MODERN ENGLISH
By Leaf
We call our version of the language Modern English, though of course there is an inherent weakness in naming anything new or modern: Newcastle’s new castle was built in 1080. The gravity of life means that New-agers inexorably turn into old-agers, the modernist movement recedes ever further into the past… Our version of English won’t seem so modern to people a century from now. Maybe it will only take a few years for the language to make the next great shift. Will our descendants regard the genius author of the first sublime text-message novel with the same respect we now look at Shakespeare?
The Bard was still writing in 1585, when Walter Raleigh set up the first English colony in North America. It didn’t survive, nor did its successor, and war with Spain put an end to colonising missions for another two decades. But we persevered with our efforts to set up colonies in distant lands and succeeded at the third attempt with the colony established in Virginia in 1607. For many years the pioneers’ life was hard and insecure, but they became self-sufficient and, once they started to grow tobacco, they began to prosper. Encouraged, England began to plant more colonies.
Our maritime dominance meant that English had spread around the world by the end of the eighteenth century. In addition to the former American colonies, now the United States, English was spoken in Canada, the Caribbean, South Africa, the Indian subcontinent and Australia.
In India, as well as being the language of government and law, English became the lingua franca of educated people, the means by which speakers of Bengali, Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, Gujarati, Konkani and all the thousand-odd languages of the sub-continent could speak to each other on equal terms. That’s not bad career progress for the descendants of the folk shivering in huts while their Norman masters feasted at long tables in stone castles.
Communication was slow and difficult in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. As a result English began to splinter into a variety of forms, accents grew more impenetrable and divergence seemed to be increasing. Noah Webster, creator of the great American dictionary, wasn’t alone in assuming that English and American would evolve into separate, mutually incomprehensible, languages. This may sound like a strange idea now, but such things do happen, for example when English diverged from German.
It could happen again. All civilisations tumble eventually. If the fall of ours is accompanied by a collapse in communications, the English-speaking successor states that emerge from the rubble a few generations later may have trouble understanding one another. This is just what happened in the ruins of the Roman Empire with the daughters of Latin: French, Spanish, Provençal, Romanian, Occitan, Portuguese, Catalan and all the versions of Italian.
In terms of global influence, Britain probably peaked in the late nineteenth century. We are no longer in the forefront of disseminating English. The Americans took up the baton and they now make the running in spreading and enriching our language.
Most of the new words on our tongues come from the States and that’s been true for well over half a century. At present, in the global village, we are moving towards a more homogenous world version of English, but many national and regional differences in vocabulary and accent persist. Long may it be so. Monoculture’s not a good idea. So let’s celebrate some of the differences between American and English, divergences which once led people to think that the tongues would fork in the path of time.
Spelling differences between the US and UK are minimal. In the States they drop the U in valour, colour, honour and words like that – but so do we when we come to say honorable. They reverse the final two letters of centre and theatre. Where we customise, the Americans customize, preferring a letter they call zee.
There are around a hundred seemingly random words with spellings that differ by one or two letters, including: tire/tyre, pyjamas/pajamas, axe/ax, woollen/woolen, disc/disk, buses/busses, cheque/check, traveller/traveler, moustache/mustache, cigarette/cigaret, grey/gray.
Verbs are pretty much the same, though I have an American cousin who says, ‘Write me,’ where I would say ‘Write to me.’ He told me that he saw two kids beat up on an old man, rather than beat him up. The differences that we have are mainly in the vocabulary of nouns. Interesting that quite a few are to do with the motor and oil industry and intriguing to note, as you’ll see at the end, that we’re both mad, but in different ways.
ENGLISH - AMERICAN
CAR - AUTOMOBILE / WINDSCREEN - WINDSHIELD
ESTATE CAR - STATION WAGON / BUMPER - FENDER
4 WHEEL DRIVE - SUV / LORRY - TRUCK
PETROL - GASOLINE / FLYOVER - OVERPASS
PARAFFIN - KEROSENE / MOTORWAY - FREEWAY
BONNET - HOOD / UNDERGROUND - SUBWAY
BOOT - TRUNK / PAVEMENT - SIDEWALK
POSTMAN - MAILMAN / ALUMINIUM - ALUMINUM
ESTATE AGENT - REALTOR / LIFT - ELEVATOR
NAME-PLATE - SHINGLE / CHEMIST - DRUGSTORE
CARETAKER - JANITOR / FLAT - APARTMENT
SHOP - STORE / BRACES - SUSPENDERS
TROUSERS - PANTS / WAISTCOAT - VEST
VEST- UNDERSHIRT / NAPPY-DIAPER
CONTRACEPTIVE - RUBBER / RUBBER - ERASER
FRIDGE - ICE- BOX / TAP - FAUCET
JAM - JELLY / JELLY - JELLO
BISCUITS - COOKIES / SWEETS - CANDY
ICE-LOLLY - POPSICLE / HOLIDAY - VACATION
CRISPS - POTATO CHIPS / CHIPS - FRENCH FRIES
AUBERGINE - EGGPLANT / COURGETTE - ZUCCINI
WALLET - BILLFOLD / HANDBAG - PURSE
NOTE - ($) BILL / BILL - CHECK
RUBBISH - GARBAGE / FILM - MOVIE
ANGRY - MAD / MAD - CRAZY
There are lots more, maybe you can come up with some.
DISCLAIMER: WAYS WITH WORDS is about word-play and not intended to be an educational aid. Please note we cannot take responsibility for any inaccuracies.