Joseph Mallord William Turner This English painter and engraver was born in London on April 23, 1775.

After a sporadic elementary education Turner devoted himself to the study of art and entered the Royal Academy schools in 1789. He was elected a member of the Academy in 1802, and, as a teacher from 1808 of an Academy course in perspective, he exerted a powerful influence on the development of English landscape engraving. He travelled a great deal, especially in Italy, and found inspiration for many of his later paintings in Venice. His ardent admirer, John Ruskin, devoted some of the most eloquent passages of "Modern Painters" to a description of his work. Trained by the sound architectural draughtsman and topographical artist Thomas Malton, Jr., and developing under the influence of the great English seventeenth century landscapists, Turner extended English topographical painting beyond the antiquarian and reporting limits, transforming it into a Romantic expression of his own feelings. Graphically this took form most clearly in his hundreds of water-colours; in them spatial extent appears bathed with atmosphere and light. The effects he achieved in water-colours Turner transferred to oil painting as well. His colours, often of high intensity, retain their relative values effectively and, when coupled with accurate drawing of shapes, as in the early "Derwenter" with the "Falls of Lodore" or the late "Norham Castle Sunrise" are kept within control by the artist. In 1807, Turner began a series of etchings and mezzotints from his own drawings, for a book to be entitled Liber Studiorum. The work, discontinued in 1820, grew out of his admiration for Claude Lorrain's Liber varietatis. Turner died at Chelsea on December 19th, 1851, regarded as the titular cofound-er, with Thomas Girtin, of English water-colour landscape painting. (From "Mozaika", No. 3, 1966) , 23 1775 . 1789 . 1802 , , 1808 , . , , . , , " " . -, , , . , . , . , , , , "Derwenter" " " " - " . 1807 mezzotints , , Liber Studiorum. , 1820 , varietatis Liber . 19 1851 , , Girtin, . ( "", 3, 1966)

American English (variously abbreviated AmE, AE, AmEng, USEng, en-US, also known as United States English, or U.S. English) is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of native speakers of English live in the United States. English is the most common language in the United States. Though the U.S. federal government has no official language, English is the only language used by the federal government and is considered the de facto language of the United States because of its widespread use. English has been given official status by 28 of the 50 state governments. The use of English in the United States was inherited from British colonization. The first wave of Englishspeaking settlers arrived in North America in the 17th century. During that time, there were also speakers in North America of Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Norwegian, Swedish, Scots, Welsh, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Finnish, Russian (in Alaska), and numerous Native American languages. Differences between British English and American English Main article: American and British English differences American English and British English (BrE) differ at the levels of phonology, phonetics, vocabulary, and, to a lesser extent, grammar and orthography. The first large American dictionary, An American Dictionary of the English Language, was written by Noah Webster in 1828; Webster intended to show that the United States, which was a relatively new country at the time, spoke a different dialect from that of Britain. Differences in grammar are relatively minor, and normally do not affect mutual intelligibility; these include: different use of some verbal auxiliaries; formal (rather than notional) agreement with collective nouns; different preferences for the past forms of a few verbs (e.g. AmE/BrE: learned/learnt, burned/burnt, and in sneak, dive, get); different prepositions and adverbs in certain contexts (e.g. AmE in school, BrE at school); and whether or not a definite article is used, in very few cases (AmE to 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 Differences in orthography are also trivial. Some of the forms that now serve to distinguish American from British spelling (color for colour, center for centre, traveler for traveller, etc.) were introduced by Noah Webster himself; others are due to spelling tendencies in Britain from the 17th century until the present day (e.g. -ise for -ize, although the Oxford English Dictionary still prefers the -ize ending) and cases favored by the francophile tastes of 19th century Victorian England, which had little effect on AmE (e.g. programme for program, manoeuvre for maneuver, skilful for skillful, cheque for check, etc.) AmE sometimes favors words that are morphologically more complex, whereas BrE uses clipped forms, such as AmE transportation and BrE transport or where the British form is a back-formation, such as AmE burglarize and BrE burgle (from burglar). It should however be noted that these words are not mutually exclusive, being widely understood and mostly used alongside each other within the two systems.

What is standard English? Standard English is the variety of English that is held by many to be 'correct' in the sense that it shows none of the regional or other variations that are considered by some to be ungrammatical, or non-standard English. Received Pronunciation, often called RP, is the way Standard English is spoken; without regional variations. Standard English and RP are widely used in the media and by public figures, so it has prestige status and is regarded by many as the most desirable form of the language. What is non-standard English? In informal situations, many people use non-standard varieties of British English, using grammars and words and accents which are special to a particular place. Non-standard language often contains expressions which are regarded as incorrect in standard language even if they seem quite sensible, for example, the form youse for the plural of you, which is found in a number of places where English is spoken. It is important to realise that non-standard English is just as organized as standard language it is just that the systems are different. Examples of non-standard English There are a number of non-standard varieties of British English, such as Scouse (the language of Liverpool), Geordie (the language of North-eastern England), so-called Estuary English (found in the South-east of England, but spreading from there), and Scots, which has descended from Northern dialects of Old English.