Words/phrases identified as "Americanisms" that some people love to hate

[firecat]

Two articles about "Americanisms".

This one is written by a journalist and it's about language that originated in America that has made its way into British English.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/14130942

I had no idea that words like "talented" and "reliable" were once (or are still) considered objectionable.

Readers were invited to contribute their own Americanisms:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14201796

The list from readers is a mishmash of corporate jargon (e.g., "deplane"), abbreviations ("24/7"), phrases that mean something naughtier in British English than in American English ("fanny pack"), terminology that's different in different areas ("shopping cart" vs. "shopping trolley," "bi-weekly" vs. "fortnightly," "math" vs. "maths"), grammatical constructions ("can I get a"), words that have been turned into verbs ("alphabetize," "burglarize"), pop-culture memes that turn into more or less universal slang ("my bad"), words/phrases that I think are regionalisms rather than Americanisms ("that'll learn you," "where's it at?"), and phrases that I associate with a particular class or age cohort rather than a region ("I have an issue," "Let's touch base.")

It's fascinating which phrases/words bug me too ("normalcy," "deliverable"), which ones don't bug me but I can see why they bug someone ("I could care less"), and which ones seem completely normal to me and it never even occurred to me that non-Americans don't use them ("alphabetize," "expiration date").

Also it's fascinating what reasons people give for disliking words/phrases. "Transportation. What's wrong with transport?" "'Reach out to' when the correct word is 'ask'."

There are also 1295 comments. I haven't read them all. :-)

Comments

[owlmoose]

Definitely interesting. My range of reactions was similar to yours. Did you see this response from The Economist? http://www.economist.com/node/21524234

[firecat]

Oh I like The Economist's take!

[cleverthylacine]

The word "utilize" pisses me off because "use" is a PERFECTLY GOOD WORD. A friend of mine actually said "incentivize" the other day and I think I must have looked at him like he had grown a third head because seriously, who talks like that? This is a 20-something gay guy who complains about having to wear long pants instead of shorts at his job and he's saying "incentivize"? what the fucking fuck.

[firecat]

I think of "incentivize" as corporate-speak. One of my most loathed corporate-speak words is "liaise." Also, I don't like "architect" used as a verb, but the people who use it assure me it's needed and "build" or "design and build" aren't good enough."

[evilawyer]

Ooooh, event just thinking about language-mangling irks me! Nouns are perfectly good as they are. There is no need to turn them into verbs.

[pokershaman]

As a sometime laser physicist, I am here to tell you that if you hit anything hard enough, it will liase.

[amadi]

I think I agree with the reaction at Language Log more than anything.

[firecat]

That's an interesting take. It didn't occur to me to take any of the peeves in the BBC articles personally as an American, because everyone has language peeves and I don't like some of those phrases either. But it's certainly true that language peeves can be used to define out-groups and in-groups. And when I went to Britain a couple of times in the 1970s I encountered a fair amount of anti-Americanism.

[amadi]

I encountered a fair bit of it when I was there in 98 and 99. Casual stuff, but very much there. Lots of mockery.

[aquaeri]

You both read the post that one is a follow-up to, where most of the words complained about aren't Americanisms at all?

[firecat]

That's great, thanks!

[amadi]

I did; I was not surprised. :)

[eggcrack]

An interesting article. There are actually similar concerns in Finland about English affecting Finnish in negative ways, such as encouraging incorrect grammar and clumsy phrases. I have to admit it's not a completely illegitimate concern; I write more in English than in Finnish, and sometimes the English way of writing things slips into my Finnish without me noticing, and vice versa. Can't blame the English for that though. XD

[yarram.livejournal.com]

naughtier in American English than in British English ("fanny pack")

Actually, you have it backwards: that particular phrase is naughtier in Britain; 'fanny' is Brit slang for 'vagina'.

(edit to fix borked HTML)

[firecat]

Oops you're right! Edited.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Some of those aren't "Americanisms", they're "illiteratisms" which annoy me every bit as much as they do the Brits. And I'm amazed that nobody mentioned "share" for the giving of information, as in "Let me share something with you about that." Talk about tooth-grating -- that one is near the top of my list!

[firecat]

Illiteratisms or deliberate misuses or regional/class variants?

I've been known to say, e.g., "That'll larn you" even though I know the more formal way to say it is "That'll teach you."

I used to dislike "share" but someone I love uses it a lot and that made me fond of it.

One that drives me crazy is "gift" used as a verb.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Two that popped out at me, for other reasons:

"Transportation." What's wrong with transport?
I'll tell you what's wrong with it -- it's a VERB, not a bloody noun! Transport is what you do to stuff. Transportation is the means you use to do it.

What kind of a word is "gotten"?
One WE still use that YOU have forgotten about! We got it from you, you etymologically-ignorant twit.

[/rant]

[e4q.livejournal.com]

*tough shit* is my response to the whingers.

if it wasn't for americanisms english would be as dead as french. english is a living language. get over it, naysayers!

and, post 'the wire' i am now waiting for the re-up of poo bags in my local supermarket. if people don't think that's fun then they can bog off. my english is transatlantic as well as regional. we forget that we wouldn't have words like pyjamas and verandah if it weren't for the uk's relationship with india, for instance. english is the polyglot language, that's why it is dominant.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

At the grocery Monday, a woman offered me a "buggy." I think of them as carts.

[necturus.livejournal.com]

Re: "that'll learn you": the use of "learn" for "teach" goes back to Old English. There were originally two verbs, "leornan", to learn, and "leornian", to teach. The two probably fell together during the Middle English period, and the second meaning disappeared from standard English, but survived long enough to take root across the Atlantic.