PDS Games use American English

[War_lord]

This whole debate about "proper English" is absurd. You've two formal variations of English taught in schools, American and British. But there's a huge number of dialects in all Anglophone countries that often have their own grammatical rules and sounds. It's a diverse language.

 

[ramius3443]

But then I'd have to speak American English to protest being a British possession and you *still not learning my language*.

Well you arn't about to become indepedent on Britain or America's watch, so chose which protest language you want to speak

 

[Evie HJ]

I'll speak whichever our current overlords *aren't* speaking

 

[Alerias]

I believe we should go back to Lingua Franca.

Or Latin, I suppose that would be acceptable.

But most of all, anyone caught using a multilingual version should be burned by unexpected Spanish Inquisition.

 

[FOARP]

I have the firm belief that we should use one of the Pidgin English variants in our games.

Long pigs no save tasol . . .

 

[Karlingid]

From a historical standpoint, American English is much closer to the English spoken in the 16th-18th centuries than modern Received Pronunciation. That is, however, phonetics, and the spellings of the time had no true standardization. Shakespeare, for instance, signed his name multiple ways, and the English spoken in the Crusader Kings era more closely resembles Frisian than any form of modern English. For Shakespearean English, you're better off with Scots than you are with British English as well.

This is in response to the people saying that British English is the "true" English, the "original" English, or the "root" English, or that it better fits the timeframe. The point is that historical accuracy has nothing to do with it, elsewise you'd not even be reading the game in English at all.

PDS should be using 'Strayan' English, dontya know?

OK, maybe not .

I personally prefer English as it's spoken in England, as it's the 'root' English, so a little more likely to have commonalities with it's various offshoots, but given they've all evolved a fair bit, it's hardly surprising. I personally dislike a number of the US amendments to English as they tend to remove detail from the phonetic pronunciations of the word (colour and honour vs color and honor), and thus take the language a bit further away from phonetic than it is originally, but it's deffo not a big issue - English is confusing enough that the mild extra inconsistencies to the structure of things added in US English only make it a tiny bit less consistent than the mess of inconsistencies it is already .

The idea of American spelling reforms of the 19th was to simplify words to closer match their phonetic form. When you've got "Hour" and "Our", a distinction needed to be made so that it wouldn't come off as "Col-hour". Admittedly, though, the reason spelling reforms existed at all was because of American nationalism around the 1812 era.

 

[Karlingid]

Churchill didn't hold "This was their finest hour" or "We Shall Fight on the Beaches" in American English, did he? That is the most famous English for the HoI period as far as I know, so by that logic British English would be obvious.

The most famous English over here?

"Yesterday, December 7, 1941- a date which will live in infamy..."

 

[Axe99]

This is in response to the people saying that British English is the "true" English, the "original" English, or the "root" English, or that it better fits the timeframe. The point is that historical accuracy has nothing to do with it, elsewise you'd not even be reading the game in English at all.

The idea of American spelling reforms of the 19th was to simplify words to closer match their phonetic form. When you've got "Hour" and "Our", a distinction needed to be made so that it wouldn't come off as "Col-hour". Admittedly, though, the reason spelling reforms existed at all was because of American nationalism around the 1812 era.

Cheers for the insight . If find American English a little (and only a little - the differences really are quite marginal in the scheme of things, but that's the discussion we're having ) over-simplified m'self (Honour/honor, Aluminium/Aluminum) - too much simplification and you remove information, after all - but it's totally a personal opinion based on no education at all. While the "our" in colour is subtle, it is different to just "or" (at least over here - in the US colour may well be pronounced differently, in which case it's perfectly appropriate for over there). Given the root of the reforms in a political movement to create a more distinct identity, I wouldn't be surprised if some decisions were made in the process to create difference for difference's sake (given that was likely the whole point of it) rather than for any linguistic or communication benefit (but happy to be proved wrong here as well ).

 

[ramius3443]

Cheers for the insight . If find American English a little (and only a little - the differences really are quite marginal in the scheme of things, but that's the discussion we're having ) over-simplified m'self (Honour/honor, Aluminium/Aluminum) - too much simplification and you remove information, after all - but it's totally a personal opinion based on no education at all. While the "our" in colour is subtle, it is different to just "or" (at least over here - in the US colour may well be pronounced differently, in which case it's perfectly appropriate for over there). Given the root of the reforms in a political movement to create a more distinct identity, I wouldn't be surprised if some decisions were made in the process to create difference for difference's sake (given that was likely the whole point of it) rather than for any linguistic or communication benefit (but happy to be proved wrong here as well ).

Odd, I think that American English needs to simplify the spelling even more (all those damn silent letters, like the n at the end of damn). So many wasted letters we use, so many pointless holdovers from French

 

[Axe99]

Odd, I think that American English needs to simplify the spelling even more (all those damn silent letters, like the n at the end of damn). So many wasted letters we use, so many pointless holdovers from French

While I agree there are silent letters that could be dropped, there are also letter combinations that point to subtle differences in how the words are said (there are far, far more than 26 sounds in our language, after all ). I'm no student of linguistics though, so my point of view is just one uneducated punter's opinion, not to be taken too seriously. I'm sure there are papers written in academic journals that could shed light on this if we were that keen to find out .

 

[tyler2114]

I don't really care, both dialects are similar enough that one can understand another (more than I can say about French and French Canadian. My Metropolitan French friend doesn't understand anything in Quebec)

To quote "Wet Willy" Bill Clinton's campaign strategist James Carville, "It's the economy, stupid." While the UK has a geographical advantage in Europe, outside of Europe America's cultural and economic influence allows for their dialect to become popular, particularly in Asia.

Not to mention in the earliest part of the US's history, they purposely tried to distinguish their English from the "tyrannical" English of the Brits. But creating a new language is hard, so they just changed a few words spelling and a few vocabulary terms.

 

[moglus]

Here in Scandinavia they don't really teach one above the other anymore, both are considered correct and teachers make no active effort towards enforcing one or the other.
I mean sure, we're closer geographically to the UK, but most of the music, movies, TV, video games, social media, et cetera, is American, so it's not that weird that a large part of european millennials grew up with American English.

 

[208]

What? Hey, if the rest of the country insist I must learn their language and steadfastly refuse to learn mine, of course I'm going to prefer the version that sets their teeth on edge.

That wasn't the "rest of the country", that was your parents. It's certainly possible to remain steadfastly unilingual-Francophone in Quebec without the "rest of the country" caring one way or the other. But then, you wouldn't be posting here.

The most famous English over here?

"Yesterday, December 7, 1941- a date which will live in infamy..."

I know American isolationism is very period-appropriate for these quotes, but "most famous over here" is not the same as "most famous".

 

[aitaituo]

but "most famous over here" is not the same as "most famous".

I find it hard to believe that this premise could be proven. Under what non-local criteria would you measure fame and in what manner would you measure it?

 

[208]

I find it hard to believe that this premise could be proven.

Where I live, I could say the opposite: Churchill's quote is the more famous "over here". Both Karlingid and myself may be strictly correct, but we cannot both be correct in claiming our local most-famous is the most famous overall. Therefore, "most famous over here" cannot be the same as "most famous".

 

[aitaituo]

Where I live, I could say the opposite: Churchill's quote is the more famous "over here". Both Karlingid and myself may be strictly correct, but we cannot both be correct in claiming our local most-famous is the most famous overall. Therefore, "most famous over here" cannot be the same as "most famous".

You're demonstrating that there can be two local most famous things in two different localities, certainly, but what is this about a most famous overall that is also not here? That's the premise I meant. Since there is no non-local fame and no way to measure fame non-locally, your statement was confusing.

 

[208]

You're demonstrating that there can be two local most famous things in two different localities, certainly, but what is this about a most famous overall that is also not here? That's the premise I meant. Since there is no non-local fame and no way to measure fame non-locally, your statement was confusing.

If you're going to split hairs... how do you define a locality? Where does one end and another begin? "Overall" is simply the largest definition of a locality possible, which includes all the other ones.

 

[Panzerschiffe]

I use the British spelling of words like "colour" because that's how we were taught in school. It also shows my Dominion of Canada heritage. I also use the Oxford comma which seems frowned upon by Americans.

Functionally, losing the "u" in colour would save me a letter. For printing companies, it saves on printing costs because you lose all those extra letters!

 

[Pashahlis]

In german school we got thaught both American and British English lol.

 

[DominusNovus]

Seems to me that, if the supporters of British English really want to advocate for their language, they should just roll up their sleeves and get Britain back to being the dominant power on the planet. Too much work? Too bad. Learn American English. Having your language and/dialect be the dominant lingua franca is one of the perks of empire, and Britain gave theirs up (with a few nudges from America).