Posted on 09/27/2012 5:23:43 AM PDT by the scotsman
'There is little that irks British defenders of the English language more than Americanisms, which they see creeping insidiously into newspaper columns and everyday conversation.
But bit by bit British English is invading America too.'
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
Turn the crank to TDC.
Yep “went missing”, BARF!
Knowing how to time an engine is so 20th Century, don’t you think?
1—Whilst I liked your erudite post, I take issue with a few things.
British English is the English spoken in every English speaking nation outside the US, from Canada to NZ, Australia to Scotland.
The ‘Commonwealth’ nations plus Britain and Ireland makes up over 100 million people. AND its the BRITISH form of English that gets taught as the form of English to almost everyone on the plnet who decides to learn English as a second language.
Culturally, whilst the US rules via MTV, CSI and Hollywood, it is the BBC that is the biggest broadcaster in the world. The BBC’s World Service is the most listened to radio channel on Earth. Not to mention how much British TV, film and music the world takes in via the many forms of media.
2—If American English is THE form of English, and is the most grammatically correct, how do you square that argument with the fact that Am Eng is a form of English with simplified spelling?. How can it be superior when it is deliberately a simplified version of its British counterpart?.
Thats like saying softball is ‘THE version’ of baseball simply because more people play it.
Seems to be a word referring originally to brain.
Which fits, as gormless means you look as if you arent not quite ‘all there’.
I just started watching Wallander, glad to hear the English version is coming.
You have no idea how long TDC stumped me...
Hmmm. Confusing TDC with BDC could explain why a bike would vibrate.
Don’t they mean “Britishization”?
I wonder whether you've factored the odd billion Indian, African and Australasian speakers of English into that calculation?...though why any of these variants, or American English, or British English has any greater claim than any other to be 'proper' English is not evident from your historical exposition
I'd argue that while Indian, African, Canadian, Australian (And I suppose you could include Kiwi as well, if you really had too) Englishes assimilated and developed their own words, those words also flowed back and were adopted into to Englandish (and thence back to the other Englishes), giving Englandish the right to the claim of the Mother Tongue.
Whereas the 18th century American Rebellion separated and isolated the American dialect from the Empire of English until the rise of 20th centuty mass communication.
My faviurite Britishism: "gutted"
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