This discussion has been locked.
You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a question you can start a new discussion

A huge point about why I hate American-spelt words so much.

Early in my life, before 2014 or 2015, I didn't used to feel annoyed looking at the way certain words were spelt in America's viewing because I didn't know what they were about, or the difference between their spellings and Britain's ones, until those years I asked my mother, "What are these spellings about?" She revealed to me that they are spellings used by America, and the others we use are ours, when writing text.

So, because this truth has been permanently known to me... Unfortunately I have this catastrophic problem (and jealousy) with seeing any of the words spelt by Americans, or even people not Americans not getting the real idea of native spelling and easily think the same way as America does, anywhere I go when reading such information on screen. Especially the two kinds of mispelt factors for words can be having "or" than "our", and "ize" than "ise". For example, "favorite" than "favourite", or "realize" than "realise".

But, sadly a lot of people and places always tend to spell these such words and any other possible ones in America's style, which really does annoy me seeing them, and even takes away my interests in things that they may exist in or get used for, especially video gaming, which I tend to think, "Why? Why don't others choose to use British spelt words for me on even the things I otherwise like? As if I don't deserve it?" There's so much odd reasons of a story here why they upset me and still today, even if I am trying to improve, get used to them again or whatever, as if it just never will work at all or not relevant in this case. When I just normally play through a game, for instance Legend of Zelda, since it has so much dialogue to read, the chances of those such "regional words" (which I personally refer to) can appear, depending on what is being said, and quite honestly it can prove very difficult to tell what any of the regional words will pop up to upset me and even distract my otherwise normal understanding in what the info are just generally saying about things in the game and/or what to do next. Yes I know that even America's chosen spellings in words still mean the same thing as Britain's, but even with all the advice from others and my family members that I've been sharing this apocalyptic mental problem of mine all the years, it still does test me, always seeing any words spelt in US style and not the British ones which I'm otherwise comfortable with and personally wish it get used more than US ones for anything, but they don't, sadly. Very disappointing for my system these days now and always, especially in games again. Looking at American spellings and being unintendedly upset by them for no reason is just like seeing ugly demons, along with the way my mind also has seen as a problem for decades - standalone letters such as "e" and "s", which has to look like happy but annoying faces. In fact, like that's always Nintendo's fault for being that way to me, however that would mean it. Complicated to explain why, I know, but hey, this is an autistic site, you know. It means a person's mind not being normal but have special ways of thinking about life.

And before any of you might use regional-based words if you choose to respond here, either type in the words for British format over American for me, or only use standard words not anything to do with regional spelling, UK or US, like commonly "the", "and", "game", whatever. Or if talking about colours, maybe just use "palettes" instead, as that's definitely not in the regional category of words like that "colours" one is. Simple as that. I don't like to get upset here so be careful.

Last thing to note about my problem with US spellings, even though not many of you here might understand anyway - when I see American words, especially the ones with "ize" over "ise", I think of that horrible and not-so-friendly boss character from Streets of Rage 4, called Diva. You haven't seen her? Look up pictures of her in the search engines (just not "G", that's another thing I refuse to accept, so don't mention it here, please). I know she's just another character, but since at first when I discovered seeing her first time, I normally thought, "OK, she's just another character I haven't seen before. No problem I guess." But, as more time passed by... Strangely she's become permanently known to me and a total annoyance even in my thinking, let alone seeing her in action of that "Streets of Rage 4" game itself. The way she looks in expression, with that mean attitude and so on... It really bugs me these days and probably forever more now, without any reasoning. Like I wished I never knew her but I did, as far as the many different people and things in life to discover are concerned. Some OK always, but some not. I really hate that Diva girl now, and it's also why I can't seem to give any trust to dark-skinned people now, either. They always torment me in mental situations, regardless of how I feel and such, positive or otherwise. Long story as well on this bizarre issue I have too, but there. Unless if one of the dark-skinned people could be reasonable to me somehow...but I don't know. Odd ideas the mind likes to run wild on.

  • A Northern Irish republican (mostly Catholic) would tend to call themselves 'Irish', but a Northern Irish unionist (mostly Protestant) might call themselves 'British' or 'Irish', depending on circumstances, or even only use 'British'. A person from either of the political/cultural groups might also refer to themselves as an 'Ulsterman' or 'Ulsterwoman'.

  • A) From my general education in the English language within English schools. So while "I am an American" works grammatically, "I am an English", does not (in the same way that "I am a Spanish" does not work either). This is because the words English and Spanish work as both nouns and adjectives, but their form (ending in '-ish'), is  primarily an adjectival form. Therefore, the addition of a suffix, -man or -woman, is absolutely necessary to make a statement of national identity grammatical in this case.

    B) I have an interest in Zulu history and culture. The Zulu for the Portuguese is 'u Putugezi'.

  • Someone from-

    Britain or UK : British

    England : English

    Northern Ireland : Irish

    Scotland : Scottish

    Wales : Welsh

  • "Englishman or Englishwoman are the historic usages. Englishman is the origin of the Zulu word for the English 'u Ngishmane'."

    Not sure where you are taking that from but I have this-

    "Old English Engliscman, from English (n.1) + man (n.). Related: EnglishmenEnglishwoman is from c. 1400. Englander "native of England" is from 1820; in some cases from German EngländerEnglisher is from 1680s. Englishry is from late 13c. in Anglo-French as "state of being English;" from mid-15c. as "the English people or faction.""

    www.etymonline.com/.../englishman

  • So many different information on my topic here by everyone that I'm unable to answer every person and their thoughts, and I can't even make my own comment here without replying to anyone for some reason. Anyway, no offence but I'm never interested nor ever been into the Dr. Who culture myself, or even Star Wars. It's gaming that always made me go along...despite the Americanism of words they always contain, especially that one word "armor" not properly being "armour". I ask myself, does anyone around here not want to consider typing in "armour" that way for me, when normally talking about something with me? Like say for instance (inside or outside of gaming), I had my own dream ally character being a huge fighting robot, and it should be commented for "its tough armour", WITH the "u" letter than without it. Please? You or anyone just say it for me as a quick demonstration? I've been suffering with seeing that word not having "u" a LOT lately now, so I could do with the corrected version for relief. Sorry, I'm just not in a decent mood right now, that's all.

    And to recall, since no one mentioned back to my additional statement as well, that Diva girl in Streets of Rage 4 is not particularly nice to my mind and as a character herself within the game. She just always has that mean look on her face, like she doesn't ever want to smile or be positive, too. I know she's part of the bad guy group in the game but...whatever.

  • Do you think that being autistic has an impact not just on our communication in english but then also ads another layer of difficulty learning or rather using another language?

    I think this derives by the way we condition our brains to think over the years - the more you work with logic (eg working in IT) the less easy it is to understand some of the abstract components of a foreign language.

    I have struggled terribly to learn Portuguese over the years because there are so many rules for constructing even a simple sentence , especially compared to English. There are dozens of ways to say each verb depending on the tense and who it relates to, many words change their endings when in plural or depending on the gender it relates to, plus the usual batches of rules that make no sense but are expected to be understood.

    Until you are fluent and the mental pathways for accessing this myriad of rules is burned in, you will inevitably have to put considerable thought into constructing the sentence then verbalising it (Portuguese has some sounds that are not common in english such as word ending in lha / lhe / lhi / lho or lhu plus some letters being pronounced quite differently such as words starting with R are pronounced H).

    Considering how buzzing our brains are with the myriad inputs in any situation then you add this on top and try to keep up with the conversation - it is just overworking your aready stretched neurons.

    For me English feels almost like an art form - there are ways to say things that have wonderfully subtle inflections or nuance in meaning and it comes so naturally as it is very much burned into my way of thinking.

  • I hope you don't mind that I ask this question, but do you find as an autist you are more or less likely to go non-verbal when trying to communicate in the language that is not your native one?
    I ask because I have nearly always been hyper verbal in English, with going nonverbal happening just very briefly in the transitional "slipping gears" phenomena where my brain scrambles around it's inner thesaurus for the correct word so there is a noticeable but small pause before I speak again. However when in German (not my native language) I understand a lot more than I can say but I frequently just "forget" the words, even ones I do know, and end up being very nonverbal in those communications.
    Do you think that being autistic has an impact not just on our communication in english but then also ads another layer of difficulty learning or rather using another language?

  • I tried explaining the concepts of Bretagne (Brittany in France) and Grande Bretagne (the Island of Britain), to two French friends, in my rather basic French. I got lost somewhere in the depths of Brittany originally being called Less Britain, in distinction to Great Britain, because the same people lived in both places. Trying to explain how Breton, Cornish and Welsh are closely related languages defeated me completely.

  • Englishman or Englishwoman are the historic usages. Englishman is the origin of the Zulu word for the English 'u Ngishmane'. Briton is the noun, 'Brit' is just an abbreviation in slang/informal use. Anglo is not a stand alone word it is either hyphenated as in 'Anglo-Indian' or fully incorporated into a word, such as Anglosphere.

    Anglo is a Latinisation of 'Angle', possibly coined by the Venerable Bede, an 8th century historian. The Angles and the Saxons are the cultural (and partly the physical) ancestors of the English. Engle was just a linguistic variant of Angle and Englaland was an early version of England - land of the Angles. 

  • Briton is more official, Brit is more informal. Both are fairly inoffensive (I was thinking of comparing Brit to Yank, but that feels a bit more derogatory?)

    For an Englisher, I don't think there's anything other than englishman/woman. It does feel weird. 

  • I'm not sure "anglo" is appropriate to describe anyone other than a historical peoples (anglo saxons) that haven't existed for over 1000 years. The French might say "anglaise" because of the related etymological roots but anglo as a short form is already taken for something else in current language use.

    In French Brit/Briton is "Britanique"

  • I have a follow up question.  What is the noun for an English and British person, respectively?  For example, an American person is called an American.  Would it be the same for an English?  Or is the term an Anglo.  Is it a Briton or a Brit?

  • That's so cool!  Thank you for sharing Slight smile  I love how you know and share all these interesting facts.  It's always a treat.

    Also, it gives perspective to my ego-centric belief that somehow my Spanish is the correct one.

  • It can;t be ruled out that the posters in the fandom may not be UK based which is why 'season' is used.

    In addition to the Radio Times from the 1970s showing 'series' the following trailer from the 1980s at 50s in introduces the program as series-

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ls3nde3hWP4

    I have noticed that season is creeping into remastered trailers, only due to the quality of the intoduction being far ahead of the technology available at the time hence why I am keeping to voice over introductions and magazines from the time.

    https://transdiffusion.org/2017/05/04/tonights-central-and-channel-4-in-1985/

    on a separate note for 1985 (P2/4) it refers to series in the UK TV magazine for Chips - Weed Wars in the top right.

  • My serious card-carrying fandom started in the late 80s and Season was well established as the prefix by then. I suppose it's more endemic to the fandom but it started no later than the late 70s I think. The waters get muddied by where overseas sales maybe started to have an influence... maybe nascent American fandom folded back into the UK fan language early. I also appreciate that it's probably an outlier in that you'd be hard pushed to find any UK-based Who fan even of my age who would use 'series' for anything in that original run (other than to describe the entirety of the history). We only go to 'Series' once we get to the 2005 numbering re-set designed not to alienate the casual audience. It would be interesting to dig deeper into where 'Season' for Who started exactly (as the universal fan default), and when. I probably will....   

  • Yes well when I think of the negative and limited stereotypes we got taught about French people as kids, it doesn't surprise me that the French would also likely have some ignorant "blind spots" about us.

  • The French call everyone from the British Isles 'Anglais(e)' without fear or favour, if you try to introduce the concept of 'British', they typically get terminally confused with Breton.

  • Interestingly, mix derives from Latin mixtus, past participle of the verb miscere, while mesclado is from early Medieval Latin misculāre, also derived from Latin miscere. So, in this case, both the 'correct' Spanish and English-influenced words have exactly the same origin.

  • An English person is unlikely to have an issue with being called either, but we all have our preferences. I imagine most English, Scottish or Welsh people would much rather be called that than just being lumped in as British. 

  • American here.  I can understand being frustrated over that.  I was born in the US to Cuban immigrants.  My father was adamant about me learning proper Spanish and would punish me for using words in that were Spanish versions of English terms.  For example, the proper term for to print in Spanish is imprimir.  However, most Hispanic people here say printiar.  To me, that sounds terrible, and I equate it to someone giving up on their culture and letting English take over.  I usually want to "correct" them, but then I realize, "If everyone understands them, what's the problem?  Who am I to tell someone how to speak and what terms to use?  I don't own Spanish and everyone that speaks Spanish owns as much of the language as I do.  They have every right to speak it the way they do just like I do." 

    It also happens between different dialects of Spanish.  In the Cuban dialect, the word for mixed is mesclado.  However, Mexicans use mixto, and to me that sounds like an Anglophone making fun of Spanish by adding -to at the end of the English term.  But again, who am I to tell a whole culture how to speak?  If I were to interject and "correct" them, then the implication is that I control the language or that the Cuban dialect is somehow the correct one.  Imagine me thinking that I could tell a whole culture the proper terms they should be using.

    It helps me to understand the possible reason for the use of what I see as the incorrect term when it comes to to print -- it's imprimir!  When printers started becoming accessible to the general population, they came out as printers.  Due to economic factors, the general population in the US had access to printers way before the general population in Latin American countries.  Thus, the Hispanic population in the US first experienced printers in English-speaking settings.  That means that when they first started hearing people talking about printing, they heard people say to print and somehow turned that to a Spanish term that is printiar because they hadn't heard imprimir before unless they were privileged enough to work on an environment that had printers.

    Also, I love the way English people spell tyres and say aluminium.  Whenever I run into an English person, I get them to say aluminium because it makes me happy to hear them say it.  By the way, is English person the proper term, or should I be using British person?  Also also, when I read the word colours, I say it with a French accent in my head.