[Closed] Misuse of Language/Creeping Americanisms.

"are" is not a suitable substitute for "our" as which side of the pond you're on. You're confusing Americanisms with illiteracy.

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'?

Enough already!

And what use is the word "gotten"...?

Arse only for the Celts among us please, don't want any English using it, just doesn't sound correct.

Misuse of punctuation is a far greater crime.

And what use is the word "gotten"...?

Short for forgotten obv.

it'll always be marathon not snickers

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.

My youngest son says 'like' more than once in each sentence. I despair.

Not as bad as 'swap out'......so horrible 🙁

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.

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?

I cringe every time I hear french words creeping in.. bidon, chapeaux, bolleaux et cetera

merde, sacrebleu!!

Mange tout, iDave, mange tout.

^ 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.

iDave is a French word if I remember correctly.. and diet certainly is..

Sorry, but it's the nature of language to change and alter and adopt over time

[u]chinese[/u] burns.. there's another one..

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."

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.

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]

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
[url=

you its suprising what is indian[/url]
[url=

Santa claus is indian[/url]

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). 😀

especially fire road and switchback

Wow, really? Only you've never mentioned them before. 😛

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 -

[i]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.[/i]

Probably an Indian word anyway

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 😯

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.

Has anyone yet said that those are examples not of the misuse of language, but rather of its evolution?

Ah, thought so.

and also "swap out' / "change out"

what's all that about?

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".

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?

Course she is, think about it........

The Amercanisation through the introduction of new vocabularby doesn't bother me as long as we recognise that bonnet is British and hood is American, etc.
getting used to american grammar is a little more difficult to get my head round, particularly the lack of present perfect in the USA, but, but I am equally appalled by the mistakes made and poor usage of British grammar by Brits, the present perfect doesn't require a finished time reference, e.g. [i]I have been to the shops this morning[/i] is incorrect. I [i]went[/i] or I [i]have been to the shops.[/i]
My second gripe is the change in pronunciation that I'm hearing and can't work out if it's me or not. There appears to be a move to change the stress in certain words, you know, récord (noun) or recórd (verb), I'm starting to hear verbs being said with the stess on the first syllable, when it is clearly a verb, e.g. I am [i]récording[/i] the TV show as we speak.

An breathe....

😀

Anybody gift anything over the holidays? I'm conflicted on this. It's likely a done deal.

Swap out/change out/ride out this needs to be stopped.

^ 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.

this, in relation to faux-cockney speak on STW.

*yawn*

Hey limeys you realize you don't have an empire any more, right? What a sad state of affairs for you guys, Europe hates you, us "septics" don't consider you to be relevant, the best thing you can do right now is become the 51st state 🙂 USA USA etc 🙂

the change in pronunciation that I'm hearing and can't work out if it's me or not.

Not sure as I've come across that. Maybe it's a regional thing?

the best thing you can do right now is become the 51st state

You're right, apart from the order. We were the first state out of the 51, sunshine.

this, in relation to faux-cockney speak on STW.

In fairness to the 'faux cockney', he does actually talk like that in real life too.

I am also guilty of including the odd burst of my 'other' language on here, but largely I avoid typing English in a/my westcountry accent.

My youngest son says 'like' more than once in each sentence. I despair.

us "septics" don't consider you to be relevant

's OK - soon, neither will you be. We can be joint in our international insignificance when the Chinese empire v2.0 gets rolled out...