British English

[Dr Mike]

The kids going up IN the tree house and up INTO the tree house mean two quite different things

In the first the tree house is rising as in, up in an elevator, in the second they are climbing into a stationary tree house.

Its not about pedantic grammar it about meaning

[JimmyGreaves]

Is this the tree house that was blown down, put on a crane and then raised again with kids inside?

Look, the kids are going up in the tree house

[Dr Mike]

Although I am British/Canadian my daughter is American, born and educated in the US.
She works in PR/Marketing and went to London for four years. Although she writes really well she was VERY nervous that there, in the home of the English language, working in an agency where language was the heart of the business she would be the idiot American.
Fortunately, she had gone to Catholic School in the US and the sisters had hammered grammar, spelling and punctuation into her.
She was amazed, within a few days all the British staff we bringing their work to her for correction as their British schools had neglected language instruction. Within a month,she was promoted, given a private office and given the title of Editor and nothing went out of the office without her approval.
Chinese Hong Kongers and Singaporeans who attended old fashioned 'British type" schools, have told me similar stories.

[sandman67]

Fish is an odd one.... in modern accepted use fish is a plural and singular....so it would be "fish of the mekong" not fishes.

Fishes is an archaic term....loaves and fishes. It also sounds clunky....

Biff and Chip went up in the tree house. I think that the proper word is into.

Correct (unless the tree house itself is going up) ...if it sounds wrong it usually is

The children went down the garden. I think there should be the word to or into after 'down'.

Correct again - to, into or through are needed to make the sentence make any sense...unless you are from London. "went down" implies movement in a space, as opposed connecting the movement to a thing like "the stairs" or "the ladder", so to make any sense the sentence should also contain some form of additional descriptive "direction". In its OP form it may be acceptable but sounds bloody awful and again sounds slangy or clunky.

The bugger with English is it's a very fluid language that constantly changes. I'm not that finicky about grammar and such, but examples like the two in the OP make me cringe. In spoken form they sound slangy, in written form in a school book it's just plain wrong.

PS: It's not British English...it's just plain old English. All other variants, such as American English - (archaic spelling and words meaning completely different things/being misused eg "Esq.") - require an epithet before "English"....the mother tongue does not.

[richard]

A word that makes me cringe is 'gotten'

[Dr Mike]

Gotten, I agree, it sounds ugly and sounds SOOOO american---its actually old English--as is Fall for autumn.
One of the most readable books on the language is Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson, who documents all this.

[Arcadian]

In the UK we live IN a road or street, but in the USA you ON a road or street.
We talk to, Americans talk with.

[PeteC]

All of this is an interesting dilemma concerning international schools, but unfortunately real life for my daughter and other students. Besides what can be considered an incorrect text book, which is probably one of many, we have English speaking teachers from: England, Ireland, Scotland, USA, Canada, Philippines, South Africa and Australia. She is getting bombarded by different accents and, most likely different spoken usage and grammar. I guess no real harm though as it exposes her to everything and in the long run probably an advantage. Thanks to everyone for your input. Pete

[barrys]

All of this is an interesting dilemma concerning international schools, but unfortunately real life for my daughter and other students .... we have English speaking teachers from: England, Ireland, Scotland, USA, Canada, Philippines, South Africa and Australia. She is getting bombarded by different accents and, most likely different spoken usage and grammar .. Pete

As long as they really are qualified teachers, I think she's very lucky Pete.
Being exposed to languages at an early age is one of the best things for a child's development and education in my view.

[dtaai-maai]

My understanding (as a non-native English speaker)...

And it has to be said that the understanding of non-native English speakers is often far superior to that of the 'natives' - particularly with regard to grammar.

Only just spotted this interesting thread, Pete.

'Use of English' is a thorny issue whichever English-speaking country you come from, and the Brits are often among the very worst offenders - a quick look around HHAD will confirm that! It becomes glaringly obvious (to me, anyway) when watching footballers being interviewed.

After years of PR coaching, Beckham manages to string quite a few coherent sentences togevvah (oops), but listen, for example, to the current (well, today's) England captain John Terry followed by William Gallas or Drogba or... well, many of the overseas players in English football. There's no question whose English is technically better. Not just technically, the depth and breadth of vocabulary and the use of imagery is often much more imaginative as well (seagulls following trawlers aside...). I'd love to know how good Beckham's Spanish was when he was at Real Madrid.

Good English (really good, fluent English) should be a huge advantage in Thailand, and having an English-speaking parent should be a huge advantage. Lots of shoulds, I know, but having a Brit or US father doesn't automatically make a child bilingual. I'm sure you know this already, Pete, but for anyone with luk kreung, there's loads of info on the Net about raising a child bilingually. You can't leave it to the schools, especially here.
My neighbour's kids (5 and 7) are half French and spent a year in France. They speak perfect Thai, almost fluent French and passable English.

Being exposed to languages at an early age is one of the best things for a child's development and education in my view.

Couldn't agree more.

Unfortunately, exposure to the wrong type of language-learning at an early age isn't so easily undone, and that's the problem in Thailand.

The bugger with English is it's a very fluid language that constantly changes.

Oh very yes!

PS: It's not British English...it's just plain old English. All other variants, such as American English - (archaic spelling and words meaning completely different things/being misused eg "Esq.") - require an epithet before "English"....the mother tongue does not.

And God Save The Queen! Victoria, of course...

[margaretcarnes]

I fully agree - or 'agree fully' perhaps? that 'going up in the tree house' is wrong when used in the context of climbing up into it.
'Going down the garden' would be acceptable if they were already in it., although it would sound better if qualified e.g. 'going down to the end of the garden' - in which case of course the word 'down' would be unecessary.
If they were indoors then 'going out into the garden' would be correct.
This use of the phrase 'going down' is used too often in English as a slang abbreviation, as in 'going down the pub' or 'going down the inlaws' etc, but the most interesting useage is 'going down to London', which is used by people who are travelling North to London as well as South, East or West! Apparently the term comes from the 'up' and 'down' tracks of the railway lines - or so I've heard.

[johnnyk]

All of this is an interesting dilemma concerning international schools, but unfortunately real life for my daughter and other students. Besides what can be considered an incorrect text book, which is probably one of many, we have English speaking teachers from: England, Ireland, Scotland, USA, Canada, Philippines, South Africa and Australia. She is getting bombarded by different accents and, most likely different spoken usage and grammar. I guess no real harm though as it exposes her to everything and in the long run probably an advantage. Thanks to everyone for your input. Pete

I taught English for 10 years and have foreign homestay students in my house. I tell them its a good thing to hear English spoken by people from different places because it can help their listening skills. If all they heard was old-style BBC English they would be in a bad way when travelling in places like India or Oz or parts of the USA.
I also tell them English is crazy and illogical unlike the Latin languages, its a soup made from many other languages.
Example: hydroelectricity and aquaculture, each referring to water
"Hydro" = Greek for water
"Aqua" = Latin for water

Its a dynamic language, adding new words every day and dropping others, exasperating and glorious at the same time.

[margaretcarnes]

In the UK we live IN a road or street, but in the USA you ON a road or street.
We talk to, Americans talk with.

Two good - (and rare!) examples of American English being more sensible IMO.
Surely we live 'in' a house 'on' a street? And talking 'with' someone does sound more polite than talking 'to' them.
Or is it that we 'talk to' and 'discuss with'?

[johnnyk]

One Americanism I don't enjoy is, "Do you want out?" when the speaker means "to go out".

[margaretcarnes]

One Americanism I don't enjoy is, "Do you want out?" when the speaker means "to go out".

Which brings to mind that classic line in the movie 'Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels' --'Take the dog out'...Bang