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The other British invasion: how UK lingo conquered the US

theguardian.com

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Re: The other British invasion: how UK lingo conquered the US

#51

Post by dataflow »

carstenhag wrote: post #42
dataflow wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately my teachers were a little unreasonable about this and would still deduct points when I pointed this out... I can see the teacher's perspective here. I don't think it's unreasonable for teachers to mark this down, though I don't think your request to get back the points was unreasonable either. Communicating effectively with your particular audience (the local American audience one in this case) is arg…

If you live in the US, I agree that you must use American English. But even us people that live outside of the US/UK/related countries often got errors marked, because we used the wrong regional variant... In Europe, British English is used as a reference point, but I had a similar problem as GP.

> If you live in the US, I agree that you must use American English.

Why though? I think you missed my point with the rationale for this. See below.

> But even us people that live outside of the US/UK/related countries often got errors marked, because we used the wrong regional variant... In Europe, British English is used as a reference point, but I had a similar problem as GP.

That makes perfect sense though? The point wasn't "act American because you're in America", the point was "they're trying to teach you to communicate with {whatever audience they believe you will most often find yourself needing to cater to in the future}". Obviously in Europe they deem that to be British-English speakers. In America it'd obviously be American-English. etc.

Re: The other British invasion: how UK lingo conquered the US

#52

Post by zimpenfish »

silisili wrote: post #23

There's two I like in particular as an American, but mostly because their counterparts are ruined. 'Good on you' is the biggest one. 'Good for you', especially in text, to me comes across as bitter or sarcastic because of how often it's used that way, whereas the other doesn't. 'Mate', while I don't use it, is a solid word. We have buddy, pal, guy, etc, but again, they can each have their own negative connotation. Ma…

> Maybe 'mate' does too, but it always seemed like a neutral, friendly word.

It can be negative, definitely, if said with the right intonation.

Re: The other British invasion: how UK lingo conquered the US

#53

Post by happymellon »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #19
defrost wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you say that out loud in a sentence please?

Yeah, they at least pronounce aluminium like they spell it. It's not a "Leicester" piss take.

Hopefully Map Men might help with this.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uYNzqgU7na4

TLDW; We have multiple different root languages in English city names, and you are only thinking one dimensionally, with the Roman Latin root. Cirencester is a good example, pronounced how you might expect while further north the town names get more germanic, and eventually Scandinavian.

The video helps it makes sense.

Re: The other British invasion: how UK lingo conquered the US

#54

Post by rikroots »

hi_hi wrote: post #28

A word of warning as a Brit in Australia. You'll get funny looks when talking about routers and root!

(Note that my HN name is the same as my real name, without the space).

On my first (and only) visit to Australia I got stopped at passport control. The security bloke took my passport and looked at it. Then kept looking at it, in silence. His face was straight and sour, but his shoulders were ... twitching. This went on for more than a couple of minutes until, finally, he looked up from the passport, stared into my eyes and asked: "Is that your real name?" Confused, I nodded. He handed me back my passport and waved me through - to his credit, the man never smiled or laughed at me, but I could see it had taken him a lot of effort to maintain his control.

A day later I learned about the Wombat Joke. I grew to hate the Wombat Joke. I'd love to visit Australia again, but I'll probably use a false passport next time.

Re: The other British invasion: how UK lingo conquered the US

#55

Post by Izkata »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #49
dataflow wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Please find me the numpty who can't distinguish colour from color. Not sure what you mean by "distinguish". But just because you understand something that doesn't mean it can't slow you down, distract you, or be detrimental some other way.

> just because you understand something that doesn't mean it can't slow you down, distract you, or be detrimental some other way Sure. I'm just sceptical that errant signal isn't lost in the background of the American dialect's regional heterogeneity. If I ask someone in San Francisco "what colour pop" they want, the friction won't come from the "u."

A better example for why regionality matters: what does "pants" refer to?

Re: The other British invasion: how UK lingo conquered the US

#56

Post by hi_hi »

rikroots wrote: post #54
hi_hi wrote: post #28

A word of warning as a Brit in Australia. You'll get funny looks when talking about routers and root!

(Note that my HN name is the same as my real name, without the space). On my first (and only) visit to Australia I got stopped at passport control. The security bloke took my passport and looked at it. Then kept looking at it, in silence. His face was straight and sour, but his shoulders were ... twitching. This went on for more than a couple of minutes until, finally, he looked up from the passport, stared into my e…

Haha, thank you for sharing that, great story.

I'm embarrassed to admit I'm not aware of the Wombat Joke. I'm assuming you were warned about the danger of Drop Bears though :-)

Re: The other British invasion: how UK lingo conquered the US

#57

Post by brailsafe »

ajb wrote: post #31
brailsafe wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not occurred to me in ages that "no worries" could be Aussie in origin, thought it was just a degradation of "don't worry about it" here in Canada, or picked up from the Lion King, but we do have a ton of aussies here, at least on the West Coast, so it seems plausible enough. I guess we just don't add "mate" as commonly.

I would guess it was popularised by "Crocodile Dundee" in the 80s, so that's long enough to feel native to a lot of people.

Yep, that could very well have been my first exposure to that saying.

Re: The other British invasion: how UK lingo conquered the US

#58

Post by lupusreal »

Izkata wrote: post #55
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> just because you understand something that doesn't mean it can't slow you down, distract you, or be detrimental some other way Sure. I'm just sceptical that errant signal isn't lost in the background of the American dialect's regional heterogeneity. If I ask someone in San Francisco "what colour pop" they want, the friction won't come from the "u."

A better example for why regionality matters: what does "pants" refer to?

That's what a tired dog does.

Re: The other British invasion: how UK lingo conquered the US

#60

Post by rjsw »

carstenhag wrote: post #42
dataflow wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately my teachers were a little unreasonable about this and would still deduct points when I pointed this out... I can see the teacher's perspective here. I don't think it's unreasonable for teachers to mark this down, though I don't think your request to get back the points was unreasonable either. Communicating effectively with your particular audience (the local American audience one in this case) is arg…

If you live in the US, I agree that you must use American English. But even us people that live outside of the US/UK/related countries often got errors marked, because we used the wrong regional variant... In Europe, British English is used as a reference point, but I had a similar problem as GP.

> If you live in the US, I agree that you must use American English.

Unless you are writing International Standards. ISO requires British English spellings in documents.

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