Americanisation (the) of our language

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. ?

Right on, baby!

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.

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.

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

Ladyleftfieldlover

Gifting!

Stop it Ladyleftfieldlover

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

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

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.

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.........

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

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'.

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

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….

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!

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!

Ha ha, Molly, your post makes me laugh- as a dual citizen of both UK and USA I guess I can smile.

Aveline

I prefer to 'spend a penny' but modern types have no memory of pay as you enter loos. This old toilet poem may raise a laugh. I couldn't believe it when my very respectable great aunt told me it.

'Here I sit broken hearted,
Paid my penny,
Only farted!'

Passing wind. There's a topic for international language discussion.

Best one from an ancient pub named The Stamford at Bowden in Cheshire:
"Owing to the somewhat delicate and ancient structure of this medieval building
Turds over the weight of two pounds must be lowered by hand" !?????
Written in medieval style lettering and looking very authentic!!!!

Trish9495

We gave them a perfectly good language, they got their own back on us by tweaking it and returning it to us.

Here is another word we have in common.

Incorrect

www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180207-how-americans-preserved-british-english

We gave them a perfectly good language, they got their own back on us by tweaking it and returning it to us.

"reaching out" AAAAARGH! Also : normalcy(or any other sort of 'alcy') 'from the get-go' 'and the dreaded 'awesome' I can't go on , I'm shrivelling up as we speak! Appallingly bad diction, non verbs non adjectives and non sensical!?!

Let's look at some American terms that are the same as British Terms. Many of the posters on this thread should know these.

uncouth
rude
snobby
unappealing
judgmental

I could think of more......

Americans didn't change the language. We kept it preserved and are now sending it back after you all changed it.

www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180207-how-americans-preserved-british-english

‘Americans can be really crude’ what? All 350 million of them?

MissAdventure

This is al quite offensive to the American members of gransnet, I'd imagine.
I have never seen them asking why we say something or don't speak as they do.
Presumably they have better manners.

Imagine the outcry if the shoe was on the other foot?
How annoying are some Britishisms. ?

I use all sorts of words for the lavatory (apart from lavatory)
I can't remember ever being that focused on it.
Loo, toilet, having a wee..

Lucca

Apologies to any Americans on here for this thread.

As an American, I thoroughly enjoy the community on GN. I learn something new about your word usage and way of life every day. It is fascinating! I wish I were able to visit.

I had always heard that there is a general dislike of Americans over there and I get it. There is plenty about our culture that I find over-the-top and frankly embarrassing. This is mostly due to an obnoxious, loud and very opinionated segment of society. As a quiet, private type of person, it makes me cringe.