A list of people's most hatedest Americanisms, complete with 1,267 commentations.
My favourite: 14. I caught myself saying "shopping cart" instead of "shopping trolley" today and was thoroughly disgusted with myself. Graham Nicholson, Glasgow
Wednesday, 20 July 2011
Hours of fun at the BBC
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16 comments:
A lot of these have nothing to do with America.
42. Period instead of full stop. Stuart Oliver, Sunderland
^ That has nothing to do with anything except Stuart Oliver's pig ignorance. In fact, "full stop" is more likely to be the American term.
Tell a lie, apparently it is. My bad.
No 26 - 'Burglarize', and 'burglarization'
AAAAAHHHHH!!!
This is silly:
15. What kind of word is "gotten"? It makes me shudder. Julie Marrs, Warrington
It is of course the grammatically correct past participle of "get".
"that'll learn you" is a traditional Northern idiom and nothing to do with American.
Glad Bolivia retracted.
I remember being on holiday with my family in Spain in about 1992 when it was revealed on CNN that Prince Charles had been BURGLARIZED; we all laughed a lot.
"gotten" and "that'll learn you" - like "I guess" for "I think that's true" rather than "I've made this up" are all traditional English usage that the colonies perpetuated.
Formal British English and formal Australian English are the same. However, idiom isn't. I very much enjoyed testing Word 2010's spellchecker by writing "the bogan glassed the chav" - in BrE, 'chav' was OK and 'bogan' wrong, whilst in AuE, 'bogan' was OK and 'chav' wrong.
As you've all noticed, the list is pedants' Heaven, some of these are indeed US Americanisms and other are just old fashioned English, but hey.
It is true though that they sometimes stick in extra words "to meet WITH" and sometimes they miss off words ("A new study released Sunday" instead of "A new study released ON Sunday) - a lot of this is because they translate from German word for word, see also "waiting ON somebody".
Have they got "judge led?"
Soon that can become "Judgled."
Meaning ... a friendly judge appointed by parliament to not look to closely at the evidence or move an iota beyond remit if he/she wants a knighthood.
BQ, is that American? It reminds me of "wet led" which I am reliably informed is a fancy word for "pub".
The three Americanisms that still irritate me even after 8 years of living in Canada are "urb" and "urbal" instead of "herb" and "herbal"; the use of "on" instead of "at" in phrases like "at the weekend"; and the missing "and" in "I gave him a hundred twenty-five dollars" or the like.
Just have to keep on smiling though...
D, wouldn't those be 'Canadianisms'? Anyway, why isn't 'Canada' called 'Canadia'?
Explorer: So chief, what do you call this place?
Chief: Kanata ('village')
Explorer: Great, I've discovered Kanata!
See also the Yucutan peninsula...
Nah. Sadly, those are pretty general across North America -- going by US TV adverts and news reports on Canadian cable TV anyway.
The only real Canadianisms that I come across regularly are the propensity to add "eh?" to the end of statements and saying "oat" and "aboat" instead of "out" and "about". Both of which probably come from Canada's Scottish heritage. And neither of which I find particularly irritating.
Hopper, yup, see also "The Ukraine" which is Russian for "border", hence and why the Ukrainians are adamant it's called "Ukraine" without the "The".
D, missing the "h" of "herb" is enormously irritating, but I like the other two, I think I'll start using those. After all, we say "on Friday" (unless we are American, in which we say "Friday") so why not "on the weekend" or "On Xmas"? And saying "hundred twenty-five" is pure genius.
"see also "waiting ON somebody"": I don't understand your point.
D, Germans say "warten auf" and not "warten für".
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