Originally Posted by MartinLuther (Post 4928633)

Obviously Australia has picked up stuff from America like fast food joints but then so have many other countries. However if the question is whether Aus has picked up more Americanisms than say the UK then I don't think it is as clear cut as some would suggest on here. There's also the question of whether something has been adopted from America or whether it’s come from another source and just looks the same (i.e. the British and migrant origins of both countries).

Here's the view from Victoria (and my part at that).

Fast Food.
Yep it's all there: McDonalds, Burger King (Hungry Jacks), etc... However there are also some Aus fast food outlets: Red Rooster, Dominoes, etc... So the US chains don't have an exclusive hold on this market.

Roads.
This is a bit of a mixture. The wide roads and wide central reservations look American but this is more to do with Aus and the US being big countries with space. Driving on the left is obviously not American. Some of the road signs look British (e.g. speed limits, no left turn, roundabout ahead, give way, direction signs, etc.) and some of them look American (e.g. yellow diamond warning signs, one way sign, do not enter sign, etc.) The freeways (obviously American) in Victoria are called M1, M8, etc. (very British). Outside of Melbourne, roundabouts are everywhere; something that is a rare sight in the US. Compared to the US there is a distinct lack of neon everywhere.

Towns and Cities.
The CBDs of the cities are full of sky scrapers and look American. The rest of the cities tend to sprawl like American cities. This is more of a space thing than an American thing. Melbourne has a grid pattern similar to American cities; however this pattern was imposed by the British as it was on places like Pittsburgh. Away from the cities the towns look more American than British mostly because of the facades and awnings. This again isn’t really Americanisation but is more to do with building in a recently developed and hot country. Shopping Malls are and obvious American import but these seem to be popular in many countries around the world.

The Language.
Australian English is almost exactly the same as British English. There are very few differences and of those only a fraction are Americanisms. Australians spell the word centre the same as the Brits; the Australians misspell the word center just like the Brits. Marketeers misspell nearly everything. Awesome is obviously something we’ve all got from the Americans and the Labor party deliberately misspelled its name to show closer links to the US. Pants is less obvious – this may be a hangover from and earlier time rather than an Americanisation, especially as the Australians use trousers to refer to suit trousers. On the other hand, an Aus newspaper is more likely to use the word gaol rather than the word jail. I’m not sure if the word jail is an Americanisation but it was definitely popularised by them.

Sport.
Most of the sports played in Australia are British. The obvious exception is Aussie Rules Football. American sports, like basketball, baseball and American football are about as popular as they are in the UK. Soccer is a British term (as mentioned above) not an American term. There are many football codes and just because the Brits have settled on calling soccer, football, does not mean the rest of the world has to agree. Football in Aus refers to Aussie rules or rugby league depending on what state you’re in – it does not refer to American football. Note that the Australian Soccer Federation (or whatever it was called) has rebranded itself the Football Federation of Australia. I bet they’re kicking themselves about the Socceroos nickname.

Politics.
The state and federal system is obviously reminiscent of the US system and the founding fathers deliberately created a meld of both the US and British systems to come up with something that is Australian. The country is still run by a prime minister and the head of state is largely ceremonial (the dissolution excepted). This is more British than American. The conduct of politics is less swish than the UK which is in turn less swish than the US. Politicians here are not as constrained by PC or polished sound bites like they are in the UK and US.

Banking and Finance.
The banks are trans-national something that was distinctly lacking when I was in the US. This may have changed in the US as I have not been there for about 10 years. Another thing I noticed in the US (and again this may have changed) was the over use of cheques (or checks as the Americans like to call them). This is not evident here. The dollar was a definite sop to the American dollar. I think Menzies wanted to call it the Royal but I guess that was too South American for others. This is now, with the hindsight of the internet, a bit of a mistake. I keep finding cheap goods only to find out later that they are in America. Thankfully it helps that most Aussie companies use .com.au and are not using .com to look more American or worldly-wise.

I’ll stop there for now but I could add more. As to the question about Americanisation of Aus, I can’t say that MY bit of Aus has been Americanised any more than the UK (or even France).

:)

Originally Posted by BadgeIsBack (Post 4941127)

We moved here to get a piece of life that is sort of British and Australian which is getting harder to find in both Britain and Australia...

Originally Posted by Vash the Stampede (Post 4911787)

No more so than other "Westernised liberal democracies".

In my part of the UK, the most commonly used Americanism is "Mom" instead of "Mum". That's something I never encountered back home.