Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 January 13

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January 13

American English to British English differences

What are cookies in the USA are biscuits in Britain. What are biscuits in the USA are scones in Britain. What are scones in the USA are... probably scones in Britain too but they are different enough. Fries become chips; chips become crisps. The British drive on the left side of the road and Americans drive on the right side. Are all of these language differences a deliberate and arbitrary attempt to differentiate, or did they just occur coincidentally and progressively occur overtime?--WaltCip (talk) 15:14, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

See Language change. Linguists would basically all agree that such changes "coincidentally and progressively occur over time." --Jayron32 15:20, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Your first two examples are wrong already. I stopped reading your post by that point. 131.251.254.154 (talk) 15:36, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

And yet you commented anyway (but without providing any corrections or other useful information). Iapetus (talk) 16:01, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

There was a similar question a month or two ago. And while not all British biscuits are cookies, what we call biscuits in America are definitely called scones in Britain, so the IP is off base. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:26, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Asked by whom? This question comes up monthly, not just came up last month. I think it should be placed on the French Academies list of banned questions, along with the origins of human language. μηδείς (talk) 21:51, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't know, and the search function is pretty much useless, so I can't tell you which archive it's in. And this has probably been asked too - but what about a "Frequently Asked Questions" page where we could keep track of questions like this and point the user to one or more archives? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:43, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Left vs. right-side driving has nothing to do with language differences. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:50, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Darn right it doesn't. It's all a pinko Commie plot of them thar lefties. Clarityfiend (talk) 01:20, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Right- and left-hand traffic has the history. In a nutshell, there were various standards in different regions, but there weren't any laws for the most part at the time the American colonies were founded - it was just a matter of local tradition. As long as people stick to one side of the road, it doesn't really matter which. It was only with the rise of international travel and the motor car that people started caring about what other countries did, since border traffic is a nightmare otherwise. America happened to pick right hand driving, and the UK left hand. The dominance of France and later Germany led to the spread of right hand driving in Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries, while the US pushed right hand driving on the rest of the Americas through the Pan-American Highway. The UK didn't have any mainland borders, so it didn't matter what side it drove with, and it kept the old left hand driving. Smurrayinchester 09:58, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

OP didn't mention (or didn't know) that what Americans call candy is called lollies in Britain and other Commonwealth countries. Akld guy (talk) 05:24, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

According to Lolly, that's more of an Aussie term, while candy in Britain is called "sweets". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:35, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, the general term in Australia is lolly/ies; sometimes sweets. The only exception is that the place you buy your mandatory choc-top/popcorn/whatever when you go to the movies is now generally labelled "Candy Bar". Given that none of us call the edible stuff "candy", one may well wonder why this is so. I often have. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:43, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

What are called lollies or lollipops in British are I think called popsicles in Youessian. -- Hoary (talk) 05:42, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

No, popsicles are frozen fruit juice on a stick. Lollipops are hard candy on a stick. The article claims popsicles in general ("ice pops") are a type of lollipop, but where I come from in the US those are two different things. In fact, Popsicle (brand) is a brand name, though we often called any kind of frozen juice on a stick a "popsicle". Tootsie Pop and Dum Dums (lollipop) are two brands of lollipops. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:47, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

In the UK the frozen variety are "ice(d) lollies" (sometimes reversed to "lolly ice"), and plain lollies (or lollipops) are "sweets" on a stick as mentioned above by BB. An alternative to the term "sweets" in Yorkshire is "spice" (singular and plural the same), retained from early usage for spiced or candied fruit. According to the OED, the British term "sweet" is a shortening of the originally Scottish term "sweetie" (though the longer form is now often considered a children's diminutive). The term goes back at least to 1721 and was used by Thackeray in his 1860 Christmas Tree. Dbfirs 07:29, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

I believe that should be: "...Thackeray in his 1861 Round about a Christmas Tree.[1], [2] 107.15.152.93 (talk) 17:52, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for the links and the correction, and apologies for abbreviating and for assuming that everyone would know who Thackeray was. His usage in Roundabout Papers number ten: Round About the Christmas Tree, though written about the Christmas 1860 season, was actually penned on "the day before Twelfth Day" (January 1861) and was published in The Cornhill Magazine published by Smith, Elder & Co. of London in February 1861. The actual quote is " ... the young people pulling at the branches: and instead of finding bonbons or sweeties in the packets which we pluck off the boughs, we find enclosed Mr Carnifex's review of the quarter's meat ..." Dbfirs 22:46, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

There's a song called "Coulter's Candy" which the Irish Rovers sang on a "live" album. Before they started singing, they talked about going to the shop and getting "a big bag o' sweeties", i.e. hard candy.[3] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:40, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

The only thing which has been deliberate is spelling, where Americans, namely Noah Webster, tried to reform spelling and distance themselves from the former metropole. On the opposite side the British condemn Americanisms in contemporary British English, so they are deliberately trying to be different and preserve their "Britishness", though it's mostly about usage rather than spelling (apart from -ize where many Britons (erroneously) believe it an Americanism as well, hence they write only -ise).--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 21:51, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, the "ise" endings are taught in most British schools these days, not because of anti-Americanism, but to simplify spelling rules. Some British people prefer to retain the "ize" endings (per Fowler and Oxford) for words where the verb has been formed by using the suffix equivalent to the Greek suffix -ίζειν (-izein). Words such as advertise, advise, apprise, chastise, circumcise, comprise, compromise, despise, demise, devise, disguise, enterprise, excise, expertise, exercise, franchise, improvise, incise, supervise, merchandise, premise, prise (open), reprise, revise, surmise, surprise, televise, treatise, as well as the y forms such as such as analyse, catalyse, paralyse must always have s and never z in British English because they are not from the Greek suffix -izein. Dbfirs 23:22, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

I suppose the exceptions are true for American English as well, apart from -yze words, prize, and, maybe, merchandize.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 00:50, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

In America, "merchandise" is spelled with an "s", not a "z", and the s is a "soft" s, rather than a "z" sound. However, the verb form is often pronounced "merchandizing". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:56, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

@Baseball Bugs: Yes, the noun is always merchandise, though dictionaries give the /z/ pronunciation as an alternative. The verb, again according to dictionaries, may have merchandize as an alternative spelling, but only with the /z/ pronunciation in both the cases, however Google Ngram shows the absolute prevalence of the "s" spelling. Also, as I've found out, according to Ngram, prize is a very rare variant even in American English, it's rather Am. pry versus Br. prise, even though prize is tagged as "US" in the Oxford Dictionary of English.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 23:37, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

"Prize" is the normal spelling in the US. But the ship in Star Trek is spelled Enterprise, even though its last syllable is pronounced "prize". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:00, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Referring to volcanos

Would saying something like "Licancabur volcano" at the beginning of a sentence without "the" be correct when referring to volcanos? Philroc^{My contribs} 20:13, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Our article on the Soufrière Hills volcano starts "The Soufrière Hills volcano", but on searching on Google Scholar and Google Books I find a small subset of scientific papers which don't use the leading article e.g. [4]. So I would say that on that evidence, the definite article is the normal way of starting such a sentence but there's nothing actually wrong with leaving it out either. Mikenorton (talk) 20:55, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

(US English) If the actual name of the volcano is "Licancabur Volcano", then you would skip the leading "The", but should capitalize "volcano". On the other hand, if you merely refer to a volcano on/in/at Licanbur, then I would include the leading "The", which indicates that there is only one, and use lowercase for "volcano", as it's not part of the name. For a similar example:

"Mount Vesuvius is..."

"The Pompeii volcano is..." StuRat (talk) 01:08, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

And if the name of the volcano is just Licanbur without another word, then "the volcano Licanbur" is appropriate. --69.159.60.210 (talk) 05:29, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

You may drop the definite article in headlinese: Licancabur Volcano Erupts Again! If you leave out the word "volcano," you won't need the definite article: Licancabur attracts large crowds. Otherwise, the definite article is needed: The Licancabur volcano is of great importance. —Stephen (talk) 16:45, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

• What's the difference between King's and Bronx Counties? You can be shot in the ass, and you can be shot in the Bronx, but you can't be shot in the Brooklyn. This is a matter of historical accident in many cases. μηδείς (talk) 02:29, 15 January 2017 (UTC)