" Americanism's " Changing the British language.
#47
Re: " Americanism's " Changing the British language.
And "coop-pay" for 'coupe'.
I think the Brits might have a love/hate thing going with the French, know what I'm sayin'?
#48
BE Forum Addict
Joined: Apr 2011
Location: Maine
Posts: 1,204
Re: " Americanism's " Changing the British language.
I was like that with my eldest, no tv, no juice, applesauce instead of sugar in recipes etc. It all went to hell in a hand-basket when she went to school and now the younger two are hmmm, very acclimatized shall we say!
#49
Re: " Americanism's " Changing the British language.
#50
BE Forum Addict
Joined: Mar 2008
Location: Santa Cruz, CA
Posts: 4,913
Re: " Americanism's " Changing the British language.
#51
Re: " Americanism's " Changing the British language.
I thought fillet was correct for a cut of something, and filet was a french word for a certain type of steak I'm no where near sure of this though and can't be arsed to look it up.
#52
Re: " Americanism's " Changing the British language.
Calzone, anyone?
#53
Re: " Americanism's " Changing the British language.
Can we please pick on the Canadians while we are in here? Pa stuh, Maz duh.. don't even get me started on what they'll do to a perfectly good 'a'.
#55
Re: " Americanism's " Changing the British language.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fillet_(cut)
Last edited by Steerpike; Jul 22nd 2011 at 2:26 am.
#56
Re: " Americanism's " Changing the British language.
....
At the height of the dot-com boom a decade or so ago, there was a fantastic website called the (something like) 'high tech buzzword generator', and there were variations for 'business plan generator', etc. It simply threw together three sets of phrases in a random fashion to generate a sentence, and it was so amazingly reflective of real slogans and buzzwords. 'synergize', 'optimize', 'clicks and mortar', effectualize, etc were some of the key words. It was precious!
At the height of the dot-com boom a decade or so ago, there was a fantastic website called the (something like) 'high tech buzzword generator', and there were variations for 'business plan generator', etc. It simply threw together three sets of phrases in a random fashion to generate a sentence, and it was so amazingly reflective of real slogans and buzzwords. 'synergize', 'optimize', 'clicks and mortar', effectualize, etc were some of the key words. It was precious!
http://www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html
(Web economy bullshit generator). Maybe you have to be in the business, but I can't tell you how many sentences I've seen like this in print!
#57
Re: " Americanism's " Changing the British language.
This is why my ex-pat won't eat Otis Spunkmeyer muffins.! And doesn't want to go to Bald Knob, AR.
Last edited by Egg and Cress; Jul 22nd 2011 at 1:40 am.
#58
Re: " Americanism's " Changing the British language.
How about the cheering for the "winningest" coach at stuff-it university??? Galls my OH "so bad", he "can't hardly stand it". Butter "wouldn't melt in his mouth" either! when he "gits het up"! Just "aks" his in-laws.
#59
Re: " Americanism's " Changing the British language.
What I would worry about a lot more than "Americanisms" is the effect on the language of texting! I'm starting to see more and more communications along the lines of
'r u fk me? LOL '
and I'm not talking about SMS texts ...
My niece makes no attempt to capitalize in email, and punctuation seems almost optional.
'r u fk me? LOL '
and I'm not talking about SMS texts ...
My niece makes no attempt to capitalize in email, and punctuation seems almost optional.
#60
Heading for Poppyland
Joined: Jul 2007
Location: North Norfolk and northern New York State
Posts: 14,543
Re: " Americanism's " Changing the British language.
Filet - French word, with French pronunciation. Used as such in both UK and US.
Fillet - English word with English pronunciation ("FILL-IT") Used as such in UK, not in US. Obviously, it is originally a French loan word, but became an English word hundreds of years ago.
Another similar case is the word HOMAGE. It is pronounced "HOMMIDGE" in the UK, because it is an English word. The original French word has two G's I think, "hommage." So it is a bit strange that Americans often give HOMAGE a French-ified pronunciation..
However, someone mentioned "HERB" pronounced "'ERB"... The OED informs us that "'ERB" was the standard pronunciation for herb before about 1800, since then we pronounce it with the "H" pronounced. So with herb, Americans are just using an archaic pronunciation which is of course quite legitimate.