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?

Yes, it makes sense - but sounds really weird; 'I forgot my purse at home'. (So, you forgot it about it when you were at home but did it turn out to be in your handbag? So with you now? What you were or weren't thinking about it when at home, doesn't tell me whether you have it with you now).

So, I'm really saying it doesn't make sense!

Makes my teeth itch is Canadian.

"I’m Canadian and have never heard anyone say this, ever."

Canadian here. My friend says it, but her mum was from England.

Gotten' and 'gifting' have crept into our vocabulary from America but, strictly speaking, they are not ungrammatical at all. I don't use them but have to accept their use as they are not wrong.

I had never heard gifting before I joined MN.

Yes, I agree - you don't need your purse at home, so you forget about it.
Then when you go out - oh *** I left my purse at home. Forgot sounds clumsy.

Yes, or you could just say 'oh no, I forgot my purse'.

But a purse is a handbag in America? Or a pocketbook?

Someone lost her pocketbook at work and no one had a clue that it was her handbag which was missing, thinking it was a notebook of some sort.

Gotten isn't an Americanism, it's been used in parts of Yorkshire for generations.

Yes, purse was just an illustrative example.

*But a purse is a handbag in America? Or a pocketbook?

Someone lost her pocketbook at work and no one had a clue that it was her handbag which was missing, thinking it was a notebook of some sort.*

Purse and handbag is used interchangeably in the US. Pocketbook was something I heard my grandparents say as a child but they were referring to their checkbook.

Gotten' and 'gifting' have crept into our vocabulary from America but, strictly speaking, they are not ungrammatical at all. I don't use them but have to accept their use as they are not wrong.

I rarely heard the word gifting unless someone was regifting something. Gotten however is more of a regional thing that I only heard from my southern relatives.

checkbook.

Now this is another linguistic quirk. The Germans give it a French pronunciation but write it as Scheck. In the UK we anglicise the pronunciation but keep the French spelling and the Americans change both, as seen above.

We use gotten here in Northumberland. The example I gave on another thread was DH asking what was up with DS and I explained "he's gotten wrong"

My grandmother (Southern US) called her handbag a pocketbook.

There is that delightful north eastern expression when someone is told off. "I got wrong off her."

"Bunch"
I have some friends who moved to America and I have noticed they use this phrase all the time!! "I gotta bunch of things at the store" "a bunch of people I know.."

Also "super" - this burger is super good!

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

And saying using Americanisms is lazy and silly isn't BASHING at all?

That is it, in a nutshell. It's ok to think Americans are lazy and silly ( or did you really mean ' stupid') for using the language wrongly?

That is it, in a nutshell. It's ok to think Americans are lazy and silly ( or did you really mean ' stupid') for using the language wrongly?

This. Plus, more often than not several don’t even consider how the reference came to be or why it’s said that way, just want to call it silly because of their own ignorance and snobbery. Even posters will say that these references aren’t strictly American and used in other regions here and people will still say they are American. It shouldn’t be that hard to grasp that due to the many countries that explored and made settlements in what is the US and the immigrants who came over would have a massive effect on the language of what is still a relatively young country compared to the U.K.

That's not bashing Americans, that's bashing Britons, who go and take American expressions out of context, and shoe horn them into their own language, when there's a perfectly good expression they could use, but probably used by the older generation, so not cool.

I'm in my mid 40s and Hallowe'en was definitely 'a thing' when I was wee

I'm closer to 60 and "Going out for your Hallowe'en" was always an event for us growing up. (West of Scotland)

I do think there is an element of bashing. But here's the thing: much of it must have to do with the high consumption of US media. It is bound to happen.

It has happened inside the US as well. I live in the Deep South. Accents have changed quite dramatically here since the advent of television and its dominance of northern and midwestern accents. Vocabulary has changed, too. Language evolves according to how people experience it.

197 posts and no-one has been able to explain 'Creg'.

I could use a......

The only one that bothers me is pronouncing twat to rhyme with what, instead of with bat. It just sounds so wrong.

197 posts and no-one has been able to explain 'Creg'.

Other countries pronounce things differently to the UK. There you go.