Here's something for one of the language buffs.

1.  I'd like to see a list of a dozen words with standard
pronunciations that are different on the East and West Coasts of the
U.S.  Example:  AP-ricot vs. AY-pricot.

2.  I'd like to see a list of a dozen words that are spelled
differently in the U.K. and the U.S., but that have no difference in
meaning.  I'd prefer relatively subtle examples such as
"center"/"centre" and not the very conspicuous o/ou ("color/colour"),
z/s ("organization"/"organisation"), or single-double l
("traveling"/"travelling").

3.  I'd like to see a list of a dozen words whose core pronunciation
(apart from differences of accent) is different in the U.S. and the
U.K.  This one is a bit hard to explain, but I'm not looking for any
word that, put through an accent filter, would come out the same
(e.g., "water") but words that, if standard differences in accent were
controlled for, would actually sound different--e.g., "schedule"
("skedule"/"shedule").  I think we might have to stipulate that most
differences in vowel sounds are attributable to overall accent but
that to qualify for this list we'd have to hear a difference in
consonants; but that hypothesis is open to challenge.

4.  I'd like to see a list of a dozen words that are uniquely Canadian
in their spelling or usage; that is, if you hear them spoken or see
them in writing, they are a dead giveaway--the user either is Canadian
or is posing as a Canadian.  I'm not just after slang here but what
would be regarded as standard Canadian English.  If the usage is
regional, I'd like to know the part of Canada.  I'm especially
interested in the Maritimes and the capital.  And please note, this
list is not about pronunciation differences.

For bonus points, I'd be fascinated to see something turn up on more
than one list; for example, a British expression that is pronounced
the same way in the eastern U.S. but differently in the West.

Thank you,
Apteryx

Hello Apteryx,

Thank you for kindly accepting my comments as the official answer to
your question.


Here a few more pieces of information that I was able to uncover:


Steve Seegmiller, Ph.D. talks about American accents at Ask A Linguist
Message Board.
http://www.linguistlist.org/~ask-ling/archive-most-recent/msg02786.html



"Water" is the only word you must know in English. The pronunciation
changes from East Coast to West Coast to South.
"Wah Da" will usually work. 
http://www.travelonthecheap.com/us.html



Words that are of Canadian origin or that are used by Canadians as
opposed to by Americans, but that are not necessarily used in Britain.
http://www.camkohl.com/language2.htm



Jeremy’s Language and Dictionary Links
http://www.peak.org/~jeremy/dictionary/links/



**********************************************************************
Below I am including the information I had previously given you in the
comments section.
**********************************************************************



Here's an interesting glossary of Canadian words that will answer part
four of your question.
http://hcs.harvard.edu/~hgscc/glossary.html 



Here's another website that illustrates different words that Canadians
use.
http://www.geocities.com/pmcwpike/you_say.html 


 
For part two of your question there's a good article describing the
difference in British and American spelling with many examples.
http://www.btinternet.com/~Tony.Papard/Spelling.htm 


 
Here are American and British Pronunciation Differences 
 
word            US             UK  
aluminium       aluminum       aluminium   
apricot         a-pricot       ay-pricot   
beta            bayda          beeta   
charade         char-ay-d      char-ah-d   
cordial         corjul         cordee-al   
fillet          filay          filit   
herb            ’erb           herb   
leisure         leezhure       lezhure   
lever           l-e-ver        leever   
privacy         pry-vacy       pri-vacy   
route           rout           root   
schedule        skedule        shedule   
semi            sem-eye        sem-ee   
strychnine      strich-9       strich-neen   
theta           thayta         theeta   
tomato          tom-ay-do      tom-ah-to   
vase            vayz           vahz  
  
http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:y89rGQbQ5fAJ:www.peak.org/~jeremy/dictionary/chapters/pronunciation.html+british+pronounce+words+differently+than+americans&hl=en&ie=UTF-8



Here's a long list of American and British Spelling Differences  
http://www.peak.org/~jeremy/dictionary/tables/spellcat.php#greek 



There's a book that may interest you: 
            
How We Talk : American Regional English Today  
by Allan Metcalf (Author), Allan A. Metcalf 
You can check out 22 samples pages at Amazon.com 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0618043624/ref=lib_rd_ss/002-6589400-7156022?v=glance&s=books&vi=slide-show#reader-link



Search Criteria:
“Canadians say” toonie loonie
Canadian words
“American words” “British words”
British and American spelling
American and British Pronunciation differences
American and British Spelling differences
American pronunciation
American accents
American dialects
“East coast” “West coast” word pronunciation



If anything is unclear please request clarification and I'll be glad
to offer further assistance before you rate my answer.


Best Regards,
Bobbie7-ga

---

Clarification of Answer by bobbie7-ga on 02 Jun 2003 00:43 PDT

Here are a wealth of links to American Regional Dialect Websites
http://www.uta.fi/FAST/US8/REF/dialects.html

---

Clarification of Answer by bobbie7-ga on 02 Jun 2003 08:42 PDT

Hello Apteryx,

I found some interesting information about Associate Professor of
Linguistics Bert Vaux who maps America's dialects:

“Despite the mass media's preference for "standard" accents, regional
variations in pronunciation are still extremely common. For example,
do you pronounce "cot" and "caught" differently? Most people in New
England and the Midwest pronounce both words as if they were speaking
of the fold-up bed. For New Yorkers and others, there's a difference.

Or take the word for the sister of your mother or father. Boston
natives and many African Americans pronounce this word with a broad
"a," and for some reason many people are convinced this is the correct
form. But in fact, people almost everywhere else make no distinction
between "aunt" and "ant."
Source: Harvard News
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/12.12/08-vaux.html


“It's not surprising that vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation—the
elements of dialect—can reveal someone's regional background. What is
remarkable is dialects' persistence despite increasing migration,
education, and cultural homogenization. "Regional dialects are alive
and well," says associate professor of linguistics Bert Vaux, who has
created an on-line survey of English speech to determine the
geographic boundaries of word usage and pronunciations.”

(..)

“The word "pecan," for example, is pronounced "pee-can" primarily in
the northeast. In the rest of the country, "pee-kahn" and "pick-Ahn"
prevail. Northerners from Minnesota to Maine say "crayfish";
Southerners along the coast say "crawfish"; and those in the middle
call it a "crawdad."
Source: Harvard Magazine
http://www.harvard-magazine.com/on-line/030377.html

Here is the Dialect survey website:
www.hcs.harvard.edu/~golder/dialect


Dialect Survey Maps and Results:
 
You may view the dialect maps, displaying what terms and
pronunciations are used, and where they are used here:
http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~golder/dialect/maps.php


Best Regards,
Bobbie7-ga

---

Clarification of Answer by bobbie7-ga on 02 Jun 2003 12:21 PDT

If you ever hear someone talking about how they miss eating smoked
meat sandwiches, they are definitely Canadian from Montreal.

What a lot of wonderful helpers on this one!  Thank you all--you too,
Voila.  And thank you, Bobbie7, for being out there in front with a
major armload of books.  In another one of those dozen lifetimes I'm
going to need, I will learn everything about language.  Actually, that
might take two.  But all this has been a great response to my current
points of curiosity.  "Ont" - I'd forgotten that, but I grew up
hearing it in the Boston suburbs:  "my ont and uncle."  I've always
been a holdout for "ant," but then, my parents weren't from
Massachusetts.

Great work--
Apteryx

Hello Apteryx,
 
Here's an interesting glossary of Canadian words that will answer part
four of your question.
http://hcs.harvard.edu/~hgscc/glossary.html

Best Regards,
Bobbie7

Here's another website that illustrates different words that Canadians
use.
http://www.geocities.com/pmcwpike/you_say.html

For part two of your question there's a good article describing the
difference in British and American spelling with many examples.
http://www.btinternet.com/~Tony.Papard/Spelling.htm

I'm posting this as as a comment because I wasn't able to answer all
four parts of your question.

I hope this helps.

Bobbie7-ga

Other than "schedule," the only other British pronunciation I can
think of that differs significantly from the American pronunciation in
consonantal sounds is "lieutenant," which is pronounced "leftenant" in
the UK.

There are many words in which the vowel sounds are quite different, as
in "clerk," which Americans pronounce as "clurk" and Brits pronounce
as "clark."

A fascinating question!

Several books which may be of help here:
Loreto Todd and Ian Hancock: "International English Usage", New York
University Press, 1987
Robert Hendrickson: "American talk: the words and ways of American
dialects", Viking 1986.
Norman W. Schur: "British English, A to Zed", Facts on File, 1987.

The last includes "Briticisms for Americans and Amercanisms for the
British".

These, or similar, may be available in your local library!

I look forward to seeing the list grow. r2l

Hmmm.  Thanks, Pink.  Your "clerk" example makes me think my
vowel/consonant hypothesis is wrong.  I now think also of
"vayce"/"vahzz" and other familiar examples.  For me the test would
probably be by analogy.  If "clerk" and "jerk" and "perk" rhyme on
this side of the Atlantic and not on the other, that would be a
difference of the kind I'm talking about.  (This, of course, has
nothing to do with spelling/pronunciation mismatches like "go"/"do",
which hold true on both sides.)  So other examples like "leftenant"
and "clark" to make up my dozen would answer this part of the
question.

The one I'm most curious about,  question 1, doesn't seem to be
getting any takers.  Do we not have any dictionary editors among our
researchers?

And how--does anyone know--can I share payment among several
researchers if they kindly pool their talents like this?

Aptertx

Here are American and British Pronunciation Differences

word            US             UK 
aluminium       aluminum       aluminium  
apricot         a-pricot       ay-pricot  
beta            bayda          beeta  
charade         char-ay-d      char-ah-d  
cordial         corjul         cordee-al  
fillet          filay          filit  
herb            ’erb           herb  
leisure         leezhure       lezhure  
lever           l-e-ver        leever  
privacy         pry-vacy       pri-vacy  
route           rout           root  
schedule        skedule        shedule  
semi            sem-eye        sem-ee  
strychnine      strich-9       strich-neen  
theta           thayta         theeta  
tomato          tom-ay-do      tom-ah-to  
vase            vayz           vahz 
 
http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:y89rGQbQ5fAJ:www.peak.org/~jeremy/dictionary/chapters/pronunciation.html+british+pronounce+words+differently+than+americans&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Rats, I hate it when I misspell my own name, even when it's a
pseudonym.  (My real name is a little bit offbeat, too, and sometimes
I blow my own signature, especially the part I got from my husband. 
It's really embarrassing when I'm signing a check.)

Anyway, I should have thanked bobbie7 for h/h very helpful starter
links, and now also read2live for adding to the list.  Any minute now
I'll know how to shed the telltale East/West Coast differences in my
speech (New England native transplanted to California) *and* be ready
to pose as a Canadian at will.

ApterYYYYYX

Apteryx,

Here's a long list of American and British Spelling Differences 
http://www.peak.org/~jeremy/dictionary/tables/spellcat.php#greek

--Bobbie7

Apteryx, 

There's a book that may interest you:
           
How We Talk : American Regional English Today 
by Allan Metcalf (Author), Allan A. Metcalf
You can check out 22 samples pages at Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0618043624/ref=lib_rd_ss/002-6589400-7156022?v=glance&s=books&vi=slide-show#reader-link

--Bobbie7

Well, Bobbie7, I think this one goes to you, even though your last
find is a lead but not an answer.  The list of US-UK differences is
indeed of interest because it also reflects several East/West Coast
differences:  the aforementioned "apricot" and also "route," which
here in California rhymes with "out" but back East rhymes with "loot"
(I have trouble with this one because I have to say it all the time
where I work), and maybe others.  This bears out my guess that the
(North)east still has detectably strong linguistic ties to the home of
the English language, with numerous variants accruing as the language
moves west.

I am also curious about the actual anglicizing of non-English words,
which I think reflects the same bias.  It's my impression that the
Brits anglicize everything freely and with conviction and are very
clear about how it's done, but in the U.S. we tend to go halfway and
make a lot of concessions to the language of origin, which is nice but
often confusing when we can't detect the language of origin and hence
don't know which rules to apply (as if we knew the rules of all the
languages anyway).  I am thinking in particular of Latin expressions
such as "via" ("vye-a" vs. "vee-a") and "a priori," which here on the
West Coast seem likely to receive a more Spanish- than
British-influenced treatment.  I don't know if there's a clear
east/west pattern here or not.

At any rate, Bobbie7, why don't you put in a claim for the answer to
this one and I'll accept it?  Thanks for all your work.

Apteryx

Hello apteryx,

Didn't get a chance to work on this question as much as I'd like, but
here are several links to dictionaries and articles on the evolution
of language that might be of interest.

Varieties of English
http://www.llp.armstrong.edu/5800/varieties.html

American Dialect Society
http://www.americandialect.org

History of the English Language
http://ebbs.english.vt.edu/hel/hel.html

The Magical Letter Page:
http://www.conknet.com/~mmagnus

Phonetics/Linguistics:
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/toc/set_web.htm

Language Change:
http://www.shunsley.eril.net/armoore/lang/change.htm

Dictionary of Newfoundland English:
http://www.heritage.nf.ca/dictionary

Semiotics:
http://www.chanceandchoice.com/ChanceandChoice/chapter1.html


**********

Your question reminded me of Eddie Izzard's hilarious spoof on
language in "Dress to Kill."  Here's a link to the transcript:

http://www.auntiemomo.com/cakeordeath/d2ktranscription.html  

Warning:  Eddie's quite fond of the f-word.

Bilingual Encore:

"You say “aluminum” and we say “aluminium.” You say, “cenTRIfugal” and
we say “centriFUgal.” You say, “leisure” and we say “lizuray.” You say
“baysil” and we say “bahsil.” You say “’erbs” and we say “herbs,”
because there’s a f***ing “H” in it… But you spell "through" THRU, and
I’m with you on that, ‘cause we spell it “THRUFF,” and that’s trying
to cheat at Scrabble."

Cake or death, 
V

Thank you Apteryx for the nice rating and tip!

--Bobbie7-ga

Sort of related to your question 4. I've heard about several studies
about linguistic differences within regions of Canada. The most recent
I recall was on CBC by a professor from McGill, so I did a search and
came up with this article:
http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2003/01/11/english_montreal030111

Off the top of my head, having lived in both the Maritimes and
Montreal, I have a few:
- dep (as mentioned in the article), short for the french word
"depanneur", meaning convenience store (I guess Americans would call
7-eleven, other Canadians may call Mac's, which is a prominent chain
at least Ontario and westwards)
- In the maritimes (at least when I was in junior high school) we call
it a bookbag, not a knapsack (although backpack is okay)
- "Jigging" means skipping school in the maritimes
- Apparently it is only in the maritimes that we pronounce aunt to
rhyme with taunt, and not like ant.
- Whoopie Pies in the maritimes are these baked goods that consist of
two chocolate cake-like cookies, filled with cream in the middle
- I'm not sure what region this is specific to, but I know many people
pronounce Toronto as ta-ranna (rhymes with piranha).

For pronouncing differences, how about the words 'harassment', and
'Caribbean'? Not sure which is from where, but I've heard both with
the accent on either the first or second syllable. (I always notice on
the news they say HARE-esment, so I assume it's a brit derivative).

Great question! (I didn't realize I noticed so many differences from
the Maritimes!)

Synerjen