50 americanisms in the uk

  On 7/23/2011 at 6:39 AM, Iain C said:

  On 7/23/2011 at 6:32 AM, TechDiff said:

banter.

 

Now this is a word I can't fucking stand.

posting in general banter

  On 7/24/2011 at 3:26 AM, jules said:

  On 7/23/2011 at 6:39 AM, Iain C said:

  On 7/23/2011 at 6:32 AM, TechDiff said:

banter.

 

Now this is a word I can't fucking stand.

 

general

can't stand that word

Can't say that these Americanisms offend me particularly, I must use a fair few myself. I DO fucking hate with a passion though such moronic daytime telly phrases as 'wow factor' and 'ticking boxes'. And FUCK the word 'random' as a noun or pronoun or whatever (i.e. 'I met this random' etc., fuck the FUCK off you fucking cunt). Also, English people using Americanisms such as 'ass' instead of 'arse', or saying something that's shit 'sucks' sound like utter fuckwits, and said perpetrators should be culled on sight with extreme prejudice.

lol wow i thought i was picky about things.

no comment

  On 7/24/2011 at 6:23 AM, MAXIMUS MISCHIEF said:

no comment

that would be considered a comment

"I dropped my pencil"

"Is it?"

That annoys me sometimes but I don't lose sleep over it.

  On 7/24/2011 at 4:11 AM, Caretstik said:

'wow factor'

I fucking hate 'wow factor'. And lol at UK-ers saying Ass. I've heard a couple of Americans say Arse, and they just sound like they want to be British.

i do get tired of all the uses of "innit" on here...thats a Britishism, right? innit?

"Innit" is the English equivalent of the Japanese word "です" or desu. The strange difference is that, while the Japanese word is used to add politeness and formality, the word "innit" actually makes sentences less formal and more casual.

  On 7/24/2011 at 7:12 PM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

i do get tired of all the uses of "innit" on here...thats a Britishism, right? innit?

dunno

  On 7/21/2011 at 6:04 PM, Fred McGriff said:

  On 7/21/2011 at 5:17 PM, disparaissant said:

i have a friend who's a linguist and he had this to say about that article:

  Quote

Recently BBC published an article on so-called Americanisms, words that seem to have entered the pure, never-changing and amazing language that is Queen’s English, and in order to make fun of those silly Yanks on the other side of the big pond, the British Broadcasting Company invited its readers to send in their most hated Americanisms, seeing as language change is much more upsetting than wars, droughts and rapes.

 

And the Britons did send in words and expressions, oh yes they did.

 

Enter the diachronic linguist. Enter the pissed-off diachronic linguist with a need to kick every prescriptivist wanker’s arse from this side of Scotland to the dark side of the moon.

 

As linguists we subscribe to one basic idea about communication; a language is not static, while a synchronic study of language is possible, a language in itself is inherently eternally diachronic, and the same goes for English. The language of gods and infighting, or was that Gaelic?

 

Anyway, the first thing we need to deal with is the idea of a proper way of speaking English, i.e. Queen’s English; not even the Queen speaks said language anymore, the polished dialect school children are taught in ESOL and EFL classrooms around the world is an obsolete dialect in that the Queen herself, in an attempt to approach her citizens have acquired a polished version of Estuary English.

 

In other words, the Queen speaks David Beckham English.

 

Secondly we need to realise that English functions mainly as a medium of global communication today. In other words, while English originates from England, it would be foolish to believe that England still functions as the main catalyst of new words and expressions, or to use a fancy word, additions to the Anglophone vocabulary. Not even America holds that position, but rather Globish, i.e. the amalgamation of different learners’ Englishes, and while the States still hold an important place in the linguistic game that is English, it is both childish, and uneducated to blame American English for the ‘decay of our native tongue’.

 

English is a pidgin gone Creole gone language; as such it functions mainly because it realises the importance in allowing change. The relative easy grammar of English is a direct effect of a neverending exchange with other languages; the arguments about gotten are as founded on a real need to complain, as would an article about the change from Anglo-Saxon to Old Norse personal pronouns have been back in 900 AD.

 

What about English then? Within the UK? Trust me, it is as ever-changing as it has always been. From the day Shakespeare decided to say wherefore, thereby borrowing an Old Norse word back into English, to the creation of muggles, English has always changed and acquired new words and expressions.

 

If we wanted to, we could perhaps divide the world of Englishes into two fields, kitchen table languages, and OED languages - where the former constitutes the real language, the diachronic result of communication, the latter is a stale version of the former, representing a synchronic and already outdated version of what was never truly meant to be anything but a means of communication.

 

Ask yourself this, is there a word your family uses that nobody else would understand? Trust me, there’s at least one word in your vocabulary which does not exist in the OED. My students invented the verb to shant earlier this summer, some 94 students now use this verb as a way to express the complicated in leaving a place one does not know if one is ever going to see again. Is this word an English word? You tell me. And then ask your self what you call a thingamajammie, a bitsamabobs or a whatchamacallit.

 

English.

 

Always changing.

 

What I love most about rivers is, you can’t step in the same river twice …

 

A couple of years ago, you would have looked at me as if I was crazy if I’d asked you to disapparate, and if I asked if I could tweet you something, or friend you, you’d called the police, today these are parts of everyday usage - English changes, and while differences exist between American and English English, these differences should be seen as opportunities, rather than obstacles to overcome.

 

As a lingua franca, English has lost all it’s rights to be prescriptivist; and it is time the world finally realised this.

 

its.

oh shit fred's firing truth bullets

i say arse, shite, bollocks, and i would also like to say 'mate' instead of 'man'

when people say 'man' to me i feel like they're trying to be macho

ponce

dolt

twat

wanker

tosser

Had to post this somewhere.

Has 'nigga' penetrated the British zeitgeist, yet?

Ummm, yeah yes and no I guess.. Not to the extent that it has in the states, but yeah it's an old word, no doubt that some people use it.

It's quite interesting how opinions shift over time regarding what is offensive. Like 40 years ago or so, there were TV comedy shows which had a considerable ammount of racial insults,out and absolutely no profanities like shit, fuck etc. Nowadays just about any four letter words is ok after 9pm but describing someones ethnicity or physical attributes is like treading on egg shells.

Everyone seems so concerned about not appearing prejudice, even job applications will ask your ethnic background so that the employers can be certain that they employ a diverse group or people, and avoid being thought of as descriminatory. Honestly I think it's just insane. My dad (before he retired) used to conduct interviews for prety important sectors of the government, he was telling me that many employers are just concerned about being sued for descrimination, and that he'd seen candidates given preference because of their race over candidates with far better qualifications, because the employer is so concerned about displaying "equal opportunities", they would get in a lot of trouble otherwise.

quite why we can't just settle on calling people "people" is completely beyond me. there really is no need to try and differentiate any further. UK is the epitome of political correctness gone mad.

anyways, on your original question. while you can call someone a twat and get some disgusted looks, if you used the word nigga you'd probably be arrested for hate crimes.

  On 7/26/2011 at 4:50 PM, TechDiff said:

describing someones ethnicity or physical attributes is like treading on egg shells.

unless you are black or minority it seems.

  On 7/26/2011 at 2:19 PM, acidphakist said:

Has 'nigga' penetrated the British zeitgeist, yet?

we have racism here, yes.

  On 7/26/2011 at 4:50 PM, TechDiff said:

Ummm, yeah yes and no I guess.. Not to the extent that it has in the states, but yeah it's an old word, no doubt that some people use it.

 

It's quite interesting how opinions shift over time regarding what is offensive. Like 40 years ago or so, there were TV comedy shows which had a considerable ammount of racial insults,out and absolutely no profanities like shit, fuck etc. Nowadays just about any four letter words is ok after 9pm but describing someones ethnicity or physical attributes is like treading on egg shells.

 

Everyone seems so concerned about not appearing prejudice, even job applications will ask your ethnic background so that the employers can be certain that they employ a diverse group or people, and avoid being thought of as descriminatory. Honestly I think it's just insane. My dad (before he retired) used to conduct interviews for prety important sectors of the government, he was telling me that many employers are just concerned about being sued for descrimination, and that he'd seen candidates given preference because of their race over candidates with far better qualifications, because the employer is so concerned about displaying "equal opportunities", they would get in a lot of trouble otherwise.

 

quite why we can't just settle on calling people "people" is completely beyond me. there really is no need to try and differentiate any further. UK is the epitome of political correctness gone mad.

 

anyways, on your original question. while you can call someone a twat and get some disgusted looks, if you used the word nigga you'd probably be arrested for hate crimes.

That's right bro, keep fighting the good fight to be able to call people niggers and pakis, it's your FREEDOM!

  On 7/26/2011 at 5:27 PM, Iain C said:

  On 7/26/2011 at 4:50 PM, TechDiff said:

Ummm, yeah yes and no I guess.. Not to the extent that it has in the states, but yeah it's an old word, no doubt that some people use it. It's quite interesting how opinions shift over time regarding what is offensive. Like 40 years ago or so, there were TV comedy shows which had a considerable ammount of racial insults,out and absolutely no profanities like shit, fuck etc. Nowadays just about any four letter words is ok after 9pm but describing someones ethnicity or physical attributes is like treading on egg shells. Everyone seems so concerned about not appearing prejudice, even job applications will ask your ethnic background so that the employers can be certain that they employ a diverse group or people, and avoid being thought of as descriminatory. Honestly I think it's just insane. My dad (before he retired) used to conduct interviews for prety important sectors of the government, he was telling me that many employers are just concerned about being sued for descrimination, and that he'd seen candidates given preference because of their race over candidates with far better qualifications, because the employer is so concerned about displaying "equal opportunities", they would get in a lot of trouble otherwise.quite why we can't just settle on calling people "people" is completely beyond me. there really is no need to try and differentiate any further. UK is the epitome of political correctness gone mad.anyways, on your original question. while you can call someone a twat and get some disgusted looks, if you used the word nigga you'd probably be arrested for hate crimes.

That's right bro, keep fighting the good fight to be able to call people niggers and pakis, it's your FREEDOM!

k, first up, I'm simply pointing out how far public opinion has swayed regarding some words. as in, 40 years ago the BBC had shows that used the word paki, nigger etc.., Today you'd be arrested for using such words.

yeah way to miss the point completely. I do not call people any such things, and would never dream of doing so.

The point is that any words like that, in any context, are used to differentiate between ethnic groups etc.. this is something I don't do, and consider completely abhorent in any way.

a person is a person, end of...

But, like I mentioned with job applications requiring you to state your ethnicity, it suggests that somewhere along the line your ethnicity will play a part as to whether you are successful in your application or not. it's completely ridiculous.

equal opportunities is a wonderful concept, but in practice is something quite quite different, the pendulum swings in the complete opposite direction. effectively employers, in efforts to have a multi cultural work force, are once again employing people by their ethnicity. The government lays out guidelines regarding employers having a mixed workforce, and employers are honestly fearful of not meeting those guidelines and being branded as discriminatory. As a result they will on occasion take into account peoples ethnicity in order to meet those guidelines, which is absolutely not employing people fairly.This is not treating every person equally, therefor NOT equal opportunities.

anyways, Fuck You and your insinuations.

7. "It is what it is". Pity us. Michael Knapp, Chicago, US

I, too, hate this.

  On 7/26/2011 at 6:24 PM, TechDiff said:

 

a person is a person, end of...

 

END OF WHAT??

I think the main difference is that black people in the UK probably don't call each other nigga. But what would I know, I'm a cracka.

  On 7/26/2011 at 5:19 PM, keltoi said:

  On 7/26/2011 at 2:19 PM, acidphakist said:

Has 'nigga' penetrated the British zeitgeist, yet?

 

we have racism here, yes.

lol