THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING WORLD

If you want to come and bomb London and get rid of Tony Blair then please feel free! I live 200 miles north of London, and didn't vote Labour in the last election.

In fact if you want to come and conquer my quaint little country (the way you have with our language) then please feel free also.

Sorry, you'll need to come up with links to terrorist organizations, and a 45 minute window of opportunity for Blair to launch weapons of mass destruction. None of us believe Cherie would allow this, anyway.

I've often wondered why the 'War On Terror' has never included the Irish terrorist groups (on both sides)? Maybe it's because the IRA have a big US fan-base?

Basically, it's because they don't blow up our **** . . . and yes, Noraid remains big in some areas of the Irish American community.

It is important for outsiders to realize that most "hyphenated Americans" are not very closely linked to the nations of their origin. For most Irish-Americans, being Irish means something akin to all the phoney claptrap that gets trotted out on St. Patrick's Day, and they have little concept of the Fenians, the IRA, Sinn Fein, the Six Counties, the Orangemen--these are largely unknown to them.

Anyway, we have to make nice with Tony, 'cause we couldn't count much on Papua to make up the short-fall in troops if we didn't have Blair on board--but we hafta keep the boys in Boston happy, too. Saddly, we will have to allow you to continue to govern yourselves, and revel in your delusions about "your" language. Ah well, we can be philosophical about it . . .

If only some quick-thinking Englishman had thought to patent OUR language and charge royalties for its use...

Ah, Graham...what a capital(ist) idea!

However, now that you've brought it up, some enterprising American will likely beat you to the punch.

. . . you could find any number of law dogs over here willing to file a brief on your behalf.

To the folks in the political threads, i'm a liberal, and a Bush-hater. As they also think i'm silly, they usually don't show up in my threads. I feel safe in revealing my true nature. In the Neo-conservative New World Order, i have been promised a position of at least Gauleiter. I don't particularly want England, but, of course, i'll take what i can get. The point is, i have a prejudice in favor of those who make an earnest effort to speak our language, regardless of the faults they display. I'll see to it that we go easy on y'all.

It was in the news last week, that Americans (Fox Corp, I think) had already copyrighted two words (fair and balanced). So, it's started. Only another
hundred thousand or so to go.

"Bout a million more to go, McT . . . but the Federal judge laughed 'em out of court on that one . . . it is just too silly to contemplate . . .

Piffka, sounds like your family was converted by your birth, as most 'Mericans do indeed see the world in black and white.

Can't comment on Neighbours, never seen it - but, my spelling of the word is a clue in itself.

I believe we ARE closer to British English than to American - just as the Canadians are - but we, of course, have our own adapatations and regionalisms.

I have always done the knuckle thing for days in the months, too - I believe a school friend taught me.

Yes, Set, we had a good laugh about that one. Still, the courts do come up with some strange judgements sometimes.

BTW don't you think a million is pitching it too high?
My Concise Oxford contains "140,000 meanings" which I surmise to be fewer than 100,000 actual words. That's quite a fat book, but only one volume. (And not many of those would be known to Americans hee hee). In the Oxford English Dictionary, around 500,000 I believe, which is lot.
I admit my dictionaries are old: but for new words added, many others fall into disuse. I wonder what the wordcount is now, discounting archaic words.

dlowan wrote:

"I believe we ARE closer to British English than to American - just as the Canadians are - but we, of course, have our own adapatations and regionalisms."

Canadians of my acquaintance actually tend to sound just like Americans. It's their spelling that's British. And that's infuriating to their neighbors to the south. That, and the fact that they will use Celsius temperatures in their weather reports. I have no idea whether 32 degrees is freezing or sweltering.

Are you calling us Canajuns creatures of a mildly different colour than Mericans there Andrew? My honourable Andrew, 32 degrees is sweltering indeed, -32 degrees is freezing.

McT -- the ballpark figure I've seen from time to time indicates that there are roughly something in excess of 800,000 words in the English language. Hardly anyone ever uses (or knows) more than 50,000, and that's a high figure. The average person gets by on perhaps 1,500 in his/her speech and actually needs less than a thousand for survival in an English-speaking society.

What, America is infuriated by Canadian spelling? How thin-skinned and insecure is that? Mr Freud would have an observation or two, I'm sure.

Cav, sorry 'bout that. You're right -- refering to Canajuns as anything but American is definitely not PC. I simply meant to differentiate between those who live in the USA and those who live somewhat north of here.

McT -- I hope you understand that I meant "infuriating" in a somewhat facetious sense. No, we ain't that thin-skinned. (But I still think that writing 'cheque' for 'check' is frenchified nonsense.)

I have an old trade ad framed in my office...

"Of all professionals in the United States, journalists are credited with having the largest vocabularies - approximately 20,000 words. Clergymen, lawyers and doctors each have about 15,000 words at their disposal. Skilled workers who haven't had a college education know about 5,000 to 7,000 words; farm hands about 1,600. The jury is still out on art directors."

Yes of course. (I only wanted to take a poke at Setanta, who loves to take a poke at us)
But I do think we owe our friends the French, for their contributions to the language, more respect than they sometimes get nowadays.......you may not like cheque or programme, but you will use homage, sabotage, hotel and restaurant without the merest hint of a nod across the Channel.

I forgot to add- Brits use both 'cheque' and 'check', and mean two quite different things by them.