Couldn't agree more. I first started noticing this in about 2008 after a period abroad. More recent yankisms that get my goat are "hey", "buddy", "pal" and more recently "thank you SO much". Uuugghhhh
English evolves. If it didn't, we'd all be saying prithee and forsooth.
These things have developed in the last decade or two:
Can I get, instead of please may I have.
How are you: Good, instead of very well, thank you.
The high rising terminal inflection (Ausssie sentence ending uptone)
If you must, blame Neighbours and Home & Away. Or blame the global village, whatever the fook that is. But don't get cross about it. Life is too short to allow it to annoy you. 20 years ago men didn't hug each other all the time, now they do. Beards were a no no. Now everyone looks like they are returning from an Antarctic expedition. Just accept change.
What a fooking miserable place this would be without a bit of evolution.
Interesting to compare US English with British English.
Take one word - quite. In the UK, the word "quite" used to mean "entirely" or "utterly". In the US, quite still means utterly. If something is quite good in the US, it is being described as unsurpassably good.
In the UK, in the past 60 years we have completely changed the use of that word. Where as Celia Johnson or Trevor might have said how "quite marvellous" each other's performance was in a Brief Encounter, saying something is "quite good" now means "moderately so" but short of "very". Precisely the opposite.
I am not much of a hugger but the manhug is a thing all over the place, fact. It's just that nobody wants to hug you, m7. Time to come to terms with that.
The "quite" thing is then further confused by the confirmatory response from a Brit of "quite" which means "exactly" unless you use a tone of ~ query ~ or the word "erm" before "quite" which means "well, not exactly". No wonder there is confusion.
I worked in the US for a few months in the 90s and was continually surprised when passing colleagues in the office that they would be really friendly and ask me how I was but had marched away before I could say, Oh, I’m very well, thanks, how are you?
I say the “good” thing now, but dont particularly like it. Whats wrong with a few seconds to pass the time of day?
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Not sure why the Colonel Blimps from Royal Tunbridge Wells get so het up about this.
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You know Colonel Blimp too? Did he tell you his joke about a bacon tree?
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Asks arch reactionary from Surrey
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I agree, OP. I am getting posher and more old fashioned in my old age.
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I'm from Hampshire.
I happen to live in exile in Surrey.
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I blame Richard Blackwood
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Hants is not a Home County, you oaf.
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Dux is schooling u lot tbf. Dux, take a victory lap of the front parlour
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Agree with the OP. "Can I get" really grates. Just ask for it nicely ffs.
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Couldn't agree more. I first started noticing this in about 2008 after a period abroad. More recent yankisms that get my goat are "hey", "buddy", "pal" and more recently "thank you SO much". Uuugghhhh
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Srsly, u take offense* at thank you so much?
u total bellend
*yes
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Wang is bossing this thread.
Rest of you: get over yourselves.
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a Wango/Dux love in? I feel unwell
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u look unwell
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alright khuntfeatures, you're no oil painting yersel'
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Fair but u wood
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THERE'S A "TOO" IN THERE FFS
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getting shouty probably doesn't aid my wotists though
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English evolves. If it didn't, we'd all be saying prithee and forsooth.
These things have developed in the last decade or two:
Can I get, instead of please may I have.
How are you: Good, instead of very well, thank you.
The high rising terminal inflection (Ausssie sentence ending uptone)
If you must, blame Neighbours and Home & Away. Or blame the global village, whatever the fook that is. But don't get cross about it. Life is too short to allow it to annoy you. 20 years ago men didn't hug each other all the time, now they do. Beards were a no no. Now everyone looks like they are returning from an Antarctic expedition. Just accept change.
What a fooking miserable place this would be without a bit of evolution.
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And iirc Melvin Bragg suggests that the Yanks are the purists, it is native english that's changed (and is of course its commanding resilience)
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Interesting to compare US English with British English.
Take one word - quite. In the UK, the word "quite" used to mean "entirely" or "utterly". In the US, quite still means utterly. If something is quite good in the US, it is being described as unsurpassably good.
In the UK, in the past 60 years we have completely changed the use of that word. Where as Celia Johnson or Trevor might have said how "quite marvellous" each other's performance was in a Brief Encounter, saying something is "quite good" now means "moderately so" but short of "very". Precisely the opposite.
Americans are surprised by this.
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Maybe where you hang out, Doris.
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I am not much of a hugger but the manhug is a thing all over the place, fact. It's just that nobody wants to hug you, m7. Time to come to terms with that.
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I don't trust myself to use the word "quite" anymore, Muttley.
One of my earliest US v British English culture shocks is finding out that to "table" something means completely the opposite.
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:(
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Porps
The "quite" thing is then further confused by the confirmatory response from a Brit of "quite" which means "exactly" unless you use a tone of ~ query ~ or the word "erm" before "quite" which means "well, not exactly". No wonder there is confusion.
See also "momentarily".
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I worked in the US for a few months in the 90s and was continually surprised when passing colleagues in the office that they would be really friendly and ask me how I was but had marched away before I could say, Oh, I’m very well, thanks, how are you?
I say the “good” thing now, but dont particularly like it. Whats wrong with a few seconds to pass the time of day?
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