How AMERICANS Changed the English Language

in 1997 Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by JK Rowling was published and in case you haven't heard it was a success British kids couldn't get enough of the Schoolboy who discovered he was a wizard you're a wizard Harry I'm a what and the following year the American Edition renamed Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone came out what there was a separate American Edition I hear you cry British English and American English are the same language aren't they the change of title was done for reasons of marketing rather than for reasons of linguistic misunderstandings they the American Publishers thought the sorcerers sounded cooler than philosophers to American kids and would thus sell more copies philosopher really Socrates Nietzsche no no but many changes were made to reflect the different vocabularies here are a few in the original British version can you guess the American Escape a dumpster a jumper sweater biscuits cookies cupboard closet torch flashlight letterboxes mailboxes pants briefs penny apron there were even some grammar differences shant was replaced by won't even though in British English we don't use shart very much but in American English it's hardly ever used if Harry Potter had been American they wouldn't have published a separate British Edition in fact I can't think of any American book that has had a separate British Edition I grew up watching American TV shows and movies listening to American music and I'm sure I've read at least as many works of American literature as I have of British literature American culture and its language is familiar to all Brits we know what a dumpster is even if we don't say it we'd recognize parking lots and sidewalks even if we say car park and pavement today on mtalk TV we're going to look at how America the small upstart former Colony took the language of Shakespeare and turned it into something beautiful well it was already beautiful but they made it distinct and shook it up a little whether you like hundreds of thousands on your fairy cakes or rainbow sprinkles on your cupcakes you'll like this video just stay tuned in spite of the vocabulary and grammar differences between standard British English and standard American English and in spite of around three centuries of Separation they are still mutually intelligible and very close by the way a word about terms here now I know what some of you are going to say there is no such thing as British English there is Scottish English there is Welsh English liver puddly in mancunian Cockney English but British English doesn't exist dislike unsubscribe wait please don't write I've seen that before please don't like that when they pump out these phonetic squiggles in the dictionaries of Oxford and Cambridge and Collins they use what we call ssbe Standard Southern British English which is mostly the middle class English of the South of England okay mostly some exceptions will we should go into in other videos but not here likewise there is a standard American English sometimes called General American which is an accent lacking in Regional characteristics that you'll hear across the U.S and in parts of Canada but of course I'm aware that there are many American accents and dialects but in this video when I say an American accent I'm referring to this standard pronunciation I'm also aware that America covers two vast continents but when I say an American I mean someone from the US with that in mind let's continue from the time of the very first permanent English settlement in North America in Jamestown Virginia established on the 14th of May 1607 by John Smith the English of the new world has been diverging many new words enter the language from Native American tribes of North America and here's a list of just a few of them the Algonquian peoples are a Native American linguistic group that includes a number of tribes in the northeastern United States and Eastern Canada many of these words came into English simply because they had never been seen before by Europeans and they didn't know what they were or what to call them so this includes chipmunk from the Ojibwe words demo excuse my pronunciation moccasin from the Paul Hutton word pecan from the Algonquian word pakani skunk from the Massachusetts word sukok squash from the naragan set word squash the native language is also game names to many geographical features rivers mountains Town states that derive from native languages and these include the states of Illinois Delaware Massachusetts Iowa Kansas Alabama and Missouri the British were not the only colonists in North America New Netherlands was a 17th century Dutch colony and Dutch words that entered English via North America include coleslaw and cookies and poppycock and Landscape as well as the names of the New York Borough Brooklyn and the neighborhood of Harlem German immigrants brought us kindergarten sauerkraut wiener hamburger pretzels and Delicatessen and there is a myth that persists to this day the German almost became the official language of the United States it's not true in 1795 there was a vote to have federal laws be published in the state of Virginia in German as well as English the vote failed by one vote but German was never close to becoming the official language of the US in fact the United States doesn't have an official language let's continue with the list from Spanish we get Plaza vigilante Rodeo Stampede and Tornado from French the Americans took Depot cents dimes and crevasse Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe who spoke Yiddish contributed a number of words and expressions Bagel Nosh schmooze hutzpah and schmuck from the 17th century until the end of the Civil War in 1865 millions of Africans were kidnapped transported to America and sold into slavery some words of African origin entered English from slaves including Jive from wolof okra from Bantu voodoo from the foreign language spoken in West Africa around present-day Nigeria and Berlin and probably [Music] um watch Americans say yay or yes while slaves said and this passed into black American speech and later into white American speech I understand you're looking for a couple of girl musicians [Music] if we compare American and British names of some food items it reveals how immigrants change the language in Britain this is a courgette it comes from the French courgette our neighbors in France in America it's called the zucchini which reflects the influence of Italian immigrants in the US likewise the British say rocket from the French rocket and Americans say arugula from the Italian we say broad beans and the Americans say fava beans also from the Italian the British say coriander from French the Americans say cilantro from Spanish in 1620 the Mayflower set sail from England to what is now Plymouth Massachusetts on board were Puritans seeking religious freedom and a new life they set up one of the first successful colonies in North America and played a key role in the development of American democracy and freedom of expression the influence of religion cannot be underestimated the Spanish French and other English Colonists came to a new world to plunder but the Puritans came or what they considered a mission of God William Penn it was a Quaker the founding fathers were men of religion such as Thomas Jefferson who compiled his own version of the gospels known as the Jefferson Bible religion is deeply ingrained in American society and culture and this is reflected in their choice of words although Britain has an official religion speakers of British English have on the whole have been far less concerns with uttering profanities or blasphemous that explains why in American English you have so many minced Oaths a minced oath is a word that you use in place of a blasphemy or a swear word and here are a few myths Oaths rarely heard in the UK what the heck instead of what the hell people will look at that situation and say what the heck happened there gosh darn it instead of God damn it why gosh darn Hackett aren't conservatives funny dog gone instead of God damn if you've got a room full of people waiting for you and you told them you were gonna start at seven well dog gone at their time means something Jeepers Creepers ah Jeepers Creepers got some bad vibes in the head man what was I talking about and of course British English has a few minced Oaths of its own such as cool blimey which replaces God blind me but I think most people who use it don't know that it has a religious origin do you use minced Oaths let us know in the comments and this Puritan streak you can see in other vocabulary we see that this prudishness led to the altering of a number of everyday words in Britain you go to the toilets in America you go to the bathroom or the restroom of The Powder Room a Cockerel in British English became a rooster in American English presumably because the original contained the word likewise a cockroach in British English is called a roach in American English a tidbit in British English it's called a tidbit in American English a tidbit or a tidbit is like a little juicy piece of gossip about every little juicy tidbit of political gossip is not like other people is three moving anatomical tidbit and I'm surprised he didn't think of an alternative word for country some English words that are no longer widespread in Britain are preserved in American English trash a quintessentially American word right well actually it's a word the Vikings gave us it comes from the old Norse word toss which meant Twigs or leaves which had dropped to the forest floor Shakespeare used it let it alone thou fall it is about trash likewise force it diaper Skillet were used in Britain before they were used in America but have now been replaced by tap nappy and frying pan respectively even though Brits say sweets now candy is a very old word the English took it from old French and they took it from Arabic who took it from Persian who probably took it from Sanskrit Honda meaning a piece of sugar Shakespeare also used full to mean Autumn but that usage is now rare in Britain and gotten as the past participle of get it's get got gotten while the Brits say get got gotten was also used by Shakespeare and we still have forget forgot forgotten so we use this older form in that verb and in the expression ill-gotten gain British English seems to be a bit inconsistent so one point to American English there maybe is an interesting one it comes from England it had almost become archaic until Americans brought it back to life and re-exported it to Britain the same is true of the phrase I guess meaning I think I'm not going to give a long list of vocabulary differences between British English and American English we already have looked at a few at the start of this video and I'll just give you a few of these americanisms that Brits have willingly adopted these include call skyscraper jazz okay teenager telephone email it's a long list others have stayed in America such as sidewalk flashlight dresser round trip to mean a return some words have different meanings in the US and British English such as chips homely which means a cozy place or a Home loving person in British English and something or someone unattractive in American English a Giza is an informal term for a man in British English and an old man in American English there are many more I'm sure you can write your own in the comments and there are at least two words that have the complete opposite meaning to table something means to talk about it in British English I'm going to table this at the next meeting well in American English it means not to talk about it in British English moot as in the expression a moot's point means it's relevant for example how is our company going to deal with the threat posed from AI hmm that's a good point Jeffrey this is moot in American English means it's not relevant for example the proposed policy to ban vaping in the workplace is moot since all the employees now work from home often British writers have criticized the influx of americanisms into the language their complaints had quite absurd now t.h Huxley complained that the word scientists was a noble americanism he said to anyone who respects the English language I think scientist is about as pleasing as the word electrocution In 1832 the poet Samuel Taylor courage complained about a vile and barbarous new adjective that had made its way across the Atlantic and the word was talented yes that's right he said I go regret to see that violent barbarous vocable talented stealing out of the newspapers into the leading reviews and most respectable publications of the day Cool Ridge was wrong in more than one way since talented it was in fact British in origin having been first used in English in England in the 17th century let's move on to some grammar differences between British and American English perhaps surprisingly the grammar is mostly the same there's only one verb which is conjugated differently in Britain and American English that we've already mentioned Americans say get got gotten British say get got that's it really in some situations American user past simple where in British English we'd more likely use a present perfect for example in American English you might say I just saw Mary and in British English should say I've Just Seen Mary American English I got a new job British English I've got a new job in British English you might use Shaddai or shall we for suggestions this is less common in American English British would say shall I help you with that Americans might say can I help you with that pronunciation now I'm not going to take a deep dive into the pronunciation differences between ssbe and standard American English however if you want to know more then check out this video here but I will say that the pronunciation between British and American English is closer than you might think it is estimated that two-thirds of Americans speak with the same pronunciation whereas in Britain the SSB English is only spoken by about five percent of Brits that's because there are so many British accents as Simeon Potter said it would be no exaggeration to say that greater differences in pronunciation are discernible in the north of England between Trent and Tweed that's about 100 miles than in the whole of North America it's far more difficult for somebody from the south of England to understand a thick class region accent or a Geordie accent than it is to understand and an American English and the reason for this is the Great Vowel Shift The Great Vowel Shift was a series of sound changes in the English language that occurred between the 14th and 17th centuries the way people pronounce long vowels in English gradually changed once again I've covered this topic in other videos such as this one and I will do a video just on the GVS soon so I'll just give you a couple of examples and show you why it's relevant to American English the long e in Meet was pronounced air in Middle English so meat sounded more like the Modern English word mate Stone was pronounced Stone now in some English dialects such as in Northumberland they still say something close to the stone but in ssbe and standard American they have the same vowel Stone and meat despite the various differences the pronunciation between standard Southern British English and standard American accents are quite similar and the reason for this is that colonization from England came to America after the Great Vowel Shift and the immigrants among early English colonizers were from the south and east of England therefore one could argue that the American accent is a variation of Southern Standard British English the vowel sounds are quite similar one exception is the short a sounds you hear in American English the British say bath while the Americans say bath okay we say can't Americans say cans we say path and not path Etc and this is because in Shakespeare's time it would have been a short a two elizabethans in the South would have said bath and path southern English Has Changed by the old form has been retained in the American accent the American accent was set quite early on but that's not to say that it hasn't been influenced by speakers of other regions and other areas because 200 years later most settlers from Britain came from Scotland and Ireland between 1820 and 1860 one-third of all immigrants to the United States were Irish in the 1840s during the Potato Famine they made up nearly half of all immigrants there was also a huge number of immigrants from Scotland in the 2000 census about three percent of the American population at Scots Irish descent spelling differences yes there are some spelling differences and this guy can be held responsible Noel Webster his work on the American dictionary of English language which helps standardize American spelling pronunciation in the early 19th century color over you became color without a u and here are some of his other changes and some of these spelling changes caught on in Britain too everyone writes jail like this not like this clue like this not like this and some of his spelling reforms didn't catch on even though they should have done here are a few now I'm an English teacher and every day I have to correct the pronunciation of women and determine if only then listens to Webster Webster also gave America its pronunciation of the word which as a Brit I traditionally say schedule while Americans say schedule the word comes from the old French word most English words that originate from French can containing a CH are pronounced sure think of Chef chauffeur Ricochet machine brochure parachute mustache Etc but Webster noticed that the French word actually comes from an earlier Greek word and in English Greek words with a CH are pronounced with a thick k sound think of school scheme scholar schizophrenic so Webster changed the pronunciation to schedule to reflect its Greek origin but with exposure to lots of American Media now lots of Brits say the American way schedule though I continue to say schedule the British still have an identity crisis when it comes to the word program which we usually spell it like this as the French do but a computer program is spelled the American way without the me at the end isn't that ridiculous now here are five wonderful idioms that originated in the US one I'll take a rain check when someone tells you that they will take a rain check it means they cannot accept your invitation now but it could be possible another time or it can also just be used politely to decline an offer it originally come from baseball if you had paid to watch a baseball game but it was canceled due to bad weather you would receive a check that allowed you to watch it another day it's been used out of the context of baseball since the 1930s what you need is Insurance let's talk about it um I'll take a rain check bury the hatchet this means ending a long dispute and making peace after warring native Indian tribes made peace they would literally bury an ax or hatch it to symbolize the end of hostilities this fight's gone on too long it's time to bury the hatchet pass the buck and the buck stops here if you pass the buck it means you pass on the responsibility or the blame onto someone else instead of admitting that it's your fault if you say the buck stops here it means that I'm in charge and I'll take responsibility for any problems that arise it was popularized by Harry Truman who had a sign on his desk which said the buck stops here the buck comes from the game of poker a knife with a Buckhorn handle was used to indicate whose turn it was to deal the cards the best thing since sliced bread when we say something is the best or the greatest thing since it's sliced bread we mean that it's extremely useful and innovative this robot that cleans the house is the best thing since sliced bread a bread slicing machine was invented in the U.S in the 1920s ready sliced bread was revolutionary at the time and a great success advertisers frequently used it as a benchmark for comparing new Innovations however it wasn't until the 1950s that the expression the greatest thing said sliced bread became widely used to refer to anything new and exciting selling like hot cakes something sells like hot cakes sells easily and in large quantities hot cake in late 19th century America was a synonym for a pancake these were sold at the side of the roads and in markets and in fairs wow these new uh house cleaning robots or selling like hot cakes there are many others and some Expressions which sound so British are American in origin such as stiff upper lip an expression that almost defines britishness is in fact American to get it means to keep your emotions under control even in the face of adversity and the first reference to it was a phrase in the Massachusetts spy in 1815 and it's important not to overestimate the differences between standard American and SSB English they are as I said mutually intelligible and if you scroll down the 2000 most common words in American English they are almost identical to those used in British English a handful that aren't are still recognizable all and understood if an American has a British dialect such as Geordie from Newcastle or Cockney from London it's more difficult to understand and American English has its dialects too but on the whole we understand each other 100 but we still have to recognize that the American influence has been dramatic this is a huge topic and I've just scratched the surface here if you want to Deep dive into American English of the Jazz Age check out the video here that's all for now see you soon bye

Channel: LetThemTalkTV

Views: 224,921

Keywords: YT:CC=ON, History of the English language, History of English, American English, American history, History of American English, English and American differences, British and American false friends, LetThemTalkTV

Id: U1FAG3XZxdI

Length: 29min 27sec (1767 seconds)

Published: Tue May 16 2023