To ask why some Mumsnetters find the use of American English suspicious?

[MonaLisaDoesntSmile]

Some while back I wrote a thread under another username, and was accused by a few members to have written a fake story because I used words that are much more commonly used in the US. For the record, I learned English as a second language and my secondary school teacher was from the US, I also spent my teens watching American shows and films. 15+ years in the UK and I still use flashlight, trashcan, gas, fall, intersection and a number of other words that got stuck in my head.
I have it happen since a few times to other people- today someone decided a thread posted by a user was done by chat GTP because it sounded 'American'.
Why are people so baffled by the fact that there may be American users on the site, or people educated in the US/international American schools, or just people who have learned English with the help of American media rather than BBC?

There is natural 'American' spelling someone who is American would use, then there is AI/robotic 'American' spelling

There is a difference

‘Can I get’ is not necessarily an Americanism though.

I’m Irish (ROI) and the word ‘may’ is very rarely used here.
So ‘Please may I have’ is not something that people say here really.
People say something like ‘Can/could I have a coffee please?’
If ‘get’ is used it is used in the sense of ‘receive’ - like you get/receive a letter - so ‘Can I get a coffee please?’ makes perfect sense and is used also.

This comes up a lot on MN actually and it seems ‘Please may I have’ is not an expression that’s used everywhere in the UK either. On previous threads I remember posters from Scotland and NI saying that it’s not an expression they’d ever use.

People often think the expressions that are commonplace where they themselves live are also widespread or standard throughout UK. Often that’s not the case. Just because something is unfamiliar doesn’t mean it’s American.

So, yes, your DC may have picked up things from TV (American or otherwise), but expressions like ‘can I get’ or ‘gotten’ used online? The writer could just as easily be Irish or Scottish 😁

Maybe they have one but also like it here. Not everybody is xenophobic.

Well, most well-known AI chatbots are produced by American IT so it will be their default position!

I think the PP is referring to her own children though and how she would prefer them to speak. Not mumsnetters in general. I prefer my children not to use Irish or Americanisms but that's just my choice. Not that my children pay much attention to that these days.

I’ve just finished listening to a Jeeves & Wooster audiobook adapted by the BBC, starring Richard Briers & Michael Hordern. You’d think that would be as English as it gets.

But part of the plot hinged on one of the characters being a talented rugby player whose position was prop forward. I remembered that from reading the book years ago. And, presumably to make it intelligible to listeners unfamiliar with rugby, they made him a ‘soccer’ player instead & chucked in a helpful bit about that being the version with the round ball.

It was irritating.

At times US English comes across as childish, babyish and lacking the complexities that other English types posses (e.g. speak to older Indian heritage Brits). It is very basic to learn US English and that is why non English speaking natives in the EU and many other regions tend to assimilate to the US style quicker.
written US English can be just as creative and stylish as UK/ Commonwealth English, “sloppiness“ or “laziness” seems to heavily affect speaking though. I stand to be corrected though.

Oh absolutely, everybody teaches their children the way they think is best themselves, no issue with that at all.

It was this bit of pp’s comment I was responding to really:
“I wouldn’t dream of commenting if someone online used Americanisms. I’d just assume they were American.”
She then went on to give ‘can l get?’ as an example of an Americanism, even though the expression has long been used in Ireland and Scotland too.

It’s something you often see on MN - people assuming you’re American or watch too much American TV if you happen to use a word like ‘gotten’. I mean, some people in certain parts of the UK will have picked it up from TV, but it’s still widely used in other parts of the UK as well as in ROI. Its use never died out in those places.

People sometimes don’t realise that, I think.

I don't want us to become the 51st state in all but name. That is different I think from accepting contributions from those born in the US.

Maybe it's social media that we now know about more regional quirks. I was born in the south in the 70s and never heard the word gotten or anything that might be accused of being an Americanisim while living in my own little southern bubble. It's a revelation that gotten has always been used in the UK! I've also only recently found out (from mumsnet) that Mom is used in Brum!

I say Mom too, but spell it Mam, just to add to the confusion @Thoughtsonstuff 😅
That pronunciation/spelling is influenced by the Irish language I think though.

MN can definitely be an education sometimes 😁

Rubbish.

It's simply because a lot of the threads using American English look AI generated.

It's interesting the at lot of them also use the Reddit style m36, f25 type abbreviations too.

Mumsnet is at heart a UK centric forum, that has been a important lifeline for women. Those women don't want it overrun with AI generated shite.

Also give the shit state of the US at the moment, shunning all things from there probably isn't the worst idea.

Are you suggesting @Hoppinggreen doesn't? Because she's used them correctly in this post.

I was reading in the news today that there are now more bot posters on the internet than humans on the internet. So it’s not an entirely bad idea in general to look for signs of AI, especially political images and videos.

I use both British and American English, and have never used A.I. Like you OP, English isn’t my first language, and I’ve never considered British English to be any more or less correct than American English. My phone keyboard is set to American English currently.

Someone mentioned ’aluminium’ earlier in the thread - it’s pronounced differently in the U.S because it’s also spelt differently. In the U.S it’s aluminum, no ‘i’.

I didn't.

I's because they are twits, OP.

I've been accused of being fake due to non UK spellings. As it happens, I am neither in the UK nor the US, and both forms are commonly used where I live. I am also a shitty speller, and occasionally screwed up by autocorrect. So my suspicious language is nothing do do with being a bot of some kind.

It's not suspicious. It's wrong.🤣🤣🤣🤣

There are a lot of regional variations in the US as well. It's not as pronounced as in the UK, but it is a big country and I think sometimes outsiders have a tendency to imagine a very standard accent. But someone from Brooklyn, Georgia, and Louisiana sound very differernt. And an upper class educated person is typically going to have a much more standard accent across the US, while working class people can have a fair bit of variation. There's racial variation in accent too.

Yep. Not to mention that English is just made up from other languages and that language evolves!

Well I wouldn't say English is "just made up from other languages". It is a language in itself and we are a very old country. It is of course influenced from other languages (Norse, French, Latin etc) and as I speak a few languages I notice those influences. But the English language is our most successful export so I wouldn't minimise it.

You missed the point though. No one is saying America is the norm, but that membership on Mumsnet is not restricted to anyone and anyone else can join, just like you are free to join whatever other forums you want to regardless where they are based. If it grates you, you oculd start your own where you could hand pick members who live in your preferred country :)

The Americanism that is driving me absolutely NUTS at the moment is using ‘can’ instead of ‘can’t’. It seems to be quite a new thing but is popping up everywhere. It actually makes my blood boil, I assume because it doesn’t actually make any sense! (See also ‘I could care less’)

I don't think that's americanism? I thought it's a case like "chester draws"

The U.K. can be as insular or parochial as the USA.