Americanisms...is it just me that finds them irritating?

GlynD

Toto wrote: »

What drives me insane is hearing youngsters speaking as if they came from Jamaica. Obviously if they actually did originate in the west indies it's fine, but the majority of them couldn't even tell you what accent they are trying to emulate never mind where in the world it came from.

Sorry, that has absolutely nothing to do with the original question did it?

S'ok - I said it too.

Tenyearstogo

PenguinOfDeath wrote: »

Makes me want to throw the barefoot contessa into next week

You'd have to be strong.

Person_one

Tiddlywinks wrote: »

"Trash" or "trash can".

Yep, and they don't know what 'rubbish' is either.

One of my favourites is 'burglarised', I cracked up when a friend used it, but he found 'burgled' far funnier.

Vive le difference I suppose.

jackieblack

Person_one wrote: »

I'm probably guilty of using a few Americanisms. I lived over there for a while and you have to adapt and start using them if you want to be understood and not just get a lot of funny looks when you ask where the bin is, or offer to do the hoovering.

We go to the US every year on holiday (vacation ) and have, as you did Person_one, that we need to speak 'American' to make ourselves understood.
We slip into it quite easily now, but it's sometimes easy to lapse back into 'American' in the first few days after we come home.
We've got some funny looks asking for 'hot tea' or the rest room back in the UK

nhaslum

"my bad" is the one that particularly annoys me. :mad:

Person_one

jackieblack wrote: »

We go to the US every year on holiday (vacation ) and have, as you did Person_one, that we need to speak 'American' to make ourselves understood.
We slip into it quite easily now, but it's sometimes easy to lapse back into 'American' in the first few days after we come home.
We've got some funny looks asking for 'hot tea' or the rest room back in the UK

I did get the mickey taken a little bit when I first came back home and had to switch habits again! Took me ages to look the right way crossing the [STRIKE]street[/STRIKE] road!

jeddentad

Wyre wrote: »

Hotting up annoys me, surely it's heating up?

It depends if it gets you all hetted up or not :A

joeblack066

picklekin wrote: »

Some words with Z in are indeed incorrect, however a LOT of American words that use Z are actually based on old Elizabethan dialect and more "correctly" English than our own S words. They just used an older dictionary when they "crossed over".

I was just going to post that! :-)

Torry_Quine

The American trend that seems to be creeping in is at a wedding when the bridesmaid(s) go down the aisle before the bride. Why?

daveyjp

peachyprice wrote: »

It's the American spelling of replacing an 's' with a 'z' in words that get me.

Although I am guilty of calling a 'z' a zee not a zed Always have, always will.

Reasearch will reveal the US use z because that's what was introduced from the UK. We have changed, not them.