American words and spellings not corrected in UK schools

[Fifiplays]

I find that schools no longer correct pupils when they use American English words and spellings in schools. For example, 'Airplane' (Aeroplane), 'Regular' (ordinary), 'Cotton candy' (candy floss), 'Program (when not a computer) etc etc. Does anyone have a good experience of schools being viglilent to this?

I think British school pupils should be taught to write in Standard British English. In my day, we weren’t supposed to write in the local West Country dialect, let alone in a dialect from another continent.

If pupils and teachers do write in American English, I think they should at least be consistent. A mish-mash of different spellings, vocabulary and date formats is confusing and annoying. I know it’s impossible to be 100% consistent, but if someone used terms such as, “momentarily”, “first floor” or overalls”, I’d want to know which dialect they were writing in.

My favourite dialect of English is probably Indian English and it has a lot of speakers. I’d love it if we adopted some of their vocabulary without direct British equivalents, e.g. lakh, crore, prepone, tiffin and sundowner.

British Sign Language is great for changing with tech. The sign for 'telephone/phone' used to look like you were picking up a stick and putting something to your ear. Then it changed to folding in all your fingers except your thumb and little finger and putting that to your ear and now it looks like you are holding something in your hand and texting with your thumb.

Sometimes words stay the same and their meaning changes, sometimes the meaning stays but the word(s) change.

My grandparents listened to Churchill on the 'wireless' now if someone mentioned 'wireless' well a few years ago it would be what we now call wi fi and now could be lots of things.

MIL - retired teacher in Wales - says high school. Is that what they call it there?

You're right, they wouldn't. But actually many people believe that Quebecois French is actually much closer to 16th and 17th century French than what is spoken in France, because while the Quebecois were isolated and held tightly to their culture, the language in France... evolved.

I'm an English teacher, writing examiner and teacher trainer.
Back when I started language teaching methodology tended to be prescriptive and so Americanisms were corrected.

Nowadays, as many posters have said, we've moved on and pedagogic theory behind language has concluded that descriptive (not prescriptive) is far more effective.

So, we correct mistakes. Not perfectly correct variations and variants. If teachers are highlighting these as mistakes, they need retraining.

Students know (or should know) that a word is an Americanism, but perfectly correct.

I'm 58.

Yes, they do. As you say, if the word is used consistently, it's fine. That's what our kids are told at school as well.

So, we correct mistakes. Not perfectly correct variations and variants. If teachers are highlighting these as mistakes, they need retraining.

Students know (or should know) that a word is an Americanism, but perfectly correct.

Thank you, @NowZeusHasLainWithLeda - that's good to know, and the right way of doing things imo.

Interesting. It's like that with my ethnic language. Many people immigrated to where we live now about 100 years ago and that community has basically 'preserved' that version of the language, whereas back in their native country the language has evolved drastically. So much so when we go back for a holiday they say way we speak is very old fashioned!

But many UK employers expect their staff to be able to write in Standard British English. They won’t know or care that the curriculum has changed in recent years.

They’ll just put the job applications with non-standard grammar and spelling in the bin. My previous boss would certainly have done this.

People type job applications and therefore run them through autocorrect

This would correct our local dialect to a standard form, but it often doesn’t pick up on Americanisms.

You must have a high calibre of applicants. The past few years we've been known to interview people with actual spelling errors on their CVs because we're so desperate for good people

Depends if you set it to uk or us english

I would not bin an application for “color” and “recognize” though.

At my previous company, we received 150 applications for one low-paid role. So anyone who didn’t include a cover letter with their CV didn’t make it through the initial sift. The same happened to anyone who (in the manager’s opinion) had poor spelling and grammar.

Interviewees were also set a task which involved making phone calls and using our database software. Applicants who needed to cut and paste words and phrases into a spell-check program would have been at a serious disadvantage.

It depends whether you consider English and American English different languages or the same one.

My son is dyslexic and they don't correct anything he spells wrong, English, American or other. It's so frustrating. Apparently it's to 'not break his spirit' when even my little boy has asked the teacher to correct him because otherwise he doesn't know the right way. It's beyond ridiculous.

It depends whether you consider English and American English different languages or the same one.

They are variants of the same language. I don't think that's a matter of opinion really. Wikipedia says: "American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States."

I'm a southerner living in Cumbria. Words are pronounced differently here, and there are some local words for things. That doesn't mean it's a different language.

They’ll just put the job applications with non-standard grammar and spelling in the bin.

Well they are narrow-minded pedants then. There are all kinds of reasons people might use American spellings. Maybe they went to an international school where U.S. English was used. Maybe they have an American parent. It's bizarre that people are so judgmental about use of a genuine, correct variant. How ridiculous to reject a potentially great employee on that basis, assuming their usage is a mistake and that they would somehow be incapable of using British English once they'd got the job, if that was what was required.

Hullo! This will be a conscious editorial decision based on markets. Assuming the books are traditionally published, then this will have been considered carefully. One of my books has three different versions, for three different English speaking areas. I think I had to change around 300 words for the American market (this is in addition to the spellings). Just words or phrases that had a different meaning or impact- mainly swear words (which makes me sound awful!). But two of my books have stayed the same.

Slight sideways shift but the only thing I get worked up about is when even the BBC say skedule instead of schedule, don't know why but it really sets my teeth on edge. Family now shout out the UK way of saying it for me whenever it's heard in our company 😀

Thank you!

Arf at people wondering if teachers correct this or not.

As a GCSE examiner, I find that a substantial proportion of students' papers haven't even spelled 'Shakespeare' correctly- which shows the level we're dealing with. There are about 8 marks for SPaG on the GCSE Literature paper (out of 160). Americanised spellings are not going to be a factor in whether a student gets those marks or not.

I think there are 24 marks on the language papers (again, out of 160ish). I marked 1500 papers last summer and I might, perhaps, have taken 1 mark off for Americanised spellings- possibly.

This is a non-issue for the vast majority of students. There are far bigger problems to concentrate on in teaching writing.

The one I’m not a fan of is “sulfur”

I learnt it as “sulphur”

My dc are taught that Sulfur is correct!

I agree. The world is a big place and many people are well travelled even from a young age. The world has moved on from the British Empire and the Queen's English