Americanisms!
Discuss issues that have a social and cultural impact, including but not limited to issues such as racism, teenage pregnancies, the social impact of religion, and the state of the education system.
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Re: Americanisms!I think the date thing is frustrating. Surely it makes more sense to go DAY - MONTH - YEAR than MONTH - DAY - YEAR?
With regards to the much overused "awesome", however, I would like to point out that this is partially our fault too. I'm fairly certain that "awful" used to mean "full of awe" which is essentially the same as "awesome" nowadays, but somewhere along the line we reversed those words to mean opposite things.
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Re: Americanisms!May have already been mentioned, but the worst is when you hear a person say 'off of' where simply 'off' would suffice, e.g.:
"Get off of me!" ---> should clearly be "Get off me!"
Why you would seek to add an extra, useless word there is beyond me. -
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Re: Americanisms!I have to say that I agree with you, the current American English (that sounds wrong) it closer to the traditional English that people on this side of the pond cling to. It's rather perverse.(Original post by Roaroaroar)
I don't understand why people get angry about americanization (
). Sure it might be different but so is the language we currently speak in Britain now and 100 years ago. Language change, get used to it. It's ridiculous to cling on to it, that's something children do. I'm generally quite fond of it. There's no need for the U in color.
http://www.pbs.org/speak/ahead/change/ruining/ - Y'all () should read this.
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Re: Americanisms!I'm sorry if this isn't an Americanism but I absolutely hate "alright" when greeting people, I am 17, I do not know how to respond?! I end up saying it back... I would much prefer to say "hello" or "hi", maybe I should just join the middle-aged prematurely.
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Re: Americanisms!Regardless of the spoken order, the day still needs the suffix.(Original post by IAmTheKing)
It's actually the fifteenth of June...
Smallest (day), middle (month), biggest (year). (the fifteenth of June, 2012...)
Makes sense really.
And it's 'two thousand AND twelve' ... Not 'two thousand twelve' ...... -
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Re: Americanisms!My Grandad actually gave me a talk on how they used to say 'soccer' and now it's changed to 'football'.(Original post by UWS)
"Soccer"... Uhh, that grinds my gears -
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Re: Americanisms!When I was about 9 or 10 my Dad took me to the States and I saw dates like 9/23 and I was thinking this is strange, do they have more months in America, how can this be?? It took me a while to figure it out. Figure it out. An Americanism. Gahh, they're everywhere! Better take a room, a chill pill and see if the mailman's mailed me any checks.(Original post by IAmTheKing)
The twin towers came down on the 9th of November... apparently -
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Re: Americanisms!A lot of US language sounds infantile and uneducated precisely because it is - the dictionary makers and language standardisers in the 19th and early 20th Centuries deliberately chose words that were considered simple enough for the huge wave of non-English speaking or poorly educated immigrants to grasp easily. This trend towards simplifying continued with Hollywood - motion picture makers were pressured not to include "high-falutin" dialogue, the vast audience often had only a limited grasp of the language. Movies like "High Society" played on this with their aping of upper-class American's "lofty" English and transatlantic pronunciations; many US people can't help viewing the English accent as "upper" because the East Coast elite speak with those tones.
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Re: Americanisms!It has indeed changed more as the constrains of 'Standard English' are not as profound as they are in Britain, however, in the sense that they spell things differently and they have different grammatical structures is due to older English. Maybe not as profound as it is today! Shakespeare certainly did not have an american accent! Haha.(Original post by Aethra)
That's a myth, I think. Their speech has changed more than ours has.
One thing that also makes me laugh (and this includes some British people too!) is that they laugh at Pirate talk and call it false and put-on. Just take a trip to Bristol and you'll soon find out the origins of Pirate speak- many pirate ships set sail from Bristol. -
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Re: Americanisms!No, I wasn't, I guessed right, not that it was guess. Faucet isn't an Americanism, it's of English origin, just more widely used nowadays in America.(Original post by navarre)
I LOVE American English, although there are some things that annoy me. Do you know what they call a tap? Go on, take a wild guess. Well, you're wrong. They call it a faucet. I mean, what kind of sense does that even make? -
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Re: Americanisms!Nothing wrong with faucet, we could steal that one and use it if we wanted...(Original post by navarre)
I LOVE American English, although there are some things that annoy me. Do you know what they call a tap? Go on, take a wild guess. Well, you're wrong. They call it a faucet. I mean, what kind of sense does that even make?
Spigot on the other hand... ermmm.... I think we'll pass.
(Some people probably now saying to themselves "what the **** is a spigot?!?") -
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Re: Americanisms!Brilliant.(Original post by ckingalt)
As an American, I could care less about this thread. I have like, a billion more important concerns. I’m a math major and I have to organize my notes on integration. So it’s not like I have time to just chillax until 15/06/2012 and write you fools, Monday thru Friday, about how off color your remarks are. You must realize that I would rather go downtown and bash myself with an aluminum baseball bat. I think you should just stick to soccer and tea. I mean like, are you guys for real? -
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Re: Americanisms!It makes me laugh when people get on their high horse and say "Mom is such an Americanism, mindless sheep following the pack, copying celebrities
" etc. "Mum" is actually the newer term "Mom" is the old abbreviation of mother and remains in use in the West Midlands. The amount of times I've had to point out to my friends that it's not an Americanism makes me 
). Sure it might be different but so is the language we currently speak in Britain now and 100 years ago. Language change, get used to it. It's ridiculous to cling on to it, that's something children do. I'm generally quite fond of it. There's no need for the U in color. 
