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From: clarke@utcsri.UUCP (Jim Clarke)
Newsgroups: net.internat
Subject: Re: American vs British
Message-ID: <1648@utcsri.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 17-Nov-85 11:53:19 EST
Article-I.D.: utcsri.1648
Posted: Sun Nov 17 11:53:19 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 17-Nov-85 12:42:24 EST
References: <125100001@ima.UUCP> <2435@sunybcs.UUCP> <787@inset.UUCP> <35@diku.UUCP> <36@diku.UUCP> <40@diku.UUCP> <797@inset.UUCP>
Reply-To: clarke@utcsri.UUCP (Jim Clarke)
Distribution: net
Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto
Lines: 51
Summary: 

In article <797@inset.UUCP> mikeb@inset.UUCP (Mike Banahan) writes:
>PROPSITION: Americans, in the large, not only cannot speak English,
>	they can't even *understand* it.
>
>SUPPORTING EVIDENCE: ...  Received Pronunciation ... normal spoken English
>                  ...  occasionally blank
>gazes make me realise that I am just not being uderstood at all.

Oooh, I just can't stand this any more.  Since this little debate may
possibly have some relevance to internationalizing computing, I'll make my
scream public.  Please notice that I am neither American nor British.

"Received Pronunciation" -- "received" by whom?  That's a normal British
term, but most Americans have never heard it.  Accent is not such a big
deal for them, though if they can't understand an accent they'll stare
blankly, all right.

"Normal spoken English" is ethnocentric in the same way.  "Normal" keyboards
have dollars signs and not pounds signs, too.  "Normal" means "most people
do it this way".  It's a loaded word, and I'd have thought a Brit would
have been staring down that particular barrel long enough not to try
pointing the gun himself any more.  The message is:  You understand the
Americans because you have to.  They don't understand you because they
don't have to.  It hurts that this is a reversal of the old situation, but
it's been like that for a long time now, you know.

The reason for trying to internationalize (check the OED if you don't like
my spelling) computing is that really, in any but the shortest of terms,
we all need to understand each other, whether to survive or just to make
a profit.  That goes not just for the local foibles of major imperialist
languages like English and French, but also for other languages like
the Scandinavian ones, whose owners haven't tried to force little circles
above the vowels on anyone else for a very long time now.  The big markets
could tell them to get stuffed, but that's not what this newsgroup is about,
is it?

>Interestingly, Australians have no trouble whatsoever with English English.

That's because in Australia they have to put up with a lot of bleeding Poms.
They're experts.  It's also because status in Australia is often expressed
by the ownership or acquisition of a British accent.  Americans don't do
that.

------
Temporary .signature quote:  The folly of the Americans is to think that
nothing outside the US really matters.  The folly of the Europeans is not
to see that the Americans are right.
-- 
Jim Clarke -- Dept. of Computer Science, Univ. of Toronto, Canada M5S 1A4
              (416) 978-4058
{allegra,cornell,decvax,ihnp4,linus,utzoo}!utcsri!clarke