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

[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.