107-417: A cupcake ( AmE , CanE ), fairy cake ( BrE ), or bun ( IrE ) is a small cake designed to serve one person, which may be baked in a small thin paper or aluminum cup. As with larger cakes, frosting and other cake decorations such as fruit and candy may be applied. The earliest extant description of what is now often called a cupcake was in 1796, when a recipe for "a light cake to bake in small cups"
214-707: A cot–caught merger , which is rapidly spreading throughout the whole country. However, the South, Inland North, and a Northeastern coastal corridor passing through Rhode Island, New York City, Philadelphia, and Baltimore typically preserve an older cot–caught distinction. For that Northeastern corridor, the realization of the THOUGHT vowel is particularly marked , as depicted in humorous spellings, like in tawk and cawfee ( talk and coffee ), which intend to represent it being tense and diphthongal : [oə] . A split of TRAP into two separate phonemes , using different
321-505: A non-stick surface , and generally have six or twelve depressions or "cups". They may also be made from stoneware , silicone rubber , or other materials. A standard size cup is 3 inches (76 mm) in diameter and holds about 4 ounces (110 g), although pans for both miniature and jumbo size cupcakes exist. Specialty pans may offer many different sizes and shapes. Individual patty cases, or cupcake liners, may be used in baking. These are typically round sheets of thin paper pressed into
428-520: A pronunciations for example in gap [æ] versus gas [eə] , further defines New York City as well as Philadelphia–Baltimore accents. Most Americans preserve all historical /r/ sounds, using what is known as a rhotic accent . The only traditional r -dropping (or non-rhoticity) in regional U.S. accents variably appears today in eastern New England , New York City , and some of the former plantation South primarily among older speakers (and, relatedly, some African-American Vernacular English across
535-631: A complex phenomenon of "both convergence and divergence": some accents are homogenizing and leveling , while others are diversifying and deviating further away from one another. Having been settled longer than the American West Coast, the East Coast has had more time to develop unique accents, and it currently comprises three or four linguistically significant regions, each of which possesses English varieties both different from each other as well as quite internally diverse: New England ,
642-447: A consonant, such as in pearl , car and fort . Non-rhotic American accents, those that do not pronounce ⟨r⟩ except before a vowel, such as some accents of Eastern New England , New York City , and African-Americans , and a specific few (often older ones) spoken by Southerners , are often quickly noticed by General American listeners and perceived as sounding especially ethnic, regional, or antiquated. Rhoticity
749-480: A cover and a boiled leather carrying case. It once had a triangular stand which has been lost. It weighs 1.935 kilos, so was perhaps used ceremonially rather than throughout meals. Practices in many religions around the world, including the Ancient Greek and Roman religions included libations , the pouring of a small amount of liquid onto an altar, image or just onto the ground. Some shapes of cup, such as
856-437: A cover, was an important prestige piece in medieval houses that could afford them, and often used as a "welcome cup", or for toasts. The form survives in modern sporting trophies , and in the chalices of church liturgy. The 15th-century silver Lacock Cup is a rare English secular survival. These were the sort of cup offered by cup-bearers , historically often an important office in courts. The English word "cup" has meant
963-703: A cup is brought in contact with the mouth for drinking, distinguishing it from other tableware and drinkware forms such as jugs . They also most typically have handles , though a beaker has no handle or stem, and small bowl shapes are very common in Asia. Cups of different styles may be used for different types of liquids or other foodstuffs (e.g. teacups and measuring cups), in different situations (e.g. at water stations or in ceremonies and rituals ), or for decoration . The history of cups goes back well into prehistory , initially mostly as handle-less beakers or bowls, and they have been found in most cultures across
1070-499: A cupcake tin. Some bakers use two or three thin paper liners, nested together, to simulate the strength of a single foil cup. Liners, which are also called paper cases , come in a variety of sizes. Slightly different sizes are considered "standard" in different countries. Miniature cases are commonly 27 to 30 millimetres (1.1 to 1.2 in) in diameter at the base and 20 millimetres (0.79 in) tall. Standard-size cases range from 45 to 53 millimetres (1.8 to 2.1 in) in diameter at
1177-402: A drinking vessel since at least 1000 AD . The definition of a cup is fluid, and is likely to be wider in specialist areas such as archaeology than in modern common speech. As an example, Anna Wierzbicka (1984) notes that in the 1970s the "older generation" expected a cup to be made of porcelain and have both a handle and a saucer, so that the plastic cup with neither a handle, nor a saucer,
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#17327905539291284-591: A merger with the THOUGHT ( caught ) set. Having taken place prior to the unrounding of the cot vowel, it results in lengthening and perhaps raising, merging the more recently separated vowel into the THOUGHT vowel in the following environments: before many instances of /f/ , /θ/ , and particularly /s/ (as in Austria, cloth, cost, loss, off, often, etc.), a few instances before /ŋ/ (as in strong, long, wrong ), and variably by region or speaker in gone , on , and certain other words. Unlike American accents,
1391-636: A nice day , for sure); many are now distinctly old-fashioned (swell, groovy). Some English words now in general use, such as hijacking, disc jockey , boost, bulldoze and jazz , originated as American slang. American English has always shown a marked tendency to use words in different parts of speech and nouns are often used as verbs . Examples of nouns that are now also verbs are interview, advocate, vacuum, lobby, pressure, rear-end, transition, feature, profile, hashtag, head, divorce, loan, estimate, X-ray, spearhead, skyrocket, showcase, bad-mouth, vacation , major, and many others. Compounds coined in
1498-402: A periodic table of cupcakes is a collection of decorated cupcakes arranged in order to represent the atomic elements of the periodic table . The cupcakes are usually frosted with the appropriate atomic number and chemical symbol. The first person to bake and ice a set of cupcakes organized and colored to represent the elements of the periodic table was Ida Freund in 1908. The first woman to hold
1605-580: A post as a university chemistry lecturer in the UK, Freund used the cupcakes as a pedagogical tool to engage and amuse her female students at Cambridge University. Cupcake kits are kits which provide a set of parts needed to allow an amateur baker to produce a themed batch of cupcakes, often to tie in with themed parties. Examples of themes include princess , pirate , fairies and dinosaurs . Typically kits include appropriately decorated cupcake cases and cupcake toppers, but some kits are available which also include
1712-480: A process of extensive dialect mixture and leveling in which English varieties across the colonies became more homogeneous compared with the varieties in Britain. English thus predominated in the colonies even by the end of the 17th century's first immigration of non-English speakers from Western Europe and Africa. Additionally, firsthand descriptions of a fairly uniform American English (particularly in contrast to
1819-454: A receptacle, especially, for soup . Recipes have been published for cooking various dishes in cups in the microwave. Although mainly used for drinking, cups can also be used to store solids for pouring (e.g., sugar, flour, grains, salt). Cupping therapy uses heated cups applied to the body to raise the skin, for which a variety of health benefits are claimed. In the Western world, this
1926-420: A reusable version, silicone rubber. Because they can stand up on their own, foil and silicone liners can also be used on a flat baking sheet, which makes them popular among people who do not have a specialized muffin tin. Some of the largest paper liners are not fluted and are made out of thicker paper, often rolled at the top edge for additional strength, so that they can also stand independently for baking without
2033-471: A round, fluted cup shape. Liners can facilitate the easy removal of the cupcake from the tin after baking, keep the cupcake more moist, and reduce the effort needed to clean the pan. The use of liners is also considered a more sanitary option when cupcakes are being passed from hand to hand. Like cupcake pans, several sizes of paper liners are available, from miniature to jumbo. In addition to paper, cupcake liners may be made from very thin aluminum foil or, in
2140-680: A series of other vowel shifts in the same region, known by linguists as the " Inland North ". The Inland North shares with the Eastern New England dialect (including Boston accents ) a backer tongue positioning of the GOOSE /u/ vowel (to [u] ) and the MOUTH /aʊ/ vowel (to [ɑʊ~äʊ] ) in comparison to the rest of the country. Ranging from northern New England across the Great Lakes to Minnesota, another Northern regional marker
2247-523: A sharp decline in the company's prospects and stock price in 2013. Georgetown Cupcake was the first cupcakery to open in Washington, D.C. The cupcake shop gained widespread publicity after the 2010 premier of TLC 's DC Cupcakes , a six-part reality show about the shop and its owners, sisters Sophie LaMontagne and Katherine Kallinis. Based in Beverly Hills, California, Sprinkles Cupcakes
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#17327905539292354-499: A small hole in the top of the cupcake. Another method is to just insert the pastry bag in the middle of the cupcake. In commercial bakeries, the filling may be injected using a syringe . Originally, cupcakes were baked in heavy pottery cups. Some bakers still use individual ramekins , small coffee mugs , large tea cups, or other small ovenproof pottery-type dishes for baking cupcakes. Cupcakes are usually baked in muffin tins . These pans are most often made from metal, with or without
2461-792: A standard-sized cup, instead of being weighed. Recipes whose ingredients were measured using a standard-sized cup could also be baked in cups; however, they were more commonly baked in tins as layers or loaves. In later years, when the use of volume measurements was firmly established in American home kitchens, these recipes became known as 1234 cakes or quarter cakes , so called because they are made up of four ingredients: one cup of butter, two cups of sugar, three cups of flour, and four eggs. They are plain yellow cakes, somewhat less rich and less expensive than pound cake , due to using about half as much butter and eggs compared to pound cake. The names of these two major classes of cakes were intended to signal
2568-525: A survey, completed in 2003, polling English speakers across the United States about their specific everyday word choices, hoping to identify regionalisms. The study found that most Americans prefer the term sub for a long sandwich, soda (but pop in the Great Lakes region and generic coke in the South) for a sweet and bubbly soft drink , you or you guys for the plural of you (but y'all in
2675-424: A trade show, or a city might hand out cups with slogans promoting recycling. There are companies that provide the service of printing slogans on cups. While in theory, most cups are well suited to hold drinkable liquids, hot drinks like tea are generally served in either insulated cups or porcelain teacups . Metal and glass cups can use a double wall construction with a vacuum-sealed space in-between to reduce
2782-607: A tree) with two flanges at the sides of an ovoid cup. These are also called "eared cups" (耳杯) and "winged goblets". A form with a flange on only one side appears in ancient Persian silver, and then later in Chinese porcelain , apparently gradually developing into a shape for brush-washers on the calligrapher's desk. Most ancient types of cup from the Americas were pottery, but around the Gulf of Mexico, Native American societies used
2889-453: A variation of American English in these islands. In 2021, about 245 million Americans, aged 5 or above, spoke English at home: a majority of the United States total population of roughly 330 million people. The United States has never had an official language at the federal level, but English is commonly used at the federal level and in states without an official language. 32 of the 50 states, in some cases as part of what has been called
2996-567: Is a type of elaborate wooden cup which was used by the Swedish nobility during the Renaissance . Drinking from a cup is a significant step on a baby's path to becoming a toddler ; it is recommended that children switch from bottles to cups between six months and one year of age. Sippy cups are typically used for this transition. Like other cups for children, these are normally plastic cups. Special cups for infants seem to date back to
3103-654: Is also associated with the United States, perhaps mostly in the Midwest and the South. American accents that have not undergone the cot–caught merger (the lexical sets LOT and THOUGHT ) have instead retained a LOT – CLOTH split : a 17th-century distinction in which certain words (labeled as the CLOTH lexical set ) separated away from the LOT set. The split, which has now reversed in most British English, simultaneously shifts this relatively recent CLOTH set into
3210-664: Is also home to a creole language known commonly as Hawaiian Pidgin , and some Hawaii residents speak English with a Pidgin-influenced accent. American English also gave rise to some dialects outside the country, for example, Philippine English , beginning during the American occupation of the Philippines and subsequently the Insular Government of the Philippine Islands ; Thomasites first established
3317-538: Is common in most American accents despite being now rare in England because, during the 17th-century British colonization, nearly all dialects of English were rhotic, and most North American English simply remained that way. The preservation of rhoticity in North America was also supported by continuing waves of rhotic-accented Scotch-Irish immigrants, most intensely during the 18th century (and moderately during
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3424-404: Is more efficient for heat conduction, cupcakes bake much faster than a normal layered cake. Cupcakes may be topped with frosting or other cake decorations . Elaborately decorated cupcakes may be made for special occasions. They may be filled with frosting, fruit, or pastry cream. For bakers making a small number of filled cupcakes, this is usually accomplished by using a spoon or knife to scoop
3531-495: Is more likely to be called a " glass "; therefore, while a flat-bottomed cup made of paper is a "paper cup", a transparent one of very similar shape, is likely to be called a " tumbler ", or one of many terms for glasses, instead. Penelope Stock, a lexicographer , stated that cups, mugs and glasses are "near- synonyms ", although "sufficient differences" can be found that divide them into different groups. Wierzbicka and Keith Allan (in his work "On Cup", 2020) compare definitions of
3638-616: Is now the south-eastern US, traces of Yaupon tea containing caffeine have been found in pottery cups of an unusual shape: straight-sided, with a single thick spike as a handle near the top, opposite a slight pouring lip. In the Early Middle Ages glass remained in production in northern Europe, especially Germany, probably as a luxury material. Anglo-Saxon glass had several types of cup, most shared with continental areas, including "palm cups" with no flat bottom, claw beakers , glass horns, and different types of beaker. In
3745-420: Is often identified by Americans as a "country" accent, and is defined by the /aɪ/ vowel losing its gliding quality : [aː] , the initiation event for a complicated Southern vowel shift, including a " Southern drawl " that makes short front vowels into distinct-sounding gliding vowels . The fronting of the vowels of GOOSE , GOAT , MOUTH , and STRUT tends to also define Southern accents as well as
3852-546: Is owned by Candace Nelson , who is also a star judge on the Food Network 's Cupcake Wars , and her husband, Charles Nelson. Sprinkles is the first cupcake shop to debut a cupcake ATM, which could hold up to 350 cupcakes at one time. Cupcakes are sometimes used to celebrate and illustrate specific events or themes. Popular themes include unicorns and mermaids. Holiday-themed cupcakes, such as reindeer at Christmas, are popular in grocery stores. Among educational themes,
3959-471: Is regarded as alternative medicine . Antimonial cups were made of antimony . If wine was kept in them for some hours, and then drunk, there was an emetic or laxative effect. Spa cups are special cups that are used to drink mineral or thermal water directly from a spring, developed in north-west Bohemia during the 17th century and are now part of Czech folklore . Chalices are sometimes used in heraldry, especially ecclesiastical heraldry . A Kronkåsa
4066-458: Is the common language at home, in public, and in government. Cup A cup is an open-top vessel (container) used to hold liquids for drinking , typically with a flattened hemispherical shape, and often with a capacity of about 100–250 millilitres (3–8 US fl oz). Cups may be made of pottery (including porcelain ), glass , metal , wood , stone , polystyrene , plastic , lacquerware , or other materials. Normally,
4173-469: Is the variable fronting of /ɑ/ before /r/ , for example, appearing four times in the stereotypical Boston shibboleth Park the car in Harvard Yard . Several other phenomena serve to distinguish regional U.S. accents. Boston , Pittsburgh , Upper Midwestern , and Western U.S. accents have fully completed a merger of the LOT vowel with the THOUGHT vowel ( /ɑ/ and /ɔ/ , respectively):
4280-482: The English-only movement , have adopted legislation granting official or co-official status to English. Typically only "English" is specified, not a particular variety like American English. (From 1923 to 1969, the state of Illinois recognized its official language as "American", meaning American English.) Puerto Rico is the largest example of a United States territory in which another language – Spanish –
4387-622: The Mid-Atlantic states (including a New York accent as well as a unique Philadelphia–Baltimore accent ), and the South . As of the 20th century, the middle and eastern Great Lakes area , Chicago being the largest city with these speakers, also ushered in certain unique features, including the fronting of the LOT /ɑ/ vowel in the mouth toward [a] and tensing of the TRAP /æ/ vowel wholesale to [eə] . These sound changes have triggered
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4494-551: The Native American languages . Examples of such names are opossum , raccoon , squash , moose (from Algonquian ), wigwam , and moccasin . American English speakers have integrated traditionally non-English terms and expressions into the mainstream cultural lexicon; for instance, en masse , from French ; cookie , from Dutch ; kindergarten from German , and rodeo from Spanish . Landscape features are often loanwords from French or Spanish, and
4601-663: The Neolithic , some shaped like animals, apparently just to engage the child. Many trophies take the form of a decorated cup, generally in metal. In cases such as the FIFA World Cup and the Stanley Cup , the competition itself may grow to take on the name of the trophy that is awarded to the winner. Owing to the common usage of cup-shaped trophies as prizes for the winners, a large number of national and international competitions are called "cups". For large examples,
4708-548: The Royal Gold Cup have been used for both religious and secular purposes over their history. The word "cup" is also used as a unit of capacity: the capacity of a "typical" cup, varying slightly from place to place; it is mostly used in recipes. The measuring cup , an adaptation of a simple cup, is a standard tool in cooking that has been in use at least as far back as Roman times . Apart from serving as drinking vessels, cups can be used as an alternative to bowls as
4815-625: The Stone Age and have been found at archeological sites throughout the world. A large number of the earliest cups are excavated from burials, and may have held offerings or supplies for the afterlife. Cups do not feature strongly in the earliest pottery found in most areas; the wares were thick and heavy, as were the carved stone vessels found in several early cultures. Probably cups in organic materials that have now decomposed, such as wood, bamboo and dried gourds were widely used. Large shells and birds' eggs have been used in some areas almost up to
4922-722: The francophile tastes of the 19th century Victorian era Britain (for example they preferred programme for program , manoeuvre for maneuver , cheque for check , etc.). AmE almost always uses -ize in words like realize . BrE prefers -ise , but also uses -ize on occasion (see: Oxford spelling ). There are a few differences in punctuation rules. British English is more tolerant of run-on sentences , called " comma splices " in American English, and American English prefers that periods and commas be placed inside closing quotation marks even in cases in which British rules would place them outside. American English also favors
5029-546: The jue , has a large pouring lip, and may be regarded as a type of jug rather than a cup. In the Christian ritual of Communion , adherents drink from a cup of wine (or a wine substitute) to commemorate the Last Supper of Jesus . A chalice is often used for this purpose. Chalices are usually handleless metal cups on stems; originally such shapes were standard secular elite drinking cups, and many examples such as
5136-526: The kylix , kantharos , skyphos , lip cup , and the breast-shaped mastos with no base. The Roman Empire used cups throughout Europe, with "goblet"-type shapes with shortish stems, or none, preferred for luxury examples in silver, like the Warren Cup , or Roman glass , such as the Lycurgus Cup in color-changing glass, or the spectacular carved-glass cage cups . By the 2nd century AD even
5243-549: The plastic cup , in both disposable and permanent washable forms, and the paper cup , normally disposable. Materials such as processed bamboo have also come into use. Since cups have been an integral part of dining since time immemorial, they have become a valued part of human culture. Cups are used across a wide range of cultures and social classes . Historically, monarchs have been concerned about assassination via poisoning. To avoid this fate, they often used dedicated cups, with cup-bearers to guard them. A "divining cup"
5350-536: The rhyton is a cup that imitates their shape, to a greater or lesser degree, in metal or pottery. It was the general elite type of cup throughout the Mediterranean in the Iron Age , from Greece to Ancient Persia and beyond. Only some had feet or bases that allowed them to be rested on a flat surface. Large numbers were decorated with or as animal heads, or terminated in the figure of an animal. Other than
5457-764: The 18th century; apartment , shanty in the 19th century; project, condominium , townhouse , mobile home in the 20th century; and parts thereof ( driveway , breezeway, backyard ) . Industry and material innovations from the 19th century onwards provide distinctive new words, phrases, and idioms through railroading (see further at rail terminology ) and transportation terminology, ranging from types of roads ( dirt roads , freeways ) to infrastructure ( parking lot , overpass , rest area ), to automotive terminology often now standard in English internationally. Already existing English words—such as store , shop , lumber —underwent shifts in meaning; others remained in
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#17327905539295564-546: The 20th century. The use of English in the United States is a result of British colonization of the Americas . The first wave of English-speaking settlers arrived in North America during the early 17th century, followed by further migrations in the 18th and 19th centuries. During the 17th and 18th centuries, dialects from many different regions of England and the British Isles existed in every American colony, allowing
5671-627: The British form is a back-formation , such as AmE burglarize and BrE burgle (from burglar ). However, while individuals usually use one or the other, both forms will be widely understood and mostly used alongside each other within the two systems. While written American English is largely standardized across the country and spoken American English dialects are highly mutually intelligible, there are still several recognizable regional and ethnic accents and lexical distinctions. The regional sounds of present-day American English are reportedly engaged in
5778-413: The East Coast (perhaps in imitation of 19th-century London speech), even the East Coast has gradually begun to restore rhoticity, due to it becoming nationally prestigious in the 20th century. The pronunciation of ⟨r⟩ is a postalveolar approximant [ ɹ̠ ] or retroflex approximant [ ɻ ] , but a unique "bunched tongue" variant of the approximant r sound
5885-637: The European Middle Ages the shapes of most ordinary cups were closer to mugs , tankards , and goblets rather than modern cups, in wood, pottery, or sometimes boiled leather . But the elite preferred cups with stems, and often covers, in metal, with glass a less common alternative. Large "ceremonial" or feasting cups, sometimes called grace cups or "welcome cups", and drinking horns , including ivory , with metal mounts, were important prestige pieces, typically too large to drink from all evening, so passed around or drunk from once. The name for
5992-571: The Inland North. Rather than one particular accent, General American is best defined as an umbrella covering an American accent that does not incorporate features associated with some particular region, ethnicity, or socioeconomic group. Typical General American features include rhoticity , the father–bother merger , Mary–marry–merry merger , pre-nasal "short a " tensing , and other particular vowel sounds . General American features are embraced most by Americans who are highly educated or in
6099-573: The South), sneakers for athletic shoes (but often tennis shoes outside the Northeast), and shopping cart for a cart used for carrying supermarket goods. American English and British English (BrE) often differ at the levels of phonology, phonetics, vocabulary, and, to a much lesser extent, grammar and orthography. The first large American dictionary, An American Dictionary of the English Language , known as Webster's Dictionary ,
6206-528: The U.S. Several verbs ending in -ize are of U.S. origin; for example, fetishize, prioritize, burglarize, accessorize, weatherize , etc.; and so are some back-formations (locate, fine-tune, curate, donate, emote, upholster and enthuse). Among syntactic constructions that arose are outside of, headed for, meet up with, back of, etc. Americanisms formed by alteration of some existing words include notably pesky, phony, rambunctious, buddy, sundae , skeeter, sashay and kitty-corner. Adjectives that arose in
6313-570: The U.S. are for instance foothill , landslide (in all senses), backdrop , teenager , brainstorm , bandwagon , hitchhike , smalltime, and a huge number of others. Other compound words have been founded based on industrialization and the wave of the automobile: five-passenger car, four-door sedan, two-door sedan, and station-wagon (called an estate car in British English). Some are euphemistic ( human resources , affirmative action , correctional facility ). Many compound nouns have
6420-676: The U.S. are, for example, lengthy, bossy, cute and cutesy, punk (in all senses), sticky (of the weather), through (as in "finished"), and many colloquial forms such as peppy or wacky . A number of words and meanings that originated in Middle English or Early Modern English and that have been in everyday use in the United States have since disappeared in most varieties of British English; some of these have cognates in Lowland Scots . Terms such as fall ("autumn"), faucet ("tap"), diaper ("nappy"; itself unused in
6527-530: The U.S. while changing in Britain. Science, urbanization, and democracy have been important factors in bringing about changes in the written and spoken language of the United States. From the world of business and finance came new terms ( merger , downsize , bottom line ), from sports and gambling terminology came, specific jargon aside, common everyday American idioms, including many idioms related to baseball . The names of some American inventions remained largely confined to North America ( elevator [except in
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#17327905539296634-427: The U.S.), candy ("sweets"), skillet , eyeglasses , and obligate are often regarded as Americanisms. Fall for example came to denote the season in 16th century England, a contraction of Middle English expressions like "fall of the leaf" and "fall of the year." Gotten ( past participle of get ) is often considered to be largely an Americanism. Other words and meanings were brought back to Britain from
6741-541: The U.S., especially in the second half of the 20th century; these include hire ("to employ"), I guess (famously criticized by H. W. Fowler ), baggage , hit (a place), and the adverbs overly and presently ("currently"). Some of these, for example, monkey wrench and wastebasket , originated in 19th century Britain. The adjectives mad meaning "angry", smart meaning "intelligent", and sick meaning "ill" are also more frequent in American (and Irish) English than British English. Linguist Bert Vaux created
6848-457: The United States ; the de facto common language used in government, education, and commerce; and an official language in 32 of the 50 U.S. states . Since the late 20th century, American English has become the most influential form of English worldwide. Varieties of American English include many patterns of pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and particularly spelling that are unified nationwide but distinct from other English dialects around
6955-538: The United States and the United Kingdom suggest that, while spoken American English deviated away from period British English in many ways, it is conservative in a few other ways, preserving certain features 21st-century British English has since lost. Full rhoticity (or "R-fulness") is typical of American accents, pronouncing the phoneme /r/ (corresponding to the letter ⟨r⟩ ) in all environments, including in syllable-final position or before
7062-566: The United States, playing off of the sense of nostalgia evoked by the cakes. In New York City, cupcake shops like Magnolia Bakery gained publicity in their appearances on popular television shows like HBO's Sex and the City . Crumbs Bake Shop , a publicly traded business running the largest cupcake shop chain in the U.S., reached its peak stock price in 2011. Declining sales, due to competition from locally owned mom-and-pop specialty stores as well as increased competition from grocery stores, caused
7169-605: The West and Midwest, and New York Latino English , spoken in the New York metropolitan area . Additionally, ethnic varieties such as Yeshiva English and " Yinglish " are spoken by some American Orthodox Jews , Cajun Vernacular English by some Cajuns in southern Louisiana , and Pennsylvania Dutch English by some Pennsylvania Dutch people. American Indian Englishes have been documented among diverse Indian tribes. The island state of Hawaii , though primarily English-speaking,
7276-555: The accents spoken in the " Midland ": a vast band of the country that constitutes an intermediate dialect region between the traditional North and South. Western U.S. accents mostly fall under the General American spectrum. Below, ten major American English accents are defined by their particular combinations of certain vowel sounds: In 2010, William Labov noted that Great Lakes, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and West Coast accents have undergone "vigorous new sound changes" since
7383-505: The aeronautical sense ], gasoline ) as did certain automotive terms ( truck , trunk ). New foreign loanwords came with 19th and early 20th century European immigration to the U.S.; notably, from Yiddish ( chutzpah , schmooze, bupkis, glitch ) and German ( hamburger , wiener ). A large number of English colloquialisms from various periods are American in origin; some have lost their American flavor (from OK and cool to nerd and 24/7 ), while others have not ( have
7490-432: The base and are 30 to 35 millimetres (1.2 to 1.4 in) tall. Australian and Swedish bakers are accustomed to taller paper cases with a larger diameter at the top than American and British bakers. The cupcone is a cupcake baked directly in an edible, flat-bottomed ice cream cone. In the early 21st century, a trend for cupcake shops, which are specialized bakeries that sell little or nothing except cupcakes, developed in
7597-698: The beginning of the European Bronze Age from around 2800 BC. The Ringlemere Cup is a solid gold cup, with handle, from around 1600 BC, with the Rillaton Gold Cup one of two such cups known from England, with a handful of other locations and materials (such as the Hove amber cup ) making up the "unstable" (round-bottomed) cups in precious materials from the Bronze Age. Animal horns must often have been used as cups from very early on, and
7704-406: The country), though the vowel-consonant cluster found in "bird", "work", "hurt", "learn", etc. usually retains its r pronunciation, even in these non-rhotic American accents. Non-rhoticity among such speakers is presumed to have arisen from their upper classes' close historical contact with England, imitating London's r -dropping, a feature that has continued to gain prestige throughout England from
7811-424: The cup: Many languages − including French, Italian, Polish, Russian, German − use two separate words for mugs and cups. Wierzbicka suggests that this situation is due to a slightly different functionality: the traditional cups are designed for drinking while sitting down at the table, while the mug is supposed to be used anywhere. This, in her opinion, explains all the specific features: Cups have been used since
7918-421: The cups they were baked in. This is the use of the name that has remained, and the name of "cupcake" is now given to any small, round cake that is about the size of a teacup . While English fairy cakes vary in size more than American cupcake, they are traditionally smaller and are rarely topped with elaborate frosting. The other kind of "cup cake" referred to a cake whose ingredients were measured by volume, using
8025-614: The diverse regional dialects of British English) became common after the mid-18th century, while at the same time speakers' identification with this new variety increased. Since the 18th century, American English has developed into some new varieties, including regional dialects that retain minor influences from waves of immigrant speakers of diverse languages, primarily European languages. Some racial and regional variation in American English reflects these groups' geographic settlement, their de jure or de facto segregation, and patterns in their resettlement. This can be seen, for example, in
8132-742: The double quotation mark ("like this") over the single ('as here'). Vocabulary differences vary by region. For example, autumn is used more commonly in the United Kingdom, whereas fall is more common in American English. Some other differences include: aerial (United Kingdom) vs. antenna, biscuit (United Kingdom) vs. cookie/cracker, car park (United Kingdom) vs. parking lot, caravan (United Kingdom) vs. trailer, city centre (United Kingdom) vs. downtown, flat (United Kingdom) vs. apartment, fringe (United Kingdom) vs. bangs, and holiday (United Kingdom) vs. vacation. AmE sometimes favors words that are morphologically more complex, whereas BrE uses clipped forms, such as AmE transportation and BrE transport or where
8239-517: The following two centuries) when this ethnic group eventually made up one-seventh of the colonial population. Scotch-Irish settlers spread from Delaware and Pennsylvania throughout the larger Mid-Atlantic region, the inland regions of both the South and North, and throughout the West: American dialect areas that were all uninfluenced by upper-class non-rhoticity and that consequently have remained consistently rhotic. While non-rhoticity spread on
8346-944: The hospital , BrE to hospital ; contrast, however, AmE actress Elizabeth Taylor , BrE the actress Elizabeth Taylor ). Often, these differences are a matter of relative preferences rather than absolute rules; and most are not stable since the two varieties are constantly influencing each other, and American English is not a standardized set of dialects. Differences in orthography are also minor. The main differences are that American English usually uses spellings such as flavor for British flavour , fiber for fibre , defense for defence , analyze for analyse , license for licence , catalog for catalogue and traveling for travelling . Noah Webster popularized such spellings in America, but he did not invent most of them. Rather, "he chose already existing options on such grounds as simplicity, analogy or etymology." Other differences are due to
8453-674: The influence of 18th-century Protestant Ulster Scots immigrants (known in the U.S. as the Scotch-Irish ) in Appalachia developing Appalachian English and the 20th-century Great Migration bringing African-American Vernacular English to the Great Lakes urban centers. Any phonologically unmarked North American accent falls under an umbrella known as General American. This section mostly refers to such General American features. Studies on historical usage of English in both
8560-460: The ingredients needed for baking. Cupcake kits were introduced in 2008 by the partyware company Meri Meri and continue to be popular items in kitchenware stores. American English American English , sometimes called United States English or U.S. English , is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in
8667-438: The late 18th century onwards, but which has conversely lost prestige in the U.S. since at least the early 20th century. Non-rhoticity makes a word like car sound like cah or source like sauce . New York City and Southern accents are the most prominent regional accents of the country, as well as the most stigmatized and socially disfavored. Southern speech, strongest in southern Appalachia and certain areas of Texas,
8774-436: The loss of heat and keep outside surfaces cooler. Disposable cups are intended to be used only once. They are often used by fast-food restaurants and coffee shops to serve beverages. Institutions that provide drinking water, such as offices and hospitals, may also use disposable cups for sanitary reasons. Some styles of cups are used primarily for alcoholic beverages such as beer, wine, cocktail, and liquor. There are over
8881-477: The method to the baker; "cup cake" uses a volume measurement, and "pound cake" uses a weight measurement. A standard cupcake uses the same basic ingredients as standard-sized cakes: butter , sugar , eggs , and flour . Nearly any recipe that is suitable for a layer cake can be used to bake cupcakes. The cake batter used for cupcakes may be flavored or have other ingredients stirred in, such as raisins, berries, nuts, or chocolate chips. Because their small size
8988-427: The mid-nineteenth century onwards, so they "are now more different from each other than they were 50 or 100 years ago", while other accents, like of New York City and Boston, have remained stable in that same time-frame. However, a General American sound system also has some debated degree of influence nationwide, for example, gradually beginning to oust the regional accent in urban areas of the South and at least some in
9095-617: The most formal contexts, and regional accents with the most General American native features include North Midland, Western New England, and Western accents. Although no longer region-specific, African-American Vernacular English , which remains the native variety of most working- and middle-class African Americans , has a close relationship to Southern dialects and has greatly influenced everyday speech of many Americans, including hip hop culture . Hispanic and Latino Americans have also developed native-speaker varieties of English. The best-studied Latino Englishes are Chicano English , spoken in
9202-401: The norm for cups intended for cold drinks, especially wine and beer. The "wine cup" that had been a major prestige category since classical antiquity was largely replaced by the wineglass , and cups for beer went the same way. The OED records the first dated use in English of "glass" as a term for a vessel, rather than just the material, in 1393-4. A new wave of hot drinks came to dominate
9309-402: The past forms of a few verbs (for example, AmE/BrE: learned / learnt , burned / burnt , snuck/sneaked , dove/dived ) although the purportedly "British" forms can occasionally be seen in American English writing as well; different prepositions and adverbs in certain contexts (for example, AmE in school, BrE at school ); and whether or not a definite article is used, in very few cases (AmE to
9416-560: The present. Very simple single-use kulhar cups in unglazed terracotta , and sometimes unfired clay, are still used in South Asia , now mainly at tea stalls, and are very similar to those found at sites of the Bronze Age Indus Valley Civilization . The Bell Beaker culture , is an important archaeological culture named after the distinctive inverted-bell pottery beaker cups it used, marking
9523-537: The range of cups. Chinese and Japanese cups have been shaped as small, rather wide, bowls for some 2,000 years, smaller versions of the shape used for eating and serving food. As well as the Chinese porcelain that very gradually overtook it, lacquer is a prestige material. The same shapes are typically used in East Asia for both tea and wine or sake , and when they appeared in Europe in the 16th century, this shape
9630-506: The rhyton, ancient Greek drinking cup shapes were mostly very wide and shallow bowls, usually on short stems and with two handles, generally oriented horizontally, along the same plane as the mouth of the cup, rather than at 90 degrees to it, as in modern teacups . Survivals in ancient Greek pottery are numerous, and often brilliantly painted, but all probably were made also in silver, where survivals are extremely rare, as grave robbers did not bother with pottery. The most important shapes are
9737-589: The shells of the Horse conch for drinking cups, among other purposes. The tall, decorated and slightly waisted qiru or keru of Andean civilizations first appears in the Early Intermediate Period (100-600 AD). They seem to have been high-status objects. Maya elites drank from elaborately painted pottery beakers such as the Fenton Vase and Princeton Maya Vase with God L . In what
9844-445: The soul. Cards that feature cups are often associated with love, relationships, fears, and desires. Various cups have been designed so that drinking out of them without spilling is a challenge. These are called puzzle cups . The cup game involves rhythmically striking plastic cups. In the developed world, cups are often distributed for promotional purposes . For example, a corporation might distribute cups with their logo at
9951-570: The traditional standard accent of (southern) England, Received Pronunciation (RP), has evolved a trap–bath split . Moreover, American accents preserve /h/ at the start of syllables, while perhaps a majority of the regional dialects of England participate in /h/ dropping , particularly in informal contexts. However, General American is also innovative in a number of its own ways: The process of coining new lexical items started as soon as English-speaking British-American colonists began borrowing names for unfamiliar flora, fauna, and topography from
10058-408: The two-handled form based on the ancient kantharos is very often used. The size of many means that " vase " would be a more appropriate name, but "cup" has become established. Early trophies, mostly for horse-racing , were generally more simple goblet shapes. In Tarot divination, the suit of cups is associated with the element of water and is regarded as symbolizing emotion, intuition, and
10165-417: The verb-and-preposition combination: stopover, lineup, tryout, spin-off, shootout , holdup, hideout, comeback, makeover , and many more. Some prepositional and phrasal verbs are in fact of American origin ( win out, hold up, back up/off/down/out, face up to and many others). Noun endings such as -ee (retiree), -ery (bakery), -ster (gangster) and -cian (beautician) are also particularly productive in
10272-605: The very wide ancient Greek wine-cup kylix ended up via Latin as chalice , typically a handle-less goblet in metal, used in the Catholic mass , but also a secular shape. Many individual examples have served both secular and liturgical uses over their history. By the end of the Middle Ages glass was becoming a much cheaper material, and over the Early Modern Period it replaced pottery and other materials as
10379-557: The wealthy tended to prefer drinking from glass, as adding no taste to the drink. An ancient shape of cup in various parts of Eurasia was the "flanged cup" with either one or two flat horizontal strips attached to part of the top of the cup, acting as handles. These are found as grave goods in elite burials from around the Warring States Period (c. 475 to 221 BC), in Chinese lacquerware (wood coated with resin from
10486-483: The wide and shallow Greek phiale (Roman patera , more a dish than a cup) seem mainly to have been used for this, while others were used for both this and drinking. The rhyton , especially the types with a hole in the bottom, was one of many cup shapes used for libations. Libations were common at the start of informal social occasions involving drinking, where the normal cups were presumably often used. The most traditional Chinese ritual bronze vessel for libations,
10593-775: The word corn , used in England to refer to wheat (or any cereal), came to denote the maize plant, the most important crop in the U.S. Most Mexican Spanish contributions came after the War of 1812 , with the opening of the West, like ranch (now a common house style ). Due to Mexican culinary influence, many Spanish words are incorporated in general use when talking about certain popular dishes: cilantro (instead of coriander), queso, tacos, quesadillas, enchiladas, tostadas, fajitas, burritos, and guacamole. These words usually lack an English equivalent and are found in popular restaurants. New forms of dwelling created new terms ( lot , waterfront) and types of homes like log cabin , adobe in
10700-482: The world in a variety of shapes and materials. While simple cups have been widely spread across societies, high-status cups in expensive materials have been very important status symbols since at least the Bronze Age , and many found in burials. Modern household shapes of cup generally lack a stem, but this was not always the case. The large metal standing cup or covered cup with a base and stem , and usually
10807-609: The world. Any American or Canadian accent perceived as lacking noticeably local, ethnic, or cultural markers is known in linguistics as General American ; it covers a fairly uniform accent continuum native to certain regions of the U.S. but especially associated with broadcast mass media and highly educated speech. However, historical and present linguistic evidence does not support the notion of there being one single mainstream American accent . The sound of American English continues to evolve, with some local accents disappearing, but several larger regional accents having emerged in
10914-413: Was considered usual to pour the hot liquid into the saucer to cool it slightly before drinking. Apart from a more shallow saucer the essential elements of these two forms in many contemporary examples have changed little since the mid-18th century. European porcelain manufacturers encouraged the development of different sizes of cup, and shapes of pot, for tea and coffee services. The 20th century brought
11021-507: Was initially used for locally-made cups for the new drinks of tea and coffee . By the early 18th century, the European taste for handles on cups, strongly evident from antiquity, reasserted itself and a single vertical handle was added to a slightly more upright Chinese-style bowl to create both the very similar forms of the Western teacup and coffee cup , as well as a saucer . This was initially rather deeper than modern saucers, as it
11128-490: Was not a "real cup", while the "younger generation" made no such distinction, and used " coffee cup " or " teacup " to indicate the traditional cups. Twelve-year-olds had two different shapes of a cup in mind, one for hot liquids, one for juices. Names for different types of cups vary regionally and may overlap (in American English "cups" include " mugs " ). Any transparent cup, regardless of actual composition,
11235-488: Was supposed to be able to detect poison. In the Bible , Joseph interpreted a dream for Pharaoh 's cup-bearer , and a silver divining cup played a key role in his reconciliation with his brothers . The Royal Gold Cup is an exceptionally rare survival, made before 1391 for John, Duke of Berry , a French prince, who gave it to his uncle, Charles VI of France . It is in gold, decorated with jewels and scenes in enamel, with
11342-469: Was written by Noah Webster in 1828, codifying several of these spellings. Differences in grammar are relatively minor, and do not normally affect mutual intelligibility; these include: typically a lack of differentiation between adjectives and adverbs, employing the equivalent adjectives as adverbs he ran quick / he ran quickly ; different use of some auxiliary verbs ; formal (rather than notional) agreement with collective nouns ; different preferences for
11449-623: Was written in American Cookery by Amelia Simmons . The earliest extant documentation of the term cupcake itself was in "Seventy-five Receipts for Pastry, Cakes, and Sweetmeats" in 1828 in Eliza Leslie 's Receipts cookbook. In the early 19th century, there were two different uses for the term cup cake or cupcake . In previous centuries, before muffin tins were widely available, the cakes were often baked in individual pottery cups, ramekins , or molds and took their name from
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