Americanisation (the) of our language

Sago

Lucca I have heard “happy holidays” a lot here in the UK.
It’s popular among woke types who don’t wish to offend anyone by mentioning a Christian Festival.

I’m happy for Americans to use what ever language they wish….even fanny pack!
It just never seems to sound right here said in a British accent.

Oh sorry, I didnt realise,

DD has been married to an American for nearly 25 years but we've got him nearly civilised now. Crisps and Chips was the biggest problem. once we got those sorted he was nearly one of us.

When I worked in various cafes "Can I get?" used to get me close to murder. My big hate at the moment is turning nouns into verbs as in "To Gift" "To Medal" and so on.

Last time I was in the US visiting ds, I came across a young boy called Awesome. I later mentioned it to ds1 and he said ‘Mum, I think you’ll find his name is Orson.’

My ds’s children sometimes have ‘British weeks’, when they say things like bin lorry, car boot, pavement and so on instead of the usual American terms.

Anyone else remember the ladies loos in Jenner’s, Edinburgh? It was called the powder room - very 1950’s.

Another generalisation about Americans being crude MollyF are there no crude British people?
I'm sure a lot of British language has found its way into America as it has here in France.
There are American expressions I don't like either so I don't use them. It seems to be popular on here to mock all things American

Indeed instead of yes!

e. g. 19th December (as heard on the BBC as well) for
19th of December

Settlers crossed the Atlantic in the 17th Century, taking with them English as it was spoken at that time. The two branches inevitably diverged; we have no right to call it 'our' language. To take 'gotten' as an example. It survives in 'forgotten', 'begotten' and 'misbegotten'. American English has acquired many more 'borrowings', so has ours. What does it matter so long as we can understand one another?

Settlers crossed the Atlantic in the 17th Century, taking with them English as it was spoken at that time. The two branches inevitably diverged; we have no right to call it 'our' language. To take 'gotten' as an example. It survives in 'forgotten', 'begotten' and 'misbegotten'. American English has acquired many more 'borrowings', so has ours. What does it matter so long as we can understand one another?

Sorry - doubling up again!

Working on the ‘live and let live, they can have their own words if they won’t to’ principle, why do we have to adopt their changes. For example, I always understood that the overweight Edward V11 experienced a lot of discomfort when eating vast dinners wearing the traditional white tie and tails. His tailor thoughtfully constructed a dinner jacket. This was adopted by the USA and renamed a tuxedo. This has now filtered back and seems to be referred to more and more by the Americanism.

I’m no thrilled about mules being called slides either.

Note to self: you are turning into your mother

“My bad” - just awful ?

GagaJo

My pet peeve is gotten. I know it's archaic English and they still use it, but I hear it everytime I read it and it irritates me!

...and it still exists in whichever part of the country Ambridge is in, although it may have died out with Bert Fry. And of course in the associated forget/forgotten, beget/begotten..

And talking about bathrooms, we lived in a flat in the US which had a small toilet (i.e. only toilet/washbasin) and the agent referred to it as a 'half bathroom'

Well said sodapop. My pet hate is pedants.

Not sure how we "lowly" uncivilized American's can be considered both crude and prissy.

In the US, we use American English. In the UK, you use Queen's English. Two different countries and two different languages. Do you all make fun of all other countries that speak different languages?

I don't see anything making fun of Canadian English. How about Australian English? Those both came from Queen's English but have also been changed over time. Or do you not make fun of those countries because they are Commonwealth Countries? They must very well still be civilized since they are Commonwealth Countries. Us poor uncivilized American's don't know any better do we?

I am surprised you don't look down more on Australia. All those British criminals in their pedigree.

If you do not want to adopt language nuances from other countries, you need to look inside your own borders as to who is making those decisions and connect with them. Is it your media? School systems? It certainly is not any American who came to your country and forced it.

The majority of American's say Merry Christmas. We do also recognize that within our 300+ million person population, we have various religions who celebrate major religious holidays from the first part of November until January.

We wouldn't want to leave out all the people we have welcomed to our shore, like the Jewish refugees during World War 2, Buddhist refugees in the 70's and 80's, and the Muslim refugees in the last 20-30 years.

Here is what is funny, it has been my experience in the US that Christians will say Happy Hanukkah to our Jewish Friends and vice versa. That happens across all religions here.

That doesn't make us woke, it makes us respectful to our fellow humans.

Variations have always existed across the Uk .I know in my part of Scotland it was always Santa ,Uni and Leash ,well for the almost 70 years I've been around .Its very bad manner s ,my granny would have said, to be so pass remarkable about other folk,their looks or their language and its usually carnaptious old folks who do it .She may have been right!

Thank you freedom

Threads like this make british people look snobby and unpopular

If you can generalize about American English, I can do the same, right?

Reminds me of an incident in Heathrow. An employee complained- assumed I couldn't speak English (by looking at my passport), and when I replied in English, he complained it was American English
I told him politely to zip it and stop being snobbish

The kicker? He was not speaking British English either! He was an immigrant himself.

Sadly, this attitude can also be seen in French and Spanish too.

Grandma70s

Agree about bathroom, but we weren’t even allowed to say ‘toilet’ at home or at school. It was ‘lavatory’.

I can’t think of any Americanisms I like.

I’m American. It sure doesn’t feel good to read this.

I’ve never heard “year on year”. We use “year after year”.
I don’t hear the word “peek” substituted for “peep”.

Most Americans I know are very nice people. There is a very vocal uneducated minority (I hope, anyway) of idiots who don’t represent all of us!

I misread that as I can’t think of any AMERICANS I like. But still.

Not keen on harrASSment, with the accent on ass?
Also harASSed.

Personally I hate the use of the word toilet when the correct term is lavatory. Not an Americanism but a twee term used by people who think toilet is polite - it is not. As my mother would say, if it's the word used by the Queen and her family then it must be correct. They say lavatory.

I believe we are people divided by a common language that the mind. The strains of Shakespeare are as gentle in my ear as yours, I share genetic soup with many, yet find Americans despised. This week I took an awful fall, breaking my hip, destroying the other knee and fracturing my arm. What moments of tranquility I have enjoyed living in theUK. Please grant me 3 days without overt hatred so I might bathe in a sense of unity and tolerance finding. A balm for the pain thrift. If after that time anger must return, I will still support praying you claim a better way.

Txguiltz I am extremely sorry for you having such a bad accident and hope you make a good recovery. I had a bad fall myself recently but escaped with cuts and bruises but I can empathise with the shock to the system . For my part its only the words I dislike and I dislike plenty of English words and phrases too. I enjoyed my visits to America and the Americans I have worked with have been lovely. My pedantry comes from a classical Grammar school education heavy on the written word and then a clinical career where documentation and reports were required to be clear and concise.

So, as a 65 year old American I will tell say that many of the words you seem to find offensive are NOT used in most of America. We have many "sections" of the US that use different words for different things. i.e. bathroom vs. men's room or ladies room. The word toilet is seldom used, but older folks (older than myself) used to use it frequently. Words that you use in the UK are sometimes offensive to us in the USA. I had to chuckle as I read this thread. You insinuation that we "yanks" use many of these phrases is quite false. SO.....

When I was a child my mother disapproved of toilet which she insisted had to be lavatory because 'toilet is a nasty American word'. Don't think it was but I still hate it so stick to loo.