Americanisation (the) of our language

Grammaretto

Cell phone instead of mobile. To be fair I only hear Americans themselves use these words.
Pass for died is used constantly. Weird.

I would ask to use the bathroom if there was a bath in it. Otherwise it's the loo.

From a telecoms perspective the mobile phone in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, GSM (Group System Mobile) is used, which was developed across a number of countries by the ETSI.

In the USA, they stuck with the CDMA system - aka, they are out of step with the rest of us, and aside from calling a mobile a cell phone the protocols they used were originally developed in the Soviet Union.

It's the same with electricity - we can't persuade them of the benefits of 240V, and they persist with 110V (and light switches that operate the wrong way round from ours!).

All this with the language problems we now seem to have is just a pain in the ...... well now I'm stuck!

We were seated with an American couple at Mdina restaurant in Malta few years ago and their opening gambit was " firstly we feel we should apologise for our president!" Hilarious! We all chatted away and got along well ,needless to say they were New Yorkers! Different from any other yanks and so very similar interests and sense of humour to us too!

Miss adventure- and what about, “I need to spend a penny”? My grandmother always said that when she needed to use the toilet, bathroom, loo….

‘Have a nice day’ aggravates me, also some of Gransnet folk’s comments.

Hands up - who hates 'granddaughter'? It's just not right is it - it should be, and is on my scribblings 'grandaughter'.

No need for the extra 'd'.

My pet hate is ‘you guys’ for addressing a group- last time I looked I was definitely still a gal

Anyone who ask "can I ....." Gets a " I don't know, can you?" From me! Or if they ask "can you...." I'll probably say "no I don't think I can!" Too. I wish we'd all been learned to speak proper.........

I read recently that there are 17 religious holidays between November and January so saying 'Happy Holidays' is to respect those events. It is not an attack on Christmas. When I saw that it made sense.

I can remember the penny in the slot toilets.
I think one of my nans said that, but then she was always quite concerned about being "nice".
She used to sniff her children if ever a nasty whiff came up, to see who had blown off.
They'd be sent out into the garden if found guilty

Ladyleftfieldlover

Gifting!

Stop it Ladyleftfieldlover

"Gifting" will be come "Gifted" soon - Aaaarrrgggh !!

I agree that the American language is somewhat abysmal when they miss out the T in words like inanershnal for international and gonna for going to, but to be fair the British, especially on TV, use such words as nothink, somethink, everythink, to name but a few annoyances to me. Also we have the missing T here for example a i for at it, go i for got it, etc. but this is because of the "Geordie" way of speaking.

There are many more cases to mention but time writing them is precious, so Auf Wiedersehen pe

Delila

I don’t like “from the get-go”, or “power-outage”. No offence intended.

I like that - how would an Americanism deal with a "brown out" as compared to a "black-out".

One is definitive loss of power, the other being a reduction - we chose to differentiate so that we could understand and solve the problem.

A "power-outage" means nothing.

The English that was taken to America in the 17th century wasn’t a fixed language. It was extremely flexible in both spelling and usage. Such variations as color and colour were just ordinary English, nothing to do with America. Shakespeare spelt pretty much as he pleased. Even his own name varied.

It was Samuel Johnson’s English Dictionary in the mid-18th century that stabilised English spelling, which then began to be seen as ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. What is right in American English now can be seen as wrong in British English - and, presumably, vice versa.

Right on, baby!

I was taken aback recently when my 3yo GD announced that she was ‘going for a tiddle’! I haven’t heard that expression for decades. ?

I cant see the problem, Every country in the world has its own way of expression, life style etc, if you are watching American TV then that's how it will be. Try watching Australian TV that will be different to us also, watch New Zealand Brokenwood series, when they say DID instead of dead. We could criticise every country, lets not be so British and pompous, and think everyone has to be like us. We are not being made to use the Americanism, its a cosmopolitan country now. Go into London and any other city you will find all kinds of expressions that aren't British anymore. You will have to adjust to todays world.

It is a living language getting influences from all over. Having said that I have to say that we seem to import the worst of America.

Not sure why people are upset with “passing”. - I think for those of the Christian faith it makes perfect sense- you are passing from this life to the next.

I once had a chat with an American woman who had been in a London restaurant when she asked the waiter Have you seen Lou?, Lou being her husband, she was very puzzled to be directed to the Ladies, took a while to sort it out, much to everyone's amusement.
Our daughter, about 7 at the time, followed OH into a shop and called from the door Ask if they sell rubbers, you wore mine out last night!
Vive la difference, it can be great fun. A couple of friends, Briton and American, told us that half way across the Atlantic football became soccer and pants became trousers.

On the weekend instead of at the weekend, co-worker instead of colleague- sounds like cow to me and is my least favourite, going forward, step up to the plate, starting over and a whole host of other words and phrases already mentioned. I am a fully-fledged grumpy old English pedant with a fervent dislike of Americanisms.

GSM is very much present in the US

Eh?

My current hate is the journalese 'in class' for 'at school', 'missing class' for 'missing lessons' and so on.
I constantly read this in the papers, rarely hear it said. I assume it comes from America but may not.

Ooooooh can't stand 'my bad' makes me so uncomfortable!