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Why is "center" in Canada spelled "centre?"

Started by roadman65, August 26, 2015, 12:25:15 PM

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TheHighwayMan3561

Out of curiosity I asked my 11th grade English teacher what would happen if I used British spellings on essays and she said she would have to penalize me for it. I thought that was stupid and total bullshit because they're the same word, but whatever.
self-certified as the dumbest person on this board for 5 years running


DaBigE

Quote from: jakeroot on August 27, 2015, 02:23:14 PM
Quote from: roadman65 on August 27, 2015, 02:18:16 PM
First of all I am not attacking Canadian spelling.  I am just saying that on the forum board it is showing that wavy line here.  Not that I agree with it, in fact I think it should be told to those who program the speller to allow it considering that one whole nation spells things differently than the USA.  That should count!

Your computer is doing the spell check based on its set language, not the forum. People in Canada, or the UK, or Australia, or New Zealand do not see a red, wavy line under "centre", but those in the US with computers set to en-US do.

Try working for a global company who creates all of its document templates in a country like Australia. :banghead:  Somehow their settings tend to override my local language settings (probably due to some Microsoft glitch). Seeing words underlined that are actually spelled correctly drives poor spellers like me nuts. :spin: 
"We gotta find this road, it's like Bob's road!" - Rabbit, Twister

Henry

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't GM use "Litre" in their engine designations some time ago? I could've sworn I saw "3.8/4.3/4.9 Litre" on some of its cars.
Go Cubs Go! Go Cubs Go! Hey Chicago, what do you say? The Cubs are gonna win today!

Pete from Boston


Quote from: Henry on August 28, 2015, 11:49:43 AM
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't GM use "Litre" in their engine designations some time ago? I could've sworn I saw "3.8/4.3/4.9 Litre" on some of its cars.

Could be that at or before the time when liters replaced cubic inches as the primary measure of displacement that liters were indicated for the benefit of non-US customers.

TXtoNJ

Quote from: Pete from Boston on August 28, 2015, 09:42:49 AM

Quote from: TXtoNJ on August 28, 2015, 08:11:24 AM
Quote from: english si on August 27, 2015, 02:01:30 PM
Quote from: roadman65 on August 27, 2015, 01:19:04 PMif you look here spell check even says its wrong as well.
OMG spell check says it is wrong, therefore conclusive proof that Canadians can't spell!!!!1!!!

I get a wavy red line under 'center',* while 'centre' is fine. Different English is different.

*which just looks like you never learnt to spell or speak (I'd read it cent-er, with the stress on the second syllable like you were talking about pennies and then forgot what you were saying and went 'err'), nor make the clear links with central, centri-, etc. Where there is a pronounced 'r'. And the US way puts the silent vestigial French letter at the end, rather than hiding it in the middle (OK, there's some silent letters at the beginning of words, but mostly the silent ones are elsewhere - but never at the end), which just screams 'pronounce this'.

We don't say "er" in rhotic AE accents - we say "uh".

Non-rhotic, you mean.

I mean that we don't use "er" as a filler - we use "uh".

It's the same schwa sound, but if you speak rhotic English, it might seem weird to see it spelled out as "er".

1995hoo

Quote from: Henry on August 28, 2015, 11:49:43 AM
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't GM use "Litre" in their engine designations some time ago? I could've sworn I saw "3.8/4.3/4.9 Litre" on some of its cars.

The Jeep Cherokee definitely said that.

Regarding soccer, I'm American and I enjoy soccer, but it's played on a field, they play games (not matches, which is tennis), and it's a schedule (pronounced with the "ch" as a "k"). I enjoy hockey more, though (and hockey is played only on ice, as opposed to "field hockey").
"You know, you never have a guaranteed spot until you have a spot guaranteed."
—Olaf Kolzig, as quoted in the Washington Times on March 28, 2003,
commenting on the Capitals clinching a playoff spot.

"That sounded stupid, didn't it?"
—Kolzig, to the same reporter a few seconds later.

english si

#56
Quote from: Brandon on August 28, 2015, 06:21:39 AMIt's pronounced cen-TER, two syllables split between the n and the t.
I know, but the cen-tray thing was annoying me. cen-TER (as well as adding the 'r', which isn't right) is putting the stress on the other syllable to what I'm used to: CEN-ta (tending to CEN-a as I live where we have t-glottalization)
Quote from: TXtoNJ on August 28, 2015, 08:11:24 AMWe don't say "er" in rhotic AE accents - we say "uh".
Indeed - I had a rant about how the US spelling makes it harder to realise that the 'r' is silent. It's sen.tə or sen.ʔə in UK English and sen.tɚ in US English - slightly different vowel sounds, but no 'r' there.
Quote from: Pete from Boston on August 28, 2015, 09:42:49 AMNon-rhotic, you mean.
He probably did, but the only alternate US pronunciation is when pin and pen sound identical, and the vowel in the first syllable changes to 'i', so it seems to be both.
Quote from: Pete from Boston on August 28, 2015, 01:03:04 AMI did find it charming, though, when an American woman near me at a bar once asked for a "draw" of beer ("draw," of course, being the uncommon verb of which our common "draught" is the past participle).
That is charming, and probably correct, though as a unit it's one pull of the pump, which is either half or a quarter of a (UK) pint on standard beer engines. Only works as a unit with ale drawn (a more common past tense of the verb 'draw' than 'draught') out of the cask by a pump.
Quote from: 1995hoo on August 27, 2015, 08:27:10 PMSort of, but the thing is, the Brits use "draft" if they use said word to refer to conscription, same U.S. Americans do.
Indeed, though the NFL draft is hardly conscription, merely picking players.
Quote"Draught" is correct as to beer, but to refer to the "NFL Draught" is absurd!
Are there air currents inside their HQ? or perhaps they are playing checkers with only one piece in between downs? Or perhaps it was a diagrammatic plan of the NFL?

Brandon

Quote from: TXtoNJ on August 28, 2015, 12:47:00 PM
Quote from: Pete from Boston on August 28, 2015, 09:42:49 AM

Quote from: TXtoNJ on August 28, 2015, 08:11:24 AM
Quote from: english si on August 27, 2015, 02:01:30 PM
Quote from: roadman65 on August 27, 2015, 01:19:04 PMif you look here spell check even says its wrong as well.
OMG spell check says it is wrong, therefore conclusive proof that Canadians can't spell!!!!1!!!

I get a wavy red line under 'center',* while 'centre' is fine. Different English is different.

*which just looks like you never learnt to spell or speak (I'd read it cent-er, with the stress on the second syllable like you were talking about pennies and then forgot what you were saying and went 'err'), nor make the clear links with central, centri-, etc. Where there is a pronounced 'r'. And the US way puts the silent vestigial French letter at the end, rather than hiding it in the middle (OK, there's some silent letters at the beginning of words, but mostly the silent ones are elsewhere - but never at the end), which just screams 'pronounce this'.

We don't say "er" in rhotic AE accents - we say "uh".

Non-rhotic, you mean.

I mean that we don't use "er" as a filler - we use "uh".

It's the same schwa sound, but if you speak rhotic English, it might seem weird to see it spelled out as "er".

Who uses "uh" for that sound?  It's "err".  The word is cen-TERR, not CENT-uh (which would be spelled [or spelt] "centah").
"If you think this has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention." - Ramsay Bolton

"Symbolic of his struggle against reality." - Reg

Brandon

Quote from: english si on August 28, 2015, 01:53:01 PM
Quote from: Brandon on August 28, 2015, 06:21:39 AMIt's pronounced cen-TER, two syllables split between the n and the t.
I know, but the cen-tray thing was annoying me. cen-TER (as well as adding the 'r', which isn't right) is putting the stress on the other syllable to what I'm used to: CEN-ta
Quote from: TXtoNJ on August 28, 2015, 08:11:24 AMWe don't say "er" in rhotic AE accents - we say "uh".
Indeed - I had a rant about how the US spelling makes it harder to realise that the 'r' is silent. It's sen.tə in UK English and sen.tɚ in US English - slightly different vowel sounds, but no 'r' there.

That really depends on the dialect and accent.  If you speak like a New Englander, then, indeed, the "r" is silent.  If you speak Inland North (as I do), then the "r" is very pronounced.  We've even gone through another vowel shift.

To go a bit further, do these sound the same to you?
Mary, marry, merry

How about?
cot, caught

The first set sounds exactly alike to me.  The second set is "caht" and "cawt".
"If you think this has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention." - Ramsay Bolton

"Symbolic of his struggle against reality." - Reg

TXtoNJ

Quote from: Brandon on August 28, 2015, 01:54:25 PM
Quote from: TXtoNJ on August 28, 2015, 12:47:00 PM
Quote from: Pete from Boston on August 28, 2015, 09:42:49 AM

Quote from: TXtoNJ on August 28, 2015, 08:11:24 AM
Quote from: english si on August 27, 2015, 02:01:30 PM
Quote from: roadman65 on August 27, 2015, 01:19:04 PMif you look here spell check even says its wrong as well.
OMG spell check says it is wrong, therefore conclusive proof that Canadians can't spell!!!!1!!!

I get a wavy red line under 'center',* while 'centre' is fine. Different English is different.

*which just looks like you never learnt to spell or speak (I'd read it cent-er, with the stress on the second syllable like you were talking about pennies and then forgot what you were saying and went 'err'), nor make the clear links with central, centri-, etc. Where there is a pronounced 'r'. And the US way puts the silent vestigial French letter at the end, rather than hiding it in the middle (OK, there's some silent letters at the beginning of words, but mostly the silent ones are elsewhere - but never at the end), which just screams 'pronounce this'.

We don't say "er" in rhotic AE accents - we say "uh".

Non-rhotic, you mean.

I mean that we don't use "er" as a filler - we use "uh".

It's the same schwa sound, but if you speak rhotic English, it might seem weird to see it spelled out as "er".

Who uses "uh" for that sound?  It's "err".  The word is cen-TERR, not CENT-uh (which would be spelled [or spelt] "centah").

Uh, me?

If you read dialogue from British authors, you see they tend to use "er" and "erm" where I'd write "uh" or "um". They're not pronouncing the "r" (or I should say, not rhoticizing the schwa), and the "r" is there for the sole purpose of indicating that it's a schwa, and not some other form of "e".

In rhotic English dialects, "er" invariably indicates that the "e" is to be rhoticized or "r-colored".

english si

Quote from: Brandon on August 28, 2015, 02:04:01 PMThe first set sounds exactly alike to me.
Even when some one who can actually speak says it? ;) Marry is very different to the other two, whereas Mary and merry are similar, but still different.
QuoteThe second set is "caht" and "cawt".
That's about right on caught, but cot for me uses /ɒ/ (open back rounded vowel) rather than /ɑ/ (general American, open back unrounded) or /a/ (US northern-cities vowel shift, open front unrounded vowel). If you said that I had to sleep on the cot, I'd probably say I'd rather not, as I don't want to be clawed in the night and Mr Whiskers probably won't like it!
Quote from: TXtoNJ on August 28, 2015, 02:08:07 PMUh, me?
Err, yes, you! ;)

I see what you are saying - you have to use 'uh' as we'd use 'er' (though they sound a bit different to me, even if non-rhotic me says them - hence why I'm adamant that centre/center has a silent 'r' in normal pronouciation. 'uh' or 'ah' give me those mid-central schwa-like vowels) because 'er' for you sounds completely different, rather than almost the same.

Pete from Boston


Quote from: Brandon on August 28, 2015, 02:04:01 PM
Quote from: english si on August 28, 2015, 01:53:01 PM
Quote from: Brandon on August 28, 2015, 06:21:39 AMIt's pronounced cen-TER, two syllables split between the n and the t.
I know, but the cen-tray thing was annoying me. cen-TER (as well as adding the 'r', which isn't right) is putting the stress on the other syllable to what I'm used to: CEN-ta
Quote from: TXtoNJ on August 28, 2015, 08:11:24 AMWe don't say "er" in rhotic AE accents - we say "uh".
Indeed - I had a rant about how the US spelling makes it harder to realise that the 'r' is silent. It's sen.tə in UK English and sen.tɚ in US English - slightly different vowel sounds, but no 'r' there.

That really depends on the dialect and accent.  If you speak like a New Englander, then, indeed, the "r" is silent.  If you speak Inland North (as I do), then the "r" is very pronounced.  We've even gone through another vowel shift.

To go a bit further, do these sound the same to you?
Mary, marry, merry

How about?
cot, caught

The first set sounds exactly alike to me.  The second set is "caht" and "cawt".

I believe Eastern New England is the only place in the US where "for" ("far," as in "wait far it") and "four" ("fowa") don't rhyme.

These dichotomies are fascinating.  "Pin" and "pen" are said differently here, but are spoken alike in some parts of the US.

lordsutch

Quote from: SP Cook on August 28, 2015, 10:26:57 AM
- The tiny minority of non recent immigrant Americans who like soccer adopt British and other Euro linguistic forms do so for one reason.  They hate American sports.  The use of "fixture" and "nil" and "in to touch" and the idiot naming of teams "Real"  REE-ol , meaning "under the patronage of the King of Spain (Real Madrid) or "United", meaning in that context "a team that both Anglicans and Catholics can support" or "Dynamo", which is from the Soviet practice of claiming teams represented different occupations, Dynamo meaning "power plant workers", have no application in Salt Lake City, Washington, or Houston. It is their way of being oh, so, above us common folk.

No, this is an example of adopting proper terminology for a sport. The same reason why a tennis score of 40-0 is "forty-love" and a tied game is "deuce." British fans of American football don't call PATs and field goals "tries" to make it sound like rugby; they don't refer to the scrimmage as a "scrum."

So, yes, a soccer game is properly called a "match" or "fixture"; the out-of-bounds area is "in touch" (or just "out of play"); the scoreline properly shows the home team first (the use of "home team last" is a sport-specific system derived from the batting order in baseball and exported from there in America to other team sports when they became popular). The use of names like "Dynamo" or "Real" or "United" has more to do with trying to connect with soccer fans than using "artificial" team names (like the "Dallas Burn," which sounded more like slang for an STD rather than the name of a sports team) while still having something easily trademarked.

All that is said as a fan of both soccer and American football, by the way.

Brandon

Quote from: english si on August 28, 2015, 02:35:05 PM
Quote from: Brandon on August 28, 2015, 02:04:01 PMThe first set sounds exactly alike to me.
Even when some one who can actually speak says it? ;) Marry is very different to the other two, whereas Mary and merry are similar, but still different.
QuoteThe second set is "caht" and "cawt".
That's about right on caught, but cot for me uses /ɒ/ (open back rounded vowel) rather than /ɑ/ (general American, open back unrounded) or /a/ (US northern-cities vowel shift, open front unrounded vowel). If you said that I had to sleep on the cot, I'd probably say I'd rather not, as I don't want to be clawed in the night and Mr Whiskers probably won't like it!

LOL!  Here, if you're speaking of Mr. Whiskers, that's a "kyat".  But, yes, Mary, marry, and merry are spoken the same here, but cot and caught are not, nor are pen and pin.  Yet for and four sound exactly a like.

And the name for a carbonated beverage is always "pop".
/That last one'll start a war.
"If you think this has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention." - Ramsay Bolton

"Symbolic of his struggle against reality." - Reg

lordsutch

Quote from: DaBigE on August 28, 2015, 11:47:39 AM
Try working for a global company who creates all of its document templates in a country like Australia. :banghead:  Somehow their settings tend to override my local language settings (probably due to some Microsoft glitch). Seeing words underlined that are actually spelled correctly drives poor spellers like me nuts. :spin: 

A Word document can set languages on the page down to the character (for example, so you can intersperse French and English text and have both spell-checked correctly). At least in Word 2015 on my Mac, the language in use is on the status bar at the bottom of the page and can be changed there.

roadman65

Draw and drawer sound a like by some as I was pointed out when I first moved to Florida.

I used to say that the compartment that rolls out of a dresser or filing cabinet  "draw" until I was corrected by my co-workers.  I do not know if that is New Jersey thing or if it was a regional thing, or ethnic thing, but I had to change my way of speaking fast.
Every day is a winding road, you just got to get used to it.

Sheryl Crowe

Pete from Boston


Quote from: roadman65 on August 28, 2015, 02:46:55 PM
Draw and drawer sound a like by some as I was pointed out when I first moved to Florida.

I used to say that the compartment that rolls out of a dresser or filing cabinet  "draw" until I was corrected by my co-workers.  I do not know if that is New Jersey thing or if it was a regional thing, or ethnic thing, but I had to change my way of speaking fast.

It's certainly a thing in Greater New York.  I have even seen "draw" used in writing where "drawer" is meant.

SP Cook

Quote from: Pete from Boston on August 28, 2015, 11:53:24 AM

Quote from: Henry on August 28, 2015, 11:49:43 AM
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't GM use "Litre" in their engine designations some time ago? I could've sworn I saw "3.8/4.3/4.9 Litre" on some of its cars.

Could be that at or before the time when liters replaced cubic inches as the primary measure of displacement that liters were indicated for the benefit of non-US customers.

GM, and the other "American" car companies started using Metric for displacements following the first "great downsizing", which were the 75 to 79 models, which were markedly smaller, and had smaller engines.  By using Metric, it made it hard for the casual customer to realize that so many litres was less CIs than the car they were trading in. 

It also sounded suave and "European", which was a thing they were shooting for back then. 

Always used "litre" and not "liter", AFAIK.  But they also continued to (still do) account for power in "Horsepower" and not kilowatts and torque in pound-feet, not whatever torque is in Metric ( kg-cm ? ),

DaBigE

Quote from: lordsutch on August 28, 2015, 02:42:02 PM
Quote from: DaBigE on August 28, 2015, 11:47:39 AM
Try working for a global company who creates all of its document templates in a country like Australia. :banghead:  Somehow their settings tend to override my local language settings (probably due to some Microsoft glitch). Seeing words underlined that are actually spelled correctly drives poor spellers like me nuts. :spin: 

A Word document can set languages on the page down to the character (for example, so you can intersperse French and English text and have both spell-checked correctly). At least in Word 2015 on my Mac, the language in use is on the status bar at the bottom of the page and can be changed there.

We're still using Office 2010, and as far as I've found, such a display in the status bar is not available. The problem is the templates are created in one country but used in another, so we don't necessarily want dual spellings being shown as correct. Even though my proofing languages are set to US English, somehow the template's created language overrides my settings. It's a glitch somewhere in the system.
"We gotta find this road, it's like Bob's road!" - Rabbit, Twister

Pete from Boston


Quote from: lordsutch on August 28, 2015, 02:35:41 PM
Quote from: SP Cook on August 28, 2015, 10:26:57 AM
- The tiny minority of non recent immigrant Americans who like soccer adopt British and other Euro linguistic forms do so for one reason.  They hate American sports.  The use of "fixture" and "nil" and "in to touch" and the idiot naming of teams "Real"  REE-ol , meaning "under the patronage of the King of Spain (Real Madrid) or "United", meaning in that context "a team that both Anglicans and Catholics can support" or "Dynamo", which is from the Soviet practice of claiming teams represented different occupations, Dynamo meaning "power plant workers", have no application in Salt Lake City, Washington, or Houston. It is their way of being oh, so, above us common folk.

No, this is an example of adopting proper terminology for a sport. The same reason why a tennis score of 40-0 is "forty-love" and a tied game is "deuce." British fans of American football don't call PATs and field goals "tries" to make it sound like rugby; they don't refer to the scrimmage as a "scrum."

So, yes, a soccer game is properly called a "match" or "fixture"; the out-of-bounds area is "in touch" (or just "out of play"); the scoreline properly shows the home team first (the use of "home team last" is a sport-specific system derived from the batting order in baseball and exported from there in America to other team sports when they became popular). The use of names like "Dynamo" or "Real" or "United" has more to do with trying to connect with soccer fans than using "artificial" team names (like the "Dallas Burn," which sounded more like slang for an STD rather than the name of a sports team) while still having something easily trademarked.

All that is said as a fan of both soccer and American football, by the way.

You know you are responding to someone who said people who like drinking IPAs are faking it, right?

SP Cook

Quote from: lordsutch on August 28, 2015, 02:35:41 PM
The use of names like "Dynamo" or "Real" or "United" has more to do with trying to connect with soccer fans than using "artificial" team names ...



So "Real",  a Spanish word meaning "Royal" and further meaning, as Spain is a monarchy, "under Royal patronage", and pronounced differently from the English word "real" is "natural" and not "artificial" despite the fact Utah has no king, the team has no relationship to the king of Spain, or any other place, and the rest of the team name is in English, Salt Lake City, rather than "Ciudad de lago salado". 

Got it. 


TXtoNJ

Quote from: SP Cook on August 28, 2015, 03:58:46 PM
Quote from: lordsutch on August 28, 2015, 02:35:41 PM
The use of names like "Dynamo" or "Real" or "United" has more to do with trying to connect with soccer fans than using "artificial" team names ...


So "Real",  a Spanish word meaning "Royal" and further meaning, as Spain is a monarchy, "under Royal patronage", and pronounced differently from the English word "real" is "natural" and not "artificial" despite the fact Utah has no king, the team has no relationship to the king of Spain, or any other place, and the rest of the team name is in English, Salt Lake City, rather than "Ciudad de lago salado". 

Got it. 


Well, Utah did have a king once - who happened to be the King of Spain.

kkt

Quote from: TheHighwayMan394 on August 28, 2015, 11:43:19 AM
Out of curiosity I asked my 11th grade English teacher what would happen if I used British spellings on essays and she said she would have to penalize me for it. I thought that was stupid and total bullshit because they're the same word, but whatever.

I don't think it's bullshit.  Your teacher is supposed to be teaching you how to spell correctly in the country you're in.  I assume a British teacher would penalize one of their students for using American spellings.

TheHighwayMan3561

#73
Quote from: kkt on August 28, 2015, 04:29:48 PM
Quote from: TheHighwayMan394 on August 28, 2015, 11:43:19 AM
Out of curiosity I asked my 11th grade English teacher what would happen if I used British spellings on essays and she said she would have to penalize me for it. I thought that was stupid and total bullshit because they're the same word, but whatever.

I don't think it's bullshit.  Your teacher is supposed to be teaching you how to spell correctly in the country you're in.  I assume a British teacher would penalize one of their students for using American spellings.


But I would say the case you suggested is bullshit too if it happens. I don't understand why there's a right or wrong way to spell these words; as I said, the spelling does not change the meaning. I didn't have any plans to actually follow through with using British spellings but I think my teacher was just being a ridiculous and stubborn moron.
self-certified as the dumbest person on this board for 5 years running

Road Hog

It goes the other way, too. I listen to sports stations in the UK and they say "game" regularly. They don't call it a "match" as much as we think. They even use "on the field" occasionally. And the term "free agent" is starting to pop up in place of "free transfer."

Technology means we'll see this convergence continue. I'd say in another 200 to 300 years all the English-speaking populations will be nearly indistinguishable.



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