51–60 of 88 posts
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.
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…
1) Shakespeare did it for extremely gallant reasons though, he preserved the meter and make his text beautiful!
3) How about 'get in touch with'? This leaves the subtleties of how to make contact up to the individual preferences of the out-reacher and out-reachee. I think my concern with 'reaching-out' is it is rather overplaying what tends to be just a call to ask one question. I might reach-out to the community in an out-reach project, this might involve various methods of communication and a sustained campaign.
The usage I really don't like is 'Reach out to Joe to progress the spec', when they really mean 'ask Joe how he is getting on with the spec'.
No doubt we "Americans" have changed the language, for better or worse, but this comment is more about journalism. I expect more from the BBC than to let a former Bloomberg journalist make generalizations without anything to back it up. "Awesome" occurring more often than "marvelous" doesn't provide us with anything other than the fact that the author appreciates the latter more than the former. Seems appropriate tha…
Perhaps it's not obvious to non native British English speakers but the American use of "awesome" to mean something rather different to its traditional British English meaning is very clear and obvious example of 'undesirable' Americanisation of English. Any native speaker of British English would recognize the phenomenon from their own experience but the author provided some actual numbers to back up the reality of…
It's a tough time to be an American, and most people realize that. Exploiting that with bad journalism is just throwing gas onto a trash fire IMO.
edit: More importantly, if Brits want to preserve the language as they see it in their country, they should consider going the French route [1].
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acad%C3%A9mie_fran%C3%A7aise
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps it's not obvious to non native British English speakers but the American use of "awesome" to mean something rather different to its traditional British English meaning is very clear and obvious example of 'undesirable' Americanisation of English. Any native speaker of British English would recognize the phenomenon from their own experience but the author provided some actual numbers to back up the reality of…
I think what he fails to understand, and many British for that matter, is that the language is not "owned" by anyone. Australians have probably augmented English more than us Americans, but I don't hear or see much complaining about their use of the language. The article comes off as whiny and unsubstantiated. It's a tough time to be an American, and most people realize that. Exploiting that with bad journalism is ju…
I grew up in England but live in Canada and speak quite Americanized English as a result. I've got nothing against Americans or them speaking American English and I don't think the author has either. I do agree with him however that as Brits (and as Canadians in my case) we are losing something valuable by adopting American English unthinkingly and it's worth paying a bit more attention to individually when we use language as a result.
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…
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think what he fails to understand, and many British for that matter, is that the language is not "owned" by anyone. Australians have probably augmented English more than us Americans, but I don't hear or see much complaining about their use of the language. The article comes off as whiny and unsubstantiated. It's a tough time to be an American, and most people realize that. Exploiting that with bad journalism is ju…
I think you're projecting your own concerns onto the author. Certainly language is not owned by anyone (which is why the French approach is stupid) and languages always evolve (as the author acknowledges early in the article). The article is not trying to change American English, it's aimed at a British audience and drawing attention to something that the author fears the British are losing by adopting American Engli…
It's entirely possible.
> which is why the French approach is stupid
I think there's some merit to what they do, but it is a bit much.
> I do agree with him however that as Brits (and as Canadians in my case) we are losing something valuable by adopting American English unthinkingly and it's worth paying a bit more attention to individually when we use language as a result.
I would agree, but would say the author / BBC could have had more tact and not used the headline, "How Americanisms Are Killing the English Language." If a Japanese news outlet ran an article, "How the British have 'watered' tea down for more than 100 years" -- not too many Brits would be excited about reading it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
This was such a beautifully written reply I thought it deserved a response! 1) Shakespeare did it for extremely gallant reasons though, he preserved the meter and make his text beautiful! 3) How about 'get in touch with'? This leaves the subtleties of how to make contact up to the individual preferences of the out-reacher and out-reachee. I think my concern with 'reaching-out' is it is rather overplaying what tends t…
Again this is a cultural thing: Americans like to be friendly in a distance sort of way (which looks to european like pretending they are more socially promixmate than they really are).
For that reason I find it quite uncomfortable to be around a lot of them in one go. Europeans prefer social distance to be bridged quickly and directly, whereas Americans prefer to smooth it over with familiarity.
I tried really hard there not to call it dishonest. But it feels very dishonest to me. Of course, in Europe the British are the most American here: the further east you go the more direct people get.
Incidentally, this does speak to the point the author was making: how we are adopting idioms that are not culturally appropriate. For sure, I think, we do not "reach-out" because we do not include a sense of proximity in the way we speak to strangers.
PS. Our Hotels are becoming increasingly Americanized in their service culture. Thankfully it's not everywhere. American waiters/etc. are almost repulsively familiar and "helpful".
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…
My pet peeve is when Americans say “I itched myself” ... you scratched an itch. > 3) Reaching out. To mean making contact. What is wrong with, I wrote to x, I called Y etc. As a young nonnative whipper snapper I think reaching out kinda makes sense in the modern world. We’re connected to people in so many ways simultaneously that the way in which we reached out is irrelevant and often forgotten. I don’t always know i…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This was such a beautifully written reply I thought it deserved a response! 1) Shakespeare did it for extremely gallant reasons though, he preserved the meter and make his text beautiful! 3) How about 'get in touch with'? This leaves the subtleties of how to make contact up to the individual preferences of the out-reacher and out-reachee. I think my concern with 'reaching-out' is it is rather overplaying what tends t…
Sure, "reaching out" does suggest an over-familiarity. Again this is a cultural thing: Americans like to be friendly in a distance sort of way (which looks to european like pretending they are more socially promixmate than they really are). For that reason I find it quite uncomfortable to be around a lot of them in one go. Europeans prefer social distance to be bridged quickly and directly, whereas Americans prefer t…