American vs. British English

[houltmac]

There are a few things that stand out to me as differences between American and British English. Of course, many of these are simply spelling differences and this is a nothingness to me. Having heard Dan Benjamin and John Gruber talking about this the other day I have noticed it more and more. Some things that strike me:

American: "I could care less..."
British: "I couldn't care less..."
Surely you couldn't care less, because you don't care about it at all?

American: "Apple has released the iPhone"
British: "Apple have released the iPhone"
In the US, when talking about Apple it would be considered a single entity (I agree with this and believe this to be correct - logically). In the UK however we would refer to Apple as a group of people, a "they", plural. While this may be true to some extent, the plural is simply the composition of the entity isn't it?

The one I am really writing this about is this, which Gruber reffered to during the show:
American: "To quote Dan, "I said nothing," and yet he did..."
British: "To quote Dan, "I said nothing", and yet he did..."
Subtle, but it's a really big difference. Is this really what American schools teach? Surely you quote the exact and then punctuate yourself outside of the quotation? If Dan required a comma then fair enough, but this would be my comma, not part of the quote. Or did I mis-understand what Gruber was saying?

Anyone care to point out my mistakes (guaranteed in a thread like this), comment on the above, or perhaps add a little more?

[baseballboy828]

Not all in the right order: In American English you use punctuation inside quotations. Also, it would be the follow in both American and possibly British (you'd just move the comma for British English):

"To quote Dan, 'I said nothing,' and yet he did..."

Do you guys do that where quotes within quotes are actually apostrophes?

For the second one, I think the American version is right. A business is an it. example: "I sent an email to Apple and received a reply from it." Apple is a essentially a company, not a group of people. Just a quick example. You would say "they sell great products," or "it sells great products." Apple sells great products. "Apple sell great products" makes no sense.

And for the first, the American version is sarcastic. A more complete version of ours is "As if I could care less". You are saying sarcastically that you could care less, where as the British version is very literal. I hear people in the U.S. say both versions though: could and couldn't.

Sorry for the backwardness!

[divigation]

Totally a poor piece of punctuation in the American system that we insert our own punctuation into someone else's words. I agree Hoult that it is poorly done here. But then I cannot stand the general sloppiness of American english to begin with, such as the first example, which BBB has pointed out is sarcastic, but actually, "as if I could care less" came along to compensate for the misuse of "I could care less", rather than the latter being a shortened version of the former. But this is just sloppy adaptation, the great power of the Americans, especially with their language. The best case of this is the oft repeated statement, "You want to have your cake and eat it too." An improper statement for anyone paying attention to the words they are spewing forth. It is a confusing retelling of the old idea that one wants to eat his cake and have it too, but it is has been repeated inproperly so many times that people don't understand why you would have a problem with saying it the former way, even though it makes no sense to take issue with someone wanting to have cake and then eat it. Another beautiful example being "The proof is in the pudding", which I assure you it is not, search all that you like, there is no proof in the pudding. Rather, "the proof of the pudding is in the tasting", but that is rather alot of words to say, so let us shorten it to the point of incomprehensibility. I personally prefer the english single quote (') around quotations, but judging by your post I am led to believe that perhaps it is antiquated in the Isles. Always preferred the cleanliness and simplicity of single quotes first and double quotes second, but that is just me.

As for referring to a company as a plural, this would be a sign of our times where a company is an entity unto itself and not a sum of its parts that we find the British way to be the illogical one. But the idea of referring to a company as a plural definitely sounds improper, although I could imagine a time when one's concept of a company was the people that comprised it. Definitely not the case for our relationship with institutions, but perhaps there was a time.

And I have to say that i was surprised that you stopped at 3.

[houltmac]

Firstly I should probably point out that I am no English language scholar. I was always very good in English classes in school, mostly because I had a good vocabulary (oh how work can change a guy) and an ounce of common sense. I have however never taken a creative writing course or any English language course in a decent school. Don't take anything I say to be definitive of what a good British university would teach, only what I was taught and generally see in everyday use.

With regard to the presentation of quotation using punctuation... Darn... This is something that really bugs me in Britain. No one standardizes and no one teaches this "properly" one way or the other. I was taught to use quotation marks around a quote to inform the reader that that is what the section is, and to punctuate only their words. Common sense says to use punctuation for yourself outside of the quote marks so the American punctuation just makes no sense at all to me. "Quotation marks" as was put to me, were not clarified as being single or double, but since I type so often I find it easier to read them correctly as double because single can sometimes be mis-read or missed entirely. I do however agree that single can be much neater. No one ever mentioned to me personally in school how to quote within a quote, so make of that what you will.

I guess I can understand the sarcasm, and as divigation says, there are many other examples of sloppy sayings (all of the others are found in British English also), but I never considered it a real possibiliy since we are generally far, far more sarcastic, sly and dry than Americans so surely this "sloppyness" should be the other way around? Odd.

All in I think there are a lot of things about American English which make no sense to me (the quote and punctuation thing really takes the biscuit though), however I think Americans have a bad idea of how we Brits write. We are lazy, sloppy, full of incoherent statements which have been passed on and slang like there is no tomorrow. We are a very segregated nation in terms of our language use and there is no true "British way", like there is no "British accent". Consistency is lost in under 20 miles in any direction; it's crazy.

There is a lot which is wrong with our Language and I think the US has made at least one good call: Apple is a single entity.

[Raven]

I'd just like to say, though I missed most of this conversation, that this is one of the reasons I so love this forum. Grammar!

[houltmac]

Strange, this has been the kind of thing that I would traditionally shy away from writing in a forum because of the poor, uneducated and not-at-all-thought-out response it would usually get. Here however I have multiple well thought out responses that do not simply call me a sad freak, but rather look at the issue and the ramifications. Good to know I'm not that only one who is bugged by the little things and willing to admit it.

Thanks, Raven.

[divigation]

Yeah, this is why this is the only forum that I stick to regularly, even though I disappeared for a while. Its the wonderful peoples around here that keeps me coming back.

[Ginamos]

Matt, your comments referencing John Gruber's "Talk Show"(ep5) podcast. (edit)

My take on English is that it's a living language with local variations. No variation is better than another, it's just a medium that allows us all to communicate.

Generally, I adopt an "Americanised" standard when writing in forums, but I don't believe any local version of English is better. The local versions just feed into the international version of English, and that allows us to understand each other.

I would hate to see a standards body formed, like the Acamédie Française, set up to regulate "good" English and attempt to freeze development.

Although, it is about time American's learned proper English

[Raven]

Originally Posted by Ginamos

Although, it is about time American's learned proper English

As an American, I agree with you. (Although - maybe it's different in Oz - shouldn't that be 'Americans,' not 'American's'?)
People speak and write so badly that it makes me twitch. Don't even get me started on AIM-speak, too.

[houltmac]

I agree completely that internationalization is important; as long as you can understand what is being said (for the sake of communication alone), then that is what is important. That said, I also think that things should make sense and my example above simply doesn't.

That said, it doesn't make sense that you don't know a sentence is a question until you finish reading it does it?