DH using American words... AIBU?

[Sleeplesss]

I met my DH 10 years ago and we have a really good relationship. One thing, though, that has always bugged me a little is that he uses some American words. Think along the lines of calling a lift and elevator or calling a mobile phone a cell phone. I have never made an issue of this but normally correct him in a jokey way rather than make a fuss of it. Tonight he said cell phone and I did the jokingly correcting him thing and he has got really upset with me. Saying I'm making him feel stupid. Obviously that is not what I'm trying to do but at the same time, it really really grates in me. I explained to him, in the nicest possible way, that if it were me, I'd rather be corrected as it's a habit I'd want to break. He's been to America once and doesn't have any American friends/family so it obviously must come from watching American tv. When I suggested that to him, he said that I don't know that for certain. Yes I do, where else could it possibly come from?

So I'm just wondering, is it wrong of me to want him to break this habit? AIBU?

Well they are a bit, we had Canadian relatives over to stay, they mentioned a few times how they feel overshadowed by their neighbouring country and how Canadians try to maintain their cultural differences from the US. I know a lot of British people can't tell the difference between American and Canadian accents, but I think I can now a bit, although they're fairly similar. And I believe Canadians use British spellings like 'colour' rather than 'color'.

Australians/New Zealanders being so much further away probably want to differentiate themselves from each other mainly and wouldn't be so bothered.

Surely the height of xenophobia to talk so negatively about how people speak. And mean. There are lots of Americans on MN. Do we really want to vilify those people?

My DBro lived in US for many years and adopted words like cellphone, sidewalk, he even developed a US drawl within about a year. No way did I think it was either strange or annoying. It would have been an insult to have "corrected" him, like I was the world's authority on language.

Nobody is 'vilifying' Americans for using American English, um they're Americans so obviously that's what they'll use!
And if your DBro was living in the US he had a very good reason to adopt American terms.

But this is unlike the OP's DH who has visited the US once (holiday presumably) so with him it's a pure affectation.

You sound super judgmental. Why is it that you think you are right?? No one I know calls it a “mobile phone” does that make me wrong? No, it’s just different. It feels like you are picking at him for nothing and trying to start an argued with him.

Pemba, It's the tone of the posts, the negativity I find really unpleasant, the "Fucking Americans" attitude. Nasty.

Don't be silly, I have nothing against individual Americans.

And talking very specially about language, nothing else. your concern is misplaced, and quite OTT.

Pemba Canadians use a mix of spellings- it's very confusing!
British terminology is creeping into North American language as well. The language people use is very personal. I use some words because I LIKE them, and avoid ones I don't. Perhaps he just prefers those terms.

I do it as well, I accidentally use pants when I mean trousers, season instead of series and Fall instead of Autumn. I think it's from watching American YouTubers. If someone corrected me I would think they are being rude.

I've never even been to the USA and use y'all all the time (it annoys me that in English we don't have a collective 'you'.) Although I always use British spellings, because I think they look nicer.

There's a Friends episode about this. Amanda has just come back to the America from living in England and calls it a mobile. She is mocked!
I think some words you can get away with, cell phone isn't one of them!

There's a trend among some British English speakers to see the use of Americanisms as some kind of violation of the language and their rejection as a badge of cultural and linguistic superiority. There tends to be an overlap with people who consider 'regional' (i.e. non-RP, as if RP weren't also tied (to an extent) to e region) British accents as 'not speaking properly'. It's rooted in snobbery - a colonial hangover from the times when a crisp RP accent signified authority and a harking back to those days. IMO.

A lot of our popular culture is American. Of course that's going to affect the way people speak. It doesn't (really doesn't) kill off the British variants. You could choose to think of it as an enrichment of the language via diversification. It's usually not a bad thing to have a choice of words for a concept.

Meant to add I am a British RP speaker.

daisychain01 what people are objecting to is affectation, not Americans.

If an American person or a person who has lived a long time in America has the accent and slang/ vocabulary from the area of America where they live/d that is as normal as having a cockney accent if brought up in the east end of London.

If you've never left Guildford except for a holiday in Florida and a day trip to London, it's an affectation to adopt an American or cockney accent.

The same would be true if someone from Wisconsin decided to adopts a cockney accent and slang having never lived in the east end of London.

Surely you can understand that?

The ignorance on this thread would be amusing if it weren't so offensive.

(Born and brought up in Nottingham)

You sound controlling and condescending OP, get off your high horse. If it annoys you so much then you shouldn't have married him. Sounds like he'd be much better off without someone like you.

OP- you should feel embarrassed really. "Correcting" something that isn't wrong etc.

Yikes op! I would loathe it too. It's impossible to just ignore it and pretend you don't mind, but equally it's uncomfortable for him to have it pointed out. No easy answer here, but I feel very sorry for you and he must come across as a bit of a tool by doing it.

AndItStillSaidFourOfTwo often the language is not enriched but make less expressive.

My personal hate is related to prepositions, specifically "excited for" an event. It reduces the range of morning. In modern British English a person can be excited "for" another person as in "I'm excited for my brother, he's getting married on Saturday.". You can feel any emotion "for" some one - the use of for indicates an emotion felt empathetically. If you feel excitement about an upcoming event on your own behalf, you use "about".

Just removing distinction between feeling and emotion empathetically (excited for) and feeling it on your own behalf in anticipation makes the language spacer, poorer and less flexible.

I have British acquaintances in their 30s and 40s who have, for what ever reason, stopped using "excited about" altogether over the past two or three years, having previously used both varients according to meaning, and now only say "excited for". It is extremely irritating and has not enriched their language at all, rather the opposite.

*made not make

I explained to him, in the nicest possible way, that if it were me, I'd rather be corrected as it's a habit I'd want to break.

Oh you did not...

YABU

Reply to him in a French accent.

Sleeplesss the problem is though that if he's always done it, for as long as you've known him, you don't have a leg to stand on. It's very much the same as trying to change anything else about a person if they already do it when you meet, and you have a relationship and marry them. It really is a bit hypocritical to start trying to change someone at this point. It's like meeting and marrying a smoker or an overweight person or a drinker who's been doing that as long as you know them - you've accepted that as part of who they are by marrying them, and are being a bit mean nagging them about it after ten years unless there is suddenly a new good reason to.

If he'd just started doing it it would be fair, but if he's always done it why does it annoys you now?

Is everything about him starting to annoy you by any chance? Is this a symptom of more general annoyance or boredom with the relationship? Or do you now have children who are picking up his vocabulary and that's annoying you?

Blueskies, these people will have learned 'excited about', though? It's still available? It'll still appear in people's English (specifically written English) as the standard (I prefer that term to 'correct') format?

If not, the problem is possibly less that language changes, and more that people don't read, or not from a variety of sources.

YABU you know exactly what he means when he says it and he's spoken like that since you met him.

I can't believe you've been correcting him for 10 years with no change and yet still expect him too. Maybe if you'd spoken to him reasonably about it 10 years ago but even then he shouldn't have had to change.

He's clearly a far more patient than I am, I'd have snapped at you years ago.