British/American comparison stylebook/grammar

There's no argument that current usage in the UK favours the "England are" construction. Obviously "they" (The United Kingdom - a singular entity, one would think, especially with the robust "united" in there to confirm and strengthen the notion of unity) "do". Seems a bit odd, but there you go.

For mom2, I can't think of any other grammatical AuE usages which differ from BE but agree with AmE.

With spelling BE still doesn't seem to have made up its mind about "-ise" or "-ize" endings, as the OED still favours "-ize" but UK newspapers don't seem to use it, if the Guardian and Times crosswords are any guide, while AuE uses "-ise" always, including the only Australian dictionary, the Macquarie.

With that possible exception, Australian spelling agrees with British, so far as I know.

Good luck with the students, and for Damian, as an Australian of celtic descent, I'm very pleased that your team were successful in that game, although I think the entire UK are a great place. How were that the noo?

It does help Scotland when the referee awards them a penalty every time England started to attack.

Just to show how England have been playing the best rugby in the Six Nations, England have made the least tackles of all the teams and have the least amount of missed tackles.

"least tackles" "amount of tackles"

Adam may have meant "fewest tackles" and "number of tackles".

Yesterday's football results -

Scotland 1-3 Switzerland

France 1-2 Slovakia

England 2-1 Uruguay

France have really struck fear into their World Cup opponents by losing against lowly Slovakia.

Why do you have to so negative against the French Adam? Anyone who is French or sane, please don't think all English people are like that idiot.

We are actually wonderful people. :) Just don't listen to the rumours the angry Scotman tells you - the poor bastard is on drugs or alcohol.

Thommo--thanks. I was just going to ask if there were any other major differences between AuE and BrE, grammatically.

Another question about British (and maybe Australian and South African) comma usage. I am talking about sentences with "comma splices" (though I'm sure there are other terms for this)--two independent clauses joined together by nothing more than a comma (no coordinating conjunction, etc). I have seen this repeatedly in British usage, yet in hours of searching online, I can't find a rule to justify this. Is this something that is just more commonly overlooked by British proofreaders than by US?

Also, what other teminology is there for comma splice? Sentence fragment? Subordinating conjunction (connectives?)? Independent clause (main clause?)? Dependent (subordinate) clause? I just seem to run into brick walls with my terminology here.

Thanks!

M

Can't help with the terminology, mom2, but the use of colons and semi-colons to separate clauses within a sentence has become rare; as the teaching of punctuation disappears, modern practice seems to be either to use a comma or a full-stop: you'll have seen examples of both on this forum.

Do you even bother teaching your students to avoid splitting infinitives, or to use comparatives and superlatives?

>>Do you even bother teaching your students to avoid splitting infinitives, or to use comparatives and superlatives?<<

The notion of avoiding "splitting infinitives" is absolutely idiotic, considering that splitting infinitives (by inserting adverbial material) is very much standard practice in actual speech, no matter what the register is.

<<The notion of avoiding "splitting infinitives" is absolutely idiotic, considering that splitting infinitives (by inserting adverbial material) is very much standard practice in actual speech, no matter what the register is. >>

Agreed, completely. It's one of those stupid 'pseudo-rules' of English that many people get very exercised over, for no reason at all.

I agree totally with Travis and Candy about "splitting infinitives." More like "splitting hairs."

What do you mean about comparatives and superlatives?

Interesting that the comma is so commonplace. I don't see the "comma splice" becoming common in American usage yet--comma + coord. conj, semicolon, or full stop. However, your response does help me to understand why so many of my students are totally confused when I mark "comma splices."

M

I'm a little surprised that Travis, so young but usually so erudite and polite, and who makes a great contribution to this forum, has so emphatically supported splitting infinitives, especially as I hadn't actually decried it, having simply used it as an example of something not worth teaching these days to those trying to learn English as a second language.

No comment in respect of the other respondent.

M2, I meant that the comparative and superlative forms of adjectives have become almost so rare as an un-split infinitive, with "more" and "most" used with the basic word becoming the norm.

As so often happens on this forum, an attempt to assist has been negated.

Cry me a river, stuck-up pop-tart. Chew that Metamucil, you old fogey, Ned.

>>I'm a little surprised that Travis, so young but usually so erudite and polite, and who makes a great contribution to this forum, has so emphatically supported splitting infinitives, especially as I hadn't actually decried it, having simply used it as an example of something not worth teaching these days to those trying to learn English as a second language.<<

Sorry, I had missed some of the implications of what you had said earlier; in particular, I had missed the implications of the words "even bother" which, yes, imply the lack of necessity of teaching such. Even still, one thing is that I tend to have very strong views about English is taught, and in particular tend to oppose many of the "rules" that English teachers often teach, whether to native or to non-native speakers. Consequently, I like to pound my fist on the table, so to speak, about the matter every now and then.

As long as we are already discussing the topic now, despite how this conversation got started, I must say that I also oppose how actual everyday spoken English, whether English or North American, is seemingly commonly overlooked when teaching to non-native speakers, on the basis that most non-native speakers will most likely not have to *speak* such. The problem there is that such ignores that many non-native speakers, if they ever have to hear a native speaker speak, will still have to *understand* such. I find it appalling myself to find that some individuals who I have run into who are apparently literate in English turn out to not understand the actual everyday pronunciations, in at least most NAE dialects, of things as basic as "should not have". Not like how I was taught German or Japanese was any better, of course, but then I have only taken a year of German, and my Japanese class in high school was not exactly first-rate overall.

Yes, everyday, or conversational English should perhaps be the starting point, and I suppose that needs to be directed in the first instance to a particular version of spoken English, or the pronunciation problems you mention will occur. After all, that's how a native speaker learns language as a child, and we've probably all had the experience of finding how inadequately study of a language prepares you for your first encounter with a native speaker of that language.

Do Americans use "present/past progressive" instead of "present/past continuous"? Don't they use "present/past continuous" at all?


I know that Americans use simple past instead of the present perfect with words like: just, already, yet and ever. Could you give me an example with the word "ever" please? Thank you