It's "arse", not "ass" and "are" is not a suitable substitute for "our"
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Misuse of Language/Creeping Americanisms.
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Posted 5 months ago #
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"are" is not a suitable substitute for "our" as which side of the pond you're on. You're confusing Americanisms with illiteracy.
Posted 5 months ago # -
Sorry, but it's the nature of language to change and alter and adopt over time. I suggest that you just get used to the fact. Americans were bitching about creeping 'englishisms' entering their language in the 18thC, according to Bill Bryson.
Or maybe you want to be like the French, and pass useless laws to keep English 'pure'?Posted 5 months ago # -
Enough already!
Posted 5 months ago # -
And what use is the word "gotten"...?
Posted 5 months ago # -
Arse only for the Celts among us please, don't want any English using it, just doesn't sound correct.
Posted 5 months ago # -
Misuse of punctuation is a far greater crime.
Posted 5 months ago # -
And what use is the word "gotten"...?
Short for forgotten obv.
Posted 5 months ago # -
it'll always be marathon not snickers
Posted 5 months ago # -
Americanisms are inevitable. My nephews and nieces (in or around 10 years old) all use words like side-walk and elevator. It's being bombarded by American TV / culture all the time. It's not a new thing, it's been happening for decades.
Posted 5 months ago # -
My youngest son says 'like' more than once in each sentence. I despair.
Posted 5 months ago # -
Not as bad as 'swap out'......so horrible
Posted 5 months ago # -
America kept some original english spellings to maintain their englishness. They also produced a dictionary with standard spellings as for a long time there was often not a defined spelling.
It's us that's evolving the language and couldn't make our minds up.
Posted 5 months ago # -
I get hacked off with the amount of Greek and Latin that's crept in over the years!!!
Change and development, who the freakin' hell wants it?Posted 5 months ago # -
I cringe every time I hear french words creeping in.. bidon, chapeaux, bolleaux et cetera
Posted 5 months ago # -
merde, sacrebleu!!
Posted 5 months ago # -
Mange tout, iDave, mange tout.
Posted 5 months ago # -
^ or when people type in what I understand to be an approximation of Scotch. Disney Ken this and canny doo that. It's a little bit peculiar, to say the least.
Posted 5 months ago # -
iDave is a French word if I remember correctly.. and diet certainly is..
Posted 5 months ago # -
Sorry, but it's the nature of language to change and alter and adopt over time
Not if you make it punishable by flogging/beating/setting on fire/chinese burns or all of the above.Posted 5 months ago # -
chinese burns.. there's another one..
Posted 5 months ago # -
And what use is the word "gotten"...?
It's primary usage is to annoy pedantic British people. (It annoys the carp out of me.) See also "draw" instead of "drawer."
Posted 5 months ago # -
Americanisms are inevitable.
Not at all, I expect Chineseism to start finding it's way into our vocabulary, as US global influence continues to diminish.
And since Brazil became a wealthier country than Britain this weekend, I expect a future for Portuguese words too.
By 2099 Americanism will be so last century, and no doubt the basis of much old fogie ridicule.
Posted 5 months ago # -
Jefferson's draft of the Declaration [of Independence] contains several spellings and usages that strike us today [...] as irregular. For one thing, Jefferson always wrote it's for the possessive form of it, a practice that looks decidedly illiterate today. In fact, there was some logic to it. As a possessive form, the argument went, its required an apostrophe in precisely the same way as did words like children's or men's. Others contended, however, that in certain common words like ours and yours it was customary to dispense with the apostrophe, and that its belonged to this camp. By about 1815, the non-apostrophists had their way almost everywhere, but in 1776 it was a fine point, and one to which Jefferson clearly did not subscribe. [Bryson's ref: William Saffire, Coming to terms, Doubleday, 1991, p. 140]
[Chapter 3, A 'Democratical Phrenzy': America in the Age of Revolution, p. 53]David Simpson observers in The Politics of American English [OUP, 1986, p. 23]: "Except for Samuel Johnson, no one in 1776, on either side of the ocean, seems to show much concern for a standard spelling practice."
[...] To begin with, such a statement contains the implied conceit that modern English is today somehow uniform in its spellings, which is far from true. In 1972 a scholar named Lee C. Deighton undertook the considerable task of comparing the spellings of every word in four leading American dictionaries and found there are no fewer than 1,770 common words in modern English in which there is no general agreement on the preferred spelling. [...] The dictionaries are equally - we might fairly say hopelessly - split on whether to write discussible or discussable, eyeopener, eye opener or, eye-opener, dumfound or, dumbfound, gladiolus (for the plural), gladioli or, gladioluses, gobbledegook or, gobbledygook, licenceable or, licensable, and many hundreds of others. The champion of orthographic uncertainty appears to be panatela, which can also pass muster as panatella, panetela or panetella.[Chapter 3, A 'Democratical Phrenzy': America in the Age of Revolution, p. 53-54]
Posted 5 months ago # -
I hate the americanisations - especially fire road and switchback as used by mountinabikers.
We do not have fire roads in the UK. A switchback goes up and down - its not s set of zig zags.However we do have a lot of Indian words. Bungalow, veranda, khazi, Pyjamas
Mind you its suprising what is indian
even Santa claus is indianPosted 5 months ago # -
Anyways it's not arse, it's erse, alright.
And scxc, disney ken? Talk about/aboot creeping americanisms!
An is isnae scotch ye numpty, it's scot-ish (with obligatory glottlestop).
Posted 5 months ago # -
especially fire road and switchback
Wow, really? Only you've never mentioned them before.
Posted 5 months ago # -
A switchback goes up and down - its not s set of zig zags.
Actually it means both of those in English, the former probably being an Anglisiation of an American term.
The OED lists the zig-zag version first -
a. Applied to a form of railway used on steep slopes, consisting of a zigzag series of lines connected by switches, at each of which the train or car is ‘switched back’ or reversed in direction. Also fig. and in extended transf. uses.
Posted 5 months ago # -
Probably an Indian word anyway
Posted 5 months ago # -
I always thought that "gotten" was a past tense of the verb "to get" that we lazy English had stopped using, while the US English continues to use that, and many other, old-english words that we have long since forgotten.
Remember, when the American colonies seceded from the Empire, they were isolated pretty much from "the rest of the world", while our version of the language continued to evolve as the empire continued to expand.
Why complain about "creeping Americanisms" when what you're referring to is probably more like "creeping old-englishisms"?
anyway, if you want to hear old english dialects, come to Barnsley, they're alive & well
having said that, though, it was very strange hearing my 6yo Geordie niece singing in an American accent
Posted 5 months ago # -
The one I really hate now is saying "Can I get?" Instead of "May I have?"
When I'm in a cafe and the person in front of me says "Can I get a cappuccino?" I just want to hurt someone.
Posted 5 months ago # -
Has anyone yet said that those are examples not of the misuse of language, but rather of its evolution?
Ah, thought so.
Posted 5 months ago # -
and also "swap out' / "change out"
what's all that about?
Posted 5 months ago # -
Indian words........khazi
Khazi isn't an Indian word - I'm fairly sure most Indians wouldn't understand if you used it. It's a Polari/London word which used to be spelt "carsey". The more recent spelling makes it look Indian. Many Polari words originate from Yiddish, Romany, and Italian, it's probably Italian - whore house/casa and was corrupted to carsey. As "vin blanc" was corrupted to plonk.......as in "cheap plonk".
Posted 5 months ago # -
Well there you go Ernie - every day is a school day.
I suppose yo are going to tell me the queen isn't indian either?
Posted 5 months ago #
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