American English Has Become Way More Emotional Than British English - Polidicks

[quote]If you pick up a British book, a few cultural differences might easily differentiate it from a member of the American canon -- a penchant for spelling words with an extra "u," an unfamiliar slang word...and perhaps the literary equivalent of a stiff upper lip. According to new research, over the last half a century, American writing has shown a significant uptick in emotional words compared books written by our friends across the pond. A study published in PLOS ONE this week examined books from the last century in Google's Ngram Viewer, a database that visualizes the frequency of certain keywords in more than 5 million tomes, and found that since the mid-century, American and British word usage has diverged. Tracing the usage of words that convey six moods (joy, surprise, anger, sadness, fear, disgust), the authors found that in general, words that indicate mood have decreased over time -- except fear, a mood that has been enjoying a resurgence since the 1970s. Usage of words that indicate positive and negative emotions also corresponded to larger historical trends. There was an increase in joy during the roaring '20s and the swinging '60s, for example, but a drop toward sadness in during World War II. [img]http://www.popsci.com/files/imagecache/article_image_large/articles/joysadnesshistory.png[/img] Spikes In Emotion: Usage of positive and negative mood indicators corresponded to historical trends. During World War II, negative emotional words were more prevalent. [img]http://www.popsci.com/files/imagecache/article_image_large/articles/emotiontime.jpg[/img] Decreasing Emotion In Fiction: The decrease in emotional words used in fiction over time. Fear (red) had the highest final value, while disgust (blue) had the lowest. [/quote] [url]http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-03/american-english-has-become-way-more-emotional-british-english[/url]

I find this doubleplus good

I wonder if in 500 years if Australian, American, and British English will have become their own languages.

[QUOTE=Qui Cattus;40016659]I wonder if in 500 years if Australian, American, and British English will have become their own languages.[/QUOTE] in 500 years america will have liberated both of them so theyll all be speaking american

I don't know wether to feel sad or good or be angry about this... my heart is feeling it all at once as I write these words.

[QUOTE=Qui Cattus;40016659]I wonder if in 500 years if Australian, American, and British English will have become their own languages.[/QUOTE] Not unless the global media dies out and people stop hearing other dialects of English. As it is, everything is mixing together.

[QUOTE=Qui Cattus;40016659]I wonder if in 500 years if Australian, American, and British English will have become their own languages.[/QUOTE] Surely if anything they'll move closer due to the internet

Well in Britain the stiff upper lip mentality is still there going strong.

[QUOTE=NoDachi;40016653]I find this doubleplus good[/QUOTE] Selfthinking this doubleplus bad. Signals radivergence from IngSoc.

[QUOTE=Vasili;40016730]Well in Britain the stiff upper lip mentality is still there going strong.[/QUOTE] It's true, only time I give a toss/put down my crumpet is when some bloody wanker posts a thread like this

[QUOTE=Article]American writing has shown a significant uptick in emotional words [B]compared books [/B]written by our friends across the pond.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Article]American writing has shown a significant uptick in emotional words [B]compared to books [/B]written by our friends across the pond.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Qui Cattus;40016659]I wonder if in 500 years if Australian, American, and British English will have become their own languages.[/QUOTE] It's going in the opposite direction. If all of those countries were secluded and isolated the same thing would happen as with the old Latin, but the world is becoming more and more as one.

[QUOTE=Crazy Ivan;40016741]Selfthinking this doubleplus bad. Signals radivergence from IngSoc.[/QUOTE] Thank god I read fahrenheit 451 or I'd never figure this out. Anyways, this is really interesting. Linguistics have always been rather fun to look at over time.

[QUOTE=_Kent_;40016721]Not unless the global media dies out and people stop hearing other dialects of English. As it is, everything is mixing together.[/QUOTE] Eventually, everything will be American Southern English.

Eh, cool I guess. At least it's not about American spelling taking over the correct English way.

I used to give a big shit about the 'right' way to spell (the British way) and the 'barbaric' way to spell (the American way). These days I don't give a shit. I spell organise with an 's' and colour with a 'u' but I often find myself spelling other words in the American fashion. It's not a big deal at all. I prefer to use the UK spelling if I can but I'm not going to discriminate because somebody spells it 'color'

In many cases the American spelling makes more sense

[QUOTE=smurfy;40017050]In many cases the American spelling makes more sense[/QUOTE] I will never understand why you guys spell check as "cheque"

I mix and match, Don't see why they're labeled as English UK, EU and USA why not just put them together and say some words have variation.

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;40017110]I will never understand why you guys spell check as "cheque"[/QUOTE] To differentiate "check it out" and "paycheque" I suppose

[QUOTE=xxfalconxx;40016911]Thank god I read fahrenheit 451 or I'd never figure this out. Anyways, this is really interesting. Linguistics have always been rather fun to look at over time.[/QUOTE] 1984 had newspeak, not F451.

[QUOTE=smurfy;40017050]In many cases the American spelling makes more sense[/QUOTE] thats true but they also use weird words like faucet and eggplant

[QUOTE=Zeke129;40017140]To differentiate "check it out" and "paycheque" I suppose[/QUOTE] Paycheck Looks better, sounds better, and uses less letters.

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;40017212]Paycheck Looks better, sounds better, and uses less letters.[/QUOTE] what do you mean "sounds better"? its pronounced the same

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;40017212]Paycheck Looks better, sounds better, and uses less letters.[/QUOTE] Paycheck looks horrid It's money, money should be classy qu is classy

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;40017212]Paycheck Looks better, sounds better, and uses less letters.[/QUOTE] Paycheque looks classier

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;40017110]I will never understand why you guys spell check as "cheque"[/QUOTE] You're talking about cheque(uk) and check(US); the bit of paper you use to pay people when you're trying to be a fancy pants, right? As far as I know, American English was developed from British English to be more phonetically correct and easier to pick up. British English stays more true to the original root word(s) provided by whatever language the word was developed from.

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;40017212]Paycheck Looks better, sounds better, and uses less letters.[/QUOTE] You only think it looks better because you are used to it. I think paycheque looks better.

Take your blue-blood cheques back to Britain, I'm happy with my American working class paycheck :v: [editline]23rd March 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=Maloof?;40017272]You're talking about cheque(uk) and check(US); the bit of paper you use to pay people when you're trying to be a fancy pants, right? As far as I know, American English was developed from British English to be more phonetically correct and easier to pick up. British English stays more true to the original root word(s) provided by whatever language the word was developed from.[/QUOTE] All english is a filthy mix of German and French anyway, with some Latin and Norse sprinkled about.

[QUOTE=Atlascore;40017335]Yeah, words like "centre" still blow my mind, it makes no logical sense and it looks awful.[/QUOTE] Came from the Latin word, centrum. Like one poster have said, British English is more traditional.