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

adouglasmhor

You can tune a piano but you can't tune a fish.

lostinrates

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

My American cousin didn't know what a flat was when she visited me here. I showed her my son's flat and was asked if it was a condo or an apartment (apparently it's a condo, being bought, an apartment is rented).

I also have found out that our city has a Downtown (the centre) and that my friend wears a vest (waistcoat). Another of my friends has a faucet in his bathroom.

(And my spell-checker has just underlined 'centre' and wants me to put 'center' ).

There is a legal separation, and the correct use as fas as i know, but in my memory at least where I was it was used slightly differently too. (Much as things are used incorrectly but common usage in British english). For example, we never owned the condos we lived in (tbh, I'm not sure so did, whether they were owned by my day's employers maybe). But in any case, we were not owner occupies, though our neighbours were a mixture of owner occupies and not iirc. Our condos were little houses, not unlike on modern new build estates here I suppose, identical floor plans and layouts, rather than floor plans.

I call a flat a flat if its 'flat' and an apartment if its a duplex/over two or more floors, and thus not flat. Money of the 'flats' I lived in have been not flat so it feels funny to call them that.

Tropez

With regards to flat/apartment, I've found that some people (not all) have negative associations with the word "flat" viewing the word as referring to dwellings in the ugly tower blocks that were often constructed in the brutalist style of architecture that sprouted up in post-war Britain as a functional means of cheap, mass housing.

Possibly due to American cultural influence from the 1990s onward through television shows such as Friends, Frasier, Sex and the City etc. the word "apartment" seems to have attracted more glamourous associations and is often used in conjunction with the more aesthetically pleasing developments that have been constructed in recent years, particularly along the London riverside, or as part of regeneration projects in towns and cities across the UK.

This is merely an observation of people's attitudes that I have encountered and I don't imagine it is the same throughout the country. However, given that I live in and around an area where both brutalist-style mouse housing and more lavish towers have been constructed I have noticed a trend, including among those who have lived in both types of home, to refer to the older buildings as flats and the newer as apartments.

lostinrates

I think of 'mansion' flats first. For me its not negative, its just not necessary accurate.

Pthree

Im not sure if it is the universal difference but I have found that here in London up to £275,000 it is a flat and after that it is an apartment

Pthree

arbroath_lass

lostinrates wrote: »

I call a flat a flat if its 'flat' and an apartment if its a duplex/over two or more floors, and thus not flat.

One floor - flat, two or more floors - maisonette. Well, around here anyway. Never heard anyone local use apartment.

lostinrates

I have the feeling maisonettes is an early 20century thing whereas apartment (maybe not in english, not sure, is a much older word). I have no idea really, but if I were to guess I'd hazard flat is so where between the two?

I suppose before flats and appartments we more frequently took 'rooms' in houses where we probably got some sort of meal chucked in.

Fwiw I do think its more 'correct' in England to say flat, I'm not arguing it isn't, I'm just saying why sometimes it gives me pause

Georgiegirl256

pollypenny wrote: »

I've never heard tuna pronounced in any other way than 'toona'!

'choona!' Never.:cool:

I always pronounce Tuna 'choona' and have hardly ever heard it pronounced 'toona' apart from in America of course!

zagubov

hemophobic wrote: »

I don't like erbs (herbs)

You wonder if they watch orror movies!:D

Mojisola

Georgiegirl256 wrote: »

I always pronounce Tuna 'choona' and have hardly ever heard it pronounced 'toona' apart from in America of course!

I've never heard it pronounced 'toona' in this country, only 'choona'. The first syllable of Tuesday is pronounced the same.