Americanisms

[SecretsInSpitalfield]

I have family in the US. I love going there. Since lockdown my DS’s (9 and 11) have said ‘OMG’ and ‘like’ about a thousand times a day!

Do our lovely cousins across the pond have this with their DC? Is it normal?

Yard and garden come from the Anglo-Saxon word “geard”. The ge was pronounced with a y sound. Likely another word brought over by English settlers.

Yard and garden are not interchangeable terms in American usage. Yard would refer to all of the open land in a plot without a structure on it, so for most part covered in grasses. Garden implies specific plantings, like flower beds or vegetables. About half of the plot of land my house is wooded, so it's neither yard nor garden.

Yard and garden are not interchangeable terms in American usage. Yard would refer to all of the open land in a plot without a structure on it, so for most part covered in grasses. Garden implies specific plantings, like flower beds or vegetables. About half of the plot of land my house is wooded, so it's neither yard nor garden.

I didn’t say it was. I only said that the words stemmed from one word and that the usage in the States was likely brought over when the English settled there. I know how garden is used in the States being American myself.

‘Toward’ urrrrgh makes me teeth curl.

True. And where I live in the South, "garden" usually means vegetable garden because nearly everyone has flowers planted in various places in their yard. So someone might say I have a garden in my backyard to indicate that they grow vegetables.

Zaphod, are you kidding?!?

How many of us have waded through swathes of Donna Tart, with her thick references to incomprehensible American cultural references that are a mystery to us brits. We bear it.

Your American readers should stfu and bear it too, as we do.

We bear it, or just don't bother to read it.

Likely another word brought over by English settlers.

I wouldn't have thought so. We'd stopped speaking old English long before people set off for the New World.

Surely in the age of Google, it shouldn't be much of a hindrance either way. It's easy to find out what words and expressions mean.

Donna Tartt is worth reading, Peregrina.

Even though you have to wade through mountains of extraneous shit.

That woman should SO be edited.

I'm partial to a bit of period romance, many of which are written by American authors (but set in e.g. regency England) and there's nothing like "in the fall", "I need to straighten my room", "fixed him something to eat", "are you mad at me?" Etc. to yank (no pun intended) me right out of the story and cause the novel to be discarded.

Though I'm not totally sure if are you mad/mad at me" are Americanisms or just not common in my region in the UK.

Just "mad" e.g.."she's so mad" meaning angry, is not British English but "mad at" might be (??)

Had a fight - which Americans tend to use for any minor disagreement. Whereas a fight to me implies a punch up.

"Mad at" isn't British English. I imagine someone in a historical novel or now even, would say something like "Are you cross with me?" I don't think they would even say "mad with".

"She's so mad." Mad is crazy, either like the mad woman in the attic, or just in the sense of what a stupid thing to do.

"Had a fight." Now here we have some delightful expressions - some regional. "There was a bit of a bother." "There was a bit of a barney". Or for a real humdinger of a row "There was a right barney going on." A fight is as the pp said more likely to be a punch up. To "have words" is those slightly cross/annoyed exchanges you have.

I have never liked Americanisms in English . Then I read Bill Bryson's 'Made in America: an informal History of American English', and realised that often we are wrong. They are speaking as we used to, much of the time.

Right now in the trending section, there is:
"To be angry at a man in a shopping queue" - note the word angry used as a default expression.

"Mad at" isn't British English. I imagine someone in a historical novel or now even, would say something like "Are you cross with me?" I don't think they would even say "mad with".

It seems to have crept into use (mad at) - in line with the thread.

Cross a brilliant word that seems to have fallen out of use to some extent (or at least it has here in NI).

Yes, I suppose so (sigh). But NI and Scotland do have some of their own expressions......

I saw someone on a thread talking about being knocked for six. I couldn't find it again to quote on this thread, but that must be the cricketing six.

Then I have just seen - "off your own back", right now on another thread, so the cricketing expression is definitely dying there.

I don't think it matters, for eevryday purposes, that many American usages derive from the way British English was spoken at the time the colonists left. Of course they do, in combination with derivations from other colonising populations and a few borrowings from the native population.

If a person from 300+ years ago somehow popped up and started chatting to me, I'd find their use of language pretty odd too!

Also... speaking 'as we used to' is a meaningless phrase. None of us was alive 300 years ago. Many of us are from immigrant backgrounds.

We all know and understand contemporary British English, of one sort and other. Being 'contemporary Brits' has nothing to do with what our forebears, many generations ago, were doing, where, or how they spoke.

...Which of course brings us to the fact that the way we speak now does not follow in a direct line from the way the inhabitants of these islands spoke in the past. Empire and immigration have brought all sorts of words and phrases into common useage e.g. all those Indian words brought back by the administrators of empire, so that Jamie Oliver's recipes can be 'pukka' etc.

Part of the reason American English sounds so different to us, is that British English has diverged and developed, with its own different influences.

Arguably of course, American television etc now falls into the (cultural) colonisation, rather than the immigration category. Which is why we resent it.

Back on topic though, I remember being really shocked when I first hear a woman saying that she and her boyfriend had 'had a fight' yet seeming quite calm about it!

Another one is 'girlfriend' for female friend. I grew up understanding girlfriend and boyfriend in a 'couple' context only. When Prince sang 'If You Were My Girlfriend' in the 80s, I'm pretty sure he meant it in a coupley way too. But since about the 90s, it has crept into use as meaning female friend, I think coming here from the states. I found it jarring for years, in a genuinely pausing and wondering whether the speaker meant they were a lesbian / bi, way. You don't hear men speak of boyfriends in the same 'pals and mates' way.

• I don't think it matters, for eevryday purposes, that many American usages derive from the way British English was spoken at the time the colonists left. Of course they do, in combination with derivations from other colonising populations and a few borrowings from the native population.

If a person from 300+ years ago somehow popped up and started chatting to me, I'd find their use of language pretty odd too!*

Actually it does, considering how many are annoyed or hate Americanisms. People are being annoyed by their own countries words’ , own history because they don’t use the words anymore. It’s just another show of snobbery. We don’t use those words anymore therefore it’s weird or even wrong.

Yes phoenix , but I don't expect the BBC to speak Middle English and I doubt very much that they thought they'd use the word diapers in that article to make sure that speakers of Middle English could understand ;)

I do disagree, as explained above. It's a response to unfamiliarity and usually, things that sound awkward, to our ears.

My forebears were not English 300 years ago, these are not 'my words'.

Many of my own family members were in North America for the intervening centuries, as it happens. That doesn't give me familiarity with or 'ownership' of the language they used, at any point in history, any more than a non-scholar is familiar with British English of the period(s).

I am British and speak British English. I notice creeping Americanisms and find them variously confusing, jarring, odd and, in many cases, cute, funny and utterly inoffensive.

That was to phoenix of course.

• Part of the reason American English sounds so different to us, is that British English has diverged and developed, with its own different influences.

Arguably of course, American television etc now falls into the (cultural) colonisation, rather than the immigration category. Which is why we resent it.*

More like globalisation than colonisation. There is a difference. American Tv shows weren’t forced upon the UK, deals were made just as deals were made for British tv shows to be shown there.