General Roleplay Discussion

[Piscator]

I agree! If you people our going to borrow our language then at least learn to use it correctly!

Well, as far as I'm concerned American English is the the real English and British English is just some weird dialect. It's not about who invented it, but about who perfected it. British English is just English 0.5.

Even though I doubt you're American, you just blurted out a typical American response lol.

Anyway, speaking seriously, American English is American English. British English is English. If I, in Australia, create a NEW version of American English, does that push American English down to 0.5 lol? No, it doesn't. I don't know whether you're saying this tongue-in-cheek, (I think you are), but if you're not, it's completely off the mark

Of course I'm kidding. It's a matter of fact though that understanding British dialects gives me a much harder time than understanding American ones and that I appreciate the effort of AE to get rid of at least some of the spellings that have been obsolete for several centuries.

About the use of correct spelling and capitalization... I would have to lie if I said it doesn't bother me, but I certainly don't judge people by it. (By the way, writing in lowercase doesn't bother me at all as long as it's done constantly.)

[Diego]

haha. they borrowed it, babbled it and butchered it till it was no more.

American English is commonly referred to as 'Lazy English' by academic linguists; purely because they take the lazy short-cut in words. Ie, colour to color.. Aluminium to Aluminum.. like, seriously? Then there's the introduction of 'z's, because hey that's what it sounds like!

If I had to classify it, I'd call it 'Phoenetically-Based Lazy AmericaniSed English'. I think that'd be accurate.

i prefer to call it modernized. english is still overly complex to write and spell--american english, compared to other languages of the world and their phonetic/actual orthography. british english is stylish, useful to pick up a skirt or two, but semantically inefficient all over the damn place. american english is more universal in many more ways.

in either case, english is my second language, so i get complete freedom of dialectic association. i choose american because it makes more sense. sorry blokes.

[returner]

eh. you realise there seems to be a lot of (unfair and unfounded) dislike towards americans in the world. i'm surprised you'd adopt it online.. of course, in this kind of western/european community, you're less likely to see prejudice against yourself... but still! just sayin'

[mojomuppet]

Married to a brit, lives in a spanish speaking country.

Oh and am from the USA.

[Diego]

Venezuelan, born and raised.

[Surly]

eh. you realise there seems to be a lot of (unfair and unfounded) dislike towards americans in the world. i'm surprised you'd adopt it online.. of course, in this kind of western/european community, you're less likely to see prejudice against yourself... but still! just sayin'

Honestly... unfair, maybe. Unfounded? I'm not sure that's true.

[YugoStrikesBack]

It really is unfounded. In general, Americans are just as stupid as other citizens in the world, despite what some "elitist" countries may think. It's just that corporate influences are so powerful in this country that they push the US government to pursue policies that aren't in its interests.

What really sucks though is that it's not the corporations who get the negative feedback as the result of these policies. You see coca-cola in Tehran, but not any American flags that aren't distorted in some form.

[Surly]

It really is unfounded. In general, Americans are just as stupid as other citizens in the world, despite what some "elitist" countries may think. It's just that corporate influences are so powerful in this country that they push the US government to pursue policies that aren't in its interests.

What really sucks though is that it's not the corporations who get the negative feedback as the result of these policies. You see coca-cola in Tehran, but not any American flags that aren't distorted in some form.

Nothing you said shows that the dislike is unfounded, but rather that it is unfair. Which is what I said.

Alot of the dislike felt towards the USA by the rest of the world is due to the perceived arrogance of the USA. You can make a very compelling argument that that's unfair (I have met many Americans who are not actually "arrogant" per se), but not that it is unfounded since the perception of most of the world -is- that the USA is arrogant.

[Alladinsane]

As an american (and a stupid southern one at that!), I can say that we -are- arrogant. Alot of it comes from pride at some of our accomplishments, which for a country of 230yrs are quite impressive, that pride may be equated with arrogance also. We do tend to forget our failures easily though and are certainly far from perfect.

American arrogance is irrelevant to those of a thicker skin though, its only when we are uncomfortable with who were personally are that we can be affected by the criticism of others, or intruded upon by the arrogance of them as well. For that reason, I am not intimidated by people who would think that a southern accent signifies stupidity, heck, it actually can give advantage to those who might underestimate based on that. I lost mine with education, but still know some southern accented peeps who are very, very darn smart. So what if they (we) are arrogant, we come visit and spend our money and then go home to our houses of cards that roof that arrogance. We are still wanted apparently, recently in Italy (well, its been a year and a half) I saw a new way that Americans were despised (too strong?)...apparently our bad economy has prevented many of us from traveling over and supporting the artists in Rome and Firenze (sp? Florence to us). My wife and I did buy a beautiful painting of the Duomo (again I apologize for the spelling), though it turns out that the size and shape of the paintings we brought home do not fit into frames that are easily obtainable here, we are having to get custom built frames for them. Laziness (another American trait) has slowed that down and subsequently the paintings still sit rolled up in a closet. Sigh

Still I enjoy the rivalries and am glad that the world is not a monochromatic landscape of sameness (is that a word?). We don't play futbol as well as the rest of the world and are certainly dominated in other areas, possibly including perceived areas of culture. But it makes traveling an exciting and eye-opening experience. Only through personally immersing myself in the 'worlds' of other countries would I ever believe that any of my judgments of others deserve credence. When we walk a mile in anothers' shoes, we can possibly understand them. Otherwise, we are just as arrogant and ignorant as we accuse others of being. But thats just me, I love all of Ya'll <---- southern talk.

Be well

[returner]

Americans also seem to assume the entire world knows who they are, what their states are and their history.. yet Americans are clueless about anything outside their country.

I hate speaking to Americans online (before realising they're American) when I ask them where they're from, and they automatically assume I am American and provide me with some two-letter jargon like NY or NJ.. wtf? I wouldn't tell you I'm from Red Bay (I'm not, but it's a city in the country I'm from) so don't tell me crap like that. You're not the best, America.. People don't go out and learn every single one of your states.. And not everyone you speak to online is American as well.

/endrant

To Americans reading this, I am sorry as a whole you are arrogant and naive and sorry you have to bare the grunt of my rage.

[raspberrytea]

The problem lies primarily in the American education system: at my schools (I essentially "grew up" in America, though I am not American in any way, shape, or form otherwise) we spent multiple years covering American history, one year entirely devoted to my state's history, a few years devoted to sparse and limited studies of ancient civilizations, and 1-2 years of a bizarre "world history" that barely covered WWI and WWII. Out of 12 years of education, I can't remember a single class focusing on modern world history without it focusing on America.

At any rate, this is quite off-topic, so here:

Though I am admittedly bothered by a lack of capitalization and incorrect grammar and spelling, I will overlook most of it simply because my characters wouldn't notice (unless it's a spelling error that would make the word sound different). I overlook many, many things that ordinarily bother me if I know that my character(s) wouldn't care or notice.

What I'm curious about is this-- to those of you from the UK or Ireland, how do you feel about players/characters who butcher their attempts at the various dialects in-game? Even if it's on purpose, does it bother you?

[randognsac]

[quote="returner"]Americans also seem to assume the entire world knows who they are, what their states are and their history.. yet Americans are clueless about anything outside their country.

I hate speaking to Americans online (before realising they're American) when I ask them where they're from, and they automatically assume I am American and provide me with some two-letter jargon like NY or NJ.. wtf? I wouldn't tell you I'm from Red Bay (I'm not, but it's a city in the country I'm from) so don't tell me crap like that. You're not the best, America.. People don't go out and learn every single one of your states.. And not everyone you speak to online is American as well.

/endrant

(To Americans reading this, I am sorry as a whole you are arrogant and naive and sorry you have to bare the grunt of my rage.[/quote





Red Bay is in Canada, right? I googled it and that is what came up. If so, I knew it! All Canadians hate us. 80% of Canadians live within 60 miles of the U.S. border. You are all on the verge of invading! !
All kidding aside, stereotypes come in all types, I could make observations, from afar, but won't. I'm sorry you have issues with my country. You are ignorant to believe that any one group of people is one thing. We are a lot of things, some good and some bad. It's called being human. No one person is perfect and neither is one nation. We were great once, but we have been in a downward spiral since President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Now we are a shell of the greatness we once were.

[Ryaga]

It's alright Canadians are some horrible combo of French and Brittish. They're afraid of everything, especially the dark, except for ice hockey. They love hockey, it's like their NASCAR so they are all big French hicks. I have never met a canadian who doesn't deliminate his sentences with 'eh'. Canadians would have bad teeth, if they had any, but they lose them playing ice hockey, which means Canadiens can't eat steak. Canada is full of old people who whine about rice pudding and their meds, even they play ice hockey. Canadiens always tell me where they live, places like 'Quebeceh?' I don't know where that is and I assume it's glacial like the rest of Canada. When Canadiens aren't eating rice pudding, being afraid of the dark, gumming steaks, or playing ice hockey they are hunting elk for sustinence.

I always know when I'm talking to a Canadien online, I can smell the tape they put on their hockey sticks over my fibre optics

[YugoStrikesBack]

It really is unfounded. In general, Americans are just as stupid as other citizens in the world, despite what some "elitist" countries may think. It's just that corporate influences are so powerful in this country that they push the US government to pursue policies that aren't in its interests.

What really sucks though is that it's not the corporations who get the negative feedback as the result of these policies. You see coca-cola in Tehran, but not any American flags that aren't distorted in some form.

Nothing you said shows that the dislike is unfounded, but rather that it is unfair. Which is what I said.

Alot of the dislike felt towards the USA by the rest of the world is due to the perceived arrogance of the USA. You can make a very compelling argument that that's unfair (I have met many Americans who are not actually "arrogant" per se), but not that it is unfounded since the perception of most of the world -is- that the USA is arrogant.

It's unfounded because Americans aren't really the ones pushing the policies that people hate. Corporations that milk Americans as well are.

[randognsac]

I totally agree with you, Yugo. The damn politicians sold out. They gave the original power to the corporations now they are just puppets. It's killing America. We all work for the machine, I hate it!