[beardyw]

English has always been gloriously open source, and anyone can fork it. It is not owned by anyone and words mean exactly what you intend them to mean, and no-one can tell you otherwise. And you can spell or pronounce words just how you like, despite what they told you at school.

That said, your social group may set its own expectations, and you may want to fall in line, say in your job application.

So if what you speak is based on English, it's English (in my opinion - and by the way I am English).

Oh, and Shakespeare would have spoken with an accent more like an American than I do. But don't tell film makers, our actors need the work.

[tacon]

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

[gitrog]

> Oh, and Shakespeare would have spoken with an accent more like an American than I do.

Would you explain what you mean by this, I'm very curious.

[bmn__]

AE conserves features of early modern English, like rhoticity.

[jjeaff]

There is also some conjecture that certain regional English in america, namely the Ozark region retained some Shakespearean/Elizabethan words and pronunciations and phrases due to its geographic seclusion.

[beardyw]

I read about the reasons somewhere, but basically it is a general phenomenon where colonists lock in the habits and culture of their homeland as they remember it, and are more resistant to natural change.