To ask if do (or will) miss British English?

[daimbarsatemydogsbone]

License plate - Number plate
Driver's license - Driving licence
Windshield - Windscreen
Envision - Envisage
Bring (instead of take)

So much British English is being replaced with the US versions.

UK courtroom dramas now feature lawyers shouting "objection!" and judges saying "sustained" - something that never actually happens in UK courts but the writers have all grown up watching US dramas and films.

I know it's inevitable but I celebrated the little differences - they seem to become fewer and fewer each year.

@Chasingaftermidnight

I have a neighbour who talks about money in ‘bucks’. As in ‘it was about thirty bucks.’ She means pounds.

That's just silly. Yes language evolves and changes but using American English words doesn't make you look cool. It makes no sense that people have started calling films movies, for example. Film is a perfectly good word and means the same as movie.

Frosting, no its icing ! and Sprinkles (hundreds and thousands ?)

@liveforsummer that's what my family refer to as my telephone voice - there is a very noticeable difference between how I speak at work etc and how I talk when with family and I definitely slip back into using words from my childhood that I rarely use I'll never give up calling slippers baffies though

I work with a couple of Americans, they expect everyone to speak American English which I refuse to do. As long as we don't use their date system of month, day, year I'm happy.

I don't see how anyone who doesn't know America well can speak American English. I wouldn't know what sprinkles were for example, so I couldn't be expected to talk about them.

@MasterBeth

Welcome to the process of ageing.

As a young person, you will have incorporated the latest slang and modern usage into your vocabulary without thinking about it. Your parents would have found it irritating and “incorrect.”

Now, your lexicon is more established and you are irritated by the latest slang and modern usage of the next generation.

Your use is not correct. Their use is not correct. The English language isn’t policed and has no authorities judging it. It evolves and changes.

You are of course absolutely correct - I used to wish for immortality, now I’m not so sure.

@Peregrina

I don't see how anyone who doesn't know America well can speak American English. I wouldn't know what sprinkles were for example, so I couldn't be expected to talk about them.

TV and films :)

@Mercurial123

I work with a couple of Americans, they expect everyone to speak American English which I refuse to do. As long as we don't use their date system of month, day, year I'm happy.

I really don't believe you. In what context do they "expect" non Americans to use American English?

@Cheeseplantboots

I notice this in films when people are in pubs/bars. They never say please when asking for a drink.

Oh, well you've seen it in films so it must be true. Just like how all English people live in idyllic villages, drink tea all day, and walk around calling everyone Guv'nor.

I am wondering if the lexical differences are to do with interference from other European languages as we British weren't the only Europeans who invaded.

On top of the language from Native Americans. American English and culture has influences from the Native Americans and the multitude of invaders and immigrants: Vikings, English, Scottish, Irish, French, Spanish, German, Dutch, etc..

Most of the history learned about all the different

I really don't believe you. In what context do they "expect" non Americans to use American English?

That's OK I couldn't care less if you think I'm lying.

*Most of American history taught (at least where I grew up) started with the explorers starting with the Viking Leif Erikson.

@Mercurial123

I work with a couple of Americans, they expect everyone to speak American English which I refuse to do. As long as we don't use their date system of month, day, year I'm happy.

I don’t think this is so much about Americans as it is just some rude people you happen to work with who would be rude whatever their nationality. I also work with loads of Americans, and never once have I been expected to alter the way I speak. Occasionally they’ll query a word I’ve used if they don’t know it, but then they’ll just be happy to have learned a new word.

@BadgeronaMoped

I can't see "burglarised" catching on over here to be fair I love the weirder American words. People on the knitting site Ravelry always write they find patterns "addicting" when they mean "addictive", that one I don't find endearing...

Love hearing about being 'burglarised' on my namesake's programme, almost love it as much as hearing about vee-hic-les! Many words we call American phrases are old English that went across the pond, died out here then came back across the pond. Bill Bryson wrote wonderfully about this.

@Mercurial123

I really don't believe you. In what context do they "expect" non Americans to use American English?

That's OK I couldn't care less if you think I'm lying.

OK. But if you answered my question what you said might make a lot more sense. Why bother posting if you don't want to be understood?

Knob Lick, Casey County, Kentucky,
Knob Lick, Estill County, Kentucky,
Knob Lick, Metcalfe County, Kentucky,
Knob Lick, Missouri,

Not a word I can see making its way back across the pond to mean a geographical feature!!!

@AcrossthePond55

There are British words that are sneaking into American usage, although not as many as vice versa.

Brilliant (great), bum (butt), gobsmacked (stunned), bin (trashcan), flat (apartment), lift (elevator), sweets (candy) are words I'm hearing more frequently.

I blame Harry Potter. 😆

I also heard during our last visit to the US, 2019, that some young Americans now refer to 'trainers' instead of sneakers, depending on their purpose. I love the differences, when we had watched a demonstration of cider making in VIrginia we were then roped in to explain the differences in meaning to a group young teenagers on a school trip, they loved the idea of White Diamond! Very few Americans know where 'soccer' comes from as their word for proper football.

If it makes you feel any better, Americans are now saying jab instead of shot.

This is so true. I think because it is not as violent as "shot," and we have to say it so much more now than in the past.

Some other usages from British English increasingly used in the US now: "bespoke" and "gobsmacked."

We had some Americans over and during a break someone mentioned they were going outside as they could murder a fag. Caused quite a shock as they didn't understand fag=cigarette (worse still one of them was gay).

Frosting, no its icing

It's icing in the Southern US.

I suspect a lot of us forget that US is a big country with lots of cultures within it. New Yorkers ar probably saying the same sort of comments about Californians.

@hotfroth

There's no such thing as 'British' English.

It's just English.

hth

Incorrect. Hth

@BigFatLiar

I suspect a lot of us forget that US is a big country with lots of cultures within it. New Yorkers ar probably saying the same sort of comments about Californians.

Well, quite. If your primary exposure to American English is through American media, what you’re actually hearing is the dialect and vocabulary of those who write, broadcast, direct and produce the media - which despite some inroads in recent years to increase diversity, is still very overwhelmingly white, east and west coast based, middle class, and male. Believe it or not, plenty of Americans can watch their own national media or entertainment and not recognise the way they speak in it; just as many Brits are pointing out here that the “British English” being upheld on this thread is just one very specific dialect of English which has the prominence it does because it’s traditionally the language of affluent white people in London and the Home Counties, and is therefore overrepresented in mainstream communication.

I hate all these Americanisms in the English language.

Gotten
Can I get
I have instead of I've got

Gotten isn’t an Americanism.