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I had no idea this is different in BrE and AmE! What are some other such grammatical differences?
by mehrdadn 7y ago
I had no idea this is different in BrE and AmE! What are some other such grammatical differences?
- pilaf 7y agoNot a native English speaker, bit I think got (Br) vs. gotten (Am)? https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gotten https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gotten
- loeg 7y agoAmE definitely uses both. "I got sick" or "I've gotten sick" are both understandable.
- ziftface 7y agoI think this is in reference to the past perfect tense specifically. So "I have gotten sick" vs "I have got sick". I don't know if the latter is actually used in British English, but it's my understanding that the former would never be used since it's grammatically incorrect in that dialect.
- kentosi 7y agoAustralian here and we definitely use "gotten": - I've gotten to know him. - I hadn't gotten the concept yet, but then ... etc. I think it's the British that have lost the use of "gotten" in favour of "got".
- dkdbejwi383 7y agoAmericans are very stingy with prepositions: American: I wrote them British: I wrote to them
- quietbritishjim 7y agoThis is very true, and yet the British government message about coronavirus is "stay home" rather than "stay at home". It sounds rather odd to me. I wonder if they chose it to sound a bit more casual and relatable, or just to match what people were already likely to be hearing elsewhere online.
- n4r9 7y agoIt is a bit weird. As a Brit I would say that the first "home" has changed from a noun to a sort of adjective. It has the same type of meaning as fr example "busy" or "asleep". We quite often say "Sally is home" and it has a similar logic to "Sally is busy" or "Sally is asleep".
- limograf 7y agoI think it's to fit on the podium because actually everyone is saying "Stay at home".
- AlphaSite 7y agoStay home is more commanding, is it makes sense as a general order.
- AshamedCaptain 7y agoJust thank god they don't decide to prefix it with a hash to make it more trendy twitter-like youngster hipsters whatever like what the French government is doing (#stayhome / #restezchezvous). Now get off my lawn...
- chimprich 7y ago"Stay home. Protect the NHS. Save lives." has the ring of a Dominic Cummings slogan. It's in the same vein as "Take back control" or "Get Brexit Done". It's campaigning distilled down to the minimum possible words. Edit: Interestingly(?), the government official leaflet adds an "at": https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-information-leaflet https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid...
- globular-toast 7y agoThere are many small differences. Not grammatical but some off the top of my head: * Quite means something different. In British "quite good" is similar to "particularly good". In American it's more like "OK", * Spelling of -ing form of words ending in l. Br: travelling, Am: traveling, * Placement of stress on multi-syllable words. It almost seems like anything British people do is the opposite in America. Br: 'adult, a'ddress, ice 'cream. Am: a'dult, 'address, 'ice cream.
- Talanes 7y agoWhere in America have you heard "quite good" used as "Ok?" I've only ever heard it used in an imitation British way, usually of the quality that includes "Tip tip cheerio" or "Guvn'r."
- ChainOfFools 7y agoAmerican speaker here, for me the accent falls in address according to which form the word takes; such that a'ddress is the noun while address' is the verb.
- globular-toast 7y agoThat's a good point. For some reason we don't adjust the pronunciation on that one, but we do on other words like "contract": 'contract (noun), con'tract (verb). The word "research" is an odd one as it's pronounced as re'search as both verb and noun in BrE but 'research as both verb and noun in AmE. But, of course, many British speakers now use the American way without realising (as evidenced by replies to my original comment).
- n4r9 7y ago> In British "quite good" is similar to "particularly good" If you're very posh then yes, but everyone else now uses the American sense. If you asked me what I thought of a TV show, "quite good" means I enjoyed it but I'm not that fussed if I don't happen to watch any more of it.
- 7y ago
- mikorym 7y agoOne of my favourite quirks of English (that obscure language from a small island) is: "If it were up to me..." That's the correct grammar for when you have a conditional argument. I know that a lot of Americans don't know this rule at all (especially musicians) but I suspect that it is a regional thing and not strictly US vs. Brit. Note that if the conditional reflects something that really happened, then you use was as usual. "If I was wrong by saying that..."
- mehrdadn 7y agoI think that's subjunctive, right? Subjunctive in English is indeed really obscure... I seem to recall the rules being weird in English, but I think it was something along the lines of: you have to use subjunctive when the hypothetical would be outright impossible? (e.g. "If I were you") In your example it's unclear whether that's the case or not as it might depend on the context, so my understanding was it might need to be indicative in that case. I think that's a bit different from being conditional, though, right?
- goodcanadian 7y agoI don't think it needs to be impossible, merely hypothetical. For example, I might say, "If I were to go into town today, is there anything you would like me to get for you?"
- DFHippie 7y agoIt's past subjunctive. The present subjunctive is still around but scarce: "Lest he think less of me" or, in a frozen expression, "Be it ever so humble ...".
- pge 7y agoyes - subjunctive. It comes from English's Germanic roots. Compare the German, "Wenn ich König von Deutschland wäre..." to the English translation, "If I were King of Germany..." and note the similarity of the verbs "wäre" and "were." In English, what looks like a plural form ("were") in place of a singular ("was") actually comes from a Germanic singular form of the subjunctive. Both the German words "waren" (plural indicative form - "we/they were ...") and "wäre" (singular subjunctive form - "(if) I/he were") become "were" in English. (And to confuse things, in English, the plural subjunctive is also "were" and is thus indistinguishable from the indicative. "We were kings..." v. "If we were kings...") In both languages, the subjunctive is used in this case for a condition contrary to fact - I am not the King of Germany (nor am I a German pop singer from the 80s!).
- reticulated 7y agoThe one that always seems to grab my attention is the British "by accident" versus the frequently-used American "on accident". Whilst I can understand the argument for the latter being similar to "on purpose", it will never stop sounding wrong to my British ears.
- mehrdadn 7y agoHuh, I speak AmE and "by accident" sounds more natural to me too.
- kelnos 7y agoIn America it's a regional thing. "By accident" is east coast, "on accident" is more midwest and west coast (though given that the west coast is full of transplants, there's a mix in usage". I've lived in CA for 16 years, but grew up in NJ and MD, and "on accident" still sounds weird to me.
- TulliusCicero 7y agoI'm from CA and I hate "on accident", it sounds dumb and wrong.
- dragonwriter 7y agoHonestly, as an American (California n almost all of my life), I find both “by accident” and “on accident” to generally sound stilted, though “by accident” seems natural in certain broader constructions, and “on accident” fits in the unique case of a direct contrast with “on purpose”. Generally, though, “accidentally” is the term that sounds right.
- waylandsmithers 7y agoTo my ear "on accident" sounds wrong and kind of unsophisticated for lack of a better word
- OJFord 7y agoYou should eschew both and say 'accidentally'. I do hear 'by accident' but always (as a native speaker of British English, born and living in England) consider it an error. I have at least heard of 'on accident' too, but interestingly it barely registers on Google's ngram viewer, even with 'American English' selected: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=accidentally%2Cby+accident%2Con+accident&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=17&smoothing=3 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=accidentally%2...
- kelnos 7y agoNot strictly "grammar", probably more "style", but I've noticed that contractions split differently sometimes. I would say "I haven't gone to the store", but I hear many people with a BrE background say "I've not gone to the store" instead.
- Johnjonjoan 7y agoIn my opinion as someone who speaks BrE - 'gone' is only really used with I've because it makes the person the subject of the sentence. With I haven't the subject is the action of going to the store therefore in BrE you would say "I haven't been to the store" Disclaimer : I came to this conclusion from being a native English speaker and picking up differences whilst learning foreign languages so don't take it as fact!
- dan-robertson 7y agoI think contractions tend to be less common in American English in general
- foldr 7y agoBritish 'do' in VP ellipsis contexts. For example, "I might do", "I could do" (where Americans would accept only "I might" or "I could").
- OJFord 7y ago> VP ellipsis Interesting, didn't know the name for that, thanks! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verb_phrase_ellipsis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verb_phrase_ellipsis > where Americans [...] "I could" Which almost makes me grind my teeth in anticipation of 'care less' following it. (A BrE speaker would say 'could not care less', which has the benefit of, you know, actually making sense! ;))
- DFHippie 7y agoOne I've noticed is patterns of misuse of pronoun case in conjoined noun phrases. Americans are more likely to use "me" for the subject, as in "Tom and me did thus and so". The British are more likely to use "I" as the object of a preposition, as in "He gave it to Tom and I". I suspect this is because British teachers are more likely to correct and shame students who commit the first error, so they decide the subject forms are the safer bet.
- jonathanlydall 7y agoI was taught a very simple rule around this, if you remove the other person you're referring to, is the sentence still grammatically correct? So for your example: > He gave it to Tom and I. Change it to: > He gave it to I. That's clearly weird, so it should actually be: > He gave it to me. And then re-incorporating the other person: > He gave it to Tom and me. When I see your version in my mind it's a mistake and my theory is it's a common misunderstanding of the rule, consider the following slightly different scenario which is a super common mistake in my experience: > Me and Tom went to the movies. That is clearly wrong when applying the rule and should be: > I and Tom went to the movies. Although I feel that this sounds better: > Tom and I went to the movies. I think that what often happens (at least it did for me) is that children making the above mistake only ever see the correction without being reminded of or taught the actual rule, so they incorrectly assume the rule is something like: > Always use "I" when talking about yourself and someone else. I live in South Africa and we use British English, but I would expect the rule to be the same for American English too.
- OJFord 7y ago
- kiplkipl 7y agoIn British English, "The waiter will be with you momentarily" means the waiter will be with you and then leave very quickly afterwards.
- Johnjonjoan 7y agoLiterally yes but contextually no. Momentarily describes the period until the waiter arrives in this context.
- OJFord 7y agoOnly in America, which is the point GP is making. AmE: in a moment; BrE: for a moment. Obviously it's blurred, particularly in BrE with televisual influence from America. Although I notice Wiktionary gives the latter unqualified, and the former as US & proscribed.
- Johnjonjoan 7y agoI see, my bad. Thanks.
- waylandsmithers 7y agoI've noticed that British attaches the suffix "time" to lengths of time..., eg The package will arrive from Amazon in two weeks The package will arrive from Amazon in two weeks time
- OJFord 7y agoAnd a possessive apostrophe should be used, I would write: > The package will arrive from Amazon in two weeks' time (cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Years%27_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Years%27_War)
- bane 7y agoTo add to the other examples: British, American "in future" , "in the future" "in hospital" , "in the hospital" Also in British English it's more common to construct a sentence such as: "A great car, this one." In American English we would almost always say "This is a great car."
- pricechild 7y agoI'm not sure about your first example... I thought to myself "As an Englishman, what would I think about in the future?" and can't figure out a way to omit 'the'. Could you use it in a sentence?
- frosted-flakes 7y ago"In [the] future, please refrain from bringing fermented herring to work for lunch."
- bane 7y ago"In future, please don't forget to cool off the tea." There's an entire WP page on these differences that are pretty interesting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_grammatical_differences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_g... As always, your local dialect may differ!
- pricechild 7y agoAha thank you, yes I hadn't thought about that form. Pretty sure I'd still include 'the', not sure. Interesting!
- Youden 7y agoI'm Australian rather than English but a lot of these sound odd to me. I'd probably say "in future, could you please refrain from eating loudly" but "in the future, we will have flying cars". "The future" would refer to the magical world full of fancy new technology, while "in future" is more along the lines of "from now on". "I'm in hospital" makes perfect sense but "I'm in the hospital" works perfectly fine as well. I don't think either is incorrect in English. Regarding the sentence construction, I wouldn't understand "a great car, this one" as a standalone sentence. Written, it'd have to be "it's a great car, this one". Spoken, I'd expect there to be either something spoken prior (e.g. "Isn't she lovely. A great car, this one.") or some kind of non-verbal cue (like a look of pride or fondness that essentially expresses the same thing). But again, Australian, not English.
- matthewowen 7y agoYou might enjoy this blog: https://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/ https://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/