To demand that my son does not say "candy"?

[Heqet]

I rather suspect I am. He says "cayndy" in a very american accent. I HATE it. I snap that he is not american and the word is SWEETS, or CHOCOLATE

erm, depending on whether he is talking about sweets or chocolate

It drives me up the wall, this fake american accent.

Yep, it's the 'trying to be posh' accent that gets me too. I have a friend who does it in the company of a certain other friend and it's difficult not to crack up with laughter. And even when she's being 'posh' she still says serviette and lounge, which isn't at all posh.

What's wrong with 'backyard'? We all have backyards oop north. Where else would we keep the pigeons?

No serviette is considered to be non U or 'common'.

"Fall" originates from the England - not an American word as is usually presumed (or so I read in The Times a few months ago). No idea where "autumn" comes from.

there were many nigerians at our school...

we do a fine Nigerian.

yes, to the point where there were those who begged us to cease...

Saying like is a northern thing as well lol

Nothing wrong with a generation who aspires to better themselves by being more like Americans. It's the next best thing to actually being American.

LOL Strix!

My BF lives in the US and was incensed to see her DS's teacher had crossed out where he'd written 'mum' and replaced it with 'mom.'
She was furious, and scored that out in black marker pen and wrote 'mum' back in over the top.

IHave enjoyed reading this thread. I find the changes in the use of words very interesting.When I was a child we always got into trouble if we said "can" instead of "may" Please may I go to the shops not please can I go nto the shops. Is this still the case? I too dislike the use of the word "like" and a lot of americanisms.

culture clash, innit.

I am going to have problems with this now I live in Australia - I can't cope with sweets being lollies, I can't bring myself to let DS say that (although in the end, what choice am I going to have? He'll only stand out at school when he gets there). I hate the fact that American TV is pretty pervasive here too, and that lots of teens here speak with a pseudo-American accent.

I have no problems with Americans speaking that way - I object to non-Americans ignoring their own "ways" and adopting another country's ways because they learnt it on TV and think it's "cool". It isn't, IMO.

ThumbleBells - what about 'thongs' for flip flops. I couldn't cope with that one when I lived in Aus.

portiapie, I've strangely got used to that one over the years that I've known DH - it did cause me some trouble to start with though!

"DD watches Cbeebies, because on the foreign imports they over dub the American or Canadian accents with English ones!

Thank-you Cbeebies!"

How rude!!

Not all of them are dubbed over; and when they get to Australia, some of them go back to the annoying original (Finley the fire engine for e.g.). I can't quite see why Bottle-top Bill was dubbed in the UK though - especially as the Koala Brothers wasn't; the Aussie accent wasn't that hard to deal with.

I'm American and teach at an international school. So I try to use all the British terms, however, I'm surrounded by Americans and people from all over the world during my work day so it's difficult to get a handle on it all... there are so many!
Really? is this done on cbeebies? I just thought they were programmes only shown here in the UK! . DS (15 months) was born here so I didn't watch a lot of toddler tv telly before coming here on the airplane aeroplane..
I'm going to go eat some candy chocolate as it's been a long day.

I hate when the date is said as January 12th rather than the 12th of January. It just seems lazy. I notice some adverts on tv are using this Americanism now. Grr!

Said I am glad I am not alone! Despite my name, I'm not originally from "oop north" and it's one Manchesterism I cannot bear!

I'm off to cry and sulk for a while.

A little ironic that England exported English to America and now it's finding its way back?

I think the terminal inflection is Valley Girl Talk, moreso than Australian -- here's a How-To article likewise 'like'. That lovely word 'airhead' is also American (or should it be aerohead ), I believe, and is very apt for someone who does this.

I'm American and I hate proms, showers, business-speak and other shite like that. It's a lot of why I moved.

But my husband is Scottish, my children are Scottish and there are but few Americans here where I live, so despite the accent, I've pretty much gone native.

Where did he get 'candy'?

Mine have Argyll accents.

BUT, there are quite a few high schools in Scotland that have always been called that, even in the early part of the last century.

And plenty of people from the Midlands on here have said they have always called their mothers 'mom'.

So some of the things people think are Americanisms are . . . not.

Mine don't watch much television and there aren't many amenities, such as Starbucks, round here.

"Showers" baffle me. I only know about them from Friends.

I have always found showers cringe-worthy, grabby, attention-seeking, counting your chickens before they hatch (a smug and arrogant, and therefore foolish quality) show-off events.

Long, long before I came to the UK.

I also hate being pressured to hide pretty much any emotion besides fake optimism, otherwise you're labelled negative, pessimist, etc. Barbara Ehrenreich has recently published a very good article regarding this element of American culture.

Proms, well, I wasn't going to go to mine. But my Austrian boyfriend and I had recently split. My best friend was going with her brother's university flatmate, and she felt a bit nervous about this, so asked me to go with her brother.

As I knew he always had access to good weed, I agreed.

I later found out that night he had access to . . . other good things that he knew how to put to good use .

good ol' expat!

I'm a rare bird in that I was born in Canada but spent most of my life in Europe. My mother is English & my father is American. I went to "international" schools all my life (except one year on an American air force base where I was OBLIGED to say the pledge of allegiance every single morning, hand over heart - even at the tender age of 10, it bugged the hell out of me!) and speak english with a "mid-atlantic" accent after having spent several years in London being mercilessly called an american, as if it were some sort of dreadful curse! Dh is English to the core & will correct us all (dc & myself) in exasperation if we call the lavatory/loo the bathroom, say toilet paper instead of loo roll, candy instead of sweets, Chewsday instead of Tuesday, vightamins instead of vitamins, etc, etc.

You can't win. The only thing to do is to keep your dc away from tv, oops the telly, and hope for the best.

sorry - we have to say Chewsday instead of Twosday

Loved my prom. Was prom princess and all

Loved my baby shower too...