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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

#81

Post by yesenadam »

yesenadam wrote: post #38
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.

Ok uh. HN really didn't like this comment. Not sure why; just got downvoted instead of anyone explaining. I thought it was funny and on point. I meant:

"Great post. Another one that I hear way too often is go ahead and inserted into phrases, as in Why don't you go ahead and do X as celebrated in Office Space."

But I thought my initial sentence was sufficient. I guess not. Maybe people who actually use the phrase thought I was telling the guy to go back to work? Or..

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

#82

Post by grzm »

yesenadam wrote: post #81
yesenadam wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Ok uh. HN really didn't like this comment. Not sure why; just got downvoted instead of anyone explaining. I thought it was funny and on point. I meant: "Great post. Another one that I hear way too often is go ahead and inserted into phrases, as in Why don't you go ahead and do X as celebrated in Office Space ." But I thought my initial sentence was sufficient. I guess not. Maybe people who actually use the phrase tho…

HN members typically value substantive, constructive comments. Unsubstantial, low effort comments that don't contribute to moving the discussion forward are not uncommonly downvoted.

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

#83

Post by yesenadam »

grzm wrote: post #82
yesenadam wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok uh. HN really didn't like this comment. Not sure why; just got downvoted instead of anyone explaining. I thought it was funny and on point. I meant: "Great post. Another one that I hear way too often is go ahead and inserted into phrases, as in Why don't you go ahead and do X as celebrated in Office Space ." But I thought my initial sentence was sufficient. I guess not. Maybe people who actually use the phrase tho…

HN members typically value substantive, constructive comments. Unsubstantial, low effort comments that don't contribute to moving the discussion forward are not uncommonly downvoted.

Ok thank you!

I guess I shouldn't have said thanks. It's a low effort comment. Last time I thanked someone for something I was downvoted.

>Attempts to add something substantiveBut who cares about votes. They're only good for..being able to downvote others, aren't they?! But it seems natural for people to care about their points e.g. on Stack Exchange-type sites. It's the pecking order/social standing we have been evolved to be good at computing, I guess. Hard not to care too much about it.

Edit: Also, I have a strong sense of humour, I mean in almost everything I write online, which it seems I will have to leave at the door. Total humourlessness seems to be desired and rewarded here.

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

#84

Post by mjburgess »

FeloniousHam wrote: post #74
mjburgess wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From an American's POV anything less would probably be considered an additional rudeness. Every culture makes a public/private distinction and has different social conventions in each. For example, sarcastic/ironic/cutting humour is mostly a private-space thing in america -- whereas in the UK it's common to both. I'd say this is related to their deep sense that public spaces should be friendly-distant. For this reaso…

> PS. I've just had another thought about that. One of the issues we have in the UK at the moment is the importation of a strange kind of political correctness where you mustn't joke about stereotypes etc. (which is a particularly european thing: to joke about each other's culture -- this tends to feel connecting to europeans). This maybe due to the physical boundaries of Europe, that it's no insult to comment on ano…

Sure, I've considered that too.

That's the missing context British people have when opining about the American way of doing politics: that it's keeping a lid on something that here we do not have.

However I think it's more than that. The places that have the most european sense of humor and way of live are those with the highest population density. New York / Boston humour is quite close. Yet, NY -- the most dense US city -- is still only have as dense as paris.

The US is incredibly sparse. Everything is very far away from everything else even within cities: a shop is a drive from another shop.

I suspect that does something peculiar to public spaces.

The recent civil war and racism doesn't help though.

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

#85

Post by posterboy »

posterboy wrote: post #56
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've started a quick investigation and it appears that call, yell and german Kehle (throat) go back to the same root as cold is supposed to come from, which is reconstructed variously. At least, indo european *gel has a wiktionary entry. And now my contribution is to propose a common meaning derived from wind, as in the windpipe or in harsh winter. But of course it's more complicated (it seems to me, most words go ba…

I meant proto-indo-european

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

#86

Post by petepete »

Walf wrote: post #75
petepete wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think supposably is a valid word and makes sense in this context. The meaning overlaps a lot with supposedly, which is much more-commonly used, so it sounds a bit odd.

I hope that you, too are being sarcastic. The meaning doesn't overlap, it's the same word, mispronounced.

No.

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/supposably

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

#87

Post by bigal67 »

petepete wrote: post #86
Walf wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope that you, too are being sarcastic. The meaning doesn't overlap, it's the same word, mispronounced.

No. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/supposably

Supposably is a real word, but the meaning is different.

It is a synonym for "conceivable", whereas supposedly means: "according to what is accepted or believed to be true"

see: http://www.dictionary.com/e/supposedly-vs-supposably/

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

#88

Post by dang »

cjwhite wrote: post #47
Swizec wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

As an American, I want to punch those people.

Please don't post like this here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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