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Gotten gotten gotten gotten
Sep. 27th, 2012 09:16 amFollowing this BBC article on Americanisms entering British English, a bunch of British-English speakers wrote in with the Americanisms they've been hearing that bug them the most. And I'm finding it really interesting!
I mean, I think a lot about British English and how to change American terms to the appropriate British ones, due to reading and sometimes writing fanworks with British-English canon. But because AmEng is my native tongue, I don't usually get a good sense of which terms sound the worst to the BritEngs.
So for instance, in the 50 examples from people writing in, I often agree on business jargon, and I've never cared for "deplane." But with some of the other examples, I can't actually understand what it is they hate so much.
Like, the very first one on the list: "When people ask for something, I often hear: 'Can I get a...' It infuriates me. It's not New York. It's not the 90s. You're not in Central Perk with the rest of the Friends. Really." I'd never thought that that little ordering phrase, which I've used oh only a million times in my life, could be infuriating or sound purely sitcom-esque! Who knew? (...welllll, anyone not immersed in my native languagescape, that's who.)
Course, maybe it's that phrase coming from an otherwise native BritEng speaker that does the infuriating, and I am free to continue on my merry way and talk like someone from TV, which as we all know all Americans do anyway. :D
This one is perplexing for other reasons, though, and I could use more context: "Train station. My teeth are on edge every time I hear it. Who started it? Have they been punished?" Gotta admit I use that one all the time too, when appropriate--I use "Metro station," "bus station," or "train station" depending on the location I mean (Metro station = DC underground rail, bus station = usually Greyhound or other long-distance bus service, train station=Amtrak or regional rail service, trains that are not the subway). If 'train station' is a punishable Americanism, what do British English speakers say instead?
Other ones are giving me an enjoyable step outside my native speech, like learning that some British English speakers hate the final 'already' ("Turn that off already") or the purposely-ungrammatical (I'd guess Southernism?) "that'll learn you" (which I don't say much, but if I did I'd probably pronounce it as "larn").
And, yeah, sorry about that "gotten", British Englishers, but I'm stuck with it.
I mean, I think a lot about British English and how to change American terms to the appropriate British ones, due to reading and sometimes writing fanworks with British-English canon. But because AmEng is my native tongue, I don't usually get a good sense of which terms sound the worst to the BritEngs.
So for instance, in the 50 examples from people writing in, I often agree on business jargon, and I've never cared for "deplane." But with some of the other examples, I can't actually understand what it is they hate so much.
Like, the very first one on the list: "When people ask for something, I often hear: 'Can I get a...' It infuriates me. It's not New York. It's not the 90s. You're not in Central Perk with the rest of the Friends. Really." I'd never thought that that little ordering phrase, which I've used oh only a million times in my life, could be infuriating or sound purely sitcom-esque! Who knew? (...welllll, anyone not immersed in my native languagescape, that's who.)
Course, maybe it's that phrase coming from an otherwise native BritEng speaker that does the infuriating, and I am free to continue on my merry way and talk like someone from TV, which as we all know all Americans do anyway. :D
This one is perplexing for other reasons, though, and I could use more context: "Train station. My teeth are on edge every time I hear it. Who started it? Have they been punished?" Gotta admit I use that one all the time too, when appropriate--I use "Metro station," "bus station," or "train station" depending on the location I mean (Metro station = DC underground rail, bus station = usually Greyhound or other long-distance bus service, train station=Amtrak or regional rail service, trains that are not the subway). If 'train station' is a punishable Americanism, what do British English speakers say instead?
Other ones are giving me an enjoyable step outside my native speech, like learning that some British English speakers hate the final 'already' ("Turn that off already") or the purposely-ungrammatical (I'd guess Southernism?) "that'll learn you" (which I don't say much, but if I did I'd probably pronounce it as "larn").
And, yeah, sorry about that "gotten", British Englishers, but I'm stuck with it.
