{"id":8963,"date":"2011-07-14T05:00:07","date_gmt":"2011-07-14T09:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.geneveith.com\/?p=8963"},"modified":"2011-07-14T05:00:07","modified_gmt":"2011-07-14T09:00:07","slug":"american-words-sneaking-into-the-queens-english","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2011\/07\/american-words-sneaking-into-the-queens-english\/","title":{"rendered":"American words sneaking into the Queen’s English"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

British journalist Matthew Engel complains about how American words\u2013\u201cAmericanisms\u201d\u2013 are contaminating British English:<\/p>\n

Lengthy. Reliable. Talented. Influential. Tremendous.<\/p>\n

All of these words we use without a second thought were never part of the English language until the establishment of the United States.<\/p>\n

The Americans imported English wholesale, forged it to meet their own needs, then exported their own words back across the Atlantic to be incorporated in the way we speak over here. Those seemingly innocuous words caused fury at the time.<\/p>\n

The poet Coleridge denounced \u201ctalented\u201d as a barbarous word in 1832, though a few years later it was being used by William Gladstone. A letter-writer to the Times, in 1857, described \u201creliable\u201d as vile. . . .<\/p>\n

American culture is ubiquitous in Britain on TV and the web. As our computers talk to us in American, I keep having to agree to a license spelt with an s. I am invited to print something in color without the u. I am told \u201cyou ghat mail\u201d. It is, of course, always e-mail \u2013 never our own more natural usage, e-post.<\/p>\n

As an ex-American resident, I remain a big fan of baseball. But I sit over here and listen to people who know nothing of the games talk about ideas coming out of \u201cleft field\u201d. They speak about \u201cthree strikes and you\u2019re out\u201d or stepping up to the plate\u201d without the foggiest idea what these phrases mean. I think the country has started to lose its own sense of itself.\n

In many respects, English and American are not coming together. When it comes to new technology, we often go our separate ways. They have cellphones \u2013 we have mobiles. We go to cash points or cash machines \u2013 they use ATMs. We have still never linked hands on motoring terminology \u2013 petrol, the boot, the bonnet, known in the US as gas, the trunk, the hood.<\/p>\n

Yet in the course of my own lifetime, countless routine British usages have either been superseded or are being challenged by their American equivalents. We no longer watch a film, we go to the movies<\/strong>. We increasingly have trucks <\/strong>not lorries. A hike <\/strong>is now a wage or price rise not a walk in the country.<\/p>\n

Ugly and pointless new usages appear in the media and drift into everyday conversation:<\/p>\n