Americanisms!

Diana. Jessica. Unity. Deborah and Nancy are the only ones I know. They had a bro called thomas

Pamela.

Homecoming is when graduates return for an annual celebration at their former college or school.

Bananas Toilet itself is a euphemism.

Btw Lots of so-called American expressions (and pronunciation) are simply an older form of English taken over by early settlers and surviving in America but dying out in the Mother Country. Gotten is a good example. Many others, of course, derive from the influence of immigrants from non-English speaking countries. Cookies, for example, comes from Dutch and is just as good a word as biscuits (which comes from French).

ana it made me laugh in the recent series on the Claridges Hotel - when the concierge said "Nowadays Google makes us all clever!" (in response to the gazillion requests from guests for info).

absent, thanks for clarifying what "Homecoming" is. I guess toilet is a euphemism, I do remember a teacher at school asking a classmate not to do her toilet in class when she was caught plucking her eyebrows in a small mirror, the rest of us of course fell about in hysterical laughter! However, whilst the old fashioned definition was I believe attending to one's appearance I think most now associate it with bodily functions which a restroom does not imply. I do remember reading a Billy Bryson book, I think it was called "Made in America" in which he explained a lot of American terminology is surprisingly derived from old English. As you say, America is an incredible melting pot of different nations so different languages would have had an influence as well. Personally some of my favourite place names in America are the ones that belonged to the Native Americans such as Chicago, Potamac and many more.

Some Americanisms really grate. For example the stretching of words, like "burglarise" instead of "burgle". And the way laboratory is always mispronounced!

There are many American sayings now used in the UK. I hear people in cafes saying "Can I get a coffee please" and half expect the staff to say "No you can't that's my job, but you may have a coffee"

There is a saying "Two nations divided by a single language" I think that's it but someone may correct me.

I think we've been over this ground before - probably on pedants' corner.

Moved I think it might have been Mark Twain.

anno I do believe you're right! It does ring a bell.

Phoenix sounds like him. DS3 has just got into reading him!

Deborah is the only one left. Apparently even when she was very young, her sisters' nickname for her was "duchess"

At least I think she is still around. She keeps a lower profile now that she is the Dowager Duchess and is over 90.

(I've only just come back to GN after asking the question about the Mitford sisters and then b*******g off to bed)

My OH is American and is still undergoing retraining although we've been together many years. As far as I know language is a tool to communicate so as long as we understand each other it's fine. More and more Americanisms will infiltrate as communication is more global. Personally, I love it. I do have to sit OH on the naughty step for bag/purse and sweater/jumper though and when he tells me to 'get my ass in gear' I just laugh.

Hi Cheelu lovely to see you

There aren't many American words that Brits won't understand and vice versa, but there are a few pitfalls. In the US, nursing a baby doesn't just mean cuddling but breastfeeding. Fanny and fag are two other obvious minefields.

Bangs, meaning a fringe (hairstyle, not soft furnishing) comes from bang-tail, a racehorse with a docked tail.

#phoenix - "Some Americanisms really grate. For example the stretching of words, like "burglarise" instead of "burgle". And the way laboratory is always mispronounced!"

As LABoratory, you mean? While we sa LaBORatrie - many American English words are stressed differently from the same word in British English, e.g., AdverTISEment.

Apart from 'awesome' already mentioned - 'totally', as in 'I'll totally buy one of those' is assuming the proportions of a bête noir, especially when pronounced 'toadalley'!

Not an Americanism but when I was visiting my brother in Australia he mentioned he was going to put on his thongs - it took me a while to realise he meant his flip flops! A mental image I could have done without!

I first came across the use of bangs for fringes in Laura Ingalls Wilder's books when I was a kid. Although I understood what it meant I've never knownw where it came from. Thanks, absent.

i had a penpal in my teens who talked about her bangs - it was only by the context that I understood what she meant. Interesting origin, absent.

No feetlebaum , I mean the way they say LabRAtory, not a different stress on a syllable, a totally different word!

Well, it isn't really totally different. They are just shortening the o rather extremely and putting the stress on a different syllable. So what? We understand the word. There are similar 'sized' differences in pronunciation of various words even within our own country. Of course people in a different country will pronounce many things differently, and use different words for the same thing.

Why complain? Just enjoy it.

#Phoenix - Crumbs - I never heard anyone say that! To rhyme with 'cattery'? Bizarre.

Mind you some things they get right, and we don't - 'aluminum' instead of our 'aluminium' for example.

Waitress in Denny's, Palo Alto, to me: "Do you speak English?"
Me: "Speak it? Madam, I AM it!'

Why is aaluminum right and aluminium not?

Forget the double a my laptop is developing a stammer

Hmm, yes. Somehow I made labrattory sound right in my head (well, acceptable) but it's not working any more. Brain fuzz moment

Perhaps I was thinking LABrattry ???

Anyway, another explanation could be never having heard the word before. DD is coming across new words all the time in her reading, but if she hasn't heard them spoken before and doesn't know their derivation, she sometimes gets them wrong interesting.

Likewise, DH pronounces many scientific words the American way because that's how he heard them first.

I have googled it and find that it was named by Sir Humphry Davy (who who, you may recall, “abominated gravy, and lived in the odium of having discovered sodium”), and read that :
"Sir Humphry made a bit of a mess of naming this new element, at first spelling it alumium (this was in 1807) then changing it to aluminum, and finally settling on aluminium in 1812. His classically educated scientific colleagues preferred aluminium right from the start, because it had more of a classical ring, and chimed harmoniously with many other elements whose names ended in –ium, like potassium, sodium, and magnesium, all of which had been named by Davy."
So it appears that aluminium is *right.