Defining American English

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Anonymous

#300936 Tue, 05 Dec 06 06:44 PM

Is this a correct definition of American English?

American English is a collection of English dialects spoken over the USA and in a few other places. Standard American English and Appalachian English are just two examples of American English.

Anonymous

Dialects, American English

Mister Micawber

#302168 Sat, 09 Dec 06 02:34 PM

I would prefer General American to Standard American.

Mister Micawber

Joined on Wed, Aug 4 2004

Yokohama

Veteran Member (22,619)

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master-- that's all.'

milky

#302265 Sat, 09 Dec 06 08:22 PM

Mister Micawber wrote:

I would prefer General American to Standard American.

What's the difference, Mr M?

milky

Joined on Thu, Jan 15 2004

Senior Member (3,149)

Hume said that if we had perfect or complete descriptive knowledge of reality, we could not, by reasoning, derive a single valid "ought".

User531

#303145 Tue, 12 Dec 06 03:35 PM

Is there a standard for American English?

User531

Joined on Sun, Dec 10 2006

shanghai

New Member (09)

L'amour va se terminer comme il a commence

American English

milky

#303216 Tue, 12 Dec 06 07:51 PM

User531 wrote:

Is there a standard for American English?

Isn't it that which is taught and tested in schools throughout the land?

milky

American English

Englishuser

#303220 Tue, 12 Dec 06 09:09 PM

Hi Anon,

American English is a collection of English dialects spoken over the USA and in a few other places.

I prefer 'North American English' to 'American English'. Keep in mind that Canadian English is relatively close to United States English. And Canada happens to be in North America geographically as well.

Englishuser

Joined on Thu, Mar 30 2006

Regular Member (717)

Dialects, American English

User531

#303745 Thu, 14 Dec 06 10:33 AM

Hi Milky:

In my opinion,American English has some varieties in terms of geography, social status, ethnic group, and i would like to define American standard English to be that which you normally hear from annoncers on network television or public radios.

User531

American English

Anonymous

#303752 Thu, 14 Dec 06 10:48 AM

Finding a definition of "American English" is doomed to failure since there really is no such thing as English. What there is in fact is a collection of more or less similar idiolects. All you can hope for is a characterisation of the notion of (American) English.

"Standard English" is a controversial notion so not only would you fail to find a definition but you would also fail to come up with a characterisation that is universally satisfactory.

/km

Anonymous

American English

milky

#303766 Thu, 14 Dec 06 11:50 AM

Would you say the same about French food?

milky

American English

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