“Right now, three-quarters of the fastest-growing occupations require more than a high school diploma. And yet, just over half of our citizens have that level of education. We have one of the highest high school dropout rates of any industrialized nation. And half of the students who begin college never finish.”
President Barack Obama – Address to Joint Session of Congress, Tuesday, February 24th, 2009
Well, Mr President, I must say, if you come to my country, I’m gonna have to make sure I have my Springfield red grammar pen handy. Technically there’s nothing wrong with this excerpt—apart from the hideous double spacing (*shudder*), which I will never ever forgive him for—but I’m going to correct it anyway just for fun, and to teach you about the differences between New Zealand English and American English.
And yes, they are different. It’s important to be aware of this and to fight the infidel oppressors of our New Zealand English. Microsoft Word, aka Satan Word, is constantly trying to impose American English on us all by telling us that we misspelled ‘bastardise’ because it can’t be arsed checking what country it’s in—just waltzes on in and acts like it owns the place.
The differences are all in the spelling. American English bastardizes the English language with their favored spelling alternatives, whereas New Zealand English, which mainly follows the rules of British English, bastardises in a more gentler fashion favoured by the eyes. In Barack’s excerpt—if he were a Kiwi—he should have written “industrialised” with ‘s’ instead of ‘z’. And he shouldn’t have done all that double spacing—it’s so archaic! He should know better, really.
Cheers for the example, Baz. Like the word industrialise, any words that can end with the suffix -ise/-ize should be written in the -ise form in New Zealand English. Such words include colonise, industrialise, bastardise, capitalise, valmorphanise, caramelise, and the word I just made up, lundyise. This is also valid for the relevant forms of these verbs—i.e., bastardises (third person singular), bastardised (past participle), and bastardising (present participle).
The other major difference is the -our/-or difference. The superfluous u was rejected in American English spelling by Noah Webster, of Webster dictionary fame. He also proposed many other reforms to American English, such as metre into meter, but not all were officially recognised. So be sure you spell words such as odour, colour, favour, flavour, glamour, saviour, endeavour and fervour with the u.
These two differences are the main ones you should be aware of. There are various other vagaries out there, however. When used as a noun, a licence is spelled with ‘c‘ in British English, but spelled license in American English. But when used as a verb (to license) it is spelled with ‘s’. This applies to all of the forms derived from the verb, i.e., licensed (past participle/adjective), licensing (present participle). Defence is also spelled with ‘c’, but the verb form is different (to defend).
Here are some other words I found that differ between American and British English:
British English
American English
analyse
analyze
enrol
enroll
manoeuvre
maneuver
centre/
metre
center/
meter
aeroplane
airplane
moustache
mustache
mum
mom
eyrie
aerie
arse
ass
pernickety
persnickety
Questions about grammar? Email me at mikey@salient.org.nz.
Approved YouTubing
Glenn Beck presents the Obama National Anthem. (Барак Обама, наш спаситель)
Armstrong & Miller – WWII RAF Sketch. (That’s like massively disrespecting of your trousers)
Disapproved YouTubing
How is babby formed (how girl get pragnent)
The real speech of George W Bush. (We must offer every child in America three nuclear missiles)