American spelling (despite being Canadian).

 

Edit: This sums it up nicely.

 

[RatedBlam]

I kinda have the same experience, not that bothers me that much but English leaks in to the Finnish language, there's a huge amount of English words that are just made to sound finnishy like "lokaali, directly derived from local, some people are extremely annoyed by this.

[Mooshi]

If you really cared about how English is supposed to sound/spell like you would use "thy" and such. 

 

But no one uses thy outside of sounding silly in modern times.

 

At any rate, the thread was not meant to be taking uber seriously. I was just curious who on LTT has altered their spelling because of reasons. Some spellings are altered for no logical reason and created problems for kids that didn't need to exist in the first place. There are many people today who are like "Is it grey or gray". That's the kinda stuff that irks me a bit.

[naca1227]

But no one uses thy outside of sounding silly in modern times.

 

At any rate, the thread was not meant to be taking uber seriously. I was just curious who on LTT has altered their spelling because of reasons. Some spellings are altered for no logical reason and created problems for kids that needed to exist in the first place. There are many people today who are like "Is it grey or gray". That's the kinda stuff that irks me a bit.

"bucthering" the English language is a good thing, it will make it easier for other people to learn. If I had i tmy way so many words would be different because like Dave said, there is a lot of words that can be altered and make the exact same amount of sense.

[Hyydrah]

"bucthering" the English language is a good thing, it will make it easier for other people to learn. If I had i tmy way so many words would be different because like Dave said, there is a lot of words that can be altered and make the exact same amount of sense.

Spelling is just the start. Word structure and all those silly rules are the root of that problem.

[TheArium]

Well, yes languages evolve but I get your point why you would want to keep to the roots. Yes, I know that we could get back the Shakespeare era but that is not the point here. The point is to stop simplifying the language where there is no need. I agree that it adds flavour to the written language if we don't use unnecessary shortenings and such.

 

I try to do it myself with my own language, actually. Danish is a small language, thus there are words from other languages that we use every day. Eventually, it gets accepted that some of these words get spelled in an ugly "Danish-ish" way and I think that diminishes the value of the written language. It's hard to come with an example that people who do not speak Danish will understand, but I can invent an example myself to sort of explain. Like, imagine spelling "Computer" with a K instead of a C. That's just not the way it's supposed to be.

[Mooshi]

Someone could argue that since the language has branched off, it makes English harder than necessary to learn because someone learning the language wouldn't know which to learn. Even if they are basically the same core, the alternations exist between nations and this only serves to confuse.

[naca1227]

Spelling is just the start. Word structure and all those silly rules are the root of that problem.

Yes, as in there is no reason for Though to have a u, g, or h and a lot of words follow that and then don't. It's confusing and not needed, 

[Hyydrah]

Well, yes languages evolve but I get your point why you would want to keep to the roots. Yes, I know that we could get back the Shakespeare era but that is not the point here. The point is to stop simplifying the language where there is no need. I agree that it adds flavour to the written language if we don't use unnecessary shortenings and such.

 

I try to do it myself with my own language, actually. Danish is a small language, thus there are words from other languages that we use every day. Eventually, it gets accepted that some of these words get spelled in an ugly "Danish-ish" way and I think that diminishes the value of the written language. It's hard to come with an example that people who do not speak Danish will understand, but I can invent an example myself to sort of explain. Like, imagine spelling "Computer" with a K instead of a C. That's just not the way it's supposed to be.

Shortening words may be unnecessary, but they still yield a benefit. What is unnecessary is spending excess amounts of class time simply learning how to spell words. As long as one word isn't confused with another too often as a result of this shortening, I don't see much of a problem with it.

[KaareKanin]

I'm all with you, but that's because English is a second language for me. Never the less I believe US English is a separate language of sorts, and by that I mean even though it has some words spelled differently than the English version of English, it's still considered correct, at least as long as you don't try to pass it as the English version of English.

One thing to consider is that the cultural differences between the two countries are quite big, and there has happened a lot with the English language since it was adopted in the North American continent. As such it would be strange if every change to the language was mirrored perfectly across the ocean from the UK to the US. The English language is in constant evolution, and I would say that's a good thing, at least when compared to something like French, where the correct language is controlled by a small organization of "language-racists" who over the relatively short past have forced a minority-high-brow language over the whole country.

It would be even stranger if the language stood still in the US from the day it was introduced. Then, in all likely hood, it would be given its own name. That is what happened with Icelandic. That is a language that has pretty much stood still since the days when Iceland was inhabited and is considered a snapshot of how old Norse was. At the other branch of the split in development, you have Norwegian, which sounds completely different.

Norwegian by its self is quite special too, as the language is split into two separate languages (if you check on Wikipedia, some articles will have two Norwegian versions) which are both, by law, equal. There's one that was created by a guy who wanted the language to reflect how rural people spoke, and there's one that's descended from how the language was in more central areas. There's a lot of purist arguments flying across the table in that discussion, "most" tend to really dislike the other camp.

But back on track, I agree with you that English is the way the British speak/write. I myself tend to refer to the North American branch as American and the Australian branch as Australian (although the las one is probably mostly the accent, I don't know enough about it to claim otherwise). As such I try to favour the English-English.

[Mooshi]

Shortening words may be unnecessary, but they still yield a benefit. What is unnecessary is spending excess amounts of class time simply learning how to spell words. As long as one word isn't confused with another too often as a result of this shortening, I don't see much of a problem with it.

 

I just made my Aussie friend laugh when I mentioned this thread and we had a mini discussion.

 

 

HAHAH WHAT

You guys spell it "gray" ?

This could not get any more embarrasing.

[TheArium]

Shortening words may be unnecessary, but they still yield a benefit. What is unnecessary is spending excess amounts of class time simply learning how to spell words. As long as one word isn't confused with another too often as a result of this shortening, I don't see much of a problem with it.

 

I agree with you, however imagine it became the norm that you spell "though" "tho". It might be in the future as languages evolve (and that is a good thing) but as things are right now, in 98% of cases I would spell it "though" and I think other people should as well. Especially in a non-casual setting like writing an article or an application. A more extreme example is spelling "facade" "façade" or "naive" naïve". Due to how these words are pronounced they should be spelled like this but rarely are. This is due to how the language evolves and the fact that words get implemented in different languages. I agree it can get a bit pretentious but I believe it's fine at least for now to remember how the words used to look. As I said, I believe it adds value to the written language. That being said, I probably just would spell it plainly: facade, naive.

[BigMic]

Australians spell everything the way the British do.

However I guess each country do have their own slangs like Cockney and Aussie (have no idea what we call it )

[Sarcasm]

The only time I find it really matters is between metre and meter. They are NOT the same. We use metre to denote the measurement, and meter for a device to measure something (ex barometer).