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

Pollycat

adouglasmhor wrote: »

GF worked with an American, who was mortified when GF called her block of flats a tenement and insisted it was a "brownstone apartment block"; it was a tenement block. Apparently spams think tenement means "slum".

I worked with one and he corrected me for saying “obsidian” and said it was “absidian”, I said he was wrong and he said “It’s an American word”, Bollox I said it’s Ancient Greek and I don’t think American English existed while Pliny was around. He told me he was going to check up and report me if I was lying.

So I guess you never heard back from him......

adouglasmhor

Pollycat wrote: »

So I guess you never heard back from him......

The director told him to grow up, I was made his team leader about a week later, I made him use UK English on all his reports, which seemed to upset him but that was the extent of my revenge.

peachyprice

Absidian, :wall: silly @rse.

Pollycat

I don't know if it's been mentioned before in this thread and it's not really an 'americanism' but more a US pronunciation thing - but why can't they say 'aluminium' properly?

Can't they see the second 'i' in the word? :mad:

Tropez

Pollycat wrote: »

I don't know if it's been mentioned before in this thread and it's not really an 'americanism' but more a US pronunciation thing - but why can't they say 'aluminium' properly?

Can't they see the second 'i' in the word? :mad:

No, they can't because in US English the second 'i' does not exist.

They spell the word as aluminum.

adouglasmhor

Pollycat wrote: »

I don't know if it's been mentioned before in this thread and it's not really an 'americanism' but more a US pronunciation thing - but why can't they say 'aluminium' properly?

Can't they see the second 'i' in the word? :mad:

It has and it's the only case where we seem to have gone wrong, we added the extra "I" to make it like, "titanium" "rhodium" etc. they didn't. It's the exeption that proves the rule.

pollypenny

Georgiegirl256 wrote: »

Yeah, it was her grandmothers name which she added in the middle to make it sound posher!

Not really. We have a heck of a lot of Jones, Williams, Davies etc in Wales.

It's not uncommon for some to be known by their 'full title', such Sian Lois or Catherine Zeta, dimply to distinguish them from the other Sians or Catherines.

Neither is it uncommon to give a baby a family name.

BitterAndTwisted

Georgiegirl256 wrote: »

Yeah, it was her grandmothers name which she added in the middle to make it sound posher!

Or to differentiate her from another actress known as Catherine Jones. Some actors have to change their names completely if there's another with the same name.

Georgiegirl256

Just something I'd read about how she added it because it was her grandmothers name? But yes, she probably did add it to differentiate from other Catherine Joneses.

ceegee

What really makes me want to scream is when questions are answered as per the following example:

Q) Have you got a pen?

A) Yes, I do.

Do got a pen?

Should the correct response not be "Yes, I have"?

Or am I just turning into a miserable, curmudgeonly old baggage?