• Zagorath
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    3911 months ago

    In most cases, the American spelling of English words compared to the rest-of-the-world spelling is pretty much a wash. A matter of personal preference.

    But “metre” is a hill I will die on. “Metre” and “meter” mean different things, and by spelling them both “meter”, as the Americans do, you’re just making communication worse.

    • Jannis
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      1011 months ago

      Also gas which can either be petrol or natural gas.

      • skulblaka
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        11 months ago

        In America “gas” is short for gasoline, which is petrol.

        It’s still shit because our lazy asses do still call both types “gas”, but there is a distinction.

        • @Lucidlethargy
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          311 months ago

          No… Gas is sort for “gasoline”, which is a refined byproduct of patroleum.

          Gasoline is “refined petroleum used as fuel for internal combustion engines.”

          Petrol is short for “patroleum”, which is a product you should never put in your car.

      • @pastermil
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        411 months ago

        Can also be a state of matter.

      • @Lucidlethargy
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        411 months ago

        I find this one funny, and it’s a great response to the above. Petroleum is an unrefined product. It makes no sense for the Brits to call gasoline by that name.

    • @EmoDuck
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      1011 months ago

      Here’s my hill to die on: If two words are pronounced the same way, thay should be spelled the same was. That whole -re/-er and -le/-el this is needlessly confusing

      • Zagorath
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        411 months ago

        The thing is, while “meter” and “metre” are pronounced the same, when you use them in compound words they’re not. Thermometer or odometer are pronounced with stress on the second syllable (the syllable immediately prior to “meter”), but kilometre and centimetre are pronounced with the stress on the third syllable (“MEtre”).

        • Stovetop
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          11 months ago

          Kilometer has the same stressed syllable as odometer in American English.

          Easier just to distinguish pronunciation as -ometer vs -meter.

          • Zagorath
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            111 months ago

            Easier just to distinguish pronunciation as -ometer vs -meter.

            But kilometre and thermometer both have ometer

            • @[email protected]
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              311 months ago

              Right, and in most American dialects they are pronounced the same. Whereas Centimeter is pronounced differently and does not have an “ometer”

              • @[email protected]
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                211 months ago

                We’ll continue having fun with american pronunciation on another day. Today, we’re taking care of the imperial(istic?) system

    • @Lucidlethargy
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      411 months ago

      If there’s anything learning another language has taught me, it’s that most languages (including subsets) are full of seemingly inane rules.

      At least Americans have a great excuse: Freedom to do whatever we want.

        • @Lucidlethargy
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          211 months ago

          Ah, thank you! Good bot. For the record, I use ReVanced, so I never see ads on YouTube. I highly recommend this to everyone on Android (sorry, iOS, no easy solution for you due to Apple’s walled garden), but it is a really good idea to put a piped link in there as well.

          • Zagorath
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            111 months ago

            Yeah ReVanced is so critical for me, because unlike most of the other alternatives it lets me hook into my YouTube account and do things like add videos to my Watch Later playlist and interact with the comments.