One thing I noticed as an English person during my time in the US is that you have less words.
E.g. everything really is awesome! This is pretty much exactly double plus good. In English English we have a dazzling array (sorry, awesome list) of adjectives, often particularly tied to certain nouns. For example 'a splendid view [out the window]', we wouldn't say a person is 'splendid' - except the somewhat archaic 'splendid fellow'.
Given the direction of travel of a large part of US society, perhaps Orwell was on to something.
>One thing I noticed as an English person during my time in the US is that you have less words.
I'm not sure how to resolve the pronoun "you". Are you comparing news broadcasts? Politicians' speeches? Conversations with people in random situations?
When I think of British English, I certainly think of different words, but not necessarily more words.
> In English English we have a dazzling array (sorry, awesome list) of adjectives, often particularly tied to certain nouns.
This sounds horrible!
I assign no value, and indeed negative value, to adjectives whose only value is that they exclusively apply to different nouns. If that's the case, then go the newspeak way and just tell me it's a good/great/bad view. Yes, the verbiage gets more repetitive, but if you're just avoiding repetition by using the correct synonym with the correct noun, why bother?
I don't think this has to do with Orwell's ideas really, and frankly I don't think related to the issue of Newspeak either.
Quebec French vs. France French and Mexican Spanish vs. Spain Spanish exhibit the same issue, it's a 'New World' thing, and it doesn't really have roots in politics so much as basic cultural evolution where there were fewer formal institutions led by even fewer and less educated elites. Headmasters and Teachers in the New World will have had considerably less formal training and at least for several generations, everywhere in the New World will have been somewhat 'cut off' from the rest of civilization.
So not just matter of 'formal education' but the proclivity of the settlers to, on an individual basis, be concerned about literacy etc.. Even if they were, resources, cultural centres etc. were further few between.
From 1492 to 1900 the 'Westward Moving Wave' of civility took at least a few generations to settle in, during which time a lot of things were 'lost' and/or replaced.
Finally - America is not formally an 'English' country. It's a mix of people for whom English is commonly a 'second generational language'.
The rust belt was settled by Germans, North Midwest was settled by Swedes, Norwegians, much of NY/NJ by Italians. Their families are not going to imbue their children with exposure to, or aptitude for more advanced English.
So 'American English', broadly, is a little bit of a common denominator language, kind of a simplified English.
Notably, Quebec is a little bit different, as they are culturally homogeneous and originally French, but they were 'cut off' after 1777 collapse of French colonies to the UK. Their common language and vocabulary did evolve, but they also maintained some degree of intact elite / higher education and formalized institutions. This is evident even now as they produce considerably more literary and other 'cultural' artifacts per-capita than most places in the Americas, even if the local accent has a crude twang.
E.g. everything really is awesome! This is pretty much exactly double plus good. In English English we have a dazzling array (sorry, awesome list) of adjectives, often particularly tied to certain nouns. For example 'a splendid view [out the window]', we wouldn't say a person is 'splendid' - except the somewhat archaic 'splendid fellow'.
Given the direction of travel of a large part of US society, perhaps Orwell was on to something.