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?

Can I get a... (Please may I have...)
Very annoying.

@Sonichu if you paused momentarily do you take that to mean you are about to pause rather than you paused briefly then?

Yay, another anti- American thread

I’ll rephrase .. is it ‘normal’ in the States to say ‘OMG’ and ‘like’ in every other word ?

Is it normal for 320 million plus people, 50 States, and seven different regions to say OMG and like in every other word...

Of course not. 🙄

DD1 went to an American school for the last year of primary school and all of secondary. She didn’t pick up the accent at all, but her vocab is entirely American, and people often ask her where she is from. DD2 went to an American school from age 8-12, and became “bilingual”, speaking with an American accent at school and British at home. She’s now 18 and still lapses back into the American accent when she’s talking to her old friends on WhatsApp or Zoom. Apparently she sounds like she’s from Kansas!

To the previous poster, I certainly don't dislike Americans at all!
Even if that's true, there are certainly a lot of people here who do. By here I mean the UK. It is not a nice place to be an immigrant. I know the US doesn't cover itself in glory in that regard but at least when my British husband is there people like his accent rather than making comments about how everything he says is wrong.

I have had people here tell me I'm pronouncing my own name wrong, because it's pronounced differently. It can be really disheartening.

Does it matter though? Really?

I love the differences between British English and American English though

Me too, however it annoys me greatly when English people correct me on what words I use when they know exactly what I mean.

I didn't realise OMG was an Americanism? Also 'like' is often equivalent to 'um'

I think this is more of a generational thing, I'm in my 20s and use these a lot and they're completely normal... Obviously younger people will speak differently, just as you use different phrases to someone much older than you

Gotten and super.

'Gotten' and 'can I get' are not Americanisms to me, they are just words and phrases that I have heard day and daily for my entire life, and not from TV but from people around me (and I'm not exactly young by mumsnet standards).

In fact, maybe these Americanisms actually originally came from Irish and Scottish immigrants? Like Santa...

Clip from Wikipedia:

The use of English in the United States is a result of British colonization of the Americas. The first wave of English-speaking settlers arrived in North America during the 17th century, followed by further migrations in the 18th and 19th centuries. During the 17th century, dialects from many different regions of England existed in every American colony, allowing a process of extensive dialect mixture and levelling in which English varieties across the colonies became more homogeneous compared with varieties in England.[17][18] English thus predominated in the colonies even by the end of the 17th century's first massive immigrations of non-English speakers from Europe and Africa, and firsthand descriptions of a fairly uniform American English became common after the mid-18th century.[19] Since then, American English has developed into some new varieties, including regional dialects that, in some cases, show minor influences in the last two centuries from successive waves of immigrant speakers of diverse languages,[20] primarily European languages.[12]

"In fact, maybe these Americanisms actually originally came from Irish and Scottish immigrants? Like Santa..."

We have this literally every October and December but it doesn't seem to sink in on MN. Same with gotten and "Can I get"; for me these are common everyday words in Scotland.

"@Sonichu if you paused momentarily do you take that to mean you are about to pause rather than you paused briefly then?"

Yeh ok but if someone is going to be with you momentarily does that mean they've already been with you? Context is everything I suppose lol.

@NoImNotEntertained, Creg for Craig makes me shudder. Also, the pronunciation Mad-e-line instead of Mad-e-lynnn.

But after 20 years of Iiving in the States, my speech is peppered with, “hey”, “totally” “soooo nice”, “what’s up”, “guys” etc. etc.

I often wonder if American teens use British slang when they've been watching U.K. telly programmes
Yes they do. I work in higher ed and my students love Love Island. It is odd hearing them say stuff like bare or butters. British music has always been popular in the US so I think words come and go in both languages. Some American words are just really old English ones; gotten, diaper, etc.
The only thing I don’t like is that they don’t say dreamt, etc, I always think dreamed sounds wrong.

Creg for Craig makes me shudder

I've said this before on mumsnet but when I say these words in my head I have no idea how they could be pronounced in a way that makes them sound different to each other. In my accent they are exactly the same. I've never even noticed anyone on TV pronounce Craig in a way that would explain it.

My daughter tells me I am wrong. They do say dreamt, they don’t say whilst though. I like that word.

Craig rhymes with plague.
Creg rhymes with egg.

A couple....... instead of a couple of .....

'It'll be done in a couple minutes'

'I said it a couple times'

So annoying! But only when British people do it! My (very British) partner does it and it really gets on my fucking wick!

But it's not like everybody uses the same vocabulary and/or pronunciation throughout the UK anyway

I hear 'could care less' instead of 'couldn't care less' in the States. Surely 'could care less' changes the whole meaning of the phrase!

Craig rhymes with plague.
Creg rhymes with egg.

But to me those all rhyme with each other, I can't hear any difference at all.

I know there must be something I'm missing because I've seen it mentioned a lot on threads like this but I just can't hear it at all.