8 ms·
I read several blogs that use British English, including this OP's blog. Some of my favourite blogs in my RSS reader are British English blogs, or at least they
by blenderob 3mo ago
I read several blogs that use British English, including this OP's blog. Some of my favourite blogs in my RSS reader are British English blogs, or at least they use British English spellings and grammar. I find their use of the English language very charming and funny in a unique way.
It surprises me that anyone would feel entitled to ask a blogger to change the variety of English they use. American English is only one of many forms of English. The world is richer for its many varieties of English, and languages, and that diversity makes it more interesting, not less.
- vitally3643 3mo agoCertain cultures teach that diversity is a bad thing to be feared and extinguished. Diversity is only a good thing when your mind has been poisoned by "education" and "experience". It requires an open mind to see diverse experiences as a good thing, and certain cultures think having citizens with open minds is an unprofitable way to run a society.
- umeshunni 3mo ago[flagged]
- frereubu 3mo agoYou look around the world, including the rise of far-right parties across the Western world who talk about the "great replacement" conspiracy theory, and the first example you reach for is Islamic cultures?
- umeshunni 3mo agoConsidered that there are organizations like the Taliban and Boko Haram that rule entire countries and regions and have anti-education as a principle, yes it's those cultures that I reach for.
- ChrisRR 3mo agoI'm fairly sure they were referring to the americans that this post is about
- kelvinjps10 3mo agoThis culture they inherited from the British that annihilated the indigenous population compared with the Spanish or Portuguese that breeded with the native population
- vitally3643 3mo agoNo, the Spanish did plenty of genocide as well.
- kelvinjps10 3mo agoIm not denying that but still the they had a higher offspring with the native comparable to the approach of the British of removing most of the indigenous population
- kelvinjps10 3mo agoAnd in the US you can see so many different cultures in one place
- LadyCailin 3mo agoYou’d be surprised how much radical Islam and the American far right have in common.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- freehorse 3mo agoHistorically many (predominantly muslim) places in near and middle east have been very diverse, though maybe not exactly the kind of diversity usually conceptualised in the west. If anything, the idea of homogeneous nation states is more like rooted in the enlightenment.
- umeshunni 3mo ago[flagged]
- mghackerlady 3mo agoExtreme Islam acts like that, as does extreme Christianity or any extreme religion. Out of all the Muslims I've met and all the Christians I've met, the Muslims have been by far the more tolerant (granted, I live in the US so there is a very obvious bias in both directions)
- umeshunni 3mo ago[flagged]
- dgellow 3mo ago> If anything, the idea of homogeneous nation states is more like rooted in the enlightenment. The seeds were planted during the enlightenment period but I believe the raise of nationalism is generally considered post-enlightenment
- snowpid 3mo agoI think you make an too easy argument: Compared to e.g. Christian places in Europe where people still the same tongue like before the Christianisation (roughly speaking), Aramic, Demotic or Berbic languages, once majority languages are now minority languages in Arabic enviroments. Ironically Aramic and Demotic are spoken mostly by Christian minorities. Also I see the Islamic movement in recent years pushing for Islamic homogeneous countries and driving ethnic, religious, language and sexual minorities out of their homelands (mainly into Europe). Compare to today (often secular) European counterparts Arabic nations are homogenous and root cause was Anti enlightenment ideologies.
- throwaway2037 3mo ago> Certain cultures teach that diversity is a bad thing to be feared and extinguished. Ok, I take the bait. Which ones?
- tpoacher 3mo agoIs it bait? I'm pretty sure it's a reasonably factual, albeit general claim. Asking chatGPT for country-specific examples for instance gives this: > Yes—some countries have (at various times, and in some cases still today) adopted policies aimed at making the population more “homogeneous,” through segregation, assimilation pressure, or exclusion/deportation. Concrete examples: - South Africa (apartheid era, 1948–1990s): An official system of racial classification and enforced separation (“separate development”). - Germany (Nazi period, 1933–1945): State ideology enforced a racial hierarchy and pursued forced removal and mass murder of those deemed “undesirable.” - Israel (state policies affecting Palestinian citizens and occupied territory, especially since 1967): Includes laws and administrative practices that many observers describe as producing or enforcing unequal status by group; key issues include citizenship status differences and restrictions tied to national/ethnic identity. - Myanmar (Rohingya): Policies and law enforcement that stripped/blocked citizenship for Rohingya and enabled persecution, culminating in mass violence and displacement. - Canada (Indigenous assimilation policy, especially 19th–20th century into 1996): Forced assimilation via residential schools and bans on language/cultural practices; many have characterized this as cultural genocide. - United States (Jim Crow + earlier immigration/citizenship rules; and internment): Historical legal regimes created segregation and restricted citizenship/naturalization based on race/national origin (e.g., earlier Asian-exclusion immigration restrictions). You may disagree with some examples on this list, but I'm sure even you would consider that the first two are clear examples of diversity-fearing 'cultures' rather than 'bait'. And this is even before considering the wider definition of the word 'culture', which can be even more exclusionary.
- dhosek 3mo agoI would edit the US item to remove “historical” given the current efforts to reinstate everything in parentheses and add new ones.
- Redoubts 3mo agoOk sure. The Home Secretary just banned new asylum seeker housing near schools and nurseries, fyi.
- dofm 3mo agoRight. As a Brit I am entitled to think we speak the best version (because we do; ISE is a close second) but I am not entitled to believe everyone else's is wrong, because that is ahistorical. They have diverged repeatedly and thus ours is one of the divergences. Much of British English was standardised long after several waves of the US settlers left our shores, so US english has some traits of pre-standardised English dialects, and ours is different again. It's equally silly when some Americans claim their English is closer to the "true" English as a result, because, again, there was really no standardised "true" English when they left. Along with some simplifications and some things reintroduced from german settlers, it has some traits of older English that the British abandoned in our own simplification of the language. Is ours the best? Of course it bloody is :-) But is it "true" English? No more than anyone else's. That is the enormous power of English.
- gnubison 3mo agoWhat is ISE?
- dofm 3mo agoI mean Indian Standard English here.
- chrismorgan 3mo agoI have never heard of a thing called “Indian Standard English”, nor (as an Australian who has moved to India) does it sound a very realistic concept. Can’t find any search results for it as a phrase, either.
- dofm 3mo agoSometimes used as a term in linguistics. Put it in quotes: "Indian Standard English" and you will see plenty of results. https://www.google.com/?q=%22Indian+Standard+English%22 https://www.google.com/?q=%22Indian+Standard+English%22 https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/eww.24.2.02ers https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/eww.24... It doesn't mean a written standard exists. Maybe it's called Standard Indian English or just Indian English in other contexts; I'm only using a term I've seen used.
- rahimnathwani 3mo agoI agree in general, but there's one exception: use of the word 'tabled'. This means roughly the opposite in British and US English, and there's often insufficient surrounding context to alert the reader to their error. (OTOH I don't think you should suppress 'false friends' like biscuits, pants etc.)
- mrob 3mo ago>there's one exception: use of the word 'tabled'. Another exception: "moot", as in "moot point". In the UK it means "subject to debate", while in the US it means "inconsequential and therefore not subject to debate".
- lbriner 3mo agoI'm British but I always understood it as the second meaning. e.g. "We were going to consider XYZ but now it's a moot point because the project is cancelled."
- mrob 3mo agoI've heard it used that way in the UK too, but the first meaning is traditional. Wiktionary has some examples: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/moot https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/moot I expect the US meaning will eventually become standard everywhere.
- dofm 3mo agoIt sort of means both simultaneously, doesn't it (we could discuss it but it's inconsequential), but we do tend to use it in that formulation most.
- jwatzman 3mo agoThere are a few others. “Quite” comes to mind — “I am quite hungry” or “that meal was quite good” can mean opposite things, depending on the speaker region and even voice inflexion if spoken.
- 3mo ago
- penguin_booze 3mo ago[flagged]
- kurtis_reed 3mo agoActually, it's "either the word 'whom' or when to use it". I guess you should learn actual English.
- GeoAtreides 3mo ago>Speaking is even worse: a diarrhea of filler words, like 'like', 'I mean', and 'you know'. and the british have: obviously, innit, fam, right, know what I mean, etc
- kurtis_reed 3mo agoImagine someone wrote a blog in some obscure language that few people speak. If you happen to know that language, you'd think wow this is great. If you don't happen to know that language, you'd just think it's a shame. This is the same thing, just to a lesser degree. Some people might be interested in putting in the effort to learn a bunch of foreign cultural references, but not everyone.
- pseudalopex 3mo agoThey did not say someone asked them to write American English.