Thanks Jack

Karen
It's always struck me that, certainly since the late fifties, all British pop music is based on a somewhat odd Americanese - even my fellow Liverpudlians, The Beatles
Not just pop, of course - that has filtered into singer-songwriter 'folk'
We once booked a very fine Welsh harmonica player at The Singers Club - also a singer of his own songs
He had a fine speaking accent but sang everything in 'mid-Atlantic'
He introduced one of his songs, telling how he had been inspired by a girl he met while he was working at a Holiday Camp - it was based on their parting and going their separate ways, and his measuring the separation by the names of the stations he passed though on the way home - quite a nice idea.
Then he said "The English and Welsh names didn't work for me, so I changed them to American ones" - the spoiling of a nice idea.
I've never understood people's lack of confidence in their own natural way of speaking

One of the big culture shocks we had regarding language was when we were staying on a Greek Island and had climbed the hill above the town for some refreshment
We twenty into a small shop to buy ice cream and, while we were bending over the fridge trying to interpret the different brands we were approached by the young woman serving, swathed entirely in the traditional black of Greek widow, who told us "that's vanilla, that't's lime and that's chocolate chip, luv" - in pure, fluent North-East Londonese
Jim