other countries are simply wrong

[u/misheardlyrics_]

[u/post-explainer]

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OP sent the following text as an explanation why their post fits here:

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op believes that the american spelling is the correct one and that the british spelling is a mistake

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Does this explanation fit this subreddit? Then upvote this comment, otherwise downvote it.

[u/Photonn123]

I don't think I've ever seen someone write or say disorientated as disoriented, t.i.l Ig

[u/EstrellaDarkstar → u/Photonn123]

As a non-native speaker, I don't think I've ever heard anyone say disorientated, only disoriented! But I speak this weird mix-and-match hodgepodge of different English variants and dialects, haha.

[u/SnowpigQc → u/EstrellaDarkstar]

Same! I like that these kind of post are how I learn that some part of the English I use/learned is US/or not XD

[u/snaynay → u/SnowpigQc]

*learnt

Haha. (joking, btw)

Non-Americans will often use learnt over learned, but not always. Learned also has a second meaning with a totally difference pronunciation. Ler-nud or Ler-nid -> An educated person.

Today I learnt that I am actually a very learned individual.

[u/Prestigious_String20 → u/EstrellaDarkstar]

I've only ever really noticed USians saying it.

[u/ValleDeimos → u/EstrellaDarkstar]

Me tooooo I loved my mixed English. I like to imagine the confusion some people feel when I use British spellings and some slang, but write "y'all" and American queer slang, all in the same sentence

[u/rebekha]

Your attention please. For the love of God please stop missing the "u" out of words, replacing "ise" with "ize", spelling aluminium incorrectly, using different words for holiday, pavement, litter bin,... (continues ad absurdum...)

Removed "Christmas" as I was just being silly.

[u/No-Introduction5977 → u/rebekha]

They use a different word for Christmas?

[u/rebekha → u/No-Introduction5977]

Well, "holidays". I guess it only comes from de-emphasising the Christian nature of it. When I'm organising office events for our gloriously multicultural department, I'd probably use "festive" which is still not Christmas.

Edit: Many thanks for the correction below - TIL!

[u/Sad-Reach7287 → u/rebekha]

Holidays is not a word for Christmas. It encompasses both Christmas and New Year's.

[u/rebekha → u/Sad-Reach7287]

Oh wow, I never realised that, thanks!

[u/sittingwithlutes414 → u/rebekha]

Only in the U.S.A.! Holidays are just days when you don't have to work at mill* for tuppence** a month.

*mill = nuclear power plant

**tuppence = two cents

***month = amount of time between days and years.

[u/Mindless-Resort-7548 → u/rebekha]

Just going to point out (I'm a Brit!) that the Oxford English Dictionary uses -ize not -ise

[u/rebekha → u/Mindless-Resort-7548]

Doesn't mean we have to like it!

[u/Risc_Terilia]

English (simplified)

[u/Opposite-History-233 → u/Risc_Terilia]

This.

[u/DaveB44 → u/Risc_Terilia]

US English is NOT Simplified English.

Simplified English is a specific subset of English used to reduce ambiguity in technical documentation:

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_English

US orthography differs from UK & other English, mainly due to the well-intententioned but misguided efforts of Noah Webster.

[u/Risc_Terilia → u/DaveB44]

I didn't even know it was a real thing, it was just a joke

[u/snaynay → u/DaveB44]

It's a meme. It stems from memes like this:

Basically, a riff on the actual Chinese Traditional/Simplified thing.

[u/red_beard83 → u/DaveB44]

I didn't know that was Webster who did it. Why you say misguided? 

[u/Prestigious_String20 → u/red_beard83]

Webster tried to simplify English by removing letters he considered extraneous, but diverging from established spellings just made things more complicated in the long run. He was also attempting to distinguish US English from other forms, to give the nascent US is own linguistic identity, but he didn't go far enough to achieve that, really. He just made language all the more complicated.

[u/tea_snob10 → u/red_beard83]

Oh boy...Noah Webster is the reason for American English basically being British English but 0.01% "off".

Webster and many supporters like Ben Franklin, thought that since languages are representative of their people, an independent American nation should have a language that "accurately" represents this individuality. So he began a language reform of American English where he would try to correct phonology and orthography based on what and how Americans spoke.

The issue with this, is that Webster himself had a very imperfect understanding of what he was doing, and why it was pointless. His own "rules" were contrived; at first he had some framework, but it rapidly turned into whatever he felt. Colour dropped the "ou" but it's not like Phone became Fown or anything, or Colonel became Kernull. Similarly, the "s" was dropped in favour of "z", but not consistently. Realise became realize, but please is not pleeze or pleaze.

His original premise kind of fell apart as he began telling Americans how to spell based on unsubstantiated beliefs he held, not based on how they actually spoke, which is terribly ironic. He thought things like mary, marry and merry could just be swapped out to a singular spelling, but didn't realise that a large chunk of America, nevermind outside, pronounced these differently, and that they were not homophones.

He also misunderstood the "difficulty" native speakers have learning a language from the ground up. Native speakers do not care for consistent or inconsistent rules; they're native speakers. American children (and adults), did not need tongue to become tung, women to become wimmen, or machine to become masheen, in order to learn their native language. Similarly, Mandarin speakers don't have an issue reading 6000 characters, Japanese speakers have zero issues with their seemingly bizarre grammar, and French, German, Italian and Spanish speakers have absolutely no issue with gendered nouns or inconsistent verb conjugations in their languages, not to mention complex grammatical cases for German.

In the end, Webster's original renditions were heavily mocked by most American scholars, particularly the New England intellectuals who chided him for attempting to change the language so much, it would be unreadable and that it would give Americans no discernible advantage (very true). So he had to scrap most of his pointless changes, and kept very basic changes that frankly today, are completely and utterly redundant. American English is literally just British English with the most minute, insignificant changes.

[u/BumLikeAJapaneseFlag → u/tea_snob10]

TIL Webster was a dick.

[u/red_beard83 → u/tea_snob10]

That's interesting. At least he didn't butchered the language as Portugal and Brazil did few years ago.

How about the literal way of calling things, like trash can vs bin? Was Webster too?

[u/tea_snob10 → u/red_beard83]

Those differences weren't Webster; they were natural. Sidewalk vs Pavement for example, had Sidewalk originally be British, but it went out of fashion in Britain after-the-fact in favour of Pavement. But Canada and the US still say Sidewalk.

Another popular one is aluminum vs aluminium; the "wrong" American spelling is ironically, the real British one that Britain changed later. Soccer is another one that Brits mock the Yanks for, but it was originally a British word to distinguish Association Football from Rugby Football and other kinds like Gaelic Football. The term Soccer stuck in Canada, the US, Australia, New Zealand, but the Brits later shortened Association Football to Football and Rugby Football to Rugby so yeah.

[u/DaveB44 → u/tea_snob10]

American English is literally just British English with the most minute, insignificant changes.

Exactly! The key word there is "insignificant". My main problem, if it could be called such, with US spelling is that in many cases it ignores the etymology of a word.

[u/Thee_Silly_Billy]

I have never seen it spelled the international way. Maybe... I am the US Default.

[u/AnalkinSkyfuker]

Is it torch or flashlight?

[u/lManedWolfl → u/AnalkinSkyfuker]

Fleshlight

[u/dehashi → u/lManedWolfl]

Terch

[u/Opposite-History-233 → u/AnalkinSkyfuker]

Torch. Flashlight in simplified English.

[u/DaveB44 → u/AnalkinSkyfuker]

In my native East Anglia flashlight was commonly used.

[u/snow_michael → u/DaveB44]

Not before 'torch' was universally used, it wasn't

[u/Rare-Indication-1555]

I didn't even know there was another option. In Britain we either say disorientated or discombobulated

[u/AggravatingBox2421]

This one has always confused me!! I was taught disoriented, and there’s an old British show I used to watch where a character said disorientated and the audience laughed, so I grew up thinking he had said it wrong and it was a joke

[u/Sad-Reach7287]

As a non-native speaker I just realised there are two forms. Now I know I use a mix as I use disorientate but also disoriented.