Grammatical and puntuation differences in UK English Vs. US English

 

Liz,

Thanks! That cracked me up. It's up there with some of the letters I received as the senior editor at an office job. I had put an ad in the Washington Post for a proofreader. Some respondents butchered my name. One wrote: "I am considered an excelllentt proofreader by all my friends." I'd regularly post the worst ones on the bulletin board in the lunch room.

In the States, at least the region I lived in, you'd constantly get fliers under your door from Chinese restaurants. Translation would be lost sometimes: menu listings I remember include "strange-flavored chicken" and "sick chicken." (I'm on a roll now.) Then we took a coworker out for a going-away lunch after she'd found a new job. It was a very expensive Chinese restaurant in downtown D.C., and the menus alone must have cost a fortune. Just skimming through the sections of it, they had listings under "PORK," then "BEEF," then "POULTRY," then "SEAFOOD," and last, but certainly not least, "LAMP."  So I pointed it out to my coworkers, saying, "What's wrong with this picture?" and they cracked up when I ordered the "lamp," but with the lightbulbs on the side.  

I LOVE those menus. Our local pub does Thai food and on their menu is the curiously named "stir fired poke" !!

lol  Define "poke," please. I think a fortune could be made on menu editing alone. (But, back to a previous post, wouldn't you think that someone who was applying for a proofreading job would at LEAST proofread the cover letter he or she sent with the resume?) If I'd had the time, I would have replied to everyone with major mistakes simply by circling the mistakes and mailing the resume and cover letter back to the sender. Mistakes like that look bad with ANY job, much less an editorial one.

Absolutely, especially the spelling of the recruiter's name. It's just laziness.

I hate to point this out (but have been meaning to): oski, given the subject nature, it probably would have been wise to correctly spell "punctuation" in the thread title. Just a thought.

I didn't even spot that ha ha good thing I don't proofread for a living! 

Neither do I. It goes with the territory of editing and writing.

Anyone notice that proofing is doubly hard on-screen versus ink and paper?  I'm a horrible proofreader in the first place, but on-screen doubles my mistakes!  *sigh*

I thought that was just me! I don't know why it is harder to spot errors on screen but it is.

Could I just air a pet peeve here? I really, really loathe the British tendency to use a plural verb with a collective noun. IT GRATES ON MY NERVES!!

'The staff are invited to attend.'

'England win the World Cup.'

'My family are visiting on Christmas Eve.'

Ugh.

Perhaps I am self-conscious about being an American and speaking "American-English."  However, I agree with most of the aforementioned idiosyncracies that have become commonplace in "British-English."  Should I purposely ignore the need for commas, misuse the apostrophe, and use plural verbs when utilizing collective noun subjects in a sentence?
I just want to fit in!

I think you should do as the Brits do, speak as they speak. You sort of have to, just to make yourself easily understood and not come across as too 'American'. I can't tell you the number of times people have made remarks to me about 'this bloody American grammar checker' on their PC, or informed me that some phrase or another was 'American'.  So I try to keep my head down and the attention away from my usage. That doesn't mean I necessarily like it, though!

I think you should do as the Brits do, speak as they speak. You sort of have to, just to make yourself easily understood and not come across as too 'American'. I can't tell you the number of times people have made remarks to me about 'this bloody American grammar checker' on their PC, or informed me that some phrase or another was 'American'.  So I try to keep my head down and the attention away from my usage. That doesn't mean I necessarily like it, though!

Carla, I agree with your "when in Rome" philosophy.  It bothers me when I meet Americans here who seem to have a real problem with the language as in, they don't wish to assimilate and adopt the language as their own.

So, a Brit moving to the U.S. shouldn't have to speak "American"?  It would be okay to have British spell check on computers in the U.S. and use words like "lift", "biscuit", "spanner", "lorry", "braces" and "sussies"?  British and American English really are two different languages, and I think we need to look at them as such.  Would you go to Spain, Hungary, China or wherever and expect to speak the language you speak at home?

Yes, grammar here leaves something to be desired and the average joe has no idea how to use commas and apostrophes, but it's their language.  As "visitors" we have to respect that.  I'm the first to hold up my  hand and say that my accent is now quite goofy, because it's British English with an American accent, but I'm understood and I fit in.  I can speak "American" when I chat with friends at home or visit the U.S.A.

I think people in general tend to be quite insular when it comes to their native language anyway.  My mom came to visit me once and made a comment that I "shouldn't be speaking that way.  You're American after all.  You should speak the language of your native country."  I rolled my eyes and let it go.  Not TWO MINUTES later she was telling me that my SIL (who is from Shenzen, China) has been attending the local Chinese Women's club, and speaks Chinese on a regular basis.  She said, "That's not right.  She's in America now.  She should speak the language of her new home."  HELLO!?!!?   

I believe that if you move to a new country, you should learn the language. Even if you can't do the French accent or German throat thing, and you mess up on the gender and verb conjugation, just attempting to communicate with the people is important. Do WE mind when someone comes to the US with an accent or gets their words mixed up or uses a native expression?  No. It's cute, or funny, or sometimes profound. 

I agree to a certain extent about adopting the vocabulary here in Britain, but I don't worry about it too much or get paranoid about it.  People here have said they love my accent and they quite enjoy my American terms.  Though I have had a lot of British terms make themselves at home in my speech (and now sometimes forget the American equivalent!), I've spent many years using American words and can't just stop using them overnight, nor should I feel I have to. (e.g. I've always called it a "restroom"; I hate the word "toilet".) If someone doesn't understand me the first time, I use another term they do understand.  No biggie.  Those who complain about American words or the American spell check on their computers need to get a life.

The way they use punctuation here does seem quite erratic, so I just use the punctuation I was taught. Especially when it comes to commas, colons, and semicolons.   Punctuation was created to assist the reader, so any form that makes the text clearer is best.  I think schools in the US and Britain have really been slacking on the grammar and punctuation.  It just kills me when I see an official news item with errors - "then" instead of "than", "their" instead of "they're"....

We bought a cheap digital camera and the owner's manual is a hoot!  It must have been translated by someone's cousin who speaks a little English. "Please do not put the batteries into fire to prevent explosion to cause. "     Cracks me up.

And New Year's Eve I learned a new Scottish word - numpty. Means idiot. As in "I felt like a real numpty trying to Highland Fling in stilettos."