Asymmetrical Information

I wish we'd adopt Euro conventions regarding the placement of periods and commas within quotation marks. It maddens me to have to write something like "Last night I saw the movie "The Player," and enjoyed it completely." What is that comma doing inside the quotes? Silliness.

I wish we would adopt southern conventions as in "ya'll", "pretty good", "squarsh" (the vegetable), plus fried okra becomes the national delicacy.

That should be: "y'all", it's a contraction for "you all".

I wish I was little bit taller,
I wish I was a baller
I wish I had a girl who looked good
I would call her
I wish I had a rabbit in a hat with a bat
and a '64 Impala

I thought the Economist people just had you install a British-only spell-check on your machine.

Actually, I have wondered if they send their articles, pre-publication, through an additional, advanced program that renders everything into excellent, but completely nonidiosyncratic prose.

I think it's cute.

Wait. You're telling me that fried okra ISN'T a national delicacy?

I'm all in favor of national adoption of "y'all"... one of the biggest defects of English is lack of a second person plural. But the only way things get adopted is if people adopt them. So the battle starts with you! rmark, go on and start using it at every opportunity (now that you've been enlightened on the apostrophe placement)...

I guess spell check didn't catch the apostrophe.

Mark, the plural of y'all is "all y'all" according to my friend from Savannah.

"Y'all" is the appropriate spelling and it is plural. If you hear someone using "y'all" as a singular, you can be assured that they are some sort of goddamn Yankee trying (badly) to sound like a Southerner.

It's ok, Jane. I love you anyway.

Even though my complaint was September 16 and you just now answered it...

I think my favorite source of all that is Hick, Jeff Foxworthy, once defined "y'all" as a small group of people (ie, Jeb and Billy-Bob are standin on the porch spittin in the chaw bucket, so I says to them "Y'all wanna go fishin), wherein "all y'all" aludes to a much larger group (ie, between all y'all ya ain't got but one set of teeth).
Maybe this piece of Red-neckism is a little more nuanced then my hopelessly Yankee mind can understand, but I think the above definitions are a good rule of thumb to start with.

Nice try, Megan, but you were using some British spellings back when you were doing the WTC computer gig! It has gotten worse recently ("programme" comes to mind), but you've always had the tendency to give in to some British spellings.

But we love you anyway!

fried okra? yeech!

Bah. Y'all is so mainstream these days even Yankees use it. I prefer "you'uns" (one syllable). Sometimes you also hear "we'uns" too. Now that's Southern.

There is no phrase more inclusive than "all y'all." If it weren't Southern, it'd be P.C.

Had a prof at London Business School who marked down papers not using British spelling. Seemed to have a bit of a chip...

On the topic of the Southern way of speaking (we were on that topic, weren't we?), some things sound so right that they just stick with you. For example, just after we moved to Dallas in 1993, the 12 year old son of our neighbor addressed my wife as "Miss Kathy". Informal, yet respectful.

I'm in Oklahoma (that's the state behind the weatherman's back when he does the national weather), so I'm about as far northwest as the south goes. Both my and my wifes ancestors came here from Tennessee, and in fact we think we might be some kind of distant cousins if we could track far enough back. Since one poster was negative on the fried okra, I've decided to bring out the big guns - grits with syrup for breakfast.

One of the disadvantages you native New Yorkers have is that you probably never had the opportunity growing up to learn all the 'dirty words' in Kiowa (although I think my wife has forgotten most of it).

There is, I reckon, also no particular reason that people disapprove of using double modals. Why should "might should," "might could," and "might would" be verboten, while "maybe I could" and "perhaps you should" be allowed? They have an obvious meaning and clear usages

How about the for the second person plural the nation adopts the Philadelphia colloquialism, "You's"?

But where do you stand on the big one: "zee" or "zed"?

The non-Southern second-person plural pronoun (at least out West where I come from) is "you guys", but it's very colloquial.

It's a fine point, but what's missing from English is not second-person plural (that's what "you are" is), but second-person singular. It used to be "thou art." There doesn't seem to be agreement here as to whether "y'all" is singular, plural, or both. Maybe the second-person singular should be "you am" or "you is."

Undoubtedly, many of you are wondering whether I'm like those college girls who spend half a semester as an exchange student at Oxford and affect a British for the rest of their lives.

Actually, I new two brothers who did that after English Language graduate studies at Oxford.

One was eventually mocked back into submission by his circle of friends and well-wishers, and the other was choke-collared on the issue by his later-fiance.

*knew.

Hukt on fonix, pleez help...

Jane, I don't blame you for sticking to one consistent set of spellings. I lived in Hong Kong for several years when it was a British colony (although the politically correct term was 'territory'). When I taught my students about banking and wrote something about checks, someone finally asked me if I meant cheques. After having to use British spelling for several years, I'm hopelessly confused, especially on using z versus s (realize? realise? I don't know).

Plus occasionally I get into an elevator in a strange building and have a moment of panic because I can't find the G button, for the ground floor, but that's a different problem.

There's always the Western Pennsylvania "Yins".
I perfer y'all. Besides, within a decade or two we'll see my fellow English people starting to use it too, and it'll be worth it just for that

Here's my new test: when someone is trying to work out what a sentence means, do you say he's trying to "construe it" (UK and Right) or "parse it" (US and Wrong).
[The old test was whether an out-of-control vehicle was careering or careening.]

When parking on a hill, be sure to cramp your tyres to the kerb.

And of course, it's always crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsie in snide.

:-{)}

Some years ago, I was in England supporting one of our subcontractors (in the field of aerospace engineering). I noticed that whenever I would write (in Microsoft Word) the word "aluminum" in my test reports or analyses, it would automatically be changed (corrected?) to "aluminium." (Or, if you prefer, "aluminium".) As I recall, it also happened with, e.g., "labour" and similar British-English terms.

"But where do you stand on the big one: "zee" or "zed"?"

Well, looking at this from the Great White North, where we are multilingual (French, American English, English English), I've always used whichever made me flinch less: Zed Zed Top, for instance, just isn't going to happen, but Datsun 240Zed works just fine. Ask your parents if you're not sure what a 'Datsun' is...

Cheers,

RGT

Jane,

Take British spelling (for British clients) and American spelling (for American clients). Add the German / Continental convention for numerical places - automatic in the spreadsheets, manual in report text. Write reports for six years describing financial matters at the entity level and, voila, I can't remember whether the decimal point is actually a point or a comma.

In the text, I tend to use periods for everything (i.e. growth of 10.4% and revenues of T€ 1.000). I figure I'm correct some of the time and alienate fewer readers.

I'll admit that I was disconcerted when words like 'summarise' started popping out of my keyboard unintended.

Just keep up your great writing - we'll figure out your spelling.

Cheers,

Though a Yank, I've been using "zed" more frequently in spite of myself. "Zee" sounds like such an indecisive way to end an alphabet; it just trails off like. (Was that Southern?)

I've been tempted to use "naught" lately as well, and for the same reasons. It sounds more of a nullity than "zero".

Another thing I got from old movies is "haven't" instead of "don't have". Frex: "I haven't the time to discuss it. Now go away."

Yes! We can't forget the Western PA Yinser's! Yin's want another pop?
I've always wondered how this grammatical oddity came about. Is it due to the presence of so many Amish, or do they put something in the Rolling Rock?

"and my tiny little brain is unable to cope with two sets of spellings"

Need there be any other proof that Penn is not a real Ivy League school? Someone who went to Brown could obviously deal with two sets of spellings.

Quick thinking whilst on feet. Unless you're winding me up!

Some one above wrote:" I would write (in Microsoft Word) the word "aluminum" in my test reports or analyses, it would automatically be changed (corrected?) to "aluminium." "

Yes, corrected.

The american spelling is simply wrong, though hallowed by usage. All the "new" metals (that is "metal not known before modern metallurgical science" ), Titanium, Chromium, Magnesium, Aluminium, Uranium, ... have the same ending. It's a standard. Don't ask about Molybdenum , I think it's hard enough to pronounce as is, and probably snuck in under the deadline. I forget about Nickel , but there is a reason. (Iron, Copper, Tin, Lead, Silver, Gold and Co. are the "old" metals. )

(I think the Lanthanum series and Platinum have another excuse too, come to think of it. Time to pull out my table of the elements, I think.)

As to Webster, and the resulting American spellings, Webster is damned to hell for evermore, not only for bifurcating english spelling (bad enough) but for doing such a lousy flippin' job so that we have "Ph"'s littering the place up, and C and K and S sometimes having the same sound values.

Couldn't even do a proper job it it.

Anyway, all to say, Tolerance in spelling and punctuation is a good thing once you leave high school.

Actually, the periodic table we have in my lab reads "Molybdenium". (I don't care if it's wrong in America, I don't believe in periods being inside the quotation unless the quote ends at the end of a quoted sentence)

Hey December 6,

Real English (and Australian) is 6 December - 6/12/05.

"Y'all" is a plural, never a singular. "All y'all" is used in situations where there is a distinction to be made between "some of you" and "all of you" - e.g. when addressing a large gathering. If you find the distinction troubling, imagine "you guys" vs "all you guys".

Right on ... I totally DIG Brit spelling, use it meself as often as possible. But I also believe in tempering it with Americanisms like "Y'all."

A related matter: Jane, what do you think of the Brit convention of placing the ending quote-mark before the period, or comma, as opposed to the Yank preference for placing it afterward? A Brit would write:

[Such-and-such] is an "Americanism".

whereas a Yank is supposed to write:

[Such-and-such] is an "Americanism."

I generally prefer the British convention, but in practice I find myself freely vacillating between the two, for purposes of sheer readability. Ofttimes the Brit way seems more fetching, othertimes seemingly not so.

Whawhazzat Churchill wrote? The British and the Americans are two people separated by a common language?

Cheers.

"Whawhazzat Churchill wrote? The British and the Americans are two people separated by a common language?"

I thought that was George Bernard Shaw. (Off the top of my head.)

Many years ago at Heathrow Airport, I bought an English-to-American primer. I still find it useful. I also have read that Berlitz teaches English-English and American-English as two separate courses.

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