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A book claims that Americanisms will have absorbed the English language by 2120

bbc.com

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Re: A book claims that Americanisms will have absorbed the English language by 2120

#31

Post by acbanker »

rumcajz wrote: post #16

An interesting phenomenon I've noticed is that a lot of people, and often intelligent people, believe that language that have been evolving for thousands of years should, somehow, just stop evolving today. Interestingly, while one would expect it to be correlated with political belief (conservatives would want language as it was in good old days, progressives would embrace the change) my personal anecdotal evidence s…

Intelligent people don't necessarily think the language should stop evolving.

The perception is that language started "devolving" since about 1950-1970.

The same applies to arts, food and many other cultural achievements.

Re: A book claims that Americanisms will have absorbed the English language by 2120

#32

Post by yesenadam »

rando444 wrote: post #14
Fej wrote: post #2

Misleading title, author equates "English" to "British English".

Why would you expect the BBC to refer to "English" as "British English"? To assuage American readers? That's a rather condescending attitude, don't you think?

It's something I'm getting used to on here. That attitude. Doesn't surprise me your comment was downvoted.

The very word "American" is presumptuous. Imagine if the Chinese referred to themselves as "Asians" and their country as "Asia".

I've taken to using estadounidense until something better comes along in English. ..or Spanish becomes the main language in the US :-) Australian English has/had the rather pungent seppo - rhyming slang for septic tank = Yank. But estadounidense is at least accurate.

Re: A book claims that Americanisms will have absorbed the English language by 2120

#33

Post by d--b »

coldtea wrote: post #24
d--b wrote: post #22

It's sad to see such bullshit conservatism from someone who has written for bbc and the guardian. This is the kind of arguments that Brexit backers use. "Let's protect the English language! Let's kick all the foreigners out!"

Yeah, because caring for language and culture is fascism. Yay change towards any direction!

It's not. Fascism is something else entirely.

Re: A book claims that Americanisms will have absorbed the English language by 2120

#34

Post by yesenadam »

Walf wrote: post #8
Fej wrote: post #2

Misleading title, author equates "English" to "British English".

International English. Supposably, Americans could care less that other English-speaking countries are closer to en-GB than en-US, despite the relentless onslaught of inconsiderate software defaults.

Hehe.. I set my wordpress site to Australian English, but one look at my new edit page with its permanent "G'day" made me change it immediately back to GB-English.

Re: A book claims that Americanisms will have absorbed the English language by 2120

#35

Post by posterboy »

coldtea wrote: post #23
skywhopper wrote: post #9

I think I just hurt my eyes from rolling them so far back in my head. Cultures in contact with each other share words. It goes both ways. A quarter or more of the words in English are outright copied from French... oh, but that happened a long time ago. As an American, I've noticed certain words I associate with British English creeping into our vocabulary as well. In my mind I associate it with Harry Potter and Doct…

> I think I just hurt my eyes from rolling them so far back in my head. Cultures in contact with each other share words. It goes both ways. Not really, it goes mostly from the direction of the stronger nations to the less strong in the relationship. And cultures and languages do die out in such processes. Now, some might find all this inconsequential, but for some of us those things means something (and the fact that…

strawman! those aren't necessarily the same people. Edit: But even though, a bit of cognitive dissonance is part of the learning process. I think you are pointing out a true correlation. which is, often times its enough to be popular or just shout the loudest to attract attention, and everything else might follow.

Re: A book claims that Americanisms will have absorbed the English language by 2120

#36

Post by vasilipupkin »

outsideoflife wrote: post #27

When I worked for a multi-national silicon valley based company we got so sick of the creeping Americanisms (to be fair their jargon was worse, they even had a company glossary for it) that we started a game. We had a tally chart on the wall for anyone who slipped into saying one of them accidentally. I survived for weeks until I rang someone to 'touch base'! They seemed to have a group policy (or something) that cha…

Not a Brit, but agree with you almost 100%. Although I reached out to Y is different than I called Y. It implies are more tentative, weak relationship between you and Y. I would say let me call Y if the juju between me and Y is strong, otherwise I would say let me reach out to Y

Re: A book claims that Americanisms will have absorbed the English language by 2120

#37

Post by petepete »

Walf wrote: post #8
Fej wrote: post #2

Misleading title, author equates "English" to "British English".

International English. Supposably, Americans could care less that other English-speaking countries are closer to en-GB than en-US, despite the relentless onslaught of inconsiderate software defaults.

> Americans could care less

So they do care?

Re: A book claims that Americanisms will have absorbed the English language by 2120

#38

Post by yesenadam »

outsideoflife wrote: post #27

When I worked for a multi-national silicon valley based company we got so sick of the creeping Americanisms (to be fair their jargon was worse, they even had a company glossary for it) that we started a game. We had a tally chart on the wall for anyone who slipped into saying one of them accidentally. I survived for weeks until I rang someone to 'touch base'! They seemed to have a group policy (or something) that cha…

Yes, why don't you go ahead and do that.

Re: A book claims that Americanisms will have absorbed the English language by 2120

#39

Post by mjburgess »

outsideoflife wrote: post #27

When I worked for a multi-national silicon valley based company we got so sick of the creeping Americanisms (to be fair their jargon was worse, they even had a company glossary for it) that we started a game. We had a tally chart on the wall for anyone who slipped into saying one of them accidentally. I survived for weeks until I rang someone to 'touch base'! They seemed to have a group policy (or something) that cha…

I quite like (1), sounds amusing and wonderful -- no?

Many words in English have this origin, eg., Shakespeare did this all the time giving us the verbs "to champion", "to elbow"... from nouns.

bi-* (2) is fair, being an ambiguity.

reaching-out (3) contains less information than the alternatives provide, but do they provide too much? Given how we are connected in so many different ways now, does labouring to include which mechanism really seem efficient?

(4) Bootstrapping is an american cultural fetishization of individual spunk/moxie (etc. americans have many words for it). I suspect your objection has more to do with this cultural disposition to self-promotion and borderline delusional accounts of their own gumption and lack of others.

Europe, owing to the class system and 1000s-year+ settlement has a lot more preoccupation with the role society plays in success.

As far as all that goes however, "bootstrapping" seems a good word to mean, "I think I did most of this myself".

PS. I will say, for any offended americans, that I think europeans sometimes have the reverse delusion, esp. the british: that nothing can be done alone, and it's not worth trying.

Re: A book claims that Americanisms will have absorbed the English language by 2120

#40

Post by Spearchucker »

yodsanklai wrote: post #20

As a foreign speaker, American English has become the reference. Almost all English sources I use are American. (e.g. movies, tv series, youtube channels...). I try not to use words specific to British English and I set my spellchecker to U.S. English. It sounds wrong to refer to British English as the English language. There are several English languages that coexist and cross-pollinate.

That's interesting. I'm the other way 'round. Mostly because American English has managed to confused the hell out of me. Pronouncing (or softening) "t"s as/into "d"s means many Americans spell accordingly - Tao becomes Dao.

Then there's the impossibility of popular phrases (individual words such as "movie" don't bother me much at all). "What are you hungry for?" simply cannot be. It makes more sense to ask what one feels like eating. Same with "I'm excited for..." Just doesn't make sense. We're excited ABOUT a thing, not FOR a thing. The American propensity to fake it because PR annoys me no end, too. Every time I hear "I'm thrilled to..." I do a little mouth-vomit. There's just NO authenticity behind a statement that starts with those words.

Many more such nuances. Like "He disrespected me" instead of someone being rude, curt or otherwise unfriendly to another (respect is earned).

There are going to be as many opinions about this stuff as there are people.

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