Reply With QuoteDelmbox was ribbing me and I was apologising for coming over as a total lunaticOriginally Posted by B. Oddie
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But what you are talking about is all part of the same continuum. Linguistic influences arrive via a myriad of conduits and particular via modern media such as TV, radio and the Internet - phrases, inflections, mannerisms, pronunciations included. As a young man, I remember the word 'harass' being pronounced differently and I think that the change was probably due to the influence of American English. 'Ongoing' was a word that sounded awful to the British ear but I, like many others, have succumbed to using it. On the other hand, the American phrase 'talking with' as opposed to 'speaking to' seems wonderfully democratic.
We may wish to try and circle the linguistic wagons ourselves but our language (and it's no longer 'ours') will move on whether we like it or not. Similarly, Spanish-speakers in Spain are outnumbered by their counterparts in South America, as are the Portuguese-speakers in Portugal.
Delmbox was ribbing me and I was apologising for coming over as a total lunatic
Comes from 'black' slang in the 1960's apparently. A bit like 'rock and roll' (which meant sex).
Interesting
Where did the use of sick as being used to describe something as being great come from? Did it hail from some Germanic/French word? My American and Canadian colleagues use it every day... and now my kids do too ... Bloody Germans!!!
Does it really bother you that much?I'll give an example:
"I'm looking forward to the new season of Line of Duty..."
The work 'sick' does come to us from the Germanic root. In fact, the Dutch name for a hospital is 'Ziekenhuis', a house for the sick, as it were.
As for the usage of the word 'sick' in a positive sense I would imagine that it's a 'street thing' and incorporates the same playful irony as when some people use the word 'bad' as meaning good. It's more to do with slang than Schleswig-Holstein methinks.
I used to despair of people beginning their answer to a question with the word "so", but it's established itself now and won't be disappearing - I'd say it originated more in Australia than America though.
The "get go" has been mentioned and it's a phrase I refuse to use, because "start" works well enough for me and is the word I was taught to use to describe the beginning of something.
I'm sure that "back in the day" has been talked about on here before and it's a relatively recent term (80s I think) - I can't ever remember using it and, again, don't see why a simple "in the past" isn't sufficient.
I'm not sure these are Americanisms, but I've only heard them in the last decade or so and, although this probably says more about me than who says them, I find myself turning against the speaker whenever I hear it.
1. "North of" - what's wrong with "more than" and I don't get why the people who use that expression never seem to say "south of" instead of "less than"".
2. When and why did people start saying "speaks to" rather than "(is) about"?
3. "Moving forward", why did "in the future" lose popularity?
Don't we sometimes use the decorative word 'Well' when starting a sentence when others say 'So'?
By the way, I am not a fan of the "I'm good" retort but it will probably be doing the rounds long after I expire.
The word 'nice' used to mean ignorant so it's a waste of time being too Canute-like regarding language.
Early this week I was reading about metathesis i.e. where consonant change places in a word e.g. bird was formally brid, foliage was previously foilage, wasp was previously węps etc.
Metathesis exists both across and within languages.
But so means because, whereas Well indicates an answer to what was asked. As for 'nice' my understanding has always been that nice originally meant fine as in very slim, for example 'a nice distinction' between two points of view. But I believe that the word had several differing meanings.
I also think a lot of influence comes from if their TV shows and filmed are dubbed or subtitled. You find countries that have subtitles with the original english dialogue often have a better grasp of the language and accents. sorry just saw you mentioned this!
Also since learning foreign languages and living abroad it really increased my interest in how language works and things I would find annoying before I actually accept is just language evolving.
You also find the things that annoy us are often the "correct" or original way of saying things. Season and series as used by Americans is exactly how it is in french too (Season to mean the 1st or second season and series to mean the tv show itself)
The use of the word literally to mean the exact opposite of literally used to really annoy me but even the definition of it in the dictionary has changed now. An interesting example of the evolution of a word in a very short space of time.
A lot of 'Americanisms' are actually of English origin, having survived export whilst losing influence in the UK. Similarly with words like 'sidewalk' and pavement'. Sidewalk is English in origin, pavement French. As the song goes, you say 'Tomato' with an 'A' as opposed to an 'AH'. When British started colonizing America a lot of English in the provinces would have pronounced it the American way. It was in London and the upper echelons of society where Received Pronunciation was the norm, that the 'AH' sound in tomato spread to the general UK population. There's a really good piece on The Great Vowel Shift here :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOOAb7erAmE
Same with Aluminium and Aluminum too, aluminum was the original and the second i got added later on.
'So' is also used as a discourse marker when summarising or changing the topic in a conversation or introducing a new one.
'Well' can be used similarly. You meet someone you haven't seen for a while and say "Hi John, Well how how you, old fruit?" just to convey emphasis. Or even "Well I'll be jiggered".
The fact that such constructions exist in many languages makes their usage of interest and maybe it's best to understand that usage rather than reverse-engineering it into strict grammatical categories that may have been foisted upon us in more prescriptive times.
There are so many so-called grammatical rules that we learned at school that have been subsequently debunked by linguistic experts and those who have studied language over the course of history.
This is an interesting read: http://www.dean.sbc.edu/tamburr.html
Indeed, and as I stated in my first post in this thread.
One interesting factor is that the larger a population, the quicker the language changes. Hence what were once small colonies thinly spread over large distances retaining vocabulary since dispensed with by the linguistic 'mother' countries.
Conversely, those 'mother' countries are now in the minority regarding population numbers - and let's not forget the influence on American English by immigrants whose mother tongue wasn't English.
Out of the ones I mentioned, back in the day and get go have been around long enough for children to hear them and think that they have always been around, therefore they're perfectly legitimate for them to use and they'd be right - I daresay, answering questions with so falls into the same category as well.
However, the three at the bottom of my message (north of, speaks to and moving forward) fascinate me because they're almost exclusively used by adults in my experience - if I had to guess where they originated, I think it may well be in a kind of media speak, because I barely hear them in face to face conversation,
Can I get a coffee? Instead Can I have a coffee , that seems to be an Americanism or is it juts bad grammar?
I was on holiday once and an American in a bar asked a friend how long we were on holiday for, to which the English chap replied 'A fortnight'. The American asks 'What the hell is a fortnight' I had to explain to him in was 14 days and a shortening fourteen nights. He said ' Jeez you guys sure do have a strange language'!! Oh the irony.
I don't see the irony. You understand what "can I get" means. Why would you have to use an archaic term to shorten "fourteen nights" when you can just say "two weeks".
Skejool is the one that irritates me. I wouldn't mind so much if they changed the spelling from schedule.
Several "Americanisms" piss me off!
"Reaching out" when talking/contacting someone.
"I'll get a...." as opposed to "please can I have"
Plus spelling.
Z used in place of S, example colonize and colonise
S used in place of C, example offense and offence
Both examples used in this thread by, I assume, people educated in the UK..
Funnily enough though, the omission of the letter U in words like colour doesn't bother me. Hey oh.
I think having a word for 2 weeks is quite a novel thing, I'm not aware of it in any other languages.
Staycation is another one which you'll never hear me saying.
He would have understood if you said fortnite.
For sure.
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