• tal@lemmy.today
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    6 days ago

    The American-British dual-national

    It’s really annoying how the Brits use the reverse order for nationality from us, so one always has to check to see whether the article is most-likely written in British English or American English to know what the text means. In the US, the first-listed nationality is the origin one. In the UK, the first-listed nationality is the destination one.

    https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/know-ketamine-queen-accused-matthew-perrys-death-rcna166892

    Sangha, a dual citizen, was born in Britain and raised in the U.S.

    Article on the same incident, but from an American publication:

    https://www.news9live.com/entertainment/hollywood/matthew-perry-death-case-know-everything-about-jasveen-sangha-ketamine-queen-2658616

    Jasveen Sangha is a 41-year-old British American citizen who has been on the authorities’ radar for the illegal distribution of narcotics since 2019.

    E.g.:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Jamaicans

    British Jamaicans (or Jamaican British people) are British people who were born in Jamaica or who are of Jamaican descent.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Americans

    Irish Americans (Irish: Gael-Mheiriceánaigh, pronounced [ɡeːlˠ ˈvʲɛɾʲəcɑːnˠi]) are ethnically Irish people who live in the United States, whether immigrants from Ireland or Americans with full or primarily Irish ancestry.[11]

    Just asking for confusion via ambiguity.

    EDIT: and you can’t always be absolutely certain that a given publication is going to consistently use American English or British English grammar. I remember one Guardian article that used British-style single quotes when quoting text, then used a snippet of text with double quotes from an American source that was probably copy-pasted without converting the quote style from double to single quotes, then just for some reason also used the American style later in the article. And that’s a major publication, which presumably has professional editors. A lot of people writing stuff aren’t going to even be in that position. At least with quoting grammar, it’s not as if there’s likely much potential for confusion, but my point is that it’s not as if there is rigorous conversion always happening.

    • Cypher@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      Well maybe you yanks could follow the established norms of the language instead of being the only nation that consistently fucks up the language and then bitches about it.