Colour my world

Saipan is an exotic place that harbors suitably exotic languages, but instead of looking at a fancy language today, I’m up for looking at plain ol’ English. It’s not really as plain as it looks. For example, though American English is dominant on Saipan, the British empire left its linguistic legacy over much of the Asia-Pacific region.
And within the region, students picking up English as a second language have been known to ask if they should study the American flavor or the British flavour. Likewise, businesses, especially small ones with limited budgets for communications, sometimes want to settle on one form of English for their international needs.

I’ll untie this little knot by simply slicing it with a matter of opinion: For the situations that most of us are likely to encounter, both American English and British English serve equally well. You won’t find me arguing for, or against, one or the other. We’re talking about the same language, after all, and the differences are slight. Of course, being slight means they have a way of sneaking into things without being noticed.

In specialized contexts, such as writing advertising copy, newspapers, magazines, text books, contracts, and such, then rules and style are tightly defined by some authority, so that’s that.

Back on a general note, here in normal life, even a slob like me has to admit that it’s probably a good idea to be consistent in our usage so we’re not mixing American style and British style, willy-nilly, in the same piece of writing. I’ll violate this approach today, however, for the sheer, delinquent thrill of it.

Anyway, some energetic people have compiled impressive lists that cover the differences between the American and British ways. Me, I’ll just pick some random examples out of the blue sky.

Most of the differences that I’m aware of are small spelling issues, such as “labor” (American) vs. “labour” (British). That British “u” is present in many words.

A few spellings that trip me up to this day are, still going American vs. British here, “harbor” vs. “harbour,” “defense” vs. “defence,” and “center” vs. “centre.”

Sometimes we’re up against different terms for the same things. It’s been a while since I was on British turf, so maybe things have changed, but here’s some stuff I remember: Americans get on an elevator, the British get on a lift. Americans use a flashlight, the British use a torch. An American airplane uses a prop, a British one uses an airscrew.

Your American car has a hood and a trunk, your British car has a bonnet and a boot. Americans take a vacation, the British go on holiday. Americans go to the pharmacy, the British go to the chemist. And, speaking of going, Americans have a toilet, the British have a loo.

Americans drink beer, and, hey, the British drink beer, too. This is common ground that deserves celebration.

There are some grammar tweaks as well; Americans will go “toward” something, while the British will go “towards” it. I don’t know why, but the British way sounds better to me on this note.

These little differences show how language evolves by creating little sprouts in various directions. A language that’s not evolving is a language that’s dead.

Sometimes I tripped over this stuff in public school. Most of my vocabulary came from books. Not school books, not fancy literature books, but normal books, such as novels by Alistair MacLean. Looking back on it, I realize that I read more British English than American English.

So I was absorbing a lot of British English, though the distinction did not concern me.

Ah, but it concerned my teachers. My tests and my term papers came back festooned with red marks and lousy grades. I wasn’t trying to diverge from American English, I just didn’t know where the divergences were.

In college, this little problem lifted like a fog bank in sunshine, since nobody who graded anything I ever wrote knew about the divergences either. We were graded on our mathematical analysis. Many of my professors were not native, or even fluent, speakers of English, nor were the teaching assistants who graded our tests. Words were mere tools to help explain problems; they weren’t problems on their own.

This proved to be good training for international work where, in technical circles, the pros use language to collaborate and solve problems, not to make them. These circles are usually where the best jobs are.

As the Asia-Pacific realm continues to grow, the ability to cooperate across language barriers is going to grow in importance along with it. As we’ve seen, even plain old English has some potholes in it. When it comes to languages, and their inevitable bumps, we might as well enjoy the ride, since being graceful about it is the best way to get along with our fellow passengers.

Visit Ed Stephens Jr. at EdStephensJr.com. His column runs every Friday.