From: Nix <nix_at_esperi.org.uk>
Date: Fri, 25 Jun 2004 14:44:02 +0100

On Thu, 24 Jun 2004, Fred Maxwell yowled:
> Green, Tom wrote:
>> So, in the US, only "The Rockbox team is justifiably proud..." is
>> correct.
>
> Tom is, of course, correct. I work for a corporation which has a
> worldwide presence and we constantly deal with differences in English
> usage.
>
> In addition to the aformentioned difference in the handling of
> collective nouns, there are also many differences in spelling. A few
> examples (US, British):

As a British English speaker, I'd consider `The rockbox team are proud'
to be incorrect English. The NP `The rockbox team' is a singular entity:
there is only one team. As such, its associaeted VP should also be
singular. (`The rockbox teams are proud' would be correct if there were
many teams.)

(Any linguists in the crowd?)

[snip]
> There is no way to make a document which is correct in both British
> English and U.S. English. Looking at it objectively, U.S. English is
> slightly more logical due to the reforms introduced by Benjamin
> Franklin to simplify the spelling (e.g, dropping the "u" from honor,
> color, etc.).

I think Webster was to blame for many of those, not Franklin. (The z ->
s stuff is a British change.)

Not all of Webster's changes caught on, or we'd be speaking to each
other with tungs. (Given the number of people on the Internet who seem
to possess `tounges', I rather wish this change had been taken up...
`tung' would be subtantially harder to misspell.)

-- 
`We in no way believe that this Christ was a space alien.'
                    --- A creationist website goes completely bonkers
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Received on 2004-06-25