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.

‘So excited for’. No, no no! It’s excited ABOUT.

‘Come by’ No, no!

Bathroom for toilet.
No, there is no toilet in the bathroom. Do you pee in the bath?

‘Asshole’ .

Amongst so many others. I really hate it and will resist until the day I die.

But the British Santa/Father Christmas used to be an old man in a red fur lined dressing gown with a hood. The US one has a jacket and red trousers and a pointed bobble hat.

@upinaballoon

Comtesse De Spair, I don't know about an African American Vernacular but I know in a UK supermarket I saw 'corn beef' yesterday, and I've seen ice tea in bottles in the UK, and I don't care what colour the person is who is saying it, and it never entered my head that I was writing about anything except LAZINESS, and if the tea has been iced it's iced tea and if the beef's been corned (whatever that means) then it's corned beef.

Too right!

I was speaking to a robot on a
Chat box the other day. It apologised to me for making a mistake with ‘sorry, my Bad’. I nearly had an apoplectic fit...

"Ass" and "arse" referring to buttocks come from the same word, with the "ass" pronunciation developing in the US. When someone with a non-rhotic accent says "arse", it can sound close to "ass", but with a longer "a" sound.

*‘So excited for’. No, no no! It’s excited ABOUT.

‘Come by’ No, no!

Bathroom for toilet.
No, there is no toilet in the bathroom. Do you pee in the bath?

‘Asshole’ .

Amongst so many others. I really hate it and will resist until the day I die.*

And it must surprise you but many Americans actually speak the English many of you seemingly prefer and it is as it has been said many times depending on regions how Americans speak as it is dependent on regions how Brits speak. Why is this difficult to understand?

Bathroom for toilet.
No, there is no toilet in the bathroom. Do you pee in the bath?

I'm not sure what you mean by this, but the standard American bathroom has a sink, a toilet bowl, and a bathtub. I believe that an arrangement such as this is also called a bathroom in the UK. I know that in some older houses, there might be a separate WC and a room with only a bath, but I haven't seen that arrangement in a private house in the UK for a long time.

Too right!

Except it isn’t right. Lipton “Ice Tea” is a trademarked brand name. It’s like complaining that the spelling of Weetabix is lazy and that it should be Wheatabicks. I believe the brand of corned beef being referred to which is labelled as corn beef is Grace, which is Jamaican. I’m sure we can all agree that a Jamaican manufacturer can label the food it produces exactly as it chooses to without having to worry about whether it conforms to “correct” language patterns in other countries? (Although considering we have a long cultural history of assuming that whatever black people do is defective, I wouldn’t be surprised if some posters still believe it’s “bad English” or “ignorant”.)

Also using nouns to modify other nouns has long been a feature of English so "ice tea" and "corn beef" don't violate any grammatical "rules."

Besides, corned beef is also known as "salt beef" in the UK, right? Why not salted beef?

Besides, corned beef is also known as "salt beef" in the UK, right? Why not salted beef?

I thought sslt(ed) beef was different from corned beef, slightly different preservation method. Though I can't actually be arsed to look it up just now, so I might be wrong.

I'm not sure what you mean by this, but the standard American bathroom has a sink, a toilet bowl, and a bathtub.

But I did find it odd once when an American seeing a row of cubicles in the Ladies described them all as bathrooms.

Isn't that actually down to American politeness? Not wanting to use 'vulgar' words such as toilet or lavatory as they refer too directly to bodily functions. And that might give offence to someone so use a nice euphemism.

Can someone British explain why so many Brits on this thread think certain British/Irish phrasings are American?

Ignorance, laziness and arrogance ?

@Peregrina

But the British Santa/Father Christmas used to be an old man in a red fur lined dressing gown with a hood. The US one has a jacket and red trousers and a pointed bobble hat.

I have a Santa decoration that is British and over 100 years old.

Santa is wearing a jacket and trousers with a pointed hat.

So the British Santa has been dressed like that for an awfully long time. Since well before any of us can remember.

@MajorCarolDanvers

Language evolves. I enjoy teaching my English colleagues how to use good Scottish words everyday.

Exactly. We have always acquired new words from different countries. Have you ever looked at the etymology of most of the words you use? Good luck using on my old English!!

License OLD ENGLISH - Number plate BOTH OLD FRENCH
shield OLD ENGLISH - screen ANGLO-FRENCH
Envision OLD FRENCH - envisage OLD FRENCH

I think what OP is objecting to is the way that perfectly good expressions are changed for others which don't explain any better. Why change windscreen for windshield, or goose pimples for goose bumps?

@Peregrina

I think what OP is objecting to is the way that perfectly good expressions are changed for others which don't explain any better. Why change windscreen for windshield, or goose pimples for goose bumps?

This is what I was trying to say - actually not even objecting so much as lamenting, but never mind, I am a xenophobic racist - I feel a bit like Father Ted, only without the lampshade.

Nobody actually said you were racist. They said that the thread had started to become racist, and other posters were being racist, in response to features of pidgin, patois and AAVE being held up as “laziness”, and “uneducated” and “bad English”; and that statements about Americans being ignorant because they use the “wrong” idioms or rude because they never say please or thank-you l, are xenophobic.

And also that if you happily say restaurant, hotel and toilet rather than victualling house, inn and water closet, why on earth are windshield and goosebumps a step too far?

Language is an organic, changing, living thing - which is why we don’t all still speak like Chaucer…

And the only people I know who say ‘Father Christmas’ are posh English ones. No-one in Northern Ireland said anything other than Santa when I was a child.

@ComtesseDeSpair

Nobody actually said you were racist. They said that the thread had started to become racist, and other posters were being racist, in response to features of pidgin, patois and AAVE being held up as “laziness”, and “uneducated” and “bad English”; and that statements about Americans being ignorant because they use the “wrong” idioms or rude because they never say please or thank-you l, are xenophobic.

And also that if you happily say restaurant, hotel and toilet rather than victualling house, inn and water closet, why on earth are windshield and goosebumps a step too far?

I was called a xenophobe for making the OP.

I didn't say I didn't accept that Windshield (or the others) will become the accepted term - in fact I've said repeatedly that I fully accept it will.

@AuntieStella

I have no idea if the horrible "gifting" or "impacting" have come from the US but will blame them anyway

It doesn't

OED records its use in Britain from before the US even existed

Yes but was it used in those contexts? You have always "gifted" land, but we didn't have "Christmas gifting".

And an asteroid may impact you, but generally things had an impact on you, before they started "impacting" you.

Bathroom for toilet.
No, there is no toilet in the bathroom. Do you pee in the bath?
Yes because everyone in England has separate rooms for the loo and the bath. Not.
I go to the toilet in the bathroom where I pee on the toilet whilst staring at the bath. I go for a shower in the bathroom where I stand in the bath and stare at the loo.
Never bloody have time for a bath.

I get confused with the" go wash up," as opposed to get washed I thought it meant do the dishes initially !