92-490: The Conformist ( Il conformista ) is a novel by Alberto Moravia published in 1951 , which details the life and desire for normality of a government official during Italy 's fascist period . It is also known for the 1970 film adaptation by Bernardo Bertolucci . A boy named Marcello kills lizards in the yard near his home. He tries to coax his neighbor and friend Roberto into offering approval of this behavior, to no avail. They then fight, and Roberto leaves. After obtaining
184-707: 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
276-520: 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
368-426: A French woman who reminds Marcello of the prostitute. Marcello starts believing that he is in love with Lina despite her apparent dislike for him. Lina allows Marcello to begin to seduce her but always keeps him at arm's length, even saying that she and Quadri know that he is a Fascist spy. While Lina and Giulia head out shopping, he is accosted by an old man who first mistakes him for a beggar and then mistakes him for
460-547: A clearly conceived political, social, and philosophical attitude" but also that, ultimately, "A writer survives in spite of his beliefs". Between 1959 and 1962 Moravia was president of PEN International , the worldwide association of writers. Alberto Pincherle was born in Via Sgambati in Rome, Italy, to a wealthy middle-class family. His chosen pen name "Moravia" equals to Moravia , which is one of historic Czech lands , and
552-631: 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 ,
644-447: 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
736-450: A dinner covertly supervised by Orlando, Quadri asks Marcello to secretly post a letter for him on his way back to Italy, as Quadri's activities are monitored and the letter might be intercepted otherwise. Marcello refuses, and Quadri takes this as a sign of solidarity, as Marcello could have taken the letter and turned it over to the authorities instead. However, Marcello eventually confirms Quadri's identity to Orlando. While later arguing in
828-457: A homosexual, or perhaps a prostitute, making Marcello revisit the humiliation of the incident with Lino. When the man refuses to drive him back to the hotel, Marcello pulls his gun and demands to be let out of the Rolls. Marcello's feelings for Lina intensify alongside a growing contempt for her when he sees her attempting to seduce Giulia and realizes that her interest in him is merely for show. At
920-565: A journalist with the magazine 900 . The journal published his first short stories, including Cortigiana stanca ( The Tired Courtesan in French as Lassitude de courtisane , 1927), Delitto al circolo del tennis ( Crime at the Tennis Club , 1928), Il ladro curioso ( The Curious Thief ) and Apparizione ( Apparition , both 1929). Gli indifferenti was published at his own expense, costing 5,000 Italian lira . Literary critics described
1012-591: 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,
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#17328025993421104-636: 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
1196-471: A nightclub, Giulia tells Lina that she is not a lesbian and has no interest in an affair. On his trip to Savoy, Quadri – as well as Lina, who left with him in response to Giulia's rejection – is killed by Orlando and his men. Marcello has conflicted responses to his role in the death of the couple and tries to rationalize away his culpability. Years later, on the night Mussolini falls from power, Giulia reveals that she has long suspected Marcello's involvement in
1288-495: A prelude to the Catholic wedding Giulia expects. He confesses to murdering Lino, and the priest indicates that he can seek absolution if he feels true remorse for his actions – an emotion that Marcello does not appear capable of feeling. In the days leading up to the wedding, Marcello's mother-in-law lavishingly praises him while his mother lives alone in squalor. For six years, his father has been in an asylum and believes that he
1380-480: 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
1472-527: A proposition constituting the description of a single psychological observation mixed with another such proposition. In the later novels, the inner monologue is prominent. 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
1564-508: A prostitute entangled with the Fascist regime and with a network of conspirators. The extreme sexual realism in La noia ( The Empty Canvas , 1960) introduced the psychologically experimental works of the 1970s. Moravia's writing style was highly regarded for being extremely stark and unadorned, characterised by elementary, common words in an elaborate syntax. A complex mood is established by mixing
1656-685: A region to which fascism had arbitrarily imposed the name "ciociaria"; the experience inspired La ciociara ( The ciociara Woman , 1957). In May 1944, after the liberation of Rome, Alberto Moravia returned. He began collaborating with Corrado Alvaro, writing for important newspapers such as Il Mondo and Il Corriere della Sera , the latter publishing his writing until his death. After the war, his popularity steadily increased, with works such as La Romana ( The Woman of Rome , 1947), La Disubbidienza ( Disobedience , 1948), L'amore coniugale e altri racconti ( Conjugal Love and other stories , 1949) and Il conformista ( The Conformist , 1951). In 1952 he won
1748-680: 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
1840-445: A slingshot, Marcello fires stones through the fence around Roberto's house, killing their family cat instead of Roberto. Marcello is mortified not so much by his actions but by the "abnormality" of his sentiments. Marcello later witnesses a fight between his parents. His father ultimately chases his mother around the house and attacks her in the bedroom, leaving Marcello torn between whether to rescue his mother or aid his father. When
1932-462: 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
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#17328025993422024-453: 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
2116-435: Is a former priest de-frocked for indecent behavior, ultimately stops himself before initiating any actions with Marcello. He begs Marcello to ignore him if he tries to speak to him again. Marcello does not fully understand what is happening. Meanwhile, Marcello's father vandalizes a photograph of his wife and Marcello by poking holes through their eyes and drawing streaks of blood on their faces. At school, Marcello decides that
2208-654: 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
2300-664: 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
2392-404: Is another version of La noia . Moravia once remarked that the most important facts of his life had been his illness, a tubercular infection of the bones that confined him to a bed for five years and Fascism because they both caused him to suffer and do things he otherwise would not have done. "It is what we are forced to do that forms our character, not what we do of our own free will." Moravia
2484-538: 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
2576-428: Is inevitable and is merely a part of the human experience. That speech leads Marcello to the beginning of acceptance of his non-conformity. Marcello, Giulia, and their daughter later drive to the mountains to evade possible reprisals for his role with the government. En route, they drive into an air raid, and their car is strafed with bullets. Giulia and her daughter are killed in the first wave, and Marcello falls out of
2668-400: Is mistaken for a client, before Orlando arrives to reveal that the new plan is to kill Quadri. Marcello needs simply to confirm Quadri's identity to Orlando to fulfill his duties. While leaving, Marcello realizes that he forgot his hat. When he goes to retrieve it, he finds Orlando with a prostitute to whom Marcello feels some attraction. Marcello and Giulia visit Quadri. He is married to Lina,
2760-420: 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
2852-469: Is one of Mussolini's top aides. Marcello's mother gives her son a wedding present but indicates that she will not be attending the ceremony. The two make their monthly visit to his father, who neither recognizes them nor acknowledges their presence. En route to Paris , Marcello makes a scheduled stop at a brothel in a small town in France , where he is to meet Orlando for further instructions. There, Marcello
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2944-404: Is the target of works such as Disobedience and L'amore coniugale ( Conjugal Love , 1947). Alienation is the theme in works such as Il disprezzo ( Contempt or A Ghost at Noon , 1954) and La noia ( The Empty Canvas ) from the 1950s, despite observation from a rational-realistic perspective. Political themes are often present; an example is La Romana ( The Woman of Rome , 1947), the story of
3036-469: 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):
3128-482: 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 –
3220-725: The European Parliament as a member of the Italian Communist Party . His experiences at Strasbourg , which ended in 1988, are recounted in Il diario europeo ( The European Diary ). In 1985 he won the title of European Personality. Moravia was a perennial contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature , having been nominated 13 times between 1949 and 1965. In September 1990, Alberto Moravia was found dead in
3312-487: The Fascist regime prohibited reviews of Le ambizioni sbagliate (1935), seized his novel La mascherata ( Masquerade , 1941) and banned Agostino ( Two Adolescents , 1941). In 1935 he travelled to the United States to give a lecture series on Italian literature . L'imbroglio ( The Cheat ) was published by Bompiani in 1937. To avoid Fascist censorship, Moravia wrote mainly in the surrealist and allegoric styles; among
3404-622: 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
3496-551: 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
3588-590: The Premio Strega for I Racconti and his novels began to be translated abroad and La Provinciale was adapted to film by Mario Soldati ; in 1954 Luigi Zampa directed La Romana and in 1955 Gianni Franciolini directed I Racconti Romani ( The Roman Stories , 1954) a short collection that won the Marzotto Award. In 1953, Moravia founded the literary magazine Nuovi Argomenti ( New Arguments ), which featured Pier Paolo Pasolini among its editors. In
3680-722: 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
3772-764: 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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3864-459: The 1950s, he wrote prefaces to works such as Belli 's 100 Sonnets , Brancati 's Paolo il Caldo and Stendhal 's Roman Walks . From 1957, he also reviewed and criticised cinema for the weekly magazines L'Europeo and L'Espresso . His criticism is collected in the volume Al Cinema ( At the Cinema , 1975). In 1960, Moravia published La noia ( Boredom or The Empty Canvas ), the story of
3956-546: 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
4048-627: 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
4140-413: 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
4232-571: 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
4324-573: 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 ,
4416-528: 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
4508-570: 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
4600-676: 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
4692-530: 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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#17328025993424784-427: 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
4876-597: 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
4968-457: 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
5060-538: 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
5152-605: 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,
5244-555: 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
5336-505: 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
5428-489: The age of 18, he left the sanatorium and moved to Bressanone . During the next three years, partly in Bressanone and partly in Rome, he began to write his first novel, Gli indifferenti ( Time of Indifference ), published in 1929. The novel is a realistic analysis of the moral decadence of a middle-class mother and two of her children. In 1927, Moravia met Corrado Alvaro and Massimo Bontempelli and started his career as
5520-428: The bathroom of his Lungotevere apartment, in Rome. In that year, Bompiani published his autobiography, Vita di Moravia ( Life of Moravia ). Moral aridity, the hypocrisy of contemporary life and the inability of people to find happiness in traditional ways such as love and marriage are the regnant themes in the works of Alberto Moravia. Usually, these conditions are pathologically typical of middle-class life; marriage
5612-427: The car, wounded. Realizing that his wife and daughter are dead, he waits for the second wave to return. Marcello then hears the plane's approach. Marcello spends the entire novel in search of what he perceives to be a normal life - normal activities, a normal appearance, normal emotions, and so on. However, he confuses normality with conformity, and in his quest to conform, subjugates his already repressed emotions. When
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#17328025993425704-487: The cinema are Agostino , filmed with the same title by Mauro Bolognini in 1962; Il disprezzo ( A Ghost at Noon or Contempt ), filmed by Jean-Luc Godard as Le Mépris ( Contempt 1963); La noia ( Boredom ), filmed with that title by Damiano Damiani in 1963 and released in the US as The Empty Canvas in 1964 and La ciociara , filmed by Vittorio De Sica as Two Women (1960). Cédric Kahn 's L'Ennui (1998)
5796-406: 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
5888-614: 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
5980-742: 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
6072-459: The essay L'inverno nucleare ( The Nuclear Winter ), including interviews with some contemporary principal scientists and politicians. The short story collection, La Cosa e altri racconti ( The Thing and Other Stories ), was dedicated to Carmen Llera, his new companion (forty-five years his junior), whom he married in 1986, after Morante's death in November 1985. In 1984, Moravia was elected to
6164-414: The essay Poesia e romanzo ( Poetry and Novel ). In 1972 he went to Africa, which inspired his work A quale tribù appartieni? ( Which Tribe Do You Belong To? ), published in the same year. His 1982 trip to Japan, including a visit to Hiroshima , inspired a series of articles for L'Espresso magazine about the atomic bomb . The same theme is in the novel L'uomo che guarda ( The Man Who Looks , 1985) and
6256-517: 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
6348-944: 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
6440-680: The incident with Lino. He ultimately finds an obituary that blames the death on an accident during the cleaning of the gun. Orlando, a colleague of Marcello, asks him to participate in a mission to Paris . A former professor of Marcello, Quadri, is an anti-fascist agitator, and the Italian government would like to infiltrate his organization. Marcello is also due to be married to someone named Giulia and offers to have his honeymoon in Paris so that his presence there would not raise suspicions. Marcello also takes confession, despite his apparent atheism, as
6532-674: 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
6624-438: 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,
6716-427: 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
6808-617: 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
6900-419: The murders but is sadder for their safety than for his victims or his duplicity. The two go out for a drive and walk that evening, and while Giulia tries to convince Marcello to have sex with her in a wooded area, a stranger calls to him by name. He turns out to be Lino. Marcello screams at Lino and blames him for ruining his life by taking his innocence. Lino defends himself by arguing that the loss of innocence
6992-593: The natural course of his life presents him with ethical dilemmas - the assignment to betray Professor Quadri, and his attraction to women other than his wife - he is ill-prepared to deal with them. Moravia also intimates a connection between sexual repression and fascism. Alberto Moravia Alberto Pincherle ( Italian: [alˈbɛrto ˈpiŋkerle] ; 28 November 1907 – 26 September 1990), known by his pseudonym Alberto Moravia ( US : / m oʊ ˈ r ɑː v i ə , - ˈ r eɪ v -/ moh- RAH -vee-ə, - RAY - , Italian: [moˈraːvja] ),
7084-467: The novel as a noteworthy example of contemporary Italian narrative fiction. The next year, Moravia started collaborating with the newspaper La Stampa , then edited by author Curzio Malaparte . In 1933, together with Mario Pannunzio, he founded the literary review magazines Caratteri ( Characters ) and Oggi ( Today ) and started writing for the newspaper Gazzetta del Popolo . The years leading to World War II were difficult for Moravia as an author;
7176-402: 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
7268-526: The pistol may help him gain his classmates' respect and meets Lino again. This time, Lino locks himself in his room with Marcello, planning to abuse him. During the struggle, Lino's gun comes loose and Marcello grabs it. When Lino asks Marcello to shoot, the latter complies and flees out the window, leaving the pistol behind. In 1937, Marcello is an employee of the Italian Fascist government, looking through old newspaper clippings for information on
7360-417: The summer is over, Marcello is tormented by his classmates, who use his "effeminate" appearance to question his gender. One day, five classmates follow Marcello from school and try to force him to wear a skirt. Their attack is interrupted by Lino, a chauffeur who then offers to drive Marcello home. En route, Lino appears to proposition Marcello, offering him a pistol in exchange for unspecified actions. Lino, who
7452-570: 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
7544-787: The troubled sexual relationship between a young, rich painter striving to find sense in his life and an easygoing girl in Rome. It became one of his most famous novels, and won the Viareggio Prize . An adaptation was filmed by Damiano Damiani in 1962. Another adaptation of the book is the basis of Cédric Kahn 's film L'Ennui (1998). Several films were based on his other novels: in 1960, Vittorio De Sica adapted La ciociara ( Two Women ), starring Sophia Loren ; in 1963, Jean-Luc Godard filmed Il disprezzo ( Contempt ); and in 1964, Francesco Maselli filmed Gli indifferenti ( Time of Indifference ). In 1962, Moravia and Elsa Morante parted, despite never divorcing. He went to live with
7636-417: 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
7728-775: 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
7820-638: The works is Il sogno del pigro ( The Dream of the Lazy ). The Fascist seizure of the second edition of La mascherata in 1941, forced him to write under a pseudonym. That same year, he married the novelist Elsa Morante , whom he had met in 1936. They lived in Capri , where he wrote Agostino . After the Armistice of 8 September 1943, Moravia and Morante took refuge in Fondi , on the border of province of Frosinone ,
7912-609: 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
8004-419: The young writer Dacia Maraini and concentrated on theatre. In 1966, he, Maraini and Enzo Siciliano founded Il porcospino , which staged works by Moravia, Maraini, Carlo Emilio Gadda and others. In 1967 Moravia visited China, Japan and Korea . In 1971 he published the novel Io e lui ( I and He or The Two of Us ) about a screenwriter, his independent penis and the situations to which he thrusts them and
8096-422: Was an Italian novelist and journalist. His novels explored matters of modern sexuality , social alienation and existentialism . Moravia is best known for his debut novel Gli indifferenti ( The Time of Indifference 1929) and for the anti-fascist novel Il conformista ( The Conformist 1947), the basis for the film The Conformist (1970) directed by Bernardo Bertolucci . Other novels of his adapted for
8188-401: Was an atheist. His writing was marked by its factual, cold, precise style, often depicting the malaise of the bourgeoisie . It was rooted in the tradition of nineteenth-century narrative, underpinned by high social and cultural awareness. Moravia believed that writers must, if they were to represent reality, ‘a more absolute and complete reality than reality itself’, "assume a moral position,
8280-779: Was an undersecretary in the National Fascist Party cabinet. Moravia did not finish conventional schooling because, at the age of nine, he contracted tuberculosis of the bone, which confined him to bed for five years. He spent three years at home and two in a sanatorium near Cortina d'Ampezzo , in north-eastern Italy. Moravia was an intelligent boy, and devoted himself to reading books and some of his favourite authors were Giosuè Carducci , Giovanni Boccaccio , Fyodor Dostoevsky , James Joyce , Ludovico Ariosto , Carlo Goldoni , William Shakespeare , Molière , Nikolai Gogol and Stéphane Mallarmé . He learned French and German and wrote poems in French and Italian. In 1925 at
8372-592: Was linked to his paternal grandmother. His Jewish Venetian father, Carlo, was an architect and a painter. His Catholic Anconitan mother, Teresa Iginia de Marsanich, was of Dalmatian origin. His family had interesting twists and developed a complex cultural and political character. The brothers Carlo and Nello Rosselli , founders of the anti-fascist resistance movement Giustizia e Libertà , murdered in France by Benito Mussolini 's order in 1937, were paternal cousins and his maternal uncle, Augusto De Marsanich ,
8464-469: 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
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