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?

My grandson says zee instead of zed

@1000atfc5423 Is it my imagination too or do the women quite often speak in a higher voice then British women

Yes think Megan McCain from The View. it's actually the reason my DH says he doesnt watch US TV. I personally like it.

I think 'gotten' was commonly used in England many years ago and may be one of those 'Americanisms' that really isn't...

I live in Bangkok and my children attend international school. Quite a few Brits there but it's generally very mixed and the children, wherever their parents might come from, tend to speak a sort of global English. My children are as likely to say trash as rubbish, they say butt as well as bum, and even I have adopted cookie for biscuit, which I never thought I would!! And their accent veers between a slight American twang to the occasional quite posh English, and then a bit of Thai intonation thrown in

I'm in NE England and it's normal here for 'like' to be used very frequently, as a pause in a sentence. Often many many times in same sentence. Has been my entire life and not from American TV. It's just how we speak but that might not be entire NE.

Pants has always meant both trousers and pants for us.

I do notice every time I write season instead of series. It feels like I'm forgetting the English term but I can't help that, netflix is changing me in that respect.

My DD says some Amercinisms because of YouTube, Teen Titans, and many other programme, but we have fun with it instead of getting angry.

I hate 'can i get' as in ordering food -
'can I get a latte and a doughnut?''
'can i get the pizza with mushroom?'

I'm sure I (oldie) was brought up to say 'may I have an x please' but adult DCs say 'can I get' when they are not getting anything the waitress/ bar staff are. I'm sure its from Friends.
Just sounds a bit ill mannered to me.

@1000atfc5423 Is it my imagination too or do the women quite often speak in a higher voice then British women

Some American women have a nasally twang like Wilma Flintstone and some have quite deep voices. I think some in the public eye lower their voices like Maggie Thatcher did.

Some American women have a nasally twang like Wilma Flintstone and some have quite deep voices. I think some in the public eye lower their voices like Maggie Thatcher did.

Depends on what region they’re from like the difference of accents here in the U.K.

• I hate 'can i get' as in ordering food - 'can I get a latte and a doughnut?'' 'can i get the pizza with mushroom?'*

Again regional thing in the U.S. and also taught to use “can” or “may” depending on the context.

My 10yo is constantly using new words: some from school, others from YouTube.
Language has always evolved between generations and English in particular has always picked up words from different cultures.
I think that's only going to happen even faster with the online generation.
I really couldn't give a rats ass (to use an Americanism) about language purity . I think the constant evolution of language is natural.
If it wasn't, we'd all be able to understand Chaucer as easily as this Mumsnet thread.
(As an aside, there is an absolutely fascinating list of words by French/Anglo Saxon origin here, showing just how deeply the languages merged after 1066: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_with_dual_French_and_Anglo-Saxon_variations)

Link fail: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_with_dual_French_and_Anglo-Saxon_variations
Sorry for the slight derail but the evolution of language is fascinating

Dudes, dudes, dudes. And dudettes. Jesus H Obama Christ, let's all be nice. People are dying.

They seem to say 'whatnot' a lot.

^Craig rhymes with plague.
Creg rhymes with egg.^

No way! Are you saying 'plegg' for plague or 'aig / eyg / A-gg' for egg?

Is this an issue with the ai dipthong or that sound more generally? Or with the 'e' sound? How about:

pain / pen
Cain / Ken
Disdain / den
Feign / fen
gain / gen (eration)
Jain / Jen
Maine (or main) / men
rain / wren
tain(ted) / ten
vain / Venn

To me a lot of -ane words sound the same as ai ones, so lane/Len would match the sounds above.

I can imagine a southern American perhaps lengthening the 'e' in egg to sound like a capital A. So aig / ayg / A-gg. But that does not explain how we hear 'Creg', which is a case of the opposite thing - somehow reading / pronouncing the 'ai' sound as an 'eh' sound.

Oops, italics fail. @isabellerossignol any thoughts?

And am not trying to be unkind, just curious. I have quite a few North American relatives and they don't say Creg.

You can check regional pronunciations on forvo.com.

Another example. If you were talking about the musician Rufus Wainwright, wuold we hear Wenwright?

The thing is, there are heaps of oddities and inconsistencies in British English too. I can understand Gra'm (with a little pause) for Graham, because it's a different reading of the 'h' but I don't understand where 'Creg' comes from.

@isabellerossignol Are you from NI? Because they sound exactly the same to me to😂

Yes, I am And I'm so glad you understand!

No way! Are you saying 'plegg' for plague or 'aig / eyg / A-gg' for egg?

It's 'aig' for egg. I can't imagine pronouncing it any other way, and I can't even hear it pronounced differently.

When my kids were learning phonics at school one of the sounds was illustrated by someone cracking an egg and after they had learnt the sound they had to unlearn it again as a 'tricky word' where the sound didn't actually apply.

None of the other words you have listed rhyme for me though.

Ok, so you're doing the very opposite of what Americans do when they say 'Creg'.

So in terms of the NI / English RP difference, I (RP-ish) would say that peg, beg, leg, keg, smeg and Meg rhyme with egg.

But the 'Creg' puzzle is about how or why Americans pronounce Craig so that, to English ears, it sounds like 'Creg'.

All those words still rhyme with egg for me I think I just don't have the concept of a short 'e' sound!

Oh no, actually, that's not true. I do have a short 'e' sound in words like pen because I don't pronounce that as 'payn'...

It's not "American bashing" to think that it's a bit silly and lazy (I assume they think it's ""cool") when speakers of British English start using American words, especially when they've never lived there.

I can 'hear' that, yes.

How about.. elephant? Or pedant? Are those 'e's short?

I'll stop bothering you about this though!

Just to remind everyone that the United States of America is a vast country with many regional variations.
Thank you!