So the world's about to end...

[IanKennedy]

We do. We also have the right to humor you, and not correct you every time you write the date backwards.

In all seriousness - when you speak, do say "Today is eighteen May" or "Today is May eighteenth?" If the former, then your method of notation certainly matches your vernacular. If the latter, then even you must admit that your method is backwards from your own speech. It's funny to hear you say that our mannerism is "wrong" (even though I know it's a joke) because our notation matches our spoken usage.

We never ever say "today is may eighteenth", I've never heard anyone say a date that way. We say it's "the 18th of May", which fits with our notation and makes your seem backwards.

[IanKennedy]

The only time I hear that usage commonly around here is in "the fourth of July," and that's only because it's become a sort of idiomatic proper noun in reference to Independence Day.

More likely a left over from the way you used to do it before you split off.

[Mikey]

The only time I hear that usage commonly around here is in "the fourth of July," and that's only because it's become a sort of idiomatic proper noun in reference to Independence Day.

More likely a left over from the way you used to do it before you split off.

Considering the local import of that day, I'm inclined to doubt that. That would be like the French using a monarchial reference for Bastille Day.

[Graham Kennedy]

Okay, here's something I've always wondered.

I've always thought that the American colonies would have used British spellings and words. So did they make a deliberate effort to switch to their own ways as a method of distancing themselves from the country they broke away from? Or is it just a case of two branches of a language and culture naturally drifting apart over time?

And what about things like weights and measures? Did somebody say "Dammit, we'll have our OWN gallon, not that British rubbish!" or did things like that change for some other reason?

[Mikey]

Second part first - what do you mean, "our own gallon?" We use Imperial measure - AFAIK, there's no different gallon in American usage and in obsolete British usage. You guys just switched to metric and we didn't. I really have no idea why we haven't gone to metric yet; except maybe that it was an international agreement and we weren't the big dogs on the block, so we took our ball and went home.

I don't know the mechanism by which we acquired different spellings and vernacular than you guys. I don't think it was a case of conscious effort, because in most cases our versions seem like a very basic simplification or an across-the-board change: using the suffix "-ize" rather than "-ise," for example, or wholesale changes from things like "cheque" to "check." I'd be interested to see the instance of change in things like going from "queue" to "line."

There are also specializations that may have to do with the age of the respective communities. In the UK, for example, "lorry" or "dray" was used for a long time to refer to a delivery vehicle, so much so that they came to refer to any delivery vehicle, whether it was technically a lorry, a dray, or a wagon. Naturally, in the age of IC engines, "lorry" came to mean those delivery vehicles as well. In the U.S., precious few people use the term lorry - and if they do, they mean the animal drawn variety of wagon that the term originally meant. Of course, now we use the term "truck," by which you guys refer to a railway freight car.

Finally, some of it may be due to the greater admixture of a wide variety of immigrant ethnicities and their respective languages. Even people with no fluency in Spanish (at least in the Northeast metro corridor) would know what I mean if I said I was walking over to the bodega.

[Graham Kennedy]

Second part first - what do you mean, "our own gallon?" We use Imperial measure - AFAIK, there's no different gallon in American usage and in obsolete British usage. You guys just switched to metric and we didn't.

Not so. The liquid US Gallon is 3.785411784 litres, whilst the UK Gallon is 4.54609 litres.

(Resists urge to go "Our gallons are bigger than yours, nyah nyah!")

I really have no idea why we haven't gone to metric yet; except maybe that it was an international agreement and we weren't the big dogs on the block, so we took our ball and went home.

We have a sort of half way thing going on here, actually. Road signs are still in miles and speeds are in miles per hour. Shops are legally required to label products in metric, but the result is that you buy a jug of milk that is labelled as "2.273 Litres" or "3.409 Litres" - aka 4 or 6 pints. Similarly, pubs sell beer in glasses marked "568 milli-litres" - but you actually ask for a pint. Yet people have pretty much got used to buying meat by the gram. It's like that all over - ask somebody how tall they are and nobody would give you an answer in centimetres, ask their weight and nobody would give it you in kilos - even kids who have allegedly grown up with metric think that way.

It's like that because it was a very "top down" decision to change over. Nobody really wanted to do it but the government, so most people just ignore or work around the rules.


Regarding the language, what's funny is that with the dominance of US culture on the world stage, US useage is actually beginning to seep over here. I often call films movies, or a series of a TV show a season. We universally use the thousand million for the billion now, not the British million million. Should be interesting to see how that goes in fifty years or so.

[Tyyr]

We'll be happy to welcome you as the 51st state.

[Mikey]

Well, not Wales. You'll have to spin them off first.

(Resists urge to go "Our gallons are bigger than yours, nyah nyah!")

Regarding the language, what's funny is that with the dominance of US culture on the world stage, US useage is actually beginning to seep over here. I often call films movies, or a series of a TV show a season. We universally use the thousand million for the billion now, not the British million million. Should be interesting to see how that goes in fifty years or so.

#1 - I don't anyone who refers to one billion as "one thousand million." It's always just "one billion."

#2 - Yes, we're like that. Whether it's through media, KFC, McDonald's, Levi's, or Coca-Cola; we will always find an insidious but inexorable way to imbue foreign nations with markers of our culture. We're like cultural trojans of the physical world.

[Graham Kennedy]

Actually, In all seriousness I would be perfectly willing to do that.

And England would make a hell of a state. I looked up some statistics; as a US state we would be way down in 32nd place by area, behind Louisiana, but we would be by far the most heavily populated - over 37% bigger than California, which should earn us a good 73 seats in the house by my guestimate. That would be pretty interesting, especially as by US standards England would be a very, very politically liberal state. Hell, the only question here would be whether the Democrats would be nearly left wing enough for us.

Our GDP is about equal to California's, which would make us the top or maybe second most economically powerful state.

It will never happen, obviously. But I rather enjoy musing about it.

[Graham Kennedy]

#1 - I don't anyone who refers to one billion as "one thousand million." It's always just "one billion."

Yeah, but that's what is meant by the word billion. In strict British useage a thousand million is a "Milliard". But if you said that to people here they'd just look at you funny.

[Tyyr]

We'd probably break you up into a couple states based off existing divisions. Maybe call it 51st through 55th. Though you might be in a race with Canada to see who folds first.

[Reliant121]

I think it would indeed be very interesting to be a US State. I'm not sure I'd get on entirely well with it, but government would just be the same as it always had since regional government in the US seems somewhat more powerful than it is over here. But I do agree that we would be a sort of "wildcard liberal" state, and politically speaking most people over here would be dissatisfied with even the Democrat parties "liberalism" which is reasonably centre field for us lot.

[Graham Kennedy]

Can you imagine how the US right wing would react to the prospect of 30 million dedicated liberals being thrown into the voting pool?

The gun thing would be a big issue. I've seen Americans talk about how the British government "stops people having guns", but the truth is most British people really don't like or want guns - support for the last round of gun restrictions ran at something like 90%+ as I recall.

And losing a big chunk of the welfare state would be a real deal breaker.

Course getting rid of the Queen would be a big stumbling block. Not for me, but a lot of Brits really love the old girl.

[Captain Seafort]

Can you imagine how the US right wing would react to the prospect of 30 million dedicated liberals being thrown into the voting pool?

Well, by US standards its probably more like 10-15 million dedicated liberals, and they'd probably whinge but get over it. What they'd make of Labour and the Lib Dems is another matter.

And losing a big chunk of the welfare state would be a real deal breaker.

Not necessarily - we'd still be able to hang onto the NHS, even at State level. Vermont's trying to implement a single payer system (not sure if it's intended to match the NHS though), so we wouldn't even be unique.

[Mikey]

Vermont's proposal is a dedicated single-payer system, nothing like your NHS. GK's correct in thinking that what passes for "liberal" over here doesn't even come close to what you guys call left-of-center.

I do think the monarchy would be a bitter pill to swallow. Without that overarching figurehead, chances are that the UK wouldn't be a state; Scotland would, England would, Wales (if we can't sell them off,) there's even a chance that smaller ethnically-delineated areas would be - Cornwall, Kierann's area (if we can't package them with Wales,) etc.