The Difference Between conTROVersy and CONtroversy

There are two ways to pronounce it, as roughly described above. The former being British, and the latter American.

It is often described how we in the UK are being more American. This is usually described as the process of Americanisation. The first "Americanisation" was the separation of church and state. The Vatican called it the American heresy. Their view is that the will of God and the interests of the state should meet at an apex, not be held in parallel but untouching planes.

There a many differences in American and British pronunciation. Note that it's never, "pronounciation." That's not a work. It comes from pro (out) + nuntiare (announce) or nuntius (messenger), hence pronunciation. You can have pronounceable and pronounceability though.

Some common and well-documented mis-pronunciations in recent newspaper articles include

- Arctic being pronounced Artic
- Ask being pronounced Aks
- Barbiturate being pronounced barbituate
- Card sharp being pronounced card shark
- Espresso being pronounced expresso
- Miniature being pronounced miniture
- Mischievous being pronounced mischievious
- Sherbet being pronounced sherbert
- Tenterhooks being pronounced tenderhooks
- Triathlon being pronounced triathalon

Others include

One does not have a forte as in FOUR-TAY, but one has a forte as in FORT. Four-tay is reserved for the musical notation meaning get louder, but one's speciality should be like a castle.

Irregardless is usually claimed not to be a word, but a tautological construct. Regardless and irrespective are terms, but not irregardless. However, it is found in some dictionaries, including some dictionaries advise against the use of it. Which is incredible. As no dictionary advises you not to use the swear words, and we all know we've looked those up in English lessons as a teenager.

But some dictionaries specifically advise you not to use the word. How badass is that?

Ass is another one of course. Badarse does sound weird. In the chicken-or-egg syndrome arse came first, but Americans lightened the curse by turning it into an animal.

The differences between American and British punctuation are as follows (I'm going to use RP and General American accents, obviously, the wealth of accents across both countries demonstrates the flexibility of language and speech in an awe-inspiring way).

RP is non-rhotic. In RP "bore" would be pronounced "baw" but in GenAm, "bawR". Chicken-or-egg moment, according to "experts" in ancient accents (how?), the accent of the early English isles used to be rhotic, but we left it in the New World when we colonised America and came back without it.

These lost Rs do have a home in the RP's intrusive R. RP speakers would say, "I don't like the idearovit" (idea of it).

In terms of long vs short A, say in bath. There's a raging flamewar across the centuries about people in the North of England pronouncing it "bath" (short a) or "baath" (long a). Americans go for short, and in chicken-and-egg terms, the short a came first.

Americans are big on flapping too. That's changing T's to D's in the middle of words. For example "better" becomes "bedder." In RP we're more likely to head towards a syllabic L in words like "bottle." Forcing them to become almost "bol-L." This is taken to extreme in East London, Cockney and Essex accents, forming the glottal stop "be?'er"

Ever dropped a yod? No, it's not a Lovecraftian hallucinogen, but what Americans do all the time. In RP we'd say new as "nyew" (or njew), whereas Americans say "noo." cf. Tyuesday/Toosday, dyuty/dooty. Sometimes the yod is called the "liquid y."

In fact on duty the Americans are flapping and dropping their yods all over the place.

The British are pretty good at elliding (or missing out parts of) words too.

The British would say
military as mili-tree
inventory as inven-tree
and library as lie-bree

In terms of why Americans pronounce things differently, there is a clue in how they handle words borrow from different backgrounds.

FRENCH

In French-borrowed words, RP speakers would put the stress first, GenAm speakers on the second syllable.

Compare:
RP / GenAm
ADult / adULT
DEbut / deBUT
CAFfeine / cafFEINE

This is reversed on words ending in ate
RP / GenAm
dicTATE / DICtate

LATIN

In words of Latin origin, the RP stress is on the second syllable, and GenAm on the first, with the second syllable taking a weak form and becoming ellided.

RP/GenAm
aGILE / a-gill
virILE / vi-rill

LIEUTENANT

Americans pronounce it "loo-tenant" and the British "lef-tenant." It is a French word, though, and they go for loo-. The Navy, bizzarely go for leh-tenant. And that's the kind of fun you have on a boat in the middle of the ocean for three months.

AMERICANISMS

Some Americanisms that have come into British speaking are:

"American" (British)
"From the get-go" (from the start)
"Can I get a..." (may I please have)
"Take-out" (take away)
"A half hour" (half an hour)
"Burglarize" (burgle)
"Bi-weekly" (fortnightly)
A million and a half (one and a half million)
math (maths)
regular Americano (medium black coffee)
expiration (expiry)
season (series)
period (full stop)
I could care less (I don't care or even I couldn't care less)
Happy Holidays (Merry Christmas)

FINALLY

The Americans changed our numbers system. A billion used to be 1,000,000,000,000 (one million million, or 1*10^12). Because of Americans it's now 1,000,000,000 (one thousand million, or 1*10^9) . We used to call the American billion a "milliard" a term now dropped out of fashion.

The scale runs
One - 1
Ten - 10
Hundred - 100
Thousand - 1,000
Ten Thousand 10,000
Hundred Thousand 100,000
Million 1,000,000,000
Billion 1,000,000,000,000
Trillion 1,000,000,000,000,000
Quadrillion 1,000,000,000,000,000,000
Quintillion 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Sextillion 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Septillion 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Octillion 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Nonillion 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Decillion 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Undecillion 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Duodecillion 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Tredecillion 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Quatturodecillion 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Quindecillion 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Sexdecillion 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Septendecillion 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Ortodecillion 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Novemdecillion 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Vigntillion 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Centillion 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Spare a thought for President Bush, though, when told that three Brazilian soldiers had been killed he said, "That's terrible. How many's in a Brazilian?"