How come I just discovered this Now?!
So I'm determined to finish up the ESL course work that I started (and abandoned) this time last year, and during my perusal of American vs. British English webpage, I realised that I've been repressing my instincts for my entire written life!
Burnt, dreamt, smelt, spelt, and spoilt are all correct! I wish it was the same for equipt, but no luck there; I just spell that one wrong.
posted by Lightfooted @ 4:27 p.m.
9 comments
9 Comments:
Ah but those words, that extra letter, can have different connotations! It can create or destroy flow, and surface different feelings, depending on how it is used. Little details like that create atmosphere.
Watchatakaboutwillis?
Good to hear - let them rot :-)
Hmm, who knew. I also recently learned that a pint in the UK is an exact unit of measure not to be shorted when pouring beer. We tend to just mean any size glass of beer when we say pint. A riot almost broke out in the pub in Chicago when the bar tender poured a slightly short pint for a guy from London.
Spelt is also a type of flour and smelt(ing) is a process to extract iron from iron-ore.
One question: when somebody burned the toast, did you call it burnt toast or burned toast?
former is the simple past form, the latter uses its past participle.
Confusion of this little rule leads small-town Alberta types to say things like 'I drunk a whole mickey of...' or 'I swum all the way out to...' In simple past that would be 'I drank' and 'I swam'
Thing is, in the USA it's all been 'simplified' such that there isn't always any difference - such as with burned and spoiled and all that.
I have a Brit friend here in SA who was recounting a Canadian comedian who opened in Burmingham 'I hear you don't much like Americans over here -cheers from the audience- Try fucking living right next to them'
A chunk at the beginning of that didn't post... It was supposed to say something like:
To throw in my former English Teacher answer... It's as much the difference between whether you say 'I burned the toast' or 'the toast was burnt...'
totally burnt toast.
I made burnt toast. as usual.
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