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?

Ooh Seneca, I did not know there were different pronunciations of plaid!
I only know "plad", are some more like "played" then?

I say "Crayg" and my friend is a Craig and days his name that way.

• Pavement

How odd. In the US pavement is a general term for any asphalt surface, like a parking lot or a road.*

@MissConductUS the first time I heard someone talk about driving down the pavement here I was totally shocked.
It took a a while to realize that roads seem to be called pavements sometimes.

Yes, we might say to a child: "Stay on the sidewalk, don't step off on to the pavement."

Haha- I offered my friend (from San Diego) some tomato sauce for her chips... and she asked if I meant salsa!

And then of course, there is "fanny" and "rubber."

An unpaved road in the uk is a track, not a road without pavements, so did in the past have the same meaning as US

'Can I...' or 'May I' is irrelevant really.

The main issue is that the verbs 'to have' and 'to get' mean two different things.

If you kick your ball into the neighbour's garden, you can either ask your neighbour if you can get it which means that you go into the garden and fetch it yourself or you can ask if you can have it back which means that the neighbour goes to fetch it for you .

How hard can it be?

Do the Americans not talk about being burglarised, instead of burgled?
It conveys a slightly different meaning putting the emphasis on the person doing the action and not on the stuff that's been nicked.

Gotten is common in Australia and has been for decades. It is a perfectly normal British English word. What really annoys me is the British habit of saying 'whilst' instead of while, on here. I mean do people in the UK really talk like that out loud? Whilst? Really? Also the habit on here, despite pretending to speak 'proper English' of saying
'I was stood at' or 'I am sat here'.

Really, it sounds like broken English. It does not look right, or sound right out loud. Has I was standing at, or I am sitting here become redundant in the UK? Some Americanisms annoy me, however I have to laugh at Brits looking down on Americans, when the Brits on here cannot speak a passable English sentence such as "I was seated at/sitting at" or "I was standing/I'm standing". American terms can be annoying however at least they can speak a sentence without sounding like they are learning English as a second language and only managing to speak broken English. So learn to speak and write properly yourselves before pointing the finger at Americans.

Pavement/sidewalk is a footpath, in Australia.

We are sat grates for me too.

Otherwise, Americans and Britons probably don't realise that we have slightly different grammatical rules.

Some American sentence constructions seem convoluted to me, although I can't think of an example just now.

Other things like, 'We went swimming' instead of 'we have gone swimming', conveys a different meant. We went swimming and now we have finished. We have gone, we are still out there splashing up and down the pool. But not to an American friend who never used the have gone somewhere construction.

Whilst seems like a perfectly normal everyday word to me. I'm not English though...

But on the other hand I wouldn't say 'I was stood...'

But as so often, surely it's just regional differences? Eg in Ireland we'd say 'I'm only after doing it' to say that we have just done something. It probably makes no sense outside of Ireland but I understand that the sentence construction comes from Irish so is a result of the two languages merging in a way.

The same applies in Wales - we are after closing, and comes from the Welsh.

@isabellerossignol I've only seen 'whilst' on Mumsnet, and once before by a Professor on a thesis.

Everyone else just says 'while'. Whilst sounds very old fashioned, formal and Shakespearian.

While is actually the oldest form, whilst came later. There is also a difference but it was long ago that I studied, but one typically describes time and one describes contrast.

Halloween and prom. Bleurgh

I use whilst at least once a week in email. Not sure I'd use in in spoken word.

"Halloween"

Surprised it took this long.

I'm in my mid 40s and Hallowe'en was definitely 'a thing' when I was wee. And we only had three channels on TV then, and no YouTube, so it's a bit of a stretch to think it's American.

Oh yes, 'I was sat' is an embarrassment and makes us all sound illiterate. Unless you're from the particular area (Yorkshire?) where it's dialect, of course. It's only crept into mainstream English speech and writing (even journalists, even at the BBC!) in the last ten years.

There are lots of little grammatical things from American English that have crept in to British English recently. Such as:

'Excited for' in place of 'excited about'. I believe 'excited for' to refer to another person; 'I'm so excited for you, your birthday treat will be amazing!', whereas I would be excited about something I wil be doing myself.

'On the weekend' instead of 'at the weekend'.

Umm, lots more!

On the grounds instead of in the grounds, I.e. when talking about lots of trees in the grounds of the stately home.
On the team instead of in the team
One on one instead of one to one.

Why? The American versions don't add any extra understanding.
As for on the weekend, we have of a weekend, or is that regional? Bu this is more something done regularly e.g. he plays football of a weekend.

Halloween was a thing when I was a kid. We used to wear bin bag costumes, carry a carved turnip (actually a swede but we called them turnips), and people would give out money. Every house you went to would dish out a few pence in loose change to each child then you'd count it all up when you got home and use it for sweets, we used to get around £2-£3 each in total which is a lot of money when you're 7/8years old.

Of a weekend is regional, yes.

Another one I've heard that's different but creeping in, is using 'to forget' to describe a physical act, as well as the mental act I think it is. So 'I forgot it at home', rather than 'I left it at home' / 'I forgot to bring it'.

I suppose it's because you forgot about it when you were at home that's why you left it.

Otherwise, leaving it at home could be a deliberate act - I left my umbrella at home because it was sunny so I didn't think I'd need it.

We have Halloween in the US because so many of us have Irish and Scottish roots.