I was reading a British newspaper the other day and something jumped out at me. It was the word "harbour". I looked at it twice and thought to myself: Good grief, standards are slipping. There's no "u" in harbor...

And then I realised. There is a "u" in the British spelling of "harbour".

A news-reader on the local regional news just pronounced "controversy" with a hard "o", like the Prince song. You know: "con-troe-verse-ee" instead of "con-trov-ursy".

We've always had a plethora of media from the U.S., Australia and other English-speaking countries but I wonder if the internet is responsible for the merging of international English?

I never write words in American English , i write;
colour , honour , neighbour , fi
At school i learnt to pronounce words the English way
I think nowadays American English is more comon , tho' because of the media , indeed
[Edited 3/3/06 11:10am]

I'm using my Hungarian English!

My English is American when I speak but British when I write. It's called "Canadian".

retina said:

And you're using your French accent when you're dreaming, aren't you???

retina said:

thats a bit confusing

Cheek said:

Mais oui, bien sûr! Je rêve completement en Francais. Tous les Canadiens et ex-Canadiens faites comme ca!

Well i see it this way.

We speak English....therefore that is the standard. Everything else is just a bastardised version.

Just my 2 cents worth

LleeLlee said:

Canadianness in a nutshell.

I type in British on occasion just cause I like the aesthetic. But not all of the time.

retina said:

a color is a color but a cheque is a cheque...

emm said:

Errrrr no

Colour is colour and cheque is cheque.....see its easy

emm said:

Are you serious? In Vancouver everybody spelled it "colour".

retina said:

In Vancoover?

abierman said:

Is about.....aboot?

OOOOHHHHH SSSSSHUT IT YOU!!!!!


tell me do i say aboot?? have i ever said eh??
come on?? tell me!!!

emm said:

mdiver said:

You know, when I first arrived in Canada I expected everybody to talk like that but in the big cities nobody really does. It's only out in the rural areas that they do. Instead I found that spoken Canadian English is very similar to American English, only not as whiny. That's why Canadians are often hired as newscasters in the US; their accent is "clear and clean".

retina said:

In my experience i would say that i agree and emm has a lovely accent very soft, but it's just sooooo much fun to wind her up!

retina said:

whiny?

when you're used to a certain type of spelling it's difficult to spell any other way, for instance I would put the U in without thinking about it. If i wanted to use American spelling I would have to go back and double check it all in case I put the U in without realising.

CarrieMpls said:

Well you know, it has that "broader twang" to it. I just couldn't find a good word to describe it.

retina said:

Carrie's accent is wayyyyy sexy !

mdiver said:

mdiver said:

Well she's from Minneapolis so she probably sounds part Swedish!

CarrieMpls said:

Damn why didn't i say that this time last week

mdiver said:

Probably because she was too busy snogging JD.

Dieter says:
zhis zhread izz getting tiresome.....

mdiver said:

retina said:

I'm not swedish, but I am half finnish.