Yes, this is why I said that too much is made of the difference between British and American English. A huge number of the words claimed to be "American" are, in fact, just older English words – the difference is the amount of usage the words get in each country. Also, many users and listeners are very parochial in their language abilities and may not have heard or used the words themselves. These days it is very easy to track word and language usage and see where any particular item is used and by how much. Stress on prefixes, etc., can differ often because in the last hundred years or so these words – many of which are recent – are spoken by non-native English speakers in America and they keep their native stress patterns. Stress is extremely important in English, and putting stress in the wrong place in a word can make it incomprehensible to both native and foreign listeners – this is similar to getting the TONE s wrong in Thai, as a Thai listener simply won't understand the word even if you have the right word in your mind but the wrong tone. Similarly if a Thai speaker is using the right word but has the stress wrong, you simply won't understand them. Try. "supper-gut-tee" (= spaghetti), "com-put-TEERR", "batta lee" In America try telling someone you're "pissed" ,
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