I am American- how horrid, I know. I am American, and I lived in Geordie country. While there I befriended many British students who were trained in the art of Received Pronunciation as well as Asians who were fluent in English. I was exposed to a wider variety of accents and dialects than I have ever experienced in my life, and it was all while I studied linguistics. Very exciting stuff if you are a super nerd.

There were many debates, witnessed by little 'ol me, about who 'had it right'. Which was was the correct way of speaking, and which group of people were getting it 'wrong'. I usually let people play out the tired argument and just absorb the fight until I heard one British boy berate a Taiwanese girl. She had used a phrase that she had learned in Taiwan English classes, and he deemed it inappropriate. I, of course, perk up my nerdy ears ready to unofficially research common attitudes toward linguistics, but his defense put me a bit on edge. I must confess, and apologize for those of you who don't know what this means, I am from New Jersey. I have a hard time keeping my mouth shut.

He told this girl that she must pronounce her 't's in words such as 'cutter' because the American pronunciation 'cudder' is lazy and ruins 'my language'. At this, I ask what makes English 'his' language. He, upon hearing my accent, scoffed and announced that the British nation has been speaking English longer, and it was named after England for a reason. I could not argue with those facts, but the logic was truly up for debate. My deconstruction of his opinion that my English was 'wrong' was, maybe a little more colorful, but generally as follows: If Americans are speaking a corrupted form of English, then you are truly molesting German, and I would thank you to apologize to the Deutsch language for changing it so drastically.

At that he politely excused himself. This was mostly due to my crude American (New Jersian more specially) behavior, which is rather aggressive at times. I really did wish to continue to converstation. Since that Brit up and left me, and you cannot determine my tone of voice, would anyone like to defend his argument that British English is the "good English" and explain it to me further?