It's ARSE! 🇬🇧

[BlowDryRat]

Unless you're American, in which case it's "ass".

Doesn't mean it's right though. That's the problem. It's everywhere now.

https://dsl.ac.uk/results/%22gotten%22

It looks like gotten has been around for a while, at least in Scotland.

I think it's the pace at which American English is taking over British English that many of us object to.

I'm in my 50s and when I was in my teens and twenties American words kind of floated in for words we didn't already have.

Now, mainly due to many people watching exclusively US television, they are unaware that it is an American word. For example 'butt' or 'diaper'. I find it really sad that our language is being eroded so quickly.

I’ve just thought of an exception. Kick ass, as in kick ass heroine, kick ass lawyer. Kick arse as an adjective sounds silly to me, because it’s an American expression, although as a literal verb ‘he kicked his arse downstairs’ is fine.

No objection to its use as a way of drawing someone's attention to something. That has been in usage in GB for decades and doesn't sound out of place. But, as per my post, British people greeting each other with "Hey" is just American-ly grim 😬 I blame Friends, as a pp suggested, as well as Dawson's Creek etc.

I don't like the way 'purposefully' has started being used to mean 'on purpose' .

Doesn't mean it's right though. That's the problem.

In what way is it actually a problem though? If 'gotten' eventually becomes as common as, or more common than, 'got', what are the negative consequences?

Americans aren't "sending back" our language, you are buying it. That is not our fault, it is yours.

Definitely. I bloody hate all these Americanisms.

This board really isn’t for you.

Er, as mentioned, "check" was how we spelled it in English. Which is why our American cousins took it with them.

It's not their fault we polluted English with Frenchified spellings.

This board really isn’t for you.

I like to pop in occasionally and disagree with people. Tbf there are mistakes which annoy me, but they tend to be actual SPaG mistakes, not variations in dialect etc.

I work in maternity. Diaper seems to be becoming alarmingly the norm when referring to a nappy.

I have a vague memory that (once again) "diaper" was the original English that got exported to the colonies.

It seems we then played a nasty trick of changing it while they were away 😀

@marshmallowfinder But it's not a new usage. I'm mid 40s and have always used it. My language use isn't remotely Americanised. In informal speech, I still employ a lot words and grammatical features from the traditional Lancashire dialect. I admit Americanisms are more prevalent among youngsters but not in my age group and older.

Absolutely this. I wasn't allowed to watch any American tv growing up, and DS doesn't either.

I don’t really believe that!

My son is almost eight and watches all sorts of American and Canadian You Tubers. He and I talk about language a lot. He already has a very clear sense of British English vs American usage and uses very few Americanisms in his speech. He’s also quite good at identifying Australian usage. I think exposure to all varieties of English is a good thing to help build a sense of identity in relation to one’s own variant.

I'm just going to throw this out:-
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180207-how-americans-preserved-british-english#:~:text=As%20a%20result%2C%20although%20there,kind%20than%20modern%20British%20pronunciation.

I’m pretty sure that the OP is well aware of the history. That isn’t the “gotcha” you think it is when it comes to comparing modern usage on opposite sides of the Atlantic.

canada they say ass too

I wish people a Happy Christmas and a Prosperous New Year.

How peculiar. But fits in well with the strange tone of this thread.

And Pedants' corner used to be a place where people discussed aspects of language without a lot of judgment or linguistic xenophobia. But like so much of MN, it's often not a very pleasant place these days.

If British people want to avoid features of American English, I suggest that they stop consuming so much American media.

This board really isn’t for you.

It's for anyone who wants to talk about language and that includes people who take a descriptive rather than prescriptive view of English, including British English.

Ass is a donkey. Arse is a bottom