Posted on 02/07/2011 5:08:46 AM PST by NCjim
After mangling our language for years, Americans are complaining about the invasion of traditional British lingo, says Kath Hinton.
New Yorkers always fall for a nice English accent: whenever my well-spoken sister-in-law visits, they trill at her flowing diction and faultless vowels. Coming from Liverpool, I have a trickier time. In fact, I stopped ordering butter after three waiters in one smart restaurant failed to grasp my pronunciation. "Bootta! Bootta!" I pleaded, while my American friends wept with joy at my embarrassment.
Now, however, it is the words we Anglo-Saxons use, not how we say them, that is causing a stir. After mangling our language for years, Americans are complaining about their own dialect being polluted by "Britishisms".
New Yorker Ben Yagoda, a professor at Delaware University, is studying the invasion of traditional British lingo. He has set up a website to keep track of the wicked, uniquely British words such as "kerfuffle" or "amidst" that are creeping into everyday American usage.
Yagoda's biggest objection, he tells me, is to words for which there are "perfectly good American equivalents, like 'bits' for 'parts' and 'on holiday' instead of 'on vacation' ". They are, he says, "purely pretentious".
Of course, British English has been under assault from this side of the Atlantic for centuries. America's most notorious linguistic anarchist, Noah Webster, decided more than 200 years ago that the English couldn't spell, decreeing that theatre should become theater; favour, favor; jewellery, jewelry; and so on.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Has anyone noticed that a Massachusetter trying to speak Brit English sounds like a Liverpudlian? Also of note: Scots trying to deracinate their accent sound Canadian.
Other than that, yea, it's a fairly regular word. Why are you fretting so much about a little buggers' charter anyway?
Ordinarily, I agree with your assertion. There’s nothing more pretentious than a “Shopping Centre” in the USA.....obviously, the property owner/developer is thinking that by using British spelling, he’s creating something high-class. I will however, absolutely defend H.P. Lovecraft, my all-time favorite American horror author. He was an admitted Britophile, and always used British spelling in his stories. “The Colour out of Space” just don’t have the same impact with it’s American counterpart, for me at least. So, I guess when Lovecraft did it, I’m cool with it. Other folks are just pretentious a$$h____s.
It’s interesting that you and several others defend the use of British spelling due to their fondness of literature and poetry. Having no interest in works of fiction or poetry, I cannot agree. I read history, mostly military history.
“whilst”. We don’t say that word yet so many iditos use it to try to sound British.
Luckliy, Robert Heinlein keeps me from being too pretentious. :-)
It’s German. A college friend used to say it, and I found it in Mencken.
British never could speak english!!!
Most of the time, to me, food it food, fuel, something to fill the hole, and I don’t really notice it unless it’s exceptionally good, or exceptionally bad. I thought the roast lamb, which we eat pretty regularly at home, was exceptional, as was the beef wellington, which is my all time favorite.
And the tea rooms in the US cannot seem to get the scones and clotted cream right.
And when did hooded sweatshirts become “hoodies”?
“... the cashier says that the rubbers are in the pharmacy section”.
Hysterical!!
I like to tease my British friends by saying that I’m surprised we didn’t leave earlier.
Some English food is great, and breakfast was my favorite meal there (for dinner we always had Indian). Grilled tomato half, toast standing up in the toast holder so it stays crisp, thick somewhat tough bacon . . . and mutton chops, which you can’t get here unless you pay $35 at a restaurant like Keen’s. Sausages at the cafeteria. Cornish pasties.
Of course when they try to do American food they are hopeless. Cheeseburgers with the cheese not melted.
Possibly some of this has changed since I was there. I know there was a foodie revolution there in the eighties.
That one bothers me too. It's a Canadian thing also so we Michiganders are likely to hear that a lot.
About the same time "gourmet" became "foodie".
Those two words have different meanings to me. The foodie revolution was when young, ordinary, nongourmet folks started getting into food. The eighties. Gourmets we have had with us for a long time.
Yummm.
I understand there is a difference, but “foodie”, “hoodie”, the ‘90s term “hottie” (for men) are all diminutive nouns. Their usage usually is meant as a subtle put-down of the item or person in question (compare to the ‘70s “trekkie” vs. “trekker” debate), or the superiority of the user over the said item.
Being from the South, standing “on line” always struck me as wrong. You stand in line, not on line. I think that’s a New York deal however, so there you go.
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