BS: American English usages taking over Brit

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: GUEST,hello
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 06:50 AM

if you want to speak American then move there

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 07:05 AM

If someone said "riding" I'd probably assume it was a bike, unless I knew they had a horse. And I'd normally be right.

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 07:56 AM

"Necessary room" is very (antiquated, though) Maine...and possibly other states in New England.

As for the original terminology on this thread, I grew up with BOTH (in the west 'burbs of Milwaukee in the heart of the Midwest).

Linn

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 09:04 AM

Oh how many times have my friends and colleagues in the UK chuckled at me every time I stated "my partner will give me a ride home."

Now I always say "lift." Even though he is not lifting me.

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 10:14 AM

Mr Happy, I think "all new" means, in effect, that there has been a thoroughgoing redesign of the product. And/or (less likely) that EVERY feature has been changed/improved. As opposed to "a reissue of the old model, with merely some cosmetic changes".

But then, you knew that.

Granted, "all new" does sound strange.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 10:58 AM

Surely it just means a diferent packet, and maybe that the price has gone up.

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: Ringer
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 11:24 AM

"Presently," to mean "currently" currently pees me off (though I don't know whether America is responsible or merely ignorant Britain). When I was young, "presently" meant (and in my mouth still means) "in a little while."

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: meself
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 11:37 AM

You must admit, though, that "presently" meaning "at present" is logical, whereas "presently" meaning "not at present, but in a little while", is not. It is my impression that the former is North American usage (and therefore, we all agree, inferior, at best suspect, and in all likelihood, wrong).

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 11:41 AM

I'm trying to imagine a high school having a schoolyard. My high school had a track, tennis courts, a football (US kind of football) field, a soccer field, vollyball courts, a courtyard that was used as an outdoor smoking lounge, and a lot of parking lots, but no place that would be called a "schoolyard" or even any part of the day when the students would go outside in a groups to collectively hang out like we did for recess in elementary school. We didn't have anything like that in junior high (now called "middle school"), either.

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 11:44 AM

"Now I always say "lift." Even though he is not lifting me."

In N 'awlins (New Orleans), my mother never got used to her neighbor saying, "I'm going out, can I carry you somewhere?"

In Kansas, grocery stores 'sacked' your purchases...here they 'bag' them. Now, 'bag' sounds more reasonable.
Most of my life I stood 'in line' for a movie (film?), now most people say 'on line'....and many of those from the British Isles say 'queue'. I visualize a 'line' as the assortment of people, one behind the other, not as an imaginary chalk mark on the ground we all stand 'on'.

It's not easy to assimilate it all and make decisions.


I have lived in the American South and in the Mid-West before moving East when I was almost 40. I have heard SO many different ways of describing and naming things and activities that it has sensitized me to my own habits, and I make an effort to use 'reasonably' universal and clear terminology when I have any idea that I might be mis-understood.
   I am a bit puzzled by those who either don't KNOW any other way to speak, or cling stubbornly to "their" ways, no matter what the occasion or whether they will be understood or not.

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: Abdul The Bul Bul
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 11:51 AM

Well, I'm from Yorkshire and used to trying to understand all you other buggers.
A'reet?
Al

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: meself
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 11:54 AM

Uh - whudja say?

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 11:56 AM

I just remembered one of the things we called our outdoor play area in elementary school (in Maryland). The part that was paved was called the "blacktop". I think the rest of it wasn't called anything, except for the part that had the playground equipment, and that part was called by whatever part of it was being referred to (the swings, the monkey bars, the slide, etc.). We might have referred to the softball diamond as something, but I can't remember. Probably the "backstop". In Rhode Island, I don't remember it being called anything except "outside" or "outdoors" or something like that. There was no equipment in my elementary school in RI. Just paved area and grassy area, which included a softball diamond.

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: Stu
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 12:08 PM

"My bad"

What? Your bad what? For Pete's sake.

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 12:10 PM

hmmm.. in Kansas, where I grew up, 'blacktop' was just another term for asphalt, and more often used as a verb when street reconstruction was to be done.

One common difference in usage on both sides of the pond..umm..ocean... is to name items by the most common commercial product name. We have 'Kleenex' and 'Jello'...and when I first worked in a grocery store, I was told to "use a 'Listo'" to mark something...that being the brand of ink marker the store carried.
I'll confess that I was totally confused the first time I saw the term 'Araldite' used in the context of adhesives. I had to do a search to discover it was good old epoxy.
Other instances abound.

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 12:24 PM

A couple of American forms of pronunciation that do tend to grate on me whenever I hear them from BBC news presenters:

DEEkayed instead of DEHkayed.
Ten years ("it'll take a decade to decompose") is not the same as something rotten ("after ten years it finally decayed").

Also

KillOHM-itehr instead of KILLO-meater.
We have a "millimetre", a "centimetre", and a "kilometre" - all measurements involving the metre.

It's not a matter of great concern! Just one of those little pointless things..

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 12:30 PM

Who is responsible for the ubiquitous 'tunafish'? Is there a tunaBEEF? I say 'tuna', period.

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 12:30 PM

I agree, Crow Sister... but it took me quite a while to overcome my dislike of the SOUND of KILLO-meter. kill-om-a-ter just sounded more 'pleasant'. *shrug*... I now say it correctly, and am getting used to it.

I DO, however, refuse to say Al-you-MIN-i-um.....

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: Lighter
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 12:38 PM

I have never heard an American say DEEkade in any context.

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 12:48 PM

Crow Sister, as to your comment,

DEEkayed instead of DEHkayed.
Ten years ("it'll take a decade to decompose") is not the same as something rotten ("after ten years it finally decayed"),

I must demur. In my nearly eight DEH-kades of life (two more days!) in the US, I have never heard that ten-year period referred to as a DEEkayed. Don't blame it on us the US!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: Stu
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 12:48 PM

DEEfence has taken over from defence.

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 12:49 PM

DEEkade is not US pronunciation. I've never heard it before in my life.

Seems like people outside of the US are assuming that if there is a word usage or pronunciation that they are not familiar with, they assume it's from the US. It looks to me like a lot of the time, the word usage or pronunciation does not come from here.

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: Bettynh
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 01:32 PM

"In Kansas, grocery stores 'sacked' your purchases...here they 'bag' them"

A few years ago I was travelling cross-country by car and stopped for groceries in Oklahoma. (I was raised just outside Boston and my grandparents are from New Hampshire, so my Downeast accent is pretty strong.) I went through checkout but I couldn't find one item. I asked "Where can I find a bag of ice?" and met a blank stare. The manager and another clerk were called over to solve the problem. Blank stares. I finally spotted the ice cooler in front of the store and made my purchase, but everyone was still pretty uncomfortable about what had just been said. I think now that I would have had better result if I'd asked for a "sack of ah's," but I'm not absolutely sure of that. That was 30 years ago, and I'd bet that we would be able to puzzle out the meaning now, due to TV voices. Not about the British, I know....

How about this one:
While riding on the subway in Boston I overheard a man who thought he'd figured out the American/British habit of shortening place names like Worcester (Wusta) and Gloucester (Glosta). He asked for directions to Dorchta. Unfortunately, nobody (even the British, I checked) shortens Dorchester in that way.

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: meself
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 02:00 PM

Once on a little trip across the river to Detroit - from Windsor, which is in Canada - I decided to buy a pack of cigars - which I pronounce, "sih-GARZ". The Black lady working the counter kept asking me to repeat my request; finally, with enough of my repetition and pointing and pantomiming, she reached for a pack of stogies - saying, "Oh! You mean SEE-gawz!"

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: artbrooks
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 02:37 PM

My wife and I were camped outside of Carlsbad, New Mexico a few years ago, and went into town for some breakfast. There was a couple from, I think, Yorkshire at the next table, and the man was becoming very frustrated trying to get the waitress to understand his needs. Finally Jenn, who was raised with a grandmother from Nottingham, told her that when he said "orf n'orf", he was asking for half and half for his coffee.

DeeCADE (the past tense of deCAY) is what garbage did.    The accent is on the 2nd sylLABle. DEHcade is 10 years.   One might occasionally hear a TV "comedian" say DEEcade or DEEfence in a misguided attempt at humor.

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: meself
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 02:46 PM

In Canada, if not in the U.S., DEEfence is often used a noun in sporting rhetoric, as in, "The DEEfence gave it 110% last night; there were only ten shots on net".

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: artbrooks
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 02:50 PM

That's true here as well, come to think of it. The organization that includes the Army and Navy is the duhFENCE dePARTment, but the two parts of a (American) football team are the OFFence and the DEEfence.

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 03:01 PM

"Presently" is one of the many words where the American usage is a great deal older than the modern English one.

The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary gives "presently", meaning "At the present time", as occurring in 1485.

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: meself
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 03:14 PM

The change in meaning of the British "presently" strikes me as Orwellian, if not Monty-Python-esque, and must have been a product of bureaucracy:

"Oh, yes, of course I said your application was being dealt with presently. Did you think that meant 'at present'? Why, that's not at all what 'presently' means - 'presently' means, um, 'in a little while'."

"No, it doesn't!"

"Yes, it does! It means 'soon'; it means 'any day now'; it means 'don't worry, I'll get 'round to it'; it means 'patience is a virtue' .... "

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 03:25 PM

Maybe so - but if so, it's not modern bureaucracy. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary dates that sense ("In the space of time that immediately follows, in a little while, before long, shortly") as 1566...

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: Old Vermin
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 03:44 PM

Not necessarily an Americanism, and pleasant enough, but my late mother-in-law used to refer to the utility area next to the kitchen as the caboosh - or perhaop kaboosh - never saw it spelt. This was where a boiler or two was and clothes were dried or aired.

Also heard it from my parents as being the guards-van on, probably, a Canadian train.

And the expression 'the whole caboosh' meaning the complete works, whole shooting-match, whole issue, usually in the context of some degree of catastrophe.

Still extant?

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 03:58 PM

There's "caboose", guards-van, and in the expression "the whole caboose";

and there is "kibosh" used in the phrase "to put the kibosh on" menaing to finish off or defeat or destroy.

Probably not related. But does the latter expression crop up in America?

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: Jos
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 04:03 PM

I've come across 'presently' meaning 'right now' from Scottish people, and it does seem more logical. I've often wondered whether it changed its meaning further south as a result of people fibbing - saying 'Yes, I'll do it presently' and then doing it in a little while, until people hearing 'I'll do it presently' got to know that they were going to have to wait.

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: RangerSteve
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 04:10 PM

Hey, British English is going to change with or without us here in the U.S. You're not speaking the way Chaucer or Shakespeare did, and I'll bet people complained about that, too.

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: vindelis
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 04:20 PM

Bettnh,
Zo yoov ne'er 'eard ov Dorshter? Ow abowt Crukern or Beminster? Praps tiz cuz yoom baint narn O we. Like wold vor en now wuld zay.

The phrases that sent me racing to the internet (English Dictionary being a complete 'waste of time) have been 'Hard' and 'Soft' Skills - and 'Cascading Doughnuts'. The latter, had someting to do with communication, apparently.

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 04:36 PM

Yep, Kevin...I've heard "put the kibosh on" here. Not really often, but enough to get the context.

Many unusual turns of phrase like 'kibosh' and 'caboodle' are heard orally, and not always perfectly, then either repeated as what someone thought they heard ('mondegreens' come to mind), or written down and spelled as well as possible, giving us SO many variations.

There are threads in the music section about silly songs from childhood, where every couple of years some 'guest' refreshes it to post they way THEY heard it in girl scouts or grade school, ofthen with only a few words difference.

I suppose if Mudcat continues for 50 years, we'll be a major research asset!

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 05:03 PM

Since "kibosh" was mentioned in more or less the same context as "caboose", I need to issue a warning. The similarity of form of the two words can't guide you to the pronunciation.

"Kibosh" is NOT "kih-BOSH", but "KYE-bosh".

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: artbrooks
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 05:12 PM

Not where I come from, Dave.

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 05:15 PM

...so, "The Little Red Kibosh" is 'restraint of the Kremlin'??






had my coat already on...leaving now.

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 05:19 PM

For McGrath- Kibosh widespread north of Mexico exclusive of francophone areas.
(I was bashed for calling Canada and U. S. A. 'North America', forgetting Mexico, so circumlocutions are in order.
I can't say Canada and U. S. A. since Canada is officially French as well as English-speaking).

Caboodle first appeared in print in 1848; Lighter in 'Hist. Dict. American Slang' avoids giving an origin. 'Kit and caboodle' came much later.

Guards-van is a 19th c. term for a baggage car with bank or payroll money and thus a guard. Heard from my grandfather in Colorado. The word is obsolete now.

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: Bettynh
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 05:21 PM

vindelis, It's blank stare time for me! LOL!

I do know that BERlin is in upstate New Hampshire. Amd Coos County has two syllables (in the Coos part, that is).

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 05:28 PM

Thanks for enlightening me about 'Deekayed/Dehkayed'
Heh, I wonder why it's become so popular here? Most annoying not to be able to blame it on YOU lot... :)

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 05:44 PM

The word is obsolete now.

As a separate word maybe - but the expression "the whole caboose" is still current over here anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 05:49 PM

Speaking of DEEkayed, check out President Kennedy's speech that day he exhorted Americans to put a man on the moon in the next 10 years. Awfully close to DEEkayed. I thought it was because he was a New Englander. (He also said 'Cuber'.)(Some New Englanders have some atrange pronunciations. like 'drawring', for instance. Kendall? Is it also true of Maine?)

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 06:16 PM

'R' is the most abused/ignored letter in the alphabet. Some rrrrolll it, some add it on where it is not, some leave it off when it's needed.

I HATED the Kennedys saying 'Cuber', but tried to swallow and shrug.

We had a shanty group called "The Boarding Party', which one very nice and sweet soul called "The Bawding Potty". I usually managed not to giggle at the image.

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: artbrooks
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 07:26 PM

Ebbie, my father was from Rhode Island and had the same name as me. My mother claims she thought his first name was Otto until she saw it written on their marriage license - because he pronounced it "Ott" until the day he died.

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 07:46 PM

Most of this stuff I shrug and accept, or even welcome. Change happens, and often enough (not always) it is good as well as inevitable.

One of the few Americanisms that I do dislike, however, is the way that some foreign names get mispronounced.

One particular case is the way Iraq gets pronounced by American politicians and broadcasters as "EyeRACK". And I hate it when that seeps into broadcasts here, in place of "EerAhk", which at least attempts to approximate to the way people who live there pronounce it.

It's lazy and it's disrespectful.

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 08:43 PM

McGrath, guards-van was the word I indicated was obsolete. I don't know if it was ever used in England.

The Kennedy's 'Cuber' for Cuba deserves some comment. Bostonians (and many other New Englanders of Irish and central English ancestry) pronounce many words ending in 'a' as if they ended in 'er'. The pronunciation is imported. 'Alabamer' is one that Southerners often comment on. I don't know enough about the accents of the Irish, etc. who came here in the late 19th or early 20th c. to comment on the origin of this, but perhaps someone from Ireland or Northern Ireland or central England will comment. A young Englishman with Ph.D., working in a research group I was with, always said 'Cuber', etc.

The mis-pronunciation of foreign words beginning with 'i' is common both in the U. S. and Canada. Even when in the middle of a word, it gets the hard 'i' treatment.
If you ever visit Georgia, there is a town named Vienna, pronounced Vi-anna. People look puzzled if you say 'Vee-enna'.

Similarly, the Spanish Rio is usually pronounced Ry-o by older Anglos, just as it is in English chanteys.
This also is an import.

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: Tootler
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 09:15 PM

[rant mode]
One that really annoys me just now is the misuse of the word "solutions" in the commercial world. I first heard it in this context about 15 years ago in a radio advert for office equipment where the firm's products were referred to as "office solutions".

Now you see it everywhere. On the motorway you regularly see large wagons whose owners advertise on the side of the vehicle that they provide "logistics solutions" (two misused words there) and I recently saw a van belonging to a construction company claiming they provided "total construction solutions". It's all a load of meaningless garbage
[/rant mode]

Subject: RE: BS: American English usages taking over Brit
From: melodeonboy
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 09:18 PM

"I must admit to cringing, when I ask someone how they are, and the reply is 'Good'"

Yes, I often respond by saying "That's a matter of opinion"! (Not that most people understand it!)


"for free"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Yes, I also find that impossible to adjust to.

"Listen UP, head UP, next UP etc.." What's the bloody "up" for? I usually tilt my head to one side whenever I'm told to listen up, but it's rarely appreciated!

And what about "ate" pronounced the same as "eight"? Is that an Americanism or a spelling pronunciation? Or a combination of both?