re: #132 ckkatz

I started using the term ‘posse’ in place of a ‘gang of friends’.

More generally, someone recently pointed out that with so many first and second language speakers, English has significantly diverged and the UK is no longer the adjudicator of the language. Although certain forms are still considered to convey more or less status.

Great Britain itself has many more regional dialects and accents (and also Scots which is really a separate language), which are more different from their standard English than American dialects are from General American. Of course, this happened over the 1700 years or so since the Angles and Saxons migrated to Great Britain, took over and imposed their language on the locals (and intermarried with them), and developed changes due to distance.

Some of the different British English dialects also have influence from Old Norse (due to Danish rule over large parts of Great Britain — the “Danelaw”).

And immigration has had a huge influence even on Britain’s English. London’s Cockney English has borrowings and influence from Yiddish and Romani.

And then there’s Indian English, which is at least 200 years old at this point, and the various other Englishes of the former British Empire which are used as either a native language, or as a lingua franca.