Why American English is Highly Misunderstood

To quote my grandmother "The British pronounce words 'properly'. The Americans pronounce words 'correctly'."

In line with the whole "America changing things based on the word's origin" I had a British friend who would try to call me out on the American spellings of things like color, armor, and other words that the Brits add a U into. I knew it was a word originating from Latin and that Latin didn't use the U. So I got to researching why the Brits add it, I found it was part of the French rule of England in the 1300s where they mixed a lot of French into English as it was used in royal court and other official settings. When America went independent Noah Webster took on a life long mission of making the American Dictionary to standardize language within the new nation and part of that was reverting some words back to their origins. The next time after I learned this that my friend tried to mess with me telling me I was spelling words wrong I informed him that in fact he was the one spelling things "wrong" and when I told him he was using French spellings he had a mini meltdown (he hated the French.)

When I lived in England, I got so good picking out accents that I told one guy that he clearly hadn't grown up in the area. He proudly pointed out a community he was from -- it was maybe six miles away on the other side of Dewsbury which we could see from the hilltop we were standing on.

My dad talks about meeting a man in the Virginia mountains when he immigrated to the USA from England in the 60’s. He assumed the man was also from England. The whole mountain town had a British accent.

I don’t know if it holds true today but I was taught that English was a living, breathing language that adapts easily. We were taught to be proud of our common language.

I was once ridiculed in a bar for saying “Peter” in all its rotic glory. One of the the British lads said, “I can’t believe you pronounce it “Peterrrrrrr.” He then added “What gives you the idear it sounds acceptable?” I answered, “I reckon I prefer to keep my ‘R’s where they are instead of donating them to words that don’t have any, like “idearrrrrr”.

Born and raised Bostonian here. We don't pronounce our Rs. When my nephew was little in speech therapy after suffering hearing loss he got very frustrated with the speech therapist who kept trying to get him to pronounce a hard R. I had to tell her, he's got my Boston accent and he's pronouncing Rs correctly.

The retort given for Thomas Jefferson's word "belittle" actually serves as the very definition

Sometimes British people in YouTube comments (usually not these comments) will act as though current Americans are the ones that changed the language. And I’m always like, I learned to talk like this as a baby, just like you did

To know that 'belittle' is an American word makes me appreciate 'embiggen' all that much more

I made this argument against a highschool english teacher who would pronounce the H in herbalism, he cited the oxford dictionary and i countered with its french origin and the merriam websters dictionary. Each of the seperate dictionaries have different pronunciations of the word and its one of the many interesting points on how communication has canged.

My husband and I enjoyed the PBS series, "The Story Of English", and bought the companion book by Robert McCrum. Truly fascinating. We enjoy your take on living in the U.S.

I've sat through international business meetings with Brits, Americans, Germans, Japanese, Thais, etc. We all spoke English, because it was the only language we all shared. And we all understood each other, except the Brits and Yanks, who sometimes descended into idiomatic language that confused the rest. The odd thing was that the Brits and Yanks generally understood each other's idioms, even when they were different. E.g., Americans could figure out "Bob's your uncle" and Brits "screwed the pooch", but hardly anyone else could.

The best way ive ever heard the construction of English as a language was simply this. "English doesn't borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over and goes through their pockets for loose grammar."

I loved your video on Mourning Doves. Thanks, it was fun. 😊

Since English doesn’t use accent marks to the extent that some European languages do; as a result certain English words are spelled the same, but are pronounced differently depending on their usage. EXAMPLES: LIVE- I live in this house. NBC is doing a live broadcasting of the show. CONTENT- Have you seen the contents of this box? Are you content with your new puppy? WOUND- I wound up the old clock yesterday. I have a wound on my leg. WIND- The wind is blowing hard. I’ll wind up that toy for you. PRESENT- Thank you for the present. I will present the gift to him. MINUTE- Now wait just a minute. That matter is a minute issue. POLISH- Did you polish his knob? That guy is Polish. PROJECT- My science project won first place. I can’t find the film screen so we’ll have to project the movie on the wall.

My favorite explanation of dialects and regional accents: Rose Tyler: “If you are an alien how come you sound like you're from the North?” The Doctor: “Lots of planets have a North!” Still, so many Brits just won’t come off it.

A writer in the Daily Telegraph wrote about "insupportable Americanisms like 'gotten'" and I almost wrote to him (this was before X) "America has undoubtedly inflicted many barbarisms upon the English language, but GOTTEN ISN'T ONE OF THEM! Or have you... forgotten?"

All of your videos are fascinating. This one in particular. Would love to see more on your observations and research on the South vs. England. And I can hear many varieties of British accents as well.

growing up in New Orleans and environs, one expects the Creole and Cajun accents ... but running into the Third Ward or Irish Channel was just ... boil is berl, oil is erl, etc. Next door neighbor grew up in the portion of the city and listening to her talk when I was a kid was just ... fascinating. Of course, everyone asked where I was from as my Mom was from Indiana and my Dad from Virginia and we moved so much in my first ten years ... I not sure I have a regional accent ...