What effect did the Harry Porter movies and books have on American English? Some linguists believe that it resulted in British English words being introduced into American English. Even though much effort was put to change various words and phrases in the movies to make them more suitable for the American market, a few British words such as ‘ginger’ and ‘snog’ slipped through. The Associate Editor for Merriam-Webster, Kory Stamper, believes that more and more British words are being introduced into American English. This trend is taking place slowly but surely. The media is most responsible for this change. This is through advertisements, British shows and the increasing popularity of British news sources, that can be easily access through the Internet.
American English is a total combination of various dialects used in America. Approximately two thirds of the native English speakers live in the United States. Though the government has not declared English as the official language, it is considered a de facto language in the US due to its widespread use. English is written using Latin script and has 26 letters of the alphabet. The inconsistency in the relationship between various sounds and letters has made English one of the most difficult languages to master. For instance, the letter sequence ough can be pronounced in 10 different ways. It takes students longer to become fluent speakers of English than other language such as Spanish, Greek and French. Diatrics is sometimes used in writing foreign loaned words such as café.
American English differs from British English in various aspects. This includes in terms of spelling, an example being the dropping of the letter ‘u’ in various words such as colour/color and neighbour/ neighbor. The vocabularies used also differ. For instance, the term ‘reckon’ used by the British to mean ‘think about’ has been dropped out of American English. Pronunciation of words, grammar and the use of slang has caused noticeable differences, that may on occasions result in misunderstanding of intended meaning between an American English speaker and a British English speaker.
