How I made a Chrome extension for converting Reg articles to UK spelling The Register began life in London in 1994 and today has journalists and other staff all over the world, which is to say San Francisco, Sydney, Singapore, Berlin, and beyond. It used to be that our vultures wrote in their local style: Americans used US spellings, the British relied on UK spellings, the Australians were pretty …
I would say that Sean Bean pronounces bastard the only true way to do so. It sounds so limp in a Southern accent.
Barrrrrsturd. <--- rubbish
BAH-STOD. <--- perfection
Every expletive sounds better in a Northern accent...except for Scouse. Manc / Yorkie being the best.
I was raised in a mixed Northern family (Manc, Yorkie, Geordie, Lanc and Linc) and the swearing was sublime, also with having to cope with that many dialects, I'm basically the Rosetta stone of Northern dialects.. If that mixture of accents were a dish in a bistro, it'd get three Michelin stars.
I've lived daahn saahf now for decades now and the swearing just doesn't cut it. It's so limp and weak.
When I was a kid, and I spilt something and my Manc dad decided to swear...it'd feel like the world coming to an end over something trivial.
Better yet, just launching extremely heavy insults over basically nothing was absolutely awesome.
Grandad: Fucking hell fire, I've lost me bastard keys again.
Dad: For fuck sake, you daft old bastard. I'm going to nail those cunts to you so as you don't lose the fucking things. Fuck!
Nana: They're over here in your cap you dumb bastard next to yer fags. 'ell fire.
Me: Fucking keys!
Grandad, Nana, Dad: Ey! No fucking swearing, I'll wash your mouth out wi soap! Where does he get it from? It's not me!
"King of Greece for half a century or so. Close enough?"
Being King of Greece doesn't actually make you Greek (OK: of Greek descent). He may have been but maybe not - no idea and I can't be bothered to look it up because it isn't important: I know how European Royalty works. When you run out of Royals, you get an obscure Germanic mini state to send over someone.
Capital G on granddad? Are you sure you aren't German? Proper nouns and certain honorifics only please! Mind you I'm a granddad ... should I demand a capital G? I'll ignore the d vs dd bit ... 8)
"Royal-as-a-Service, now there's an idea. Better yet, combine with Redundant Assortment of Indistinguishable Dunderheads, Head(-of-State) in The Cloud."
At the height of General Tacticus' renown, the royal family of Genua died out and Genua requested that Ankh-Morpork nominate a suitable new duke. They rewarded Tacticus with the selection; his first act after assuming the throne was to declare war on their biggest rival: Ankh-Morpork.
No, not even close at all. He was Danish, with no Greek blood, parachuted onto the Greek throne. He did not marry any Greeks, and Philip had no Greek blood at all - as he himself once told an ingratiating Greek visitor who claimed they had common ancestry.
Clear enough for you? I could cut & paste the whole story for you, but then that would deprive you of the pleasure of actually doing some proper rewarding research.
So, by your definition, almost none of the population of the USA can regard themselves as 'American' due to having no indigenous blood and being almost entirely descended from immigrants from other continents and descendants of those immigrants.
And all those in the UK who have no 'white British' blood cannot regard themselves as 'British'.
Or does the rule only apply where one has a prejudice against monarchy?
"Because most people who learn English as a second language learn the American spellings"
No, it's because most people who learn English as a FIRST language learn the American spellings.
I grew up with and use British English, but it's not a matter to create a big fuss about if El Reg uses US English. If I can understand it, then it serves the purpose.
Also, off topic but for what it's worth.... English has absorbed and bastardised words from so many other languages that both the spelling and pronunciation of many words make little sense or have no consistency to similair words. It's fine when you know them all having been brought up with them, but it must be a pain for people learning it late in life!
A number of years ago I attended a very enjoyable training class which was run by an American for a European audience. Just so happened that week there was a large Scandinavian contingent on the class. They spent most of the week correcting the poor guy's English. He'd done a lot of work with exPat Brits so understood the humour of the situation and joined in finding it funny.
These days I run training classes for people all over the world and it is very clear that in some countries they learn English and in some they learn American. Most words work in most places but occasionally you find ones which don't. The word router is a fun example in some parts of the English speaking world.
- so they're learning American, then (well, more precisely USAian) , rather than English, no?
Whilst American English spellings do grate on my nerves a bit, it doesnt really bother me that those in the USA have done their own thing with the language. It's what everyone around the world does , change and adapt the language they speak over time (I can remember seeing the word "show" spelt "shew" when I was a nipper, for instance, and gay was still used to mean happy back then, too, although it had started to acquire the modern meaning to some extent).
However, along with that goes some cultural baggage too. Depending on the topic, when I see American spelling, it either doesn't matter a damn to me, or it can raise a warning flag "Uh-oh, this is from an American cultural perspective, based on the American worldview - bear that in mind whilst you;re reading it" kind of thing. And I don't mean that entirely negatively, just that the USA and the UK have quite different cultures, and occasionally this, plus differences in use of language can trip us up.
Now, I have long enjoyed El Reg's sublimely British humour. In the same time, I have even learnt that some Americans DO get irony, gasp! (yeah, I was the UK equivalent of a hick from the sticks, and viewed the world in terms of stereotypes as a kid. I've learnt better since). So - El Reg has decided to go with Left-Pondian spelling? I won't lie, that rankles slightly with me, but it's not a deal-breaker, so long as the style of humour stays the same! Just so long as you relise I may, or may not, indulge in some gentle teasing, should suitable occasion arise over people who can't spell correctly (NB: yes, I'm aware that my typos are getting more frequent of late; unsure what's going on with that, but I DO know how to spell English correctly! 8-})
"I won't lie, that rankles slightly with me, but it's not a deal-breaker, so long as the style of humour stays the same!"
Agreed. Although as a general observation, here in the UK we get a lot of US TV and films and are expected to be clever enough to understand the difference in accents and culture. The reverse seems to be less true. Having said that, even in the US, TV seems to think people are not clever enough to understand American English if it's spoken with a local accent. I've seen US documentaries aimed at a US audience and some people speaking English in their local accent get sub-titled[1]. Even I, as a Brit who has never been to the US can understand what is being said, so just who are those sub-titles aimed at? Is it part of the dumbing down of US education? Is El Reg part of it? Are you confused yet? You will be after this weeks episode of Soap![2]
[1] In case any left-pondians need a translation, I believe sub-titles are called closed-captions (or close-?) over there :-)
[2] Yeah, we've been getting imports for a loooong time now.
"so just who are those sub-titles aimed at?"
People who emigrated here for whom English is a second language. There are rather a lot of them about, the USA being the world's single most popular country to emigrate to.
"I believe sub-titles are called closed-captions"
Closed captioning is a broadcast with real-time same language (usually!) captions that appear only on the screen of a receiver equipped with a decoder. Quite handy for the hearing impaired. Most TVs have the necessary decoder built in these days, and it's easy to turn on and off.
Sub-titles are on the "film" itself, so everybody sees them. Originally the "board" in silent films, now often used to translate foreign language films. Used in "bad accent" situations for people who have issues understanding accents ... Hearing impaired people and ESL folks, for example.
We also have SAP (secondary audio broadcast), which broadcasts a second language real-time translation on an auxiliary channel. Decoder needed, but again most TVs come with the necessary decoder and it's easy to turn on and off.
> And your answer is a foist an extension on us?
It's clearly an issue of wounded pride, like "how dare you not consider us as being the standard one and only English!"... :-p
Joke aside, I have a deeper problem with this: The ability to change anything we don't like on Internet. How long till somebody makes an extension which removes all opposing opinions on the Internet, allowing you to live in you very own little confirmation bubble?... We already live in a time where denying reality seems not only legit, but even normal. There is a term in psychiatry for this.
"they threw Thatcher under the bus"
Well the old girl had run her course and it was time for a change - best to get the green tent erected, when fatally wounded at Becher's (or when the wet's finally grew some).
She ran the show for quite a lot longer than these modern day fly by nights. At least she had staying power. We will all end up mad and dribbling one day. Ideally we won't be running a G8 economy at the same time (it was G8 back then).
"......... it was time for a change............"
That is probably the very worst reason for making change. It indicates that you are making the change purely for the sake of change without having any solid reason for it.
There were other reasons why they dumped Maggie; mostly selfish in nature (a trait which seems to continue to this day among politicians).
No surprises there - BoJo has pulled out
https://news.sky.com/story/question-mark-over-whether-boris-johnson-ever-had-the-numbers-12728781
Well, ish.
They may speak with that plummy accent, but shaping of language is still a function of society. A classic example of that is just how much of comedy slips into the language. " 't Is but a scratch" has an entirely different meaning when you've seen Search for the Holy Grail, and in US English (sorry, American) the phrase "it needs more cowbell" only gains meaning when you have seen the original SNL sketch.
This is one of the more complex issues in general with languages - they adopt and change, so American expressions can sneak in (with their spelling), less so vice versa 'coz there's more of them.
That said, sorry, but I much prefer UK English and I note with interest how much effort El Reg inflicted on itself by trying to go American (which, by the way, also denies the site its heritage of UK humour and culture which originated the 'biting the hand' idea): first, the effort to translate it all to American, and now the effort to offer some sort of sticking plaster for doing so.
Given that the audience has been pestered with irrelevant surveys over the last few weeks, why was the readership never surveyed about that change, or did I miss it? It strikes me as a fairly obvious way to end the debate (and about the only really useful survey). Most of us may have a slight dictatorial streak when it comes to user management, but we tend to be fairly democratic amongst ourselves unless there's an opportunity to wind up someone.
> denies the site its heritage of UK humour and culture
I'm a little surprised here. So you claim you would lose your humor and culture if you had to speak in some other language (let's say Japanese)? Maybe it's just me, but I'm perfectly fluent in a couple languages, and I know I keep my wit in all of them.
Downvote because it is well known (even to Americans, look it up on TVTropes) that a large part of British humour is "if it exists, take the piss out of it".
As a person who is multilingual and living in another country, I can tell you that about 80% of my humour does not translate. Because it involves taking the piss in a deadpan way, which is usually taken extremely literally by the natives. You may believe you keep your wit (as do I) regardless of the language spoken, but the real test isn't if you do so, it's how the joke is received.
If I wanted to seem "funnier", I would have to understand their humour, and stop using mine.
Which means, ultimately, a USian publication trying hard to be USian may well end up drastically cutting back on the sarcasm. Brits can get away with it, we're known for it. But leftpondian ways? This is a tech site, not Daria, so will it tone the sarcasm down? Time will tell...
Other problematic constructions: "that's awfully nice of you" and "that joke was terribly funny, wasn't it?" (neither seem to be understood by Aussies who hear awful and terrible), and "quite good" which seems to be a rather more positive thing in America.
On the other hand, saying something (like a meal, seminar, etc) "it was okay" where I'm from tends to translate as "it was a complete fucking disaster but I don't fancy making a fuss".
As a Left Coastian Yank, I have never heard of anybody having issues with any of those phrases.
However, willfully, intentionally and even stubbornly illiterate people exist in every society. Usually they are spread out among the general population, where they can't cause much trouble ... but I'm sure (nearly) all the readers of this august rag can name a few States where they seem to have concentrated for varying reasons. Were you, perchance, in one of those states?
And yes, "it was OK" tends to be a backhanded compliment around here.
I recently (e.g. within the past month) came across a stock car race TV broadcast that had a snippet of two-way radio chatter in which a Southern-born and -bred driver described his race car’s handling as “evil.” If Blasphemy Guy is a New Yorker as you say, then I suspect you probably just had the misfortune of dealing with a hyper-religious pedant. We find them annoying, too, but learn to just tune them out. American religious observance rates are still higher than the UK, but have declined severely in the last 40 years… and internet access has exposed younger Americans to acerbic British humo(u)r on an unprecedented scale.
"I suspect you probably just had the misfortune of dealing with a hyper-religious pedant."
Exactly. Worse, said HRP was taking advantage of the fact that he had a captive Brit at his disposal to preach at, knowing that the Brit probably didn't know it was against most social rules in the US, and definitely against the rules in most workplaces, and thus wouldn't say anything to management.
In essence, the bible-thumper was bullying the defenseless Brit. Bless.
And like all bullies, he almost certainly didn't have the cajones to try the same with his Yank workmates, who would know how and when to stand up for themselves.
"American religious observance rates are still higher than the UK, but have declined severely in the last 40 years"
I dunno about that ... virtually everyone I know in the UK will claim to be CofE if asked (with a few scattered among the other major religions of the world). The numbers of self-declared xtians in the US has been dropping since the 1950s. Last time I checked, over 25% of Americans claim no religious affiliation at all.
Note that I know many people who would claim "christian affiliation" if asked, but who have no actual affiliation with any church, have never actually attended a service in adult-hood, and probably haven't had a thought on the subject in years, if not decades. If you take these people into account, I rather suspect the actual numbers here in the US are well above 50% not affiliated with any religion. And rising.
"I dunno about that ... virtually everyone I know in the UK will claim to be CofE if asked"
Many people seem to be averse to answering "none of the above" to the question of religion. And many who never visit a church for a service in the lives will still get married in a church, have their children baptized and have a religious ceremony for their funeral. Primarily because "it's the done thing", although since the relaxation on the rules over where you can be married have been relaxed, churches have lost a fair chunk of the wedding business. When the choice was the council registry office or a church, most chose the church because they wanted some sort big ceremony because of the "fairy tale princess effect". Now they go off to fancy country hotels and the like which gives even more opportunity to "splash the cash" and prove they too can spend the first 10 years of married bliss paying off the bills for the bash!
As a Yank who spent many years in the British isles, I suspect your problem is that you just plain aren't as funny as you think you are. Cross-pond humo(u)r can be difficult to translate for the GreatUnwashed, but it's not impossible. And once explained (regardless of direction), it keeps its humo(u)r. Except many of the Brits refuse to have anything to do with the crossing from the West "because it's Yank".
There is a word for that ...
"..............I suspect your problem is that you just plain aren't as funny as you think you are............"
That comment underlines the issue nicely - our humour doesn't translate to North American understanding (witness the number of highly successful British sitcoms which US networks have tried to make their own version of, only for them to pan immediately: and the number of US sitcoms which have been broadcast in their original form in the UK, and have been enjoyed over here as mildly amusing, rather than hilariously funny as the US audiences percieve them).
To respond to your comment - we don't find US humour as side-splittingly funny as you Americans do either.
Humour does not translate easily, even into a slightly different form of the same language, and different nations/cultures percieve humor in different ways. Translating from English to American can frequently neuter the humour altogether ;)
Much of our humour is based upon our ability to take the piss out of ourselves. Only mature societies can do that.
If you take the piss out of Americans then it is often considered as an insult to the flag and to every American.
I learned that the hard way in the 1980's when I lived in New Hampshire.
Now you get Trump rallies where they pray to the flag and for the elimination of RINO's. Sad... really sad the way they have regressed.
If you are an American and not a MAGA/GQP fan then watch out for the new republic based upon A Handmaids Tale with bits of 1984 and Brave New World thrown in.
Putin will be rubbing his hands with glee at the thought of a deranged Donald proclaiming himself King Donald the 1st.
But most British people find US chat shows to be completely unfunmy (there's a reason we're okay with John Oliver staying with you), and then things like The Office needing to be redone for a US audience.
The humour is very different. Now throw in an actually different langauage (say Japanese, where most 'Western' humour falls face first flat on the floor) and you have a mess at best.
I'm perfectly fluent in a couple languages, and I know I keep my wit in all of them.
I am perfectly fluent in a number of languages as well, and I thus know that each language comes with its own cultural framework and payload. Just having the vocabulary doesn't provide you with the depth you get when you also have a feel for the cultural background.
English itself is a good example of that where one sentence can comfortably carry several layers more information than just the words convey according to their strict meaning in a vocabulary. Choice of words, tense, punctuation, context and culture can change the meaning completely.
(English is not my mothertongue but I like it exactly because of its richness - it's one of the reasons English humour can be so brilliant).
To me it mainly matters when people lack the cultural background to maintain a sense of humour.
I would not go as far as claiming Americans have a lesser sense of humour (OK, it would be spelled humor, but bear with me) because you would only have to point at the late Robin WIlliams to disprove that notion, but - as some people have already identified - it's totally baked into UK culture to take the mick out of anything if the opportunity arises, and that has a tendency to keep things going if the discussion is tough.
It is the exact nature of humour to take a 90º turn that can sometimes unstick complexity and ease tension as long as it doesn't get personal or insulting (something only weaker minds resort to IMHO, it's just poor form), and a latent irreverence tends to open up topics for debate that would otherwise just be hard to discuss.
Just my opinion :).
"I find both versions of English to work just fine"
Quite right. Getting all steamed up over whether you use English (-or) or French (-our) suffixes is silly 8)
I do enjoy pointing out that we (Brit here) often use French suffixes and that the American style might be preferred as perhaps being more English (whatever that might mean).
As you say: who gives a shit? If we are mutually intelligible, then let's start off from there and crack on.
"The problem is that it sometimes makes it much less intelligible - you can figure out what you think it means, but understanding isn't always instant, as it would be with the version and phraseology that you are used to."
Should we table that motion?[1]
[1] Was I writing in American or English? Are you reading it in American or English? If you make the wrong choice you will take the exact opposite in meaning that that which was intended. Especially confusing if it's a meeting involving people from both sides of the Atlantic.
"Was I writing in American or English?"
Neither. But you might have been writing in American English or British English.
"American" could be any one of several major[0] languages and dozens of minor[0] ones.
"English" is not one language, it is a family of languages.
[0] Major and minor in this context refers to the number of speakers, not importance.
Yikes. Overkill or what!
Comparing this piffling argument over a single website with the rest of the things the Universe doesn't care about, like - literally every other thing Humankind has ever achieved, including evolving into existence in the first place!
What a bummer, to be reminded of that over a weekend.
Oh look, over there, a Bleak Abyss to peer into.
"first, the effort to translate it all to American, and now the effort to offer some sort of sticking plaster for doing so."
Which interesting in itself. There's been way more blow-back over going all out American than there ever was over each author using whatever version of English they felt most comfortable with. Lots' effort and lots of complaints, versus the status quo of no effort and only a few complaints.
IANAL* But I believe in British English, it was originally "-ise" then it changed to "-ize". But this is the beatuy of language: It changes over time.
People who post about how "their" version of spelling, punctuation, grammer, etc is the "right" one have too much time on their hands and too little meaning in their life.
* I am not a linguist
"ize" is the original, from the ancient Greek. You Brits partially changed over to the French "ise" awhile back. Kinda like you did when going metric.
So once again, you're speaking/spleling in French, not your vaunted English.
The Big Dic says that both -ise and -ize are correct in British English.
Not always, according to this article at Oxford University Press, it wasn’t:
In fact, the ‘-ize’ forms have been in use in English spelling since the 15th century: they didn’t originate in American use, even though they are now standard in US English. […] The first recorded use of the verb [“realize”] with an ‘-ise’ spelling in the OED is not until 1755 – over a century later!
which suggests that the 19th century standardization in the UK on “-ise” is due to Dr. Johnson’s preference for French spelling over Latin spelling because (from his dictionary’s preface)
Of many words it is difficult to say whether they were immediately received from the Latin or the French, since at the time when we had dominions in France, we had Latin service in our churches. It is, however, my opinion, that the French generally supplied us; for we have few Latin words, among the terms of domestick use, which are not French; but many French, which are very remote from Latin.
(Johnson’s preference for “-our” over “-or” extended to words no longer spelled with that “u”, e.g. “authour”, “errours”, “superiour”, “tenour”, “translatours” from the same preface.)
Only later did some lexicographers invent -ize on the basis that the word came into French from Greek. Which is odd, seeing as how the Greeks don't even use the same alphabet.
Which 15th century lexicographers are you referring to? Regarding “-ize”, it started from Ancient Greek -ίζειν, was adopted into Latin as -izare, and English adopted “-ize” from Latin, for words with roots from Greek or Latin.
In Aus we used the Concise (or students) Oxford English Dictionary when I was at school. Which gave ize as the first (preferred) spelling for many words. That was the early 70's. ISE later became the only valid Australian spelling specifically because IZE was used by Americans. By the late 80's, anyone using an IZE spelling online would be specifically criticized for using 'American' spelling.
Since the topic is spelling rather than pronunciation, it’s not what they’d spoken, but what they’d written that is relevant. Take a look at the 1425 example of the sentence with “organized” in the linked OUP article above:
The brayne after þe lengþ haþ 3 ventriclez, And euery uentricle haþ 3 parties & in euery partie is organized one vertue.
As long as one knows that “þ” has since been replaced by “th”, I daresay that that sentence is easily recognizable as English.
and there was no written standard anyway.
Quite right, which is why claims like “-ise is the English original” are so amusing — people spelled words however they saw fit, even using different spellings of the same word in the same work.
I was thinking of Fowler mostly.
The King’s English was focused on vocabulary, syntax, punctuation, and style. There was an “Americanisms” section in its chapter on vocabulary, but that was focused on word choice (e.g. “fall” vs. “autumn”) rather than spelling (e.g. “realize” vs. “realise”).
I considered mentioning that Spanish is the preferred language of a large section of the US population. There again, outside of work many English speaking Indians prefer to converse in local dialects. English is the common language for business and bureaucracy in India, as there's over twenty indigenous languages in common use.
What insult? I see no insult.
I see something that might be perceived as an insult by someone not in on the joke ... but I assure you there was no insult. And I'm pretty sure the OP didn't take it as one. Unless he hit on an amazing coincidence of a handle ... Which is plausible, but highly unlikely.
'How does using standard American English make your content more accessible to people?'
It's as obvious as 3 + 5 = 941
By the way, the above is not wrong. It is written in American Mathematics. It is like mathematics as employed by mathematicians but is, you know, different because why not?
... inherently plural , as it is short for "Mathematics". Presumably you say "Mathematicses"?
Kind of like RPM is the plural (the S is implied from "revolutions"). If you insist on saying "RPMs", I'll need to know how many minutes you are intending to measure those revolutions.
Kind of like RPM is the plural (the S is implied from "revolutions").
No, maths is shortened word. When we shorten revolutions we say revs. Revs per minute. Not rev per minute that might apply to a second hand, which is apt (appropriate) for a second hand language.
Anyway, I couldn’t care less. And my inability to care less is because I already care the minimum amount possible. This is important because if I cared a great deal for something then I definitely could care less because it is still possible to care less. Simple logic seemingly beyond some 300 million people.
Myself, I find it hilarious that they fell into the fallacy that to reach a "global" audience, you have to use American spelling.
Far from it. Most of the world's English spelling came from UK and colonial roots, not American, including Canada's. But I'm sorry to say that because of moves by the likes of The Register and other online media, our Canadian UK-rooted spelling has fallen ever more by the wayside to adopt the American cesspool bastardization of the language.
The original argument against split infinitives is interesting (and to some extent questionable). It originated in an assumption by classicists that English is grounded in Latin (as indeed some of it is). Because in Latin an infinitive has no particle (as in to spell), it was argued that the infinitive particle in English is unbreakably coupled to the verb. That is valid if you assume that English grammar should always follow Latin grammar rules.
But it's a very narrow view given the immense variety of languages that have really contributed to English. And indeed enforcing it actually diminishes expressiveness in some cases. For example, "she will do it clearly" does not mean exactly the same as "she clearly will do it" or "clearly she will do it" -- the first expresses the manner in which the action will be done, whereas the second expresses the speaker's level of certainty that the action will be done and the third indicates a level of certainty as who will perform the action.
So there's a very good argument for allowing "split infinitives" in some cases, as there is in general for not being excessively pedantic about linguistic "rules" that reduce the capacity to express fine shades of meaning.
Lots of languages have inflections, they're not particular to latin. Ours were Germanic and we have still a couple kicking around (second person singular). More problematic is the attempt to impose latinate grammar with things like the subjunctive, gerunds, etc. that match imperfectly: Would that it were… for example.
… with things like the subjunctive, gerunds, etc. that match imperfectly: Would that it were… for example.
No Latinate grammar is involved with “Would that it were …”; both the auxiliary “would” and the subjunctive “were” are grammatically entirely Germanic. (In Latin itself, an imperfect subjunctive conjugation would be used without an auxiliary.) Would you describe how one might attempt to impose Latinate grammar on this construction?
That is precisely my point: there is very little latinate grammar in English. We use the terms but they are often misleading because of the mismatch. Interestingly, I think you also get similar things in French, which is even more of a hybrid language.
I wonder about the (disappearing?) subjunctive in English, though. If I ask my son (aged 20) whether he prefers:
If I were you, I'd stay at home.
vs
If I was you, I'd stay at home
then like me he prefers the former (although many of his contemporaries wouldn't). But for
It is not necessary that you be there in person.
vs
It is not necessary that you are there in person.
he prefers the latter (the former edges it for me).
These structures feel Latinate to me - I speak Spanish, and the subjunctive forms in the above map directly to the Spanish equivalents ("Si fuera tú...", "No es necesario que estés ahí...").
I speak Spanish, and the subjunctive forms in the above map directly to the Spanish equivalents ("Si fuera tú...", "No es necesario que estés ahí...").
Those structures aren’t Latinate; rather, they’re Indo-European, which is why those English subjunctive forms have Spanish equivalents (as well as equivalents in other Germanic, Romance, Celtic, &c. languages that descended from Proto-Indo-European). The Slavic and Baltic languages have shed their ancient subjunctive conjugations, though.
So the Spanish constructions derive from its Latin origins, while the English equivalents could have derived from either its Romance or Germanic roots - out of interest, do we know which (or is the best answer just "both")?
As far as I know, "to be" is the only remaining English verb which retains distinct subjunctive forms (aside from the general case of 3rd-person present-tense indicative) - and I think it derives from the Germanic origin... perhaps that's a clue.
I’m still in the dark about that attempt which you’d mentioned to impose Latinate grammar upon Germanic constructions such as “Would that it were …”. What is the attempted grammatically Latinate version of “Would that it were …” that you’ve seen?
".........the first expresses the manner in which the action will be done, whereas the second expresses the speaker's level of certainty that the action will be done and the third indicates a level of certainty as who will perform the action."
Not really. The second version just comes across as nonsensical, and doesn't convey any actual meaning to me at all.
Not disagreeing in any way with what you wrote, but the example (moving the word 'clearly' within a phrase with a future tense) had nothing to do with infinitives, and everything to do with word order, see "Man found playing a piano with three legs", etc.
I just reached down from the shelf Fowler's Modern English Usage [2nd Ed., 1968], which says
"The English-speaking world may be divided into (1) those who neither know nor care what a split infinitive is; (2) those who do not know, but care very much; (3) those who know and condemn; (4) those who know and approve; and (5) those who know and distinguish
1. Those who neither know nor care are the vast majority, and are a happy folk, to be envied by most of the minority classes"
Fowler seems to place himself in class 5, of which he says "We maintain ... that a real s. i., though not desirable in itself, is preferable to either of two things, to real ambiguity, and to patent artificiality. ... We will split infinitives sooner than be ambiguous or artificial; more than that, we will freely admit that sufficient recasting will get rid of any s. i. without involving either of those faults, and yet reserve to ourselves the right of deciding in each case whether recasting is worth while.
Word.
You developed an excellent news website based on British English, humour and values. American and international visitors came anyway. You must have needed some sop to Americans in order to make the change from co.uk and British spelling, but successful IT journalism clearly wasn't the reason.
Like so many other UK IT institutions, you sold out your roots and the Brits who helped you grow in return for the Yankee dollar. In doing so you threw away what was unique and merged in with all the other US-centric IT publications on the internet.
you threw away what was unique and merged in with all the other US-centric IT publications on the internet.
The irony is that you're now competing on the same playing field, whereas uniqueness has its own value. That said, I understand the economics that compel you to do this, but it's a shame.
......but you need the Unix utility "lex"......and if you can't find John Hagerman's original script....
====
%{
/* chef.x - convert English on stdin to Mock Swedish on stdout
*
* The WC definition matches any word character, and the NW definition matches
* any non-word character. Two start conditions are maintained: INW (in word)
* and NIW (not in word). The first rule passes TeX commands without change.
*
* HISTORY
*
* Apr 26, 1993; John Hagerman: Added ! and ? to the Bork Bork Bork rule.
*
* Apr 15, 1992; John Hagerman: Created.
*/
static int i_seen = 0;
%}
WC [A-Za-z']
NW [^A-Za-z']
%start INW NIW
%%
\\[^ \n]+ ECHO;
{NW} { BEGIN NIW; i_seen = 0; ECHO; }
[.!?]$ { BEGIN NIW; i_seen = 0;
printf("%c\nBork Bork Bork!",yytext[0]); }
<NIW>"bork"/{NW} ECHO;
<NIW>"Bork"/{NW} ECHO;
"an" { BEGIN INW; printf("un"); }
"An" { BEGIN INW; printf("Un"); }
"au" { BEGIN INW; printf("oo"); }
"Au" { BEGIN INW; printf("Oo"); }
"a"/{WC} { BEGIN INW; printf("e"); }
"A"/{WC} { BEGIN INW; printf("E"); }
"en"/{NW} { BEGIN INW; printf("ee"); }
<INW>"ew" { BEGIN INW; printf("oo"); }
<INW>"e"/{NW} { BEGIN INW; printf("e-a"); }
<NIW>"e" { BEGIN INW; printf("i"); }
<NIW>"E" { BEGIN INW; printf("I"); }
<INW>"f" { BEGIN INW; printf("ff"); }
<INW>"ir" { BEGIN INW; printf("ur"); }
<INW>"i" { BEGIN INW; printf(i_seen++ ? "i" : "ee"); }
<INW>"ow" { BEGIN INW; printf("oo"); }
<NIW>"o" { BEGIN INW; printf("oo"); }
<NIW>"O" { BEGIN INW; printf("Oo"); }
<INW>"o" { BEGIN INW; printf("u"); }
"the" { BEGIN INW; printf("zee"); }
"The" { BEGIN INW; printf("Zee"); }
"th"/{NW} { BEGIN INW; printf("t"); }
<INW>"tion" { BEGIN INW; printf("shun"); }
<INW>"u" { BEGIN INW; printf("oo"); }
<INW>"U" { BEGIN INW; printf("Oo"); }
"v" { BEGIN INW; printf("f"); }
"V" { BEGIN INW; printf("F"); }
"w" { BEGIN INW; printf("v"); }
"W" { BEGIN INW; printf("V"); }
. { BEGIN INW; ECHO; }
====
When I first came across ValSpeak, I was most disappointed that it didn't convert everything into instructions involving old washing up bottles and sticky-backed plastic. And now, let's see how John is getting along with that elephant...
As I understand it, if someone want an international audience you should use UK English, as all non-US English variants use UK English or very similar.
Likewise most of the world uses metric measurements, even in the UK which is hybrid metric measurements are understood by a science and engineering audience.
I think you've thrown the baby out with the bathwater here.
I'll second that - and please read down for the main point, let's keep the cachet of British irony and incorrectness, brother RegTards.
- when I worked in Germany, "proper" native English, with its accent, idioms, vocab and corruptible grammer, was highly valued.
However, what they really loved was our dark humour and irony.
Nationalities, like people, tend to undervalue their best, most effortless skills because they are intrinsic, and because it might be immodest. - Here best explained by Kate Fox, in her book "Watching the English".
The English are not usually given to patriotic boasting – indeed, both patriotism and boasting are regarded as unseemly, so the combination of these two sins is doubly distasteful. But there is one significant exception to this rule, and that is the patriotic pride we take in our sense of humour, particularly in our expert use of irony.
The popular belief is that we have a better, more subtle, more highly developed sense of humour than any other nation, and specifically that other nations are all tediously literal in their thinking and incapable of understanding or appreciating irony. Almost all of the English people I interviewed subscribed to this belief, and many foreigners, rather surprisingly, humbly concurred.
What took more time was introducing humour in meetings and discussions with more than two participants.
By convention in Germany this is strictly verboten. The definite upside being that annoying comic wankers, company clowns, are routinely and deservedly shot.
Downside is that the devices we love to slip in to see who's awake - like veiled insult, wrecking endorsements, blind innuendo, faint praise, helpful but catastrophic suggestions - will just cause confusion, cognitive dissonance. - Are we being clumsy, rude, inept, vicious, stupid or what?
It is of course soon remedied, they get it - it is a question of scope, not of understanding. We've broadened the rulebook and smuggled in a subtle, subversive, perpetual game, and it's a new, toe-curling type of funny.
Again, better explained by Kate Fox:
For those attempting to acclimatize to this atmosphere, the most important ‘rule’ to remember is that irony is endemic: like humour in general, irony is a constant, a given, a normal element of ordinary, everyday conversation. The English may not always be joking, but they are always in a state of readiness for humour. We do not always say the opposite of what we mean, but we are always alert to the possibility of irony. When we ask someone a straightforward question (e.g. ‘How are the children?’), we are equally prepared for either a straightforward response (‘Fine, thanks.’) or an ironic one (‘Oh, they’re delightful – charming, helpful, tidy, studious . . .’ To which the reply is ‘Oh dear. Been one of those days, has it?’).
Seriously though, Reg readers and creators, look at New Scientist - once excellent, British, highly read and enjoyed worldwide. It was taken over and infantilized, then peppered with American token-words: quadrillions, cellphones, holiday season, freedomheit.. to mention just a few.
It is now heavily paywalled and completely worthless.
The Reg, many thanks to Lester Haines originally, has been for years a beacon of quintessential British humour, irreverence, irony and wit.
The straplines alone are an absolute artform, seen here first.
Please don't spoil it by removing the linguistic tokens that identify it as English (UK).
Regardless of my somewhat irreverent amusement elsewhere in this thread, it may surprise some that I agree with the above post.
Well, most of the post ... Kate Fox's observation "The English are not usually given to patriotic boasting – indeed, both patriotism and boasting are regarded as unseemly, so the combination of these two sins is doubly distasteful. But there is one significant exception to this rule, and that is the patriotic pride we take in our sense of humour, particularly in our expert use of irony." is clearly bullshit.
Or perhaps she didn't notice the major kerfuffle caused by The Sex Pistols when they were top of the charts during the Queen's Silver Jubilee, as the entire nation lost its tiny collective mind in celebration ... There are other, somewhat less egregious examples.
Glad you liked the post.
I think the point stands, we just need to separate patriotism and royalism.
The English aren't particularly patriotic, compared to the Scots for example, or the Americans. (Both fine, I like them, they're just different in this regard, on the average).
The English don't really adopt any national identity, nor claim any distinguishing features - it is almost as though we see ourselves as a reference, the norm, like BBC "received" pronunciation.
Despite the efforts of our newspapers and institutions, we mostly reject excessive patriotism and royalism, because it is jingoism, most unseemly. Also, we mistrust any appeal to base emotions, we don't like to be "gamed" into mob politics. I accept that we are starting to lose that battle, through laziness, ignorance, and the resources available to social media.
The outrage against the Sex Pistols was whipped-up by the tabloids and BBC, but most saw it as an attack on the Queen, who cannot respond, and therefore a bit unfair. Our sympathies, as ever, for the underdog.
Note that it doesn't preclude other attacks, like Spitting Image, The Royals, perhaps equally savage, but very funny - so that's OK then.
Absolutely. When we visited China our guide had a superb English accent, which she learnt in China, and took great joy in using the British vernacular. During the long coach rides we all enjoyed such things as arguing over how to pronounce "scone" and coming up with different words relating to walking (IIRC she knew them all except for "galumph").
Wikipedia has the final word on this matter (whatever that is).
If we claim purple and yellow as ours, the one true English language has surely won and El Reg has joined the minority.
"As I understand it, if someone want an international audience you should use UK English"
For the spoken word.
However, like it or not, just as written Arabic drove early science, written Latin (Koin Greek, Aramaic, et al) drove early Christianity, written Deutsch drove later science (etc., I won't continue. You are quite welcome), written American English is the lingua franca of tehintrawebtubes, and of the FOSS world. This isn't a good thing, nor is it a bad thing. All it is is an accident of history.
However, it will change over time. If there is one thing that's a dead cert, it's that language mutates. Much to the deep dismay of all those Internet King's English nazis out there.
And of course, running code trumps all.
Please understand Godwin's Law before invoking it, or I shall laugh at you.
As he said ^.
I guess the first ambassador of American English has been Hollywood movies, which established in the ears of other countries how "English" (they don't know there are several flavors) is supposed to sound, and then of course more recently the IT world: Internet, but also the GUI's of software. For each mention of "centre" you'll see 100 occurrences of "center".
William S. Burroughs came up with the idea but, yes, Laurie Anderson did write a good song about it, amongst their other collaborations. See them together in "Home of the Brave".
PS in all honesty, I'd stick with Anderson's material, far more accessible. Clumsy Angel boots and all.
Que es mas macho, lightbulb or schoolbus?
However, like it or not, just as written Arabic drove early science, ... written Deutsch drove later science ...
Nowadays, in fact, most scientific journals (there are exceptions) are quite relaxed about spelling. They are generally happy for you to use UK, American, Australian, ... spelling, as long as it is used consistently. However, US spelling still predominates (and as might be expected, scientific publications by US authors outnumber those by any other single nation by a significant factor).
Even Scientific American, back in the day, allowed spellings according to the Author's background. And even mixed & matched, in the case where one author was quoting another. (See Martin Gardner's columns on Conway's Game of Life, for example ... if you can find reprints that haven't been "helpfully" edited, that is).
I fort the koala-tea of spelin ad gone dawn a bit an noow eye no wy.
Off cource u shud panda two th' masess. Yur a bizzness an hve too mak a scent or free. Spelin is difucult an jus coz it mackes mi brian hrut dunt meen u shundt pleeze de moist poople.
I luk fword too usin ur Crome extenstion an ope itll mack fings on ur sigth mutch ezier tu unnerstand.
(AKA "Candidate for a Pullet Surprise")
I have a spelling checker,
It came with my PC.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.
Eye ran this poem threw it,
Your sure reel glad two no.
Its vary polished in it's weigh.
My checker tolled me sew.
A checker is a bless sing,
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right awl stiles two reed,
And aides me when eye rime.
Each frays come posed up on my screen
Eye trussed too bee a joule.
The checker pours o'er every word
To cheque sum spelling rule.
Bee fore a veiling checker's
Hour spelling mite decline,
And if we're lacks oar have a laps,
We wood bee maid too wine.
Butt now bee cause my spelling
Is checked with such grate flare,
Their are know fault's with in my cite,
Of nun eye am a wear.
Now spelling does knot phase me,
It does knot bring a tier.
My pay purrs awl due glad den
With wrapped word's fare as hear.
To rite with care is quite a feet
Of witch won should bee proud,
And wee mussed dew the best wee can,
Sew flaw's are knot aloud.
Sow ewe can sea why aye dew prays
Such soft wear four pea seas,
And why eye brake in two averse
Buy righting want too pleas.
-Mark Eckman and Jerrold H. Zar, early 1990s
But the American spelling is mostly just a bit simpler.
After all, is the "u" in colour that important and is it not the French "connection" sort of.
Most of the differences are similar, making things easier.
I use an English spell checker as it's the way I was taught the language but to be honest, this will not upset me at all.
But please don't go for the silly formats for dates, English or American.
If you want simple and unambiguous, surely it's "kuller"... no, wait, that might be mispronounced to rhyme with "fuller"... damn you, English phonetics.
On a more serious note there have, of course, been successful reinventions of written language. Korean Hangul script, for instance, was introduced in the 15th century because the emperor Sejong (probably correctly) judged that the Korean-Chinese script in common use was so arcane and difficult to learn that it was holding back the education of the people. Another is a revised phonetic spelling for the Basque language Euskera. Previously written (if at all) using Spanish (and/or French?) phonetics, the modern spelling is very logical, maps cleanly to the spoken form, and has no redundant letters (although I think "c" and "y" are retained for foreign import words).
This post has been deleted by its author
... presumably because English (Traditional) was too hard for the locals to pick up.
No.
Afaik it was Noah Webster and his eponymous dictionary that started this argument. Something along the lines of his antipathy towards the British which caused him to deliberately alter many words, color, plow etc. just to differentiate the language used by the American colonist from their former colonial masters.
The last few have been a bit weak.
Richard Speed was doing a good job with On Call and Who Me? Maybe he was too English for the USAsians, lots of Yanks have a good sense of humour but many, many others aren't educated enough to 'get' funny things.
We (the UK) get many overseas comedians here as their humour is sometimes lost on their fellow countrymen, we send our weaker comedians to the USA - Tracey Ullman, James Corden, for example. I can imagine Rich Hall is probably not considered funny in a lot of US States :)
Like so many others have said, it's really solving the wrong problem. The problem being the loss of unique identity that attracted me to El Reg in the first place.
Incidentally, why exactly was "Biting the hand that feeds IT" dropped. Seems a perfectly innocuous and amusing by-line.
I came here to say exactly the same thing. Have an upvote.
El Reg has changed for the worse, but it's no one specific thing: US spelling grates on me, but I can cope. The lack of irreverent humour (and Paris and Dabbsy) makes the whole thing more 'work' and less 'play'. There are far more articles, but I only skim read very few as they're often informative, but boring.
As others have said, why not put out a survey to see what actual readers think? And then those in the wrong can accept that they are wrong - even if it's us, the readers.
Anyway, it's the weekend. Drink beer and carry on.
> Not entirely dropped but moved to the page bottom
No doubt hoping that out of sight is out of mind. Of the new owners, at least.
One last, brave, attempt to keep the old ways alive. Though we've brought it to their attention now, how long until it is truly out of site?
Dropping UK English for "simplified English" is just another nail in the coffin i'm afraid. You've lost the uniqueness (or should that be your USP) that you once had. The reg has become just another site for people to check on occasion.
Are you insinuating with this pointless article (as it'll please no-one and appears that you are just giving us the rods) that Americans are unable to understand British English? Maybe they should be given the chance to learn, you know, like us British have done with the American ways.
There's more to British English than just spelling. Our language is richer with a far wider range of both words and phrases used in common parlance. This site even used to come up with words I'd never heard or seen before, the fun being then to work out how they could be used by myself if I liked them.
You've lost your culture mate! Like many have said above it's simply selling out, and unfortunately for you guys it'll make jack all positive difference, only negative.
"Our language is richer with a far wider range of both words and phrases used in common parlance."
Once upon a time, on this very site, back in the good ol' days...
https://www.theregister.com/2015/10/16/nippy_palaver_cockwomble_english_language/
Maybe the American readers themselves are able to understand, but American publishers don't believe that. To the extent that British authors (no names, no pack drill, Stross, stop fidgeting) will Americanize their books themselves to avoid having them butchered when the publishers attempt the job themselves. Leaving us with only the pre-yanked version, reading a Brit writer's accurate description of London life - up until we thud into a Friday night take-out bag of fries.
Swapping from UK-centric to US-centric is not something I wanted to see with this site as part of the charm is that it has UK roots with UK humour. That's not to say there's anything wrong with being US centric, but it does make it more generic, less interesting, more corporate. If you hadn't noticed, your readership, in general, are a bit anti-corporate. So it does feel like a sell-out in some way.
This post has been deleted by its author
I remember when this was all fields.
I remember when a quid could buy you a full tank of petrol.
I remember when the streets were swept clean at least once a week and litter wasn't a problem.
I remember when politicians at least pretended to be honest.
I remember when El Reg was a UK-based publication and fun to read...
...sigh...
We still have two competing rag and bone men round here.
Sadly, they moved on with times - instead of 'orse 'n' cart and a good pair o' lungs, they both drive around the villages in small lorries with a recorded call on 30 second repeat. Although tradition is kept by the calls being so knackered that unless you know what they're saying you haven't a hope of understanding it!
One of the factors drawing me to The Register was the language difference. It suited the laziness in me in learning a new language. I was begining to do quite well, but alas. Now, I am reverting back to my 'merican ways entirely. Why should I even bother? Now, I will have to find another way to easily learn another language. I heard about that Parler site, seems like it may due with that little French twist on the name. Last resort is Facebook, but that may be too hard to understand.
Could you adopt your new skill to a simpler task -- autoconvert (or remove) the Fahrenheits, miles, yards, pounds, ounces, inches, and (short) tons the "americans" use?
It would be a subversive way to de-americanize the site.
(Although pounds might be hard, the £ glyph should be in your style guide).
This was a solution nobody wanted to a problem that didn't exist until a wrong decision was made. Let the writers write, and use the spellings they provide unless it actually is mis-spelled. It's not the 1950s anymore, and people today know the difference between check, check and cheque. Then you don't need an app to let you change words to Britspeak, except when it doesn't since the app itself doesn't know. You can "cheque" with the rest of the commentards here, but I'm pretty sure they'll all agree that The Reg deciding on a dialect standard rather than letting writers write is the real problem here.
Quite frankly, one of the attractions to the site was getting to read stories in a British writing dialect, a rare thing in the world. If I want to read American tech stories there's no shortage of sites. Switching to Americanized spellings changes The Reg from something unique and recognizable into one of a thousand identical, indistiguishable sites.
Let the writers write, and use the spellings they provide unless it actually is mis-spelled.
Hear, hear!
English is used in more than one country, and has an enormous vocabulary. I don't mind people whose mother-tongue is American English writing in (good) American English. I can cope. In the same way, I'm sure your intelligent readership can cope with writers writing in (good) British English, or Australian English, or Indian English, or Irish English, or Canadian English, or Caribbean English, or.... We all get to learn new vocabulary and respect each other's differences. Getting out the American English paint tin and covering a beautiful multicoloured tapestry of language with magnolia American English is a disservice to the intelligent multicultural IT community. You can do better.
Wikipedia takes the view that articles (in the main) should be left written in the version of English written by the originating author, unless it covers a specifically national topic. El Reg can do the same. Respect your author's backgrounds.
NN
That there are more Englishes* than just British and American. British English itself quite diverse, and the English of Scotland is as different as American English is from the English of England. That's before we even consider Ireland, Australia, Canada, South Africa, and New Zealand, which have features that distinguish their Englishes from other, closely related varieties.
And to really mix things up, keep in mind regional dialects. In the US, a speaker with a "Louisiana" accent is almost unintelligible at first pass to somebody who speaks an "Upper Midwestern" dialect. Who ever thought a living language would be so complex?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2013/12/02/what-dialect-to-do-you-speak-a-map-of-american-english/
^^ WaPo article in the above link is an interesting read that is at least tangentially relevant ^^
*is "Englishes" even a word?
Why not keep articles written by American journalists in American spelling, and articles written by British journalists in British spellings, and everyone else using the spellings they are used to? It adds to the flavour of the site, and emphasises [adds to the flavor amd emphasizes] the diverse sources of your excellent reporting.
As a Brit, being constantly told that Americanisms are global and English can go whistle is highly insulting. The Americans... To speak in pseudo American have been "adjustabating English for the maximum confusalization of the English since 1776".
Given that the language is still called English and we are not yet speaking "English American", perhaps it would be more appropriate to develop an extension to translate English to left-pondian
I also note that the tagline "biting the hand that feeds IT" is gone. Probably too much sponsorship from certain large companies and the need to regurgitate the speech patterns of corporate America.
Bring back Dabbsy
> is highly insulting
It's not an insult - it's just a reflection of what's expected globally.
> the tagline "biting the hand that feeds IT" is gone
It just got moved to the end of the page to tidy up the masthead.
> Bring back Dabbsy
We parted on good terms, and wish him all the best – he's on his Autosave is for Wimps Substack.
C.
There's a problem here you see. I didn't read El Reg (Can we still call it that, or does it not meet with Corporate's brand identity guidelines?) For what's expected globally. I read it for its angle on the IT world, that is to say an unusual and original angle, and for its sense of humour. And for the fact that as a brit, Inherently 'got' the sense of humour. The inuendous headlines. The schoolboyish in jokes. While I appreciate that the infotorials and surveys are the stock in trade of Corporate expectations, why would I come here to read them when $corporatewebsite does it in a much more corporate, and polished form?
To translate that a bit more, expect your bandwidth bill to go down ever so slightly as I stop bothering to read. Because El Reg made a teabreak both educational - but also funny. Now it is starting to feel more like an IBM sales seminar from the mid 90s. How long before the comments section goes to be replaced with a "reach out to us" feedback form.
The cultural insensitivity of this post just rubs our nose in an American corporate attitude that : "British is quaintsy and irrelevantized: strange people but we like the profit of selling products at dollar prices with a pound sign in front of it. After all, America invented the computer, and all that went with it and by the lord we'll cash in. Because we're global and Britain is quaintsy.
One final question before it's beer o clock... When the Chinese IT sector does the inevitable and grows into a behemoth, will you still publish in any version of English, or will I have to use AliTranslate to read it because that's what corporate expectation is?
The register's last headline, in sardonic form, should be "latest British computer related company sells out" and subtitled "went boom after joining the dot-com boom... 25 years too late"
1. You can still call it El Reg. We still do internally and publicly. Myself and TR's senior editorial staff have been at The Reg or with our publisher for ten or more years. It's not like we've forgotten the past.
2. We're constantly experimenting with headlines to find the right balance between being unique and amusing and not off-putting for new folks. Sometimes titles go too obscure, sometimes they go too dry. We've got a sub-headline right now on the front page stating "You can kiss my Californian ass, says ad giant" and a headline "Why are PC webcams crap?" and boffins and so on... there's no corporate watering down. We're just trying to make our humor and our take on the IT world a bit more accessible for everyone.
If any part of it reads like a sales seminar, shoot me. That's not the intention, and not what we want to do. We want to make stuff that's informed, accurate, and independent.
3. I'm British. I live in the US after living in the UK. I know Blighty's going through some weird shit right now, and how we're perceived globally is perhaps not quite optimal. But TR switching to US spelling isn't part of that, and your thoughts about the UK being "quaintsy" is something you need to figure out for yourself. TR changing to American spelling isn't commentary on the UK.
It's that the internet sees US spelling and thinks "international or American" and sees UK spelling and thinks "England". Which can be a bit frustrating when we're writing about non-UK things a lot.
4. One day it would be great to translate TR into other languages. An English version is obviously going to be available and prime.
Above all, we're just being honest and open. We could have just not said a thing.
C.
@diodesign
But why bother about it at all, some of your people will write one way and some the other way.
And we who comment will do the same.
Why bother.
Or as the Finns say why "rassata verta nenästä" which Google translate translates to "to draw blood from the nose" which again has assassinated the spirit in it.
Anyway i will still read u.
I would actually like to read the articles in the manner and flavour that they were written - not artificially using a single style of 'English'. I don't take it as a comment on the UK but I do take switching to a form of English that probably isn't prevalent across the world as strange frankly.
The "internet" doesn't see or think anything. A small number of *people* think about it, the vast majority of *people* read the content, whether it's in British, American, Indian, Canadian or international (which used to be mainly British in spelling outside South America, and is now a random hodge-podge depending on the country and even individual school of the E2L speaker).
Globally expected by who? I've never heard anyone ever say such a thing before. It's not just an insult to the British, it's an insult to everyone, unfortunately just for different reasons!
Well done for alienating your long term readers even more. You'd have been best not saying anything as clearly you don't understand a key demographic. Won't matter though long term as they will have gone. After this, I'll most certainly be one of them!
"> the tagline "biting the hand that feeds IT" is gone
It just got moved to the end of the page to tidy up the masthead."
......so we don't notice when it is removed altogether more like!
Your posts clearly show that you either do not understand the points being made in the thread, or that you are sticking slavishly to the corporate line. Either way, you are doing neither yourself nor El Reg any favours.
While I applaud your efforts it will not change my opinion of The Register deciding to fail at English for the forseeable future.
You don't see American publications wondering if it makes them sound provincial when they assume we all understand their crappy sports that no-one else plays, politics, school system, etc.
I appreciate you doing the work, so why not make it server-side, like http intended, rather than some extension, bearing in mind that many people here won't even run javascript yet alone chrome extensions.
Oh, and no browser I use supports extensions either. I'm sure I'm not alone!
The Register moved from a .co.uk to a .com during the pandemic, we chose American spelling.
Ah, that's why it feels like all the articles come from the San Francisco office now.
I'm a dumb Merican, and I miss the old British/UK style. It gave El Reg a feel that the other tech-nerd sites lack.
It's interesting that this article got so many comments, especially over the weekend. I suspect many of El Reg's readers care passionately about this industry and this publication in particular. I see that some staff have tried to respond with their side of the story, but I would humbly suggest that they 'reach out' (urgh!) to the corporate masters and ask them to read all the comments to gain an understanding of how they are making El Reg appear worse to a lot of long-time readers.
For the record I don't see this as a US Vs UK thing, but more a 'corporate big company' Vs 'nimble small company' thing, almost as if everyone has been told to grow up and act like adults. It used to be so much more fun around here, but hey, that's progress and professionalism for you.
"It used to be so much more fun around here"
It is just my own opinion, but that period passed about the same time that Lester did, or shortly thereafter. Something subtle but fundamental changed, and, as a reader here since ~2000, I don't know that it's really been for the better. When was the last time we had a Lego re-enactment? or a Flame of the Week? Or a camera review? Was there no-one willing to step in as The Moderatrix II? And was Lester really the only one at El Reg with hairy enough gazongas to take on the US FAA and try to launch a rocket into space from a weather balloon? That's the zany, interesting, non-scripted, off-the-cuff kind of nerd stuff that used to make this place cool. Now, it seems like a lot of it (but not all) is either sponsored, or toned down to appeal to mid-management corporate types.
Like you said, more grown up, less irreverent, less biting the hand that feeds IT.
I guess in the end, it's all about the Benjamins, everything else is just a happy side-effect.
Ad astra tabernamque.
Perhaps the AC would change his tune a trifle if he knew that the British officially depreciated the long billion in 1974, and now officially use the short billion. Which they got from the French, not the Yanks.
You seem to have run out of apostrophes. Here's a double handful to see you through ''''''''''.
> Perhaps the AC would change his tune a trifle...
Why would he?
Wikipedia: "In Britain, however, under the influence of American usage, the short scale came to be increasingly used. In 1974, Prime Minister Harold Wilson confirmed that the government would use the word billion only in its short scale meaning (one thousand million)."
So after American (note that) influence, the PM said and did a Stupid Thing.
> the British officially depreciated the long billion
Nope - not "The British", let alone "officially", but just government publications, back in 1974.
Back in 2003: A few weeks ago on Radio 4 someone made a comment to the effect of "...since we have now adopted the billion as being one thousand million..." and I nearly fell off my chair.
(curse commenting in Android, this got cut off)
Dans la magnifique langue française
* 1,000 = mille
* 10,000 = dix mille
* 100,000 = cent mille
* 1,000,000 = un million
* 10,000,000 = dix millions
* 100,000,000 = cent millions
* 1,000,000,000 = un milliard
* 1,000,000,000,000 = un billion
Personally I have worked with UK, US, CDN, AUS, NZ, SA, Indian, and many other "English" mother tongue speakers for over 40 years. Verbal communication can be difficult due to dialect and cultural differences, but written language pretty much comes down to UK and US English. Most of the world uses UK English spelling, apart from the USA. When people from outside the UK/USA see US spelling then they assume that the site is US based and US culture. When they see UK spelling there is no assumption as the site could be based just about anywhere in the English speaking world, EXCEPT for the USA. There are a variety of reasons given for the differences in spelling and they are all valid for the culture they are used in. Most of us can communicate in both with ease as the differences are minimal, mostly ignored, and are at worst a mild irritant.
However, El Reg started in the UK, has always been perceived as a UK based site, and has built up it's readership thanks to that UK culture and humour. Changing it to US spelling/culture is, in my opinion, a mistake, and in the longer term will change how El Reg is perceived outside the US. It may be a success w.r.t. profitability, especially in the short term, but longer term it will become just another US based IT news site, and there are plenty of those already.
If I'd wanted to live in the 51st state, I wouldn't have left the place and lived in Blighty for years, eventually (and after considerable effort and expense!) becoming a naturalised citizen, a Massachusetts Yankee in Queen Elizabeth's (now King Charles's) Court. And even though I'm now back on the other side of the Pond (I hope only temporarily), it rankles no end watching the increasing Americanisation of Emily (great film, that). One of Churchill's biggest mistakes was hitching the wagon to the burgeoning American empire, as though somehow the Yanks would give a flying f*ck about Airstrip One except as a forward operations base and seemingly bottomless source of quality stage, film, and television actors.
Anyway, yes, there seem increasingly fewer reasons to read The Register these days; I have noticed that I just don't bother, as the articles all seem to be duplicates of what's already available on other (equally boring) sites, with little to nothing to distinguish it — and now not even the language. Meh. Guess I'll just save myself some time in the mornings.
How can people not having learn (whatever) english as a foreign language tell us (those who did) how this teaching is done ? What I learnt in school: First UK english (and BBC as reference), second, once first step OK, US english.
Beside, as other commentards wrote, if I want a global IT site, there are lot of choices.
What I appreciated with El Reg was its (unique) UK aspect.
My feeling is initial flavor/flavour is not totally gone, and I agree with claim that each of you should write in its own "dialect" (but for units, of course)
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