This one took a while… I got full vaxxed and celebrated with a trip to Yosemite National Park and started making this video on location. I’ve learned a lot but a couple times the sound recorder wasn’t on and I had to ADR in post. I hope you enjoy this, let me know what you think and add any features of US English that surprise you.
As an American, I wouldn't necessarily use words like "swim" and "run" as nouns in the sense of referring to the activity as a whole, i.e. "I like swim and run," but I do see them as nouns when referring to a specific instance of the activity. "I'm going for a run" is, to me, a common way to announce that one is about to go jogging for exercise, and while I'd personally be more likely to use the phrasing "going swimming," if someone asked me "Do you want to go for a swim?" it wouldn't strike me as odd at all.
@@DaveHuxtableLanguages and now we have “cheer” as in “my daughter is going out for the cheer squad”, whereas, when I was a child, the word was “cheerleading.”
You know what gets Americans about British English? The intrusive r, as in "I sawr a bananar on the table"; replacing "th" with f and v: "My friends are wif me frough fick and fin"; and replacing "t" with glottal stops: "Where is me bo'le of wa'er?" (Saying "me" instead of "my" drives us crazy, too.)
Do you also film / edit the videos? Not only is what you're saying extremely interesting, so is the way you present it! Love all the silly green screen scenes haha, and the 3D / infographic stuff, every video of yours is really varied. Keep it coming! 🙂
Loved the video! As somebody who grew up in the east coast US and was on a swim team, in my experience using "swim" as a noun when listing hobbies implies that it's of the competitive nature, as in relating to a swim team or swim meet, rather than "swimming" as a hobby that's just for exercise or fun or whatever. I would say "I used to do swim" to say I used to swim competitively, although "I used to swim" would also work but sound less specific and a bit confusing (like "what, have you forgotten how?"). This puts use puts the word "swim" in the same category as "I used to do track" or "I did crew in high school" and whatnot.
You're correct. It is a noun in British English (and probably was well before cinema) - the difference is, in the phrase "swim goggles", it's not, as he says, a noun, it's an adjective. The adjective in British English is "swimming".
"Go for a swim" is standard English as far as I'm aware. It's the use of swim in "swim goggles" that sounds a bit odd. It should be "swimming goggles".
I agree entirely with the fact that ‘swimming’ isn’t an adjective in those situations. I’d say that ‘swimming’ in ‘swimming goggles’ is a participle and in ‘going swimming’ it’s a gerund, while in ‘road trip’ the word ‘road’ is an attributive noun. I’m not sure how you’d define or use the phrase ‘noun modifier’ though.
As an American, most of the things you call attention to are things that annoy me. "A couple things" -- ugh. "One vertice" -- double ugh. "Mirror" rhymes with "mere" -- auuuugh!
Where did "horseback riding" come from? I find it strange that Americans need to specify what part of the horse they use when horse riding. There appear to be a number of expressions in the USA that are archane/anachronistic and have passed out of use in the rest of the Anglo sphere.
About "swimsuit", "swimtrunks" etc. could this be a Scandinavian (possibly German and other languages too) influence? In Norwegian we can make nouns of verbs by adding "-ing" just like in English, but we're perfectly happy to create compound words using the verb forms, and in fact using the ing form sounds completely wrong. So: "å bade" = "to bathe" and "bading" = "bathing", but "badedrakt" = "bathing suit".
I was having so much fun that the end took me a little by surprise! Really interesting content - I would have happily watched for a lot longer. Love the change in presentation style and real locations. I may see them one day...
The word "mirror" is a funny example. Obviously if all the Rs were pronounced, it would sound absolutely ridiculous, so us Brits decided to do away with the second set."mirrah", The Americans on the other hand decided that the first set should go- "meeeerrrrr" 😂😂😂
I think the way we say it in Britain doesn't really have anything to do with this particular word, it's the fact that we don't usually pronounce the r at the end of a word in general, (unless you live in a particular region like the south-west).
Funny story. I was born in the USA to immigrant parents and American English is my second (or third sorta) language although it is the one that I use the most and with the most facility (the other two being Armenian and Turkish). I lived in southwest Connecticut until just was 18 and have effectively lived just outside of Boston for the balance of my 59 years. I say coffee like New Yorker, I kinda pahk my carrr in Boston, and drop vowels in final syllables in words that end in n like other Connecticutions. My funny story has to do with an admonition that I used to direct at my sons as they were growing up having to do with being on time. I used to say to them that they must “leave room for error”. unfortunately for many years my sons and my Bostonian wife only heard “leave room for air”. I found this out when I was in a tirade about being late and I used my phrase again and finally in their teenage frustration asked me “BABA…what does room for “air” mean…honestly we don’t know what your talking about”. I responded indignantly “Not room for air but room for error” to which they replied “what air? And finally I slowly said “not air - error - E R R O R” and they said oh THATS WHAT YOU ARE SAYING…room for ERR-OR” …I stopped, replayed my expression in my head and suddenly I heard my “air” for the first time. We cracked up and I gave up being angry for being tardy this one time.
This entire video was colored by the unnecessary comment made in the beginning about the intelligence of Americans. I guess there's contexts for that, but in this case it felt very out of pocket in the sort of video where one would usually see respect for those of other countries/cultures/languages.
Hi. I’m sorry. I did say SOME Americans, but still it was, as you say, unnecessary. And, also as you say, it was not in keeping with my values of respecting other people. Many thanks for taking the time to point this out. I really appreciate it.
As a Brit who moved to the US at age 10 and both retained my southeastern English accent and gained a Californian one depending on who I talk to, this video was great! Some of these things I would absolutely say while talking to another American in my American accent, but not while talking to an Englishman--and I don't even think about it. I do still say privacy with a short i, though. I've never been able to remember that one.
I am not a Californian...I have lived there. I was born in New Orleans, live on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and have worked in 12 states, visited most of the 50 states. A Mississippian is a resident; a Mississippi recipe for gumbo is another thing. A New Yorker is a resident, while New York pizza differs from Chicago pizza. The usage seems universal to me.@@billofbong
@@torrance409 Yeah, I see no difference between Californian and Canadian, for instance. You can be a New Englander, but you can't be a Bay Arean (even though I am one). Do people call themselves New Mexicans? I'm wondering now. I doubt it. "Hi, I'm New Mexican." -- no, I don't think that's right. People wouldn't know what you mean. Do they say, 'Arizonans?' 'Arizonians?' 'Alaskan' is right for sure, so is 'Texan', but you can't call yourself a 'Marylandian'.
The biggest problem I used to have visiting the US was having to spell out my surname everytime at hotel or airline checkin, because they didn't understand what I said. In the end I learnt to pronounce my surname in the American way (Harl instead of Horl) and never had to spell out H-a-l-l again. American idioms are worth learning too to avoid confusion. Trying to buy a bottle of scotch in a liquor store was always a problem. A bottle in English is a specific volume, not so in the US, I'd get blank looks. A friend of mine tipped me off to ask for a fifth of whisky. Problem solved.
Other Americanisms that sound odd to (my) British ears: “fry pan” instead of “frying pan”, “sail boat” instead of “sailing boat”, and the unnecessary “of” in phrases such as “not that good of a thing” instead of “not that good a thing”.
This is very quickly becoming my favourite channel. I would also like to know why those from the US, say, "I could care less", instead of I couldn't care less, or why they confuse "lie" with "lay", e.g., I'm tired, I need to lay down. Cheers
In the vein of looking at the humor of spoke language, you should examine the hidden messages in the captions. For example, "…check out these other videos, which are also in the *_vain_* of a bit of humour on the topic of language…"
Most enlightening, although I was surprised that you didn't mention my own particular bugbear, which is Americans insisting that the study of numbers is the singular noun: Math [not Maths, i.e. the diminutive form of Mathematics]. Indeed, as I wrote this post the spell-checker in UA-cam flagged up Maths as being spelled incorrectly and offered Math's, Moth and Math as suitable alternatives! Keep up the good work!
Awesome video. Love it. I would also like to mention that up here in Canada I feel like our English is heavily influenced by American English though TV, movies, and just having them as neighbours. However I am sure we are different in several ways. Could you please explore some examples of how Canadian English is different?
East Coast accents such as heard in PEI and Nova Scotia are distinctive. The Newfoundland accent is unique and very different from other East Coast accents. However, as an Albertan, I hear very little difference from Ontario to BC. Toronto is a melting pot much more than the rest of the country, and there are a lot of accents from the origins of the speakers. It is also true for Vancouver, but to a lesser extent. Quebecois accented English is very different from France-french accented English.
Another difference is the pronunciation of the first vowel of “during”, where British typically has a “yu” whereas in American pronunciation it rhymes with “learning”.
Dave, just doing some electronics whilst listening to you and I am always amused how the Americans say SODER rather than SOLDER. They must think we are very strange!
What surprised me in America is that sometimes I struggled to understand Americans. For example fox can sound like fax. And so many words differ. Thus bonnet and hood, windscreen and windshield, crisps and chips, chips and french fries, scones and biscuits, biscuits and cookies, lawyer and attorney, indict and charge, and so on. I loathe the verb burglarize, and presumably the ill doer is a burgalizer. And I dislike “Can I get me a” rather than “Can I have”. But in the end it’s just a dialect of English. Sometimes better, sometimes worse, than British English.
Not to defend "burglarize" as such...but I would say that it doesn't imply the actor is a "burglarizer" any more than to "materialize" would produce "materializers" instead of "materials."
The "mirror" and "nearer" verger is so old and complete that a lot of Americans have forgotten there ever was a split here. A lot of American singers will use a non-rhotic version of General American to sing because the R sound isn't very euphonious when held for a long time, and the pronunciation of "mirror" in American popular music is often "meera", not "mihra" (though not always--the (Canadian, but still natively rhotic) James LaBrie of Dream Theater says "mihra" in "The Mirror"). Also regarding "fur babies"--that also distinguishes domesticated from wild versions of the same animal. I have distinctly remembered someone saying "they were bunnies, not wild rabbits". There are no "junkyard puppers" or "feral kitties". Fish in a tank can be "fishies" but not fish caught on a hook in a lake. I think the potential threat to humans plays a role here, too--a feral rabbit, which cannot seriously harm a human, could potentially be a "bunny" if it looks like a domesticated breed, but a feral dog, no matter how far from the wild form it is, is not going to get a pet word, because feral dogs can and will grievously harm humans if they feel the need to. The "classicisms" are a very strong class marker in American English--upper-middle class speakers and above will never, ever say "vertice" (or "vertexes", for that matter), "parenthese", or "process-ees". It is something that will *instantly* mark a speaker in upper-class company as "trashy".
What ever happened to using the phrase, "SUCH AS" instead of the word "LIKE". Like, I mean, like, don't you thing we overuse like, way too much anyway, like?
5:07 I think this isn't as arbitrary as you suggest. "A dozen", "two dozen" etc. behave grammatically like other numeral phrases both exact and vague, such as "two" or "a few hundred".
That is an astonishing amount of editting work, for a video with interesting enough content that it could have passed with just a monologue Infront of a white screen. Great work. 👍
Not sure if this is rude or presumptuous but I'd imagine that the age profile of your following may be a slightly older demographic. Just want to say that I'm a fairly young fella in my 20s and I absolutely love your channel. Just discovered it recently and I'm binging it now. So interesting, please keep it up!
Not rude or presumptuous at all! I seem to be doing well with the 25-35 and the 55+. What’s weird is I have far more male viewers than female. So glad to have you on board. Thanks for saying hi.
Funny! Forward/farward/ford/fard; door/doe-uh; frawg/frog; five/fahv; etc. Some distinctions even within families. Some accents are not totally regional but exhibit an urban/rural dichotomy. Hence, rural folks in Ohio may sound very similar to rural folks in Georgia.
Swim is like other activities. The gerund is the general activity. But the non-gerund form of the word is the specific instance. He went for a swim. I am going to have a swim this afternoon. Same thing with dance/dancing, ride/riding, run/running.
An ex-colleague of mine from Illinois had a brother called Hairy. I had to do a double check! For her a car and the verb to care sounded the same. I called something lovely one day and she giggled saying I sounded like someone’s grandma. We remained on friendly terms 😉. My relatives from NY (almost everyone in Ireland has cousins in NY) sometimes add the g from the end of words to the next word: They live on Lon Guyland (Long Island). They also add an intrusive r to words ending in a: A woman called Linder might have a good ideer which sounds kind of English to me, when they’re actually Irish Americans. Thank you for another really interesting video, go raibh mile maith agat. 😊
Not sure if you're aware, but English was originally pretty much all rhotic (r after a vowel/before a consonant). This began to change first among upper class speakers in the Southeast in the 1700s or so. It was the case in the majority of rural England well into the 20th century, while now it's mostly the West Country and of course Scotland, Ireland etc.
There's a small area around Burnley and Accrington in Lancashire which is also rhotic, which is odd because nowhere else in that region is. The cricket commentator David Lloyd is a good example.
@@ajs41 It's a last vestige of a much wider area. When you say 'nowhere else in that region is', it depends on the age of the speaker. Among old people there's still a lot of rhoticity in other parts of Lancashire and Greater Manchester.
The Mirror thing becoming Mirrrr is a regional thing only some American folks suffer from. Another regional cringer is when Legs become Laigs, makes my skin crawl. These are inter-American observations.
The one that gets me is using fit as the past tense; ie "the dress fit her perfectly" instead of "the dress fitted her perfectly". As Americans would say "it grinds my gears".
_"Were on high turralurr. Howdydoodydodeafen."_ - "What?" _"We're on high turr alurrt! Holly doody do defenn!!!"_ - "Can you speak British for a moment, please?" _"URRU TUURRURRRRUUUUSSSSSS!!!"_
As my mom was from Germany and immigrated to the U.S. but was an medical interpreter and spoke British English…it had a peculiar influence on how we learned English, despite living in the United States…I use couple to mean two…few to mean more than two but less than an estimated many…which varies depending on what object to which I am counting…it’s strange…I don’t use puppy or kitty to refer to adult dogs or cats…that’s younger people and a new change to SAE. I definitely say forward as you’d expected…it definitely has an influence with a parent from abroad who’s taught you English. I like to swim…It’s almost like people from Oz…they too will use shorter forms of nouns or noun verbs and vice versa…I wonder if computers and the net have some effect. As a scientist I’m used to asking why…unfortunately there is no why in language as my dad always said.
"I use couple to mean two…few to mean more than two but less than an estimated many" -- same for me. I go 'round and 'round with my husband about this for some reason. He just doesn't know it. 🤷
Great video! I would say the Mary-Marry-Merry merger is pretty much widespread throughout the United States, in one place it is not, Philadelphia. In fact in Philly, there are several differences in accent and dialect for example American "sidewalk" is "pavement". It is possibly the hardest accent to imitate, it's rhotic unlike other big east coast cities like Boston and New York and the s sound in "sink" is often pronounced "zink" like in the west country in England. Some say the sound is somewhere between Northern and Southern American English but the diphthong in "nice" comes out like "noice". Anyways, thank you for creating great content!
I grew up in the South, and while I've heard the Mary-Marry-Merry merger in certain accents, I don't think it's quite as widespread. I think Mary and Marry have pretty much fully merged in mosts accents I've been around (I pronounce them the same as well), but Merry is usually distinct.
Fascinating comment about the use of the British term ‘pavement’, I had no idea they were so sensible in Philly! I’ve occasionally read comments on YT vids like this by people who claim that ‘sidewalk’ isn’t just part of US speech but it’s also the traditional term in the West Country (South West England, where many sound like pirates), I’d imagine it was said as ‘zoidwahk’ but I’ve never actually heard it said there myself.
Greetings from an expat Brit (by way of Norfolk) behind the Orange Curtain in SoCal. I've been here for 37 years now, so I think I'm going native and becoming feral, but I'll never give up my English swear words, most of which whoosh over the heads of unsuspecting locals without any sign they understood them... I also like to sprinkle a few Norfolkisms in, like mardle and bishybishybarnabee and rumman. Fun!
Historically the largest group of people from the British Isles coming in the 1700 from 1725 to 1775 were the Scots Irish from Ireland I think 200,000 of them came and of course they spoke the Scots. Of the language and this became preserved in American speech and then further people from the British Isles came down and did not take in the long road is fashionable start anything in the 1850s There was a time in certain East Coast cities where the upper socioeconomic groups of Americans who are wealthy try to emulate a non-rhotic sound This is actually diminished and almost died out there are still some regions of the Tidewater Virginia and the Boston area or non-rhotic sounds are still used You’ll find the same thing in Canadian English in fact there are people who’ve postulate that Canadian English is the closest thing to what they call early modern American English from the 1700s suitably developed in its own direction Canadians are masters of morphing their speech to sound more like Americans should they actually stay here for periods of time
I don't get why he says "swim is used as noun". In all those examples, it's an adjective. "What kind of trunks? Swim trunks". However, it is used as a noun universally, such as "going for a swim".
I’ve since realised that. In the UK though, just like run and ride, it only describes an instance of an activity, not the activity itself. That’s why we don’t say *run shoes or *ride boots, or indeed *swim instructor.
My five year old daughter called them swim pools. I liked that so much I changed to saying it myself. Now it's been some 15 years and it's part of how I speak.
Maybe I'm wrong but I get the impression Americans like to say things in a shorter way if it's possible, in order to save time. Another example is the way Americans say "I'm going out Tuesday", which you would never say here in England, you would always say "I'm going out on Tuesday". But missing the "on" out saves time.
@@ajs41 I've noticed that too. They've started to drop the word 'of' in the phrase 'a couple of' so now 'a couple of apples' for example has become 'a couple apples.' It confuses me because to me 'a couple' = two people in a romantic relationship.
Just exactly where did you hear people talking about vertices....California Institute of Technology? The only thing "surprising" is that you believe what you hear in one part of the U.S. is "American English." If I went to Brown Willy, Cornwall, could I assume that's how all English people speak? How about Wetwang, Yorkshire?
I am an American that does not have the Mary, merry, marry merger (your order may vary, very, verry). To me, I pronounce them all differently. I grew up on Long Island, NY, in the 1960s, until 8, then the Mid-Hudson Valley, NY, mostly in the 1970s until 18, then Baltimore, MD for last 47 years. I am guessing it was the early Long Island influence that is responsible.
"Swim" can be a noun, though, as in "Going for a swim". Things I've noted as being particularly American neologisms are "partake in" as a synonym for "take part" and "bear witness" as a synonym for "witnessing".
@4:20 and following - that phenomenon of American speakers not knowing the singular of words English took up from Greek and Latin is a sign of a failure of our language education. It has gotten very sloppy since the 60s. @4:59 and following-the "of" in "a couple of" gets reduced to an unstressed "a" in some regions, before disappearing all together. Here in PA, for example, in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre and the surrounding area, people will say, "a coupla", condensing "couple of". That's followed by, "two t'ree"-"How many eggs would you like?" "Oh, a coupla two t'ree, thanks!" @6:12 in American English, "swim" is absolutely a noun, as well as a verb. "I'm going for a swim" is as correct and common as saying, "I'm going swimming." "Swimming trunks" is also as common as "swim trunks". It really depends on the region of the country you visit.
@@DaveHuxtableLanguages I reread my question and it sounds more critical than I intended it to! The None of... IS construct is a pet peeve of my father (people saying ARE). I argued for a while that None can refer to 'not any' and not just 'not one' but he's not convinced 🤪👌
Did you use photoshop to put yourself in a pool or si that real? I can't work it out haha. Really interesting video and I like the open minded take on language evolution.
I know you made this video two years ago but it seems that you've confined your travels in the US to certain areas without experiencing the variety of American speech. It reminds me of the Monty Python troupe. They were firmly convinced that the Footlights/Python type of comedy would never go over in the US. What many English fail to understand is the size of this country and the accompanying varieties of English. I grew up in NYC and live in Massachusetts. Most of the people I know clip their R's substantially or drop them all together. Please listen to the varieties available in this huge country. Some of the more unusual are Northern New England and Southern New England, Niagara, Reservation English, Hispano English.
The reason Americans speak so badly is one of an inherent rebellion of British standards, laziness and poor education. Where does 'I don't got xxx' instead of ' I havent got', for example, come from? Why are the vowels, A, O and U, pronounced 'ar'. Also, if there is an 'e' on the end of words, it changes the sounds of the vowels before it like 'rout' (rowt) to 'route' (root). Americans are oblivious to basic grammar sounds and it's nothing to do with accents.
I usually think of puppy as meaning specifically a baby dog. Doggie (or sometimes doggo) is the "cutesy" word, usually said when talking to kids. Little kids say things like "bye, doggie." This can be a dog of any age.
After watching a couple of your videos, I’ve started to wonder whether I just don’t go out in public enough. I’m American, and I don’t say so many of the things that you. and people who have commented, claim that Americans say. Nor do my friends.
I speak standard American English and some of this is just dialectal in different regions. For example, I would pronounce mirror with two syllables and pronounce the -Rs in both syllables.
When you say "swim" is not a noun, you should have said "to me." If the term "swim trunks" requires that "swim" be a noun, then clearly it is. Because that's what people say. (If dictionaries don't yet include this exception in their definitions, and it seems they don't, then they are just behind the times.) Interestingly - to me anyway - Alistaire Cooke pointed out years ago that you can tell a British writer from an American one by the use of the word "Californian." To a British, it is an adjective, as in the term, "Californian wine." To Americans, Californian is a noun referring to a person from California. The adjective is "California," as in "California wine."
in England, do you have "stop smoking classes"? This grammar strikes me weird... don't we have a nicer noun phrase than "smoking cessation" for this idea? Or I guess "smoking" is the noun-like thing here, but then what is "stop"?
I grew up around Philadelphia and have lived in New York for 35 years. Even though the two cities are about an hour and a half apart, there are differences in the accents and I was always aware of them growing up. One thing that I've always thought of as a uniquely New York pronunciation is saying the word forward as foe-werd. We didn't say that in the Delaware Valley. Not sure how many people say it that way outside the New York area.
American here. Generally I agree with what you're saying, but I don't pronounce mirror and mere the same. I've grew up in the American South. I here two syllables in mirror, for the second syllable is almost an faint echo. I mention where I grew up, but I often here people try to mimic the accent there by reducing words like "goin'" to just one syllable. Again, there's actually a faint echo of "ing". I find this curious because I never see this brought up by linguists.
I'm from Massachusetts and I say "a couple of" about half of the time, but I always write it like that. I never really noticed til now, but yeah I guess I drop it out of convenience.
Instructive and fun. As a Bostonian my fellow countrymen think I am pretentious be cause I do have a strong working class Boston accent. Hardly fancy pants talk around here “
From what I can tell we just call dogs "puppies", or cats "kitties" etc when we're emphasizing their cuteness or baby talking to them. We would still refer to the species as 'dog' or 'cat'. Maybe this is part of a bigger cultural trend where we increasingly tend to infantilize animals, but that's a separate topic.
An interesting video but could be more comprehensive as I was hoping to find the origin of why Americans have different names for things than we do, ie: never say to an American that 'I'm popping out to have a fag' or they may get the wrong impression about you thinking you are a homosexual and not someone who enjoys a quiet smoke. Still, a nicely presented video by Ronnie Barker's doppelganger.
I listened to a history of the English language on Audible once (Melvyn Bragg). It explained how at one time the British reckoned the east coast of America spoke the clearest and most consistent English in the world. This was put down to the use of a universal speller book used there. Now, it beats me how the concept of the "magic" 'e' was lost by the Americans. Was it adopted by the British as a recent convention, and it never took root in the US? The pronunciation of route as rout really irritates me. This is dominating the language to such an extent that in Australia a computer router is called a rowter. Even though the convention of the magic 'e' is adhered to and otherwise followed.
I've noticed recently that many Americans drop the "t" sound when it comes after an "n." They say "winner" instead of "winter," or "inneresting" instead of "interesting," for example.
I would say the verb=noun thing is a Germanic language feature. Still it is interesting that there seems to be no clear reason why one would you swim versus swimming. But, I have to say I grew up doing both.
I know someone from the Isle of Wight (UK, not Virginia) who says 'fawad' instead of 'forward as most people here do. And he also says 'ass' instead of 'arse'.
@@DaveHuxtableLanguagesI’m English and I say ‘our’ exactly like the word ‘are’ but I say ‘hour’ as ‘ow-uh’ just like it (and ‘our’) is officially transcribed in most non-rhotic dictionaries. Many Northern Irish people say both ‘hour’ and ‘our’ as ‘are’ in fact. I have heard many Americans say things like I do with added r’s though - there was a viral image of an ignorant Trump supporter who called him ‘are President’ doing the rounds a while back!😂
As with the Rs, many of your other examples of our quirky use of language can be both regional and personal. To some extent, the longer one has spent in an educational setting, the more careful one tends speaks, at least in formal settings. Also, I don't know if Brits do it, but we have a tendency to code switch depending upon the setting in which we are speaking. That said, I'm sticking hard to our fully expressed Rs. They're there so you might as well use them. Oh, and by the way, you could have added the colloquial use of Rs at the end of words such as in "winder" (window), "soder" (soda), and "ider" (idea). Thanks for the video.
There is the English language and there are a plethora of English accents. The American accent is just one of them. There is no such thing as 'American English'.
This one took a while… I got full vaxxed and celebrated with a trip to Yosemite National Park and started making this video on location. I’ve learned a lot but a couple times the sound recorder wasn’t on and I had to ADR in post. I hope you enjoy this, let me know what you think and add any features of US English that surprise you.
I bet speaking in reverse then dubbing it was a bit tricky!
@@maasaigeordie Practice makes perfect.
I Hope you regret your choice
Guy gets "full vaxxed", accuses others of being dumb 🤦🏻♀️ Celebrated it even. 😖
I think it went swimmingly. Or should that be swimly?
As an American, I wouldn't necessarily use words like "swim" and "run" as nouns in the sense of referring to the activity as a whole, i.e. "I like swim and run," but I do see them as nouns when referring to a specific instance of the activity.
"I'm going for a run" is, to me, a common way to announce that one is about to go jogging for exercise, and while I'd personally be more likely to use the phrasing "going swimming," if someone asked me "Do you want to go for a swim?" it wouldn't strike me as odd at all.
You’re absolutely right - and not just about American usage.
@@DaveHuxtableLanguages and now we have “cheer” as in “my daughter is going out for the cheer squad”, whereas, when I was a child, the word was “cheerleading.”
'Get off of me' instead of 'get off me' is one Americanism that gets me.
But some English dialects use that too
You know what gets Americans about British English? The intrusive r, as in "I sawr a bananar on the table"; replacing "th" with f and v: "My friends are wif me frough fick and fin"; and replacing "t" with glottal stops: "Where is me bo'le of wa'er?" (Saying "me" instead of "my" drives us crazy, too.)
Do you also film / edit the videos? Not only is what you're saying extremely interesting, so is the way you present it! Love all the silly green screen scenes haha, and the 3D / infographic stuff, every video of yours is really varied. Keep it coming! 🙂
Thank you. I’m so glad you appreciate that. Yes, I do everything myself and have a lot of fun with the fx.
@@DaveHuxtableLanguages Bravo! This is a fun and educational channel.
Loved the video! As somebody who grew up in the east coast US and was on a swim team, in my experience using "swim" as a noun when listing hobbies implies that it's of the competitive nature, as in relating to a swim team or swim meet, rather than "swimming" as a hobby that's just for exercise or fun or whatever.
I would say "I used to do swim" to say I used to swim competitively, although "I used to swim" would also work but sound less specific and a bit confusing (like "what, have you forgotten how?"). This puts use puts the word "swim" in the same category as "I used to do track" or "I did crew in high school" and whatnot.
That’s fascinating. Thank you so much for letting me know.
thats exactly what i came to the comments to say! i grew up in the southwest, and never did swim but that distinction exists in my mind too.
"doing track" sounds, to a Brit, like you were doing drugs and made a typo
Or if not that, it sounds like you were humping the circuit
Doing crew? No idea what that means.
@@DaveHuxtableLanguages I enjoy your videos and learn a lot. Would British people say ‘I went for a swim”?
The one that surprised me is in the mid west they sometimes stick an r in wash making it "warsh".
I've heard in old British movies "Go for a swim", so it's been used as a noun at least since the invention of talkies.
You're correct. It is a noun in British English (and probably was well before cinema) - the difference is, in the phrase "swim goggles", it's not, as he says, a noun, it's an adjective. The adjective in British English is "swimming".
@@phil2854 A box seat, a road trip, etc. Noun modifiers.
"Go for a swim" is standard English as far as I'm aware. It's the use of swim in "swim goggles" that sounds a bit odd. It should be "swimming goggles".
@@phil2854 You stopped reading there, I guess. I mention noun modifiers elsewhere. That's a noun that is adjectival in usage.
I agree entirely with the fact that ‘swimming’ isn’t an adjective in those situations. I’d say that ‘swimming’ in ‘swimming goggles’ is a participle and in ‘going swimming’ it’s a gerund, while in ‘road trip’ the word ‘road’ is an attributive noun. I’m not sure how you’d define or use the phrase ‘noun modifier’ though.
As an American, most of the things you call attention to are things that annoy me. "A couple things" -- ugh. "One vertice" -- double ugh. "Mirror" rhymes with "mere" -- auuuugh!
Where did "horseback riding" come from?
I find it strange that Americans need to specify what part of the horse they use when horse riding.
There appear to be a number of expressions in the USA that are archane/anachronistic and have passed out of use in the rest of the Anglo sphere.
About "swimsuit", "swimtrunks" etc. could this be a Scandinavian (possibly German and other languages too) influence?
In Norwegian we can make nouns of verbs by adding "-ing" just like in English, but we're perfectly happy to create compound words using the verb forms, and in fact using the ing form sounds completely wrong.
So: "å bade" = "to bathe" and
"bading" = "bathing", but
"badedrakt" = "bathing suit".
I was having so much fun that the end took me a little by surprise! Really interesting content - I would have happily watched for a lot longer. Love the change in presentation style and real locations. I may see them one day...
I may have to do a part 2, then! I got a gimbal for my birthday, so on-location filming will be easier. Hope to see you soon.
I don't like 'addicting' used to mean 'addictive'- seems to be preferred in America.
The word "mirror" is a funny example. Obviously if all the Rs were pronounced, it would sound absolutely ridiculous, so us Brits decided to do away with the second set."mirrah", The Americans on the other hand decided that the first set should go- "meeeerrrrr" 😂😂😂
I think the way we say it in Britain doesn't really have anything to do with this particular word, it's the fact that we don't usually pronounce the r at the end of a word in general, (unless you live in a particular region like the south-west).
Ah, "processeees". Drove me nuts during my information technology career.
That sounds very Scottish! I’ve never noticed Americans saying it like that though, I’ll have to listen out for it.
Funny story. I was born in the USA to immigrant parents and American English is my second (or third sorta) language although it is the one that I use the most and with the most facility (the other two being Armenian and Turkish). I lived in southwest Connecticut until just was 18 and have effectively lived just outside of Boston for the balance of my 59 years. I say coffee like New Yorker, I kinda pahk my carrr in Boston, and drop vowels in final syllables in words that end in n like other Connecticutions. My funny story has to do with an admonition that I used to direct at my sons as they were growing up having to do with being on time. I used to say to them that they must “leave room for error”. unfortunately for many years my sons and my Bostonian wife only heard “leave room for air”. I found this out when I was in a tirade about being late and I used my phrase again and finally in their teenage frustration asked me “BABA…what does room for “air” mean…honestly we don’t know what your talking about”. I responded indignantly “Not room for air but room for error” to which they replied “what air? And finally I slowly said “not air - error - E R R O R” and they said oh THATS WHAT YOU ARE SAYING…room for ERR-OR” …I stopped, replayed my expression in my head and suddenly I heard my “air” for the first time. We cracked up and I gave up being angry for being tardy this one time.
This entire video was colored by the unnecessary comment made in the beginning about the intelligence of Americans. I guess there's contexts for that, but in this case it felt very out of pocket in the sort of video where one would usually see respect for those of other countries/cultures/languages.
Hi. I’m sorry. I did say SOME Americans, but still it was, as you say, unnecessary. And, also as you say, it was not in keeping with my values of respecting other people. Many thanks for taking the time to point this out. I really appreciate it.
As a Brit who moved to the US at age 10 and both retained my southeastern English accent and gained a Californian one depending on who I talk to, this video was great! Some of these things I would absolutely say while talking to another American in my American accent, but not while talking to an Englishman--and I don't even think about it.
I do still say privacy with a short i, though. I've never been able to remember that one.
It’s interesting how we can switch between language varieties like that.
Speaking as an American who has lived in California, we would say "a California accent". Someone with a California accent is a "Californian".
@@torrance409 I feel like that’s an LA thing. You guys are real proud of being californians lol
I am not a Californian...I have lived there. I was born in New Orleans, live on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and have worked in 12 states, visited most of the 50 states. A Mississippian is a resident; a Mississippi recipe for gumbo is another thing. A New Yorker is a resident, while New York pizza differs from Chicago pizza. The usage seems universal to me.@@billofbong
@@torrance409 Yeah, I see no difference between Californian and Canadian, for instance. You can be a New Englander, but you can't be a Bay Arean (even though I am one).
Do people call themselves New Mexicans? I'm wondering now. I doubt it. "Hi, I'm New Mexican." -- no, I don't think that's right. People wouldn't know what you mean.
Do they say, 'Arizonans?' 'Arizonians?'
'Alaskan' is right for sure, so is 'Texan', but you can't call yourself a 'Marylandian'.
The biggest problem I used to have visiting the US was having to spell out my surname everytime at hotel or airline checkin, because they didn't understand what I said. In the end I learnt to pronounce my surname in the American way (Harl instead of Horl) and never had to spell out H-a-l-l again. American idioms are worth learning too to avoid confusion. Trying to buy a bottle of scotch in a liquor store was always a problem. A bottle in English is a specific volume, not so in the US, I'd get blank looks. A friend of mine tipped me off to ask for a fifth of whisky. Problem solved.
Other Americanisms that sound odd to (my) British ears: “fry pan” instead of “frying pan”, “sail boat” instead of “sailing boat”, and the unnecessary “of” in phrases such as “not that good of a thing” instead of “not that good a thing”.
This is very quickly becoming my favourite channel. I would also like to know why those from the US, say, "I could care less", instead of I couldn't care less, or why they confuse "lie" with "lay", e.g., I'm tired, I need to lay down. Cheers
Even worse is when they confuse "then" and "than": A is better then B. First this, than that.
I agree, and I'm an American (USA). I feel like it's a lazy way to speak and doesn't make sense. I tend to be a grammar person though.
In the vein of looking at the humor of spoke language, you should examine the hidden messages in the captions. For example, "…check out these other videos, which are also in the *_vain_* of a bit of humour on the topic of language…"
This deserves much much much more veiws. The editing is so good, and everything else with it. Very interesting and entertaining
Most enlightening, although I was surprised that you didn't mention my own particular bugbear, which is Americans insisting that the study of numbers is the singular noun: Math [not Maths, i.e. the diminutive form of Mathematics]. Indeed, as I wrote this post the spell-checker in UA-cam flagged up Maths as being spelled incorrectly and offered Math's, Moth and Math as suitable alternatives! Keep up the good work!
Thank you. Annoying though the maths thing may be, it didn’t make the cut here since it’s well known.
"Not only was it authentic frontier gibberish, but it expressed a courage little seen in this day and age" - Blazing Saddles
Awesome video. Love it.
I would also like to mention that up here in Canada I feel like our English is heavily influenced by American English though TV, movies, and just having them as neighbours. However I am sure we are different in several ways.
Could you please explore some examples of how Canadian English is different?
I bet there's a noticeable difference between west coasters and east coaster in Canada like there is here in the States.
East Coast accents such as heard in PEI and Nova Scotia are distinctive. The Newfoundland accent is unique and very different from other East Coast accents. However, as an Albertan, I hear very little difference from Ontario to BC. Toronto is a melting pot much more than the rest of the country, and there are a lot of accents from the origins of the speakers. It is also true for Vancouver, but to a lesser extent. Quebecois accented English is very different from France-french accented English.
Another difference is the pronunciation of the first vowel of “during”, where British typically has a “yu” whereas in American pronunciation it rhymes with “learning”.
Dave, just doing some electronics whilst listening to you and I am always amused how the Americans say SODER rather than SOLDER. They must think we are very strange!
Yes, that’s a weird one.
And 'business' comes out 'binness' quite often.
What surprised me in America is that sometimes I struggled to understand Americans. For example fox can sound like fax. And so many words differ. Thus bonnet and hood, windscreen and windshield, crisps and chips, chips and french fries, scones and biscuits, biscuits and cookies, lawyer and attorney, indict and charge, and so on. I loathe the verb burglarize, and presumably the ill doer is a burgalizer. And I dislike “Can I get me a” rather than “Can I have”. But in the end it’s just a dialect of English. Sometimes better, sometimes worse, than British English.
Yes. All part of life’s rich tapestry. I’ve lived here for seven years now and am still finding things that surprise me.
Not to defend "burglarize" as such...but I would say that it doesn't imply the actor is a "burglarizer" any more than to "materialize" would produce "materializers" instead of "materials."
The "mirror" and "nearer" verger is so old and complete that a lot of Americans have forgotten there ever was a split here. A lot of American singers will use a non-rhotic version of General American to sing because the R sound isn't very euphonious when held for a long time, and the pronunciation of "mirror" in American popular music is often "meera", not "mihra" (though not always--the (Canadian, but still natively rhotic) James LaBrie of Dream Theater says "mihra" in "The Mirror").
Also regarding "fur babies"--that also distinguishes domesticated from wild versions of the same animal. I have distinctly remembered someone saying "they were bunnies, not wild rabbits". There are no "junkyard puppers" or "feral kitties". Fish in a tank can be "fishies" but not fish caught on a hook in a lake. I think the potential threat to humans plays a role here, too--a feral rabbit, which cannot seriously harm a human, could potentially be a "bunny" if it looks like a domesticated breed, but a feral dog, no matter how far from the wild form it is, is not going to get a pet word, because feral dogs can and will grievously harm humans if they feel the need to.
The "classicisms" are a very strong class marker in American English--upper-middle class speakers and above will never, ever say "vertice" (or "vertexes", for that matter), "parenthese", or "process-ees". It is something that will *instantly* mark a speaker in upper-class company as "trashy".
Thank for that. All very informative. I have a video coming out soon about how people’s accents change when they sing.
When an American says 'horror' it often sounds to me like they're saying 'whore'. Sometimes this is hilarious.
Mere not mirror is bloody irritating. Also Americans have started calling risotto as Riz-oh-toe. God it annoys me.
What ever happened to using the phrase, "SUCH AS" instead of the word "LIKE". Like, I mean, like, don't you thing we overuse like, way too much anyway, like?
Not something I have an opinion on.
5:07 I think this isn't as arbitrary as you suggest. "A dozen", "two dozen" etc. behave grammatically like other numeral phrases both exact and vague, such as "two" or "a few hundred".
Good point.
That is an astonishing amount of editting work, for a video with interesting enough content that it could have passed with just a monologue Infront of a white screen. Great work. 👍
Wow, thank you!
yep- gotta agree, the way yankees say 'mirror' is just plain silly.
Often with disastrous consequences...😂
Not sure if this is rude or presumptuous but I'd imagine that the age profile of your following may be a slightly older demographic. Just want to say that I'm a fairly young fella in my 20s and I absolutely love your channel. Just discovered it recently and I'm binging it now. So interesting, please keep it up!
Not rude or presumptuous at all! I seem to be doing well with the 25-35 and the 55+. What’s weird is I have far more male viewers than female. So glad to have you on board. Thanks for saying hi.
Funny! Forward/farward/ford/fard; door/doe-uh; frawg/frog; five/fahv; etc. Some distinctions even within families. Some accents are not totally regional but exhibit an urban/rural dichotomy. Hence, rural folks in Ohio may sound very similar to rural folks in Georgia.
Interesting! Many thanks.
What a thoroughly lovely and lively chap. Subscribed 😊
Swim is like other activities. The gerund is the general activity. But the non-gerund form of the word is the specific instance. He went for a swim. I am going to have a swim this afternoon. Same thing with dance/dancing, ride/riding, run/running.
Indeed, and in the same way, we can’t say *ride hat or *run shoes.
An ex-colleague of mine from Illinois had a brother called Hairy. I had to do a double check! For her a car and the verb to care sounded the same. I called something lovely one day and she giggled saying I sounded like someone’s grandma. We remained on friendly terms 😉. My relatives from NY (almost everyone in Ireland has cousins in NY) sometimes add the g from the end of words to the next word: They live on Lon Guyland (Long Island). They also add an intrusive r to words ending in a: A woman called Linder might have a good ideer which sounds kind of English to me, when they’re actually Irish Americans. Thank you for another really interesting video, go raibh mile maith agat. 😊
Not sure if you're aware, but English was originally pretty much all rhotic (r after a vowel/before a consonant). This began to change first among upper class speakers in the Southeast in the 1700s or so. It was the case in the majority of rural England well into the 20th century, while now it's mostly the West Country and of course Scotland, Ireland etc.
There's a small area around Burnley and Accrington in Lancashire which is also rhotic, which is odd because nowhere else in that region is. The cricket commentator David Lloyd is a good example.
@@ajs41 It's a last vestige of a much wider area. When you say 'nowhere else in that region is', it depends on the age of the speaker. Among old people there's still a lot of rhoticity in other parts of Lancashire and Greater Manchester.
@@peterw29 I'm not an expert so I don't expect to be 100% right about it.
The Mirror thing becoming Mirrrr is a regional thing only some American folks suffer from. Another regional cringer is when Legs become Laigs, makes my skin crawl. These are inter-American observations.
I've noticed Adrienne from popular UA-cam channel Yoga with Adtiene says laygs instead of legs. She's from somewhere in the southern US.
The one that gets me is using fit as the past tense; ie "the dress fit her perfectly" instead of "the dress fitted her perfectly". As Americans would say "it grinds my gears".
you can say: to go for a swim, though ......
_"Were on high turralurr. Howdydoodydodeafen."_
- "What?"
_"We're on high turr alurrt! Holly doody do defenn!!!"_
- "Can you speak British for a moment, please?"
_"URRU TUURRURRRRUUUUSSSSSS!!!"_
😎
As my mom was from Germany and immigrated to the U.S. but was an medical interpreter and spoke British English…it had a peculiar influence on how we learned English, despite living in the United States…I use couple to mean two…few to mean more than two but less than an estimated many…which varies depending on what object to which I am counting…it’s strange…I don’t use puppy or kitty to refer to adult dogs or cats…that’s younger people and a new change to SAE. I definitely say forward as you’d expected…it definitely has an influence with a parent from abroad who’s taught you English. I like to swim…It’s almost like people from Oz…they too will use shorter forms of nouns or noun verbs and vice versa…I wonder if computers and the net have some effect. As a scientist I’m used to asking why…unfortunately there is no why in language as my dad always said.
"I use couple to mean two…few to mean more than two but less than an estimated many" -- same for me. I go 'round and 'round with my husband about this for some reason. He just doesn't know it. 🤷
Great video! I would say the Mary-Marry-Merry merger is pretty much widespread throughout the United States, in one place it is not, Philadelphia. In fact in Philly, there are several differences in accent and dialect for example American "sidewalk" is "pavement". It is possibly the hardest accent to imitate, it's rhotic unlike other big east coast cities like Boston and New York and the s sound in "sink" is often pronounced "zink" like in the west country in England. Some say the sound is somewhere between Northern and Southern American English but the diphthong in "nice" comes out like "noice". Anyways, thank you for creating great content!
I grew up in the South, and while I've heard the Mary-Marry-Merry merger in certain accents, I don't think it's quite as widespread.
I think Mary and Marry have pretty much fully merged in mosts accents I've been around (I pronounce them the same as well), but Merry is usually distinct.
Philadelphia born and bred (now living in Ireland) here, and definitely pronounce 'merry', 'Mary', and 'marry' distinctly different from each other!
Is it pavement because that's what we use here in the UK, or is there another reason?
I'm a new Yorker but they are all distinct in my accent
Fascinating comment about the use of the British term ‘pavement’, I had no idea they were so sensible in Philly! I’ve occasionally read comments on YT vids like this by people who claim that ‘sidewalk’ isn’t just part of US speech but it’s also the traditional term in the West Country (South West England, where many sound like pirates), I’d imagine it was said as ‘zoidwahk’ but I’ve never actually heard it said there myself.
Greetings from an expat Brit (by way of Norfolk) behind the Orange Curtain in SoCal. I've been here for 37 years now, so I think I'm going native and becoming feral, but I'll never give up my English swear words, most of which whoosh over the heads of unsuspecting locals without any sign they understood them... I also like to sprinkle a few Norfolkisms in, like mardle and bishybishybarnabee and rumman. Fun!
Where in OC are you? I’m in Mission Viejo.
@@DaveHuxtableLanguages I'm in Costa Mesa.
Historically the largest group of people from the British Isles coming in the 1700 from 1725 to 1775 were the Scots Irish from Ireland I think 200,000 of them came and of course they spoke the Scots. Of the language and this became preserved in American speech and then further people from the British Isles came down and did not take in the long road is fashionable start anything in the 1850s
There was a time in certain East Coast cities where the upper socioeconomic groups of Americans who are wealthy try to emulate a non-rhotic sound This is actually diminished and almost died out there are still some regions of the Tidewater Virginia and the Boston area or non-rhotic sounds are still used
You’ll find the same thing in Canadian English in fact there are people who’ve postulate that Canadian English is the closest thing to what they call early modern American English from the 1700s suitably developed in its own direction
Canadians are masters of morphing their speech to sound more like Americans should they actually stay here for periods of time
I don't get why he says "swim is used as noun". In all those examples, it's an adjective. "What kind of trunks? Swim trunks". However, it is used as a noun universally, such as "going for a swim".
So you mean that "swim" in "swim trunks" had the same function as "green" in "green trunks"?
Of course 'swim' is a noun. How was your swim? I had a good swim. As much a noun as 'run' or 'ride' is.
I’ve since realised that. In the UK though, just like run and ride, it only describes an instance of an activity, not the activity itself. That’s why we don’t say *run shoes or *ride boots, or indeed *swim instructor.
My five year old daughter called them swim pools. I liked that so much I changed to saying it myself. Now it's been some 15 years and it's part of how I speak.
Maybe I'm wrong but I get the impression Americans like to say things in a shorter way if it's possible, in order to save time. Another example is the way Americans say "I'm going out Tuesday", which you would never say here in England, you would always say "I'm going out on Tuesday". But missing the "on" out saves time.
@@ajs41 I've noticed that too. They've started to drop the word 'of' in the phrase 'a couple of' so now 'a couple of apples' for example has become 'a couple apples.' It confuses me because to me 'a couple' = two people in a romantic relationship.
Just exactly where did you hear people talking about vertices....California Institute of Technology? The only thing "surprising" is that you believe what you hear in one part of the U.S. is "American English." If I went to Brown Willy, Cornwall, could I assume that's how all English people speak? How about Wetwang, Yorkshire?
In South Carolina, "rural" comes out like "roo-al", the second r ignored completely
I think that is based on location. The upstate accent sounds different from a low country accent.
I am an American that does not have the Mary, merry, marry merger (your order may vary, very, verry). To me, I pronounce them all differently. I grew up on Long Island, NY, in the 1960s, until 8, then the Mid-Hudson Valley, NY, mostly in the 1970s until 18, then Baltimore, MD for last 47 years. I am guessing it was the early Long Island influence that is responsible.
"Swim" can be a noun, though, as in "Going for a swim".
Things I've noted as being particularly American neologisms are "partake in" as a synonym for "take part" and "bear witness" as a synonym for "witnessing".
@4:20 and following - that phenomenon of American speakers not knowing the singular of words English took up from Greek and Latin is a sign of a failure of our language education. It has gotten very sloppy since the 60s.
@4:59 and following-the "of" in "a couple of" gets reduced to an unstressed "a" in some regions, before disappearing all together. Here in PA, for example, in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre and the surrounding area, people will say, "a coupla", condensing "couple of". That's followed by, "two t'ree"-"How many eggs would you like?" "Oh, a coupla two t'ree, thanks!"
@6:12 in American English, "swim" is absolutely a noun, as well as a verb. "I'm going for a swim" is as correct and common as saying, "I'm going swimming." "Swimming trunks" is also as common as "swim trunks". It really depends on the region of the country you visit.
Curious - at 6:14 you said "None of the things I've said.. are.. " - shouldn't that be "is"?
Yes, probably. It must have been a slip of the tongue, though I’ve noticed people recently saying things like “one of my most favourite things ARE…”
@@DaveHuxtableLanguages I reread my question and it sounds more critical than I intended it to! The None of... IS construct is a pet peeve of my father (people saying ARE). I argued for a while that None can refer to 'not any' and not just 'not one' but he's not convinced 🤪👌
Swim is so a noun. Go for a swim.
This is great. And the whole swimming talk makes me want to go for a swim.
Did you use photoshop to put yourself in a pool or si that real? I can't work it out haha. Really interesting video and I like the open minded take on language evolution.
So glad you enjoyed it Carmen. I’m going to leave you guessing about the pool scene. Maybe watch again and tell me what you think. 🏊
@@DaveHuxtableLanguages I can't tell either! :D
I know you made this video two years ago but it seems that you've confined your travels in the US to certain areas without experiencing the variety of American speech. It reminds me of the Monty Python troupe. They were firmly convinced that the Footlights/Python type of comedy would never go over in the US. What many English fail to understand is the size of this country and the accompanying varieties of English. I grew up in NYC and live in Massachusetts. Most of the people I know clip their R's substantially or drop them all together. Please listen to the varieties available in this huge country. Some of the more unusual are Northern New England and Southern New England, Niagara, Reservation English, Hispano English.
The reason Americans speak so badly is one of an inherent rebellion of British standards, laziness and poor education. Where does 'I don't got xxx' instead of ' I havent got', for example, come from? Why are the vowels, A, O and U, pronounced 'ar'. Also, if there is an 'e' on the end of words, it changes the sounds of the vowels before it like 'rout' (rowt) to 'route' (root). Americans are oblivious to basic grammar sounds and it's nothing to do with accents.
I’ve had Americans not understand me when I asked for water.
It seems they cannot connect that to their word “wahder”
I usually think of puppy as meaning specifically a baby dog. Doggie (or sometimes doggo) is the "cutesy" word, usually said when talking to kids. Little kids say things like "bye, doggie." This can be a dog of any age.
After watching a couple of your videos, I’ve started to wonder whether I just don’t go out in public enough. I’m American, and I don’t say so many of the things that you. and people who have commented, claim that Americans say. Nor do my friends.
I speak standard American English and some of this is just dialectal in different regions. For example, I would pronounce mirror with two syllables and pronounce the -Rs in both syllables.
When you say "swim" is not a noun, you should have said "to me." If the term "swim trunks" requires that "swim" be a noun, then clearly it is. Because that's what people say. (If dictionaries don't yet include this exception in their definitions, and it seems they don't, then they are just behind the times.) Interestingly - to me anyway - Alistaire Cooke pointed out years ago that you can tell a British writer from an American one by the use of the word "Californian." To a British, it is an adjective, as in the term, "Californian wine." To Americans, Californian is a noun referring to a person from California. The adjective is "California," as in "California wine."
in England, do you have "stop smoking classes"? This grammar strikes me weird... don't we have a nicer noun phrase than "smoking cessation" for this idea? Or I guess "smoking" is the noun-like thing here, but then what is "stop"?
I grew up around Philadelphia and have lived in New York for 35 years. Even though the two cities are about an hour and a half apart, there are differences in the accents and I was always aware of them growing up. One thing that I've always thought of as a uniquely New York pronunciation is saying the word forward as foe-werd. We didn't say that in the Delaware Valley. Not sure how many people say it that way outside the New York area.
American here. Generally I agree with what you're saying, but I don't pronounce mirror and mere the same. I've grew up in the American South. I here two syllables in mirror, for the second syllable is almost an faint echo. I mention where I grew up, but I often here people try to mimic the accent there by reducing words like "goin'" to just one syllable. Again, there's actually a faint echo of "ing". I find this curious because I never see this brought up by linguists.
Thanks for the reminder, Mr. H. Parenthesis!
And vertex: thatvis completely new to me!
An American Grammarian.
I'm from Massachusetts and I say "a couple of" about half of the time, but I always write it like that. I never really noticed til now, but yeah I guess I drop it out of convenience.
Instructive and fun. As a Bostonian my fellow countrymen think I am pretentious be cause I do have a strong working class Boston accent. Hardly fancy pants talk around here “
From what I can tell we just call dogs "puppies", or cats "kitties" etc when we're emphasizing their cuteness or baby talking to them. We would still refer to the species as 'dog' or 'cat'. Maybe this is part of a bigger cultural trend where we increasingly tend to infantilize animals, but that's a separate topic.
An interesting video but could be more comprehensive as I was hoping to find the origin of why Americans have different names for things than we do, ie: never say to an American that 'I'm popping out to have a fag' or they may get the wrong impression about you thinking you are a homosexual and not someone who enjoys a quiet smoke. Still, a nicely presented video by Ronnie Barker's doppelganger.
I can't stand hearing or reading a sentence with "couple" but without the "of" afterwards. Drives me crazy!
I listened to a history of the English language on Audible once (Melvyn Bragg).
It explained how at one time the British reckoned the east coast of America spoke the clearest and most consistent English in the world. This was put down to the use of a universal speller book used there.
Now, it beats me how the concept of the "magic" 'e' was lost by the Americans. Was it adopted by the British as a recent convention, and it never took root in the US?
The pronunciation of route as rout really irritates me. This is dominating the language to such an extent that in Australia a computer router is called a rowter. Even though the convention of the magic 'e' is adhered to and otherwise followed.
Texan here. We don’t say mere here. That must be a northern thing. 🤷♀️
Also, my mother in law is from Louisiana. She says mir-row 😅
I've noticed recently that many Americans drop the "t" sound when it comes after an "n." They say "winner" instead of "winter," or "inneresting" instead of "interesting," for example.
In my accent, we don't have the "Mary, Merry, Marry" merger.
I guess you’re from ‘back east’ then.
@@DaveHuxtableLanguages yessah! I’m from Maine
yep, also in the northeast. My Mary and merry are pretty close, but marry is definitely different.
I don't have it either. (I'm from New York.)
I would say the verb=noun thing is a Germanic language feature. Still it is interesting that there seems to be no clear reason why one would you swim versus swimming. But, I have to say I grew up doing both.
I know someone from the Isle of Wight (UK, not Virginia) who says 'fawad' instead of 'forward as most people here do. And he also says 'ass' instead of 'arse'.
absolutely love your content. However, on this one
the shakey cam background makes me feel drunk and the whole video difficult to watch,
Really great videos Dave! New sub from me!
Awesome, thank you!
I see what you mean that American English isn't consistent in nouning verbs. What are your thoughts about the practice of verbing words in general?
In the U.S., we pronounce OUR and HOUR the very same.
I think most parts of the English speaking world do the same - if not all.
@@DaveHuxtableLanguagesI’m English and I say ‘our’ exactly like the word ‘are’ but I say ‘hour’ as ‘ow-uh’ just like it (and ‘our’) is officially transcribed in most non-rhotic dictionaries. Many Northern Irish people say both ‘hour’ and ‘our’ as ‘are’ in fact. I have heard many Americans say things like I do with added r’s though - there was a viral image of an ignorant Trump supporter who called him ‘are President’ doing the rounds a while back!😂
I discovered you today and I love how you make learning about languages fun, funny and exciting. Your editing is sublime as well, what do you use?
Another fun video! Here in Maine, though, I've never heard a local rhyme "mirror" with "mere".
As with the Rs, many of your other examples of our quirky use of language can be both regional and personal. To some extent, the longer one has spent in an educational setting, the more careful one tends speaks, at least in formal settings. Also, I don't know if Brits do it, but we have a tendency to code switch depending upon the setting in which we are speaking. That said, I'm sticking hard to our fully expressed Rs. They're there so you might as well use them. Oh, and by the way, you could have added the colloquial use of Rs at the end of words such as in "winder" (window), "soder" (soda), and "ider" (idea). Thanks for the video.
My nieces are involved in competitive "cheer."
What's up with the subtitles? Shouldn't it be "in the vein" instead of "in the vain"? Am I missing something?
Lets go for a swim. Swim is definitely used as a noun in American English.
Hi. It’s is but only in that construction, which allows several verbs which aren’t normally usable as nouns to act as if they were.
I went for a swim....used as a noun...
You are not the first to mention that. Look at the comments below for the discussion.
I've never pronounced 'foreward" as anything but "forrard" sounds the same as forehead
huh I live in California, I don't think I've ever said "foward" or noticed it being said that way
There is the English language and there are a plethora of English accents. The American accent is just one of them. There is no such thing as 'American English'.
superb work on the video and very funny!
Love these videos. New sub
Thanks for subbing. So glad you like them.