Is there really a grammatical difference? And I’m not talking about vocabulary (i.e. Mathematics / Maths) or the spelling of certain words (i.e. Color / Colour). I’m talking about the structure of our sentences.
The reason I asked was because I was on the NBC webpage catching up to this seasons greatest show for Sci-Fi geeks, Heroes, when I noticed the ad for Fantastic Four II. The Rise of the Silver Surfer.
When I clicked on the link, there was the main website. And it had options for different languages. And two options for English.
US English and English outside of North America.
WTF?
Is it really that different that a major motion picture needs two different marketing campaigns? Help me out here. I would love for one day my magic to take me to Europe. And if I’m going to have trouble communicating, I might as well know now.
I think American English is sometimes cruder than British English. For example, you say “hey” for “hello”, whereas in BE “hey” is a strong call for attention. From the BE point of view, it’s like saying “oi!” instead of “hi”. Another example is “grab” for “get”; you might say “let’s go grab a coffee” whereas we’d say “let’s have a coffee.” In reality, no one will be “grabbing” anything, unless they’re dying of thirst
We can argue the toss over “mum” and “mom”, but when it comes to “maths” and “math”, I think we British are on the winning side. Reason? It’s a plural-form noun, like “statistics.” Even Americans never talk about “stat”.
why wouldnt you grab a cup of coffee? when you go to starbucks and they call out your order, you walk up and grab your cup, correct? ’ Hey ’ isnt exactly a genteel way of putting things in America either. You could be rude depending on your tone of voice and the way you say it. But if it’s toward a loved one a nd you softly say “hey” then it can be very affectionate. All words are like that I guess.
Grabbing is done quickly. If I grabbed a cup of tea (as opposed to coffee - why would I want a cup of that bitter rubbish?) I’d probably spill some.
I take the point about “hey” though.
Here’s another difference: the pronunciation of “Fantasia”. We say, using X-SAMPA notation, /f{n"teIZ@/, whereas the Americans say /"f{nt@si:@/. Ours is magical and romantic; there’s is flat. But having said that, their pronunciation of “God” is probably more ispiring than ours.
what are you talking about? yes grabbing is done quickly. when my order is waiting for me at the counter of starbucks i need to quickly grab it and go.
yes it is. And you might not want to walk up to a random guy and go:“Care for a fag”? “Got any fags?” “Know where I can get some fags?” “Is that a fag you got there?”
