[effgee]

I'm in the process of helping a friend to translate some of the articles she wrote from German into English (British English, that is - she's a writer looking for a job in London and wants to spruce up her portfolio). Since I'm not the most modest person on the planet, I'd normally consider my knowledge of the English language to be somewhat adequate - the problem is that I don't have the first clue about some of the finer distinctions between British and American English.

Actually, I don't even know whether or not the difference in the terms below originates from the above mentioned BE/AE "clash" .

As a Brit writing an article (in this particular case for some kind of medical journal) for a British/English-speaking European audience, do you write: "co-operation" or "cooperation"? Do you use "re-invest" or "reinvest"?

Or is it maybe that they can be used interchangeably?




Thanks in advance for any tips/hints/pointers you can provide.

[buffalolee]

The differences, as you figure, are in the nuances of the vocabulary and spelling.

British | English:
Loo | (bathroom, restroom)
favour | favor
honour | honor
(fag, ciggy) | (smoke, cigarrette)
re-invest | reinvest
co-operate | cooperate

Other than that, it is really hard to tell

[OreoCookie]

If she is submitting stuff to internationally well-known journals, they should accept both, AE and BE. Please advise her to write articles directly in English. Articles in other languages won't be read anyway (except if you ask the French ).

[effgee]

Well, not being an expert on the subject matter and judging from reading her articles (**yaaawn**) it looks like those particular pieces were written for some kind of "industry publication" rather than what you'd normally consider a "medical journal".

Bad choice of words on my part, I guess.


buffalolee - thanks for the tip. I already changed "reinvest" back to "re-invest"


(Had I known in advance how much of pain in the butt this is going to be I'd probably have told her to run her articles through babelfish and be done with it. Hrmph - who am I kidding? I would have helped her all the same)

[Randman]

Oxford English has it as cooperate.

It's not too difficult once you get doing it (in my job, I use British English as well as American English, hence some of posts come out "sounding" more British).

It's the tricky ones such as "synthesizer" that can trip one up.

[effgee]

Originally Posted by Randman

Oxford English has it as cooperate. ...

Gee thanks - now I'm totally confused.



Seriously though - in case of doubt, I'd probably stick with what the dictionary tells me ("cooperate" in this case) - so thanks much for posting this.

Do you by chance know of a (reliable) "British English" online dictionary? I'm certainly not about to purchase one of those "hams" in book form just so I can do a friend a favor (they're prohibitively expensive here).

The only ones I could find were the usual suspects like "dictionary.com", "mw.com" et al - and they didn't seem too helpful when it comes to making a distinction between AE + BE.

[badidea]

Originally Posted by effgee

Do you by chance know of a (reliable) "British English" online dictionary?

...but you DO know LEO, don't you? It's not really a "British English" dictionary but if there are differences, it usually says so!

You can use it in a very comfortable way by typing the word you are looking for into Google, followed by de-en (for german -> english)...

example: http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&q=...on+de-en&meta=

[buffalolee]

I just used the dictionary that I have here (American).

I do not know if re-invest is British or not.
I do know that reinvest is American because my dictionary says that it is the proper spelling.

[effgee]

Originally Posted by badidea

...but you DO know LEO, don't you? It's not really a "British English" dictionary but if there are differences, it usually says so! You can use it in a very comfortable way by typing the word you are looking for into Google, followed by de-en (for german -> english)... example: http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&q=...on+de-en&meta=

Yup - I know (and love) LEO, especially its desktop incarnation "DILO". Unfortunately, LEO's not always 100% reliable - wouldn't be the first time that I come across some word there and go: "WTF? That's not right!". And while it is perfect for "day-to-day" translations, I wanted to make sure that the stuff I gove to my friend is 150% correct.

[Oisín]

Don't you have Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary? That lists the British forms as headwords and has the American forms in parentheses (and has the American forms with references to the corresponding British forms). Dictionary.com also does this, but the other way around: Since dictionary.com is a dictionary of American English first and foremost, it will put a "Chiefly British" after a British variant form.

As for words such as cooperate and reinvest, it is my understanding that whether you write them with or without a hyphen is not related so much to a BE/AE difference as it is to style. In nearly all cases (with just a few annoying exceptions to break your stride), both forms are equally acceptable in both BE and AE, though I believe there is a slight preference to using more hyphens in BE. As long as you are consistent in your use or non-use of hyphens, both are equally correct (in most words).

Here are a few good tips - all quite basic, but useful nonetheless, since it describes, for instance, verbs where the past tense is formed differently in BE and AE, etc.

Also, I've been told that there are actually a set of rules for when -ize is used and when -ise is used in BE (AE of course using -ize in all cases), but I have never been able to find these rules - does anyone know/have them?

Edit: After a little power-Googling, I found this very interesting little article which explains it. Since what you're doing here, effgee, seems to be for academic publishing, it seems you should use -ize, except in the cases listed in the article.

Edit again: And also this one, which seems to once and for all explain these elusive 'rules' to me: -ize to be used for words that are Greek in origin, -ise for the ones that are Latin in origin, as well as the abovementioned exceptions.

[effgee]

Originally Posted by Ois�n

... As for words such as cooperate and reinvest, it is my understanding that whether you write them with or without a hyphen is not related so much to a BE/AE difference as it is to style. In nearly all cases (with just a few annoying exceptions to break your stride), both forms are equally acceptable in both BE and AE, ...

As mentioned in my initial post, I somehow suspected as much - didn't know for sure, though. Glad to see that I can kick out those weird hym .. , err hyphens.

Thanks!





P.S. No, I don't have a copy of the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary handy - why would I? Normally when I have a language question, the first stop is my wife (who's American and thus not that helpful with the problem described above) and the second stop is LEO. Until my buddy popped up with her weirdo articles, I never had the need to look any further than that.

[Randman]

You can get something such as the Oxford English minidictionary for a fair price. Better than messing around with some dodgy online sites, especially with British/American English differences.

Your friend should be willing to pay you back.

You can also try loading British English as your system language and see if it'll catch the differences.

BTW, The Concise Oxford does have reinvest as a word, no hyphens.

The ones I hate are the extra o's, like foetus.

BTW, synthesizer is spelled the same way in both, except it's a zee in American and a zed in British.

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by Randman

The ones I hate are the extra o's, like foetus.

Heh, I'm the exact opposite - fetus, encyclopedia, dieresis; all these 'simplified' American spelling forms just look horrible to me. Foetus, encyclopaedia (or encyclop�dia), diaeresis (or di�resis) look so much more natural and logic (even though they're not, really).

[effgee]

Thanks Randman! I'm not going to run out this evening and get a dictionary but I admit that you and Oisin are quite right - can't hurt to have a real dictionary in the house. Especially since I don't want to die stupid, I'll probably break down and get the "comprehensive-20kg-version" from amazon - 75 Euros ... ugh.



And "foetus"? That's odd - exactly like the German Umlaut spelling where "� = oe", - wacky.

[Oisín]

Foetus is somewhat odd, since it's etymologically incorrect (the word comes from 'fetus' in Latin, not 'foetus', which would again have come from φοίτος in Greek, but doesn't). Still, foetus just looks more right than fetus to me, historically incorrect or not.

(Is it called F�tus in German? Odd...)

[effgee]

Originally Posted by Ois�n

... Is it called F�tus in German? Odd...

Of course it's odd - it's German!




Damn Krauts ... **shrug**

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by effgee

Of course it's odd - it's German!

Good point

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by effgee

Damn Krauts ... **shrug**

Pfff, but we do the Pope these days

-t

[effgee]

Originally Posted by turtle777

Pfff, but we do the Pope these days

-t

All at once?? Now that's just gross. Whatever happened to celibacy and all that stuff??


**shudder**

[turtle777]

-t

[theolein]

I grew up with South African English, which is mainly British English (The spoken language borrows a lot from Afrikaans though). We always spellt words like reinvest, cooperation etc, without hyphens. I seriously doubt it makes all that much difference these days, though, as 90% of the English speaking world will really accept both spellings. I think as long as one is fairly consistent, it will be ok. In other words, if you spell flavour, colour etc, with a u, and synthesise with an s, then stick to the BE spellings. Otherwise stick to the AE spellings. But even this is not critical as both Australian and Canadian English mix the two major versions to a certain extent.

[SVass]

To save money if you are in the United States, check with your local library for on line references. Mine has subscriptions to many major references including the Oxford English Dictionary and these are available free online if you have a library card. By the way, eskimo is correctly spelt ESQUIMEAUX in some places. sam

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by Ois�n

Heh, I'm the exact opposite - fetus, encyclopedia, dieresis; all these 'simplified' American spelling forms just look horrible to me. Foetus, encyclopaedia (or encyclop�dia), diaeresis (or di�resis) look so much more natural and logic (even though they're not, really).

Most of those terms, like encyclopaedia, diaeresis, oesophagus, etc are spelled that way in British English because they are closer to the original greek spelling of the words (a bit more logical).

Foetus, for fetus, may have come to the English language via Latin and not Greek, but it still matches what you posted, and may have in fact come to English from Greek via Latin.

[BoomStick]

Just put a random U in every word and you'll do fine.

[Randman]

Originally Posted by theolein

if you spell flavour, colour etc, with a u, and synthesise with an s, then stick to the BE spellings.

As mentioned above, synthesize is spelled with the same way in American and British English.

[effgee]

Originally Posted by BoomStick

Just put a random U in every word and you'll do fine.

wilul dou.

[AB^2=BCxAC]

I hate to be an MS pony, but the easiest way I've done this is I've changed the spelling and grammar pereferences in Word to be UK English from US English. Voila. Favor is wrong and Favour is right.

[BoomStick]

And pronounce aluminium / al-lumineeum

[willed]

Originally Posted by Ois�n

Foetus is somewhat odd, since it's etymologically incorrect (the word comes from 'fetus' in Latin, not 'foetus', which would again have come from ?????? in Greek, but doesn't). Still, foetus just looks more right than fetus to me, historically incorrect or not.

(Is it called F�tus in German? Odd...)

Out of interest, how do you display Greek characters? I have the font 'Athenian' on my machine but it's not an option in the VB3 fonts list.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by BoomStick

Just put a random U in every word and you'll do fine.

Justu putu au raundoum U uin evuery wourd aund youu'll dou fineu.

-t

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by Person Man

Foetus, for fetus, may have come to the English language via Latin and not Greek, but it still matches what you posted, and may have in fact come to English from Greek via Latin.

No, that's the whole point, it didn't.

[high school teacher mode]

The other words with oe and ae (�) diphthongs come from original Greek diphthongs oi and ai (οι and αι), which were in Latin written as oe and ae. These were still in Classical Latin pronounced more or less the same way as their Greek counterparts, ie. as 'oy' and 'I' respectively, but in later Latin, they first became [�] and [ε], and then both of them finally merged in Vulgar Latin to both be pronounced [e].

Foetus, on the other hand, never contained this diphthong: The original word is Latin (there is no Greek counterpart), and it is just 'fetus', not 'foetus'. It comes from the same stem as the verb 'fero' (which means to bear or to carry; foetus is therefore related to the ending -fer in Modern English in words such as Lucifer [carrier of light] and conifer [carrier of cones]); so it means something like 'that which is carried [in the womb]'.

The e in foetus was something that was inserted later on by people who thought they were being terribly clever and knew where the word came from, but it is historically wrong.

[/high school teacher mode]

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by willed

Out of interest, how do you display Greek characters? I have the font 'Athenian' on my machine but it's not an option in the VB3 fonts list.

The same way I display Chinese characters 如果我写一些汉字: By changing my keyboard layout to Γρεεκ and just typing away (the letters are nearly in the same [or rather, equivalent] places on Greek and English keyboards).

Edit: Advice: If you're going to write Chinese or Greek (or any other non-ASCII characters) here, don't use Safari, use Camino instead. Makes it much easier.