It's time to stop calling it "English" and start calling it "American"

[rockymountaindem]

I mean, "England" is no longer (nor has it been for a long time) the worlds largest speaker of *our* language. They shouldn't get the naming rights anymore. So, I propose that we stop calling our way of speaking a variant of any kind, or "American English". They should have to call it "English American". I mean, if they're going to stick with outdated phrases like "chesterfield", which has no meaning for most modern speakers of the language, then *they're* the ones with the dialect, not us.

In a similar vein, I propose renaming "Spanish" to "Mexican" and "Portuguese" to "Brazilian". I mean, fair's fair, right?

Who's with me?

(flame suit on, but just in case nobody figured it out, this post is just a tongue-in-cheek idea)

[JCMach1]

1. by that rule it's INDIAN

India has the majority of the world's English speakers!!!

[rockymountaindem]

3. I thought most Indians spoke native languages

and that English was a second language for most in that country.

A pie chart of native English speakers from Wikipedia:

[JVS]

22. Yes, you're right

A large part of the success of the English language in India is because by doing business in what is a 2nd language to everyone, there is no implication that a certain ethnicity among the groups is the dominant one

[Deja Q]

15. And IT jobs!

:rofl:

[tjwmason]

2. Correction - you should call that noxious tongue spoken in the U.S.

American, and leave the wonderful English language to us.

[rockymountaindem]

4. Perhaps a compromise can be reached

But we want credit for the creation of the expressions, "cool", "awesome", "bitchin'" and "o.k.". In exchange you can reserve the right to use "capital" as an exclamation.

[tjwmason]

5. Sounds fine to me.

All of the crappy modern accretions can be blamed on you. :P

[billyskank]

6. Thank god for tjwmason

:yourock:

[tjwmason]

11. Whenever obnoxiousness is needed

I can be depended upon that's for damn sure.

[billyskank]

12. I was thinking more

when it needed to be responded to ;)

[rockymountaindem]

7. Now see here, chap...

"Capital" is in referance to a city which is the seat of government, not an indicator of something good or desirable. Saying something is "a capital idea" is meaningless. If you want to distort words your own people invented, that's your problem. As for me, I'm sticking with inventive yet sensical phrases like "be chill, daddy-o". Comprende?

You limey bastard...

On edit: we can continue this later because I'm off to enjoy some delectable burritos here at my Canadian university cafeteria. How's that for multi-culturalism, eh?

[billyskank]

9. Well "bullshit" refers to that which issues from a bovine's arse

gaseous emissions excepted. So, let's call the whole thing off. ;)

[tjwmason]

10. Well if you take the narrow modern American definition that's true.

Capital, of course, doesn't merely mean the seat of government - it has a number of meanings all of which indicate the "greatest" (e.g. the greatest city, the greatest part of a pillar) all of which derive from the Latin for "head". Thus it is perfectly natural and logical to refer to the greatest idea as being a capital idea. But that would take a knowledge of history - something Americans seem to be rather short on. :P

As for the supposed insult 'limey' - I've always found it to be amusing, and particularly American that sensible precautions to avoid scurvy are the source of an insult. :shrug:

[Random_Australian]

20. Call that multiculturalism? nyah nyah nah-yah nah!

By Aussie standards, a normal meal is from 2 different cultures, and a multicultural meal will need at least 4.

SO THERE!

(At the end of WWII we had 4 million people. So we got some migrants...... now we have 20 million people)

[jpgray]

13. To be fair

It was one of -you- who rhymed "intellectual" with "hen-pecked you all."

[billyskank]

14. That's gotta be Gilbert & Sullivan

Only they would do that.

[jpgray]

16. That's Byron, you Philistine

The self-styled Napoleon of verse! :P

(in truth both dialects are wonderfully expressive, whether in formal language or in slang)

[billyskank]

17. Well I'll be a monkey's uncle

However, I had already suspected that I was a philistine. :)

[judaspriestess]

8. Oh thats my biggest pet peeve

do you speak Mexican?

do you speak Redneck?

[Major Hogwash]

18. Do Coloradans speak with an accent?

In your opinion, rockymountaindem?

[rockymountaindem]

19. Funny you should ask!

On a list of "you know you're from Colorado if..." jokes, one of them was "you know you're from Colorado if you have absolutely no identifiable regional accent". I believe that to be the case. I don't think there is any specific accent native to Colorado. So to answer your question, no. Coloradans speak normally, it's everybody else who's messed up :P

[JVS]

21. But then we'll have all those people with cleft assholes complaining...

that Canadians, Mexicans, and anyone from North or South America are Americans too and that using the term for American-English is somehow degrading them