Americanisms

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Posted: Thu Jul 21, 2011 6:51 pm

N N N wrote:

and just where is a city's "downtown"?

Just stop and axe somebody.

Posted: Thu Jul 21, 2011 7:30 pm

AAGGHHHH!^^^^That one drives me up a wall Laughing

Quite common around here too.

*** BANNED *** Joined: 18 Jul 2004 Posts: 2049

doc holliday wrote:

Rode hard and put away wet dates from when horses were the primary means of transportation.After riding one they should be allowed to cool off and dried off,not just put back in a stall.

Doc reminds me of a very favourite (note the "U") phrase I love.

"He's been around here ever since Christ was a cowboy". Wink

Baiting Guru Joined: 19 Apr 2007 Posts: 3123

There are many examples (can´t think of them now) where Americanisms have a far more direct and logical relation to the thing they are describing. Often enough (with a few exceptions), Americanisms derive the word from the thing they are trying to describe, and it seems more related to the ´thing´they are describing.

I´ve often thought of this when I actually see examples of this but they´re hard to replicate cold - they do exist though!

It´s the illogicality of British English phrases-words-terms that means I prefer to use the American equivalent.

Posted: Thu Jul 21, 2011 9:20 pm

Something I believe we have lost here to a degree, and not to our credit, is the British art of dry wit and profound understatement.

I have always been intrigued with Winston Churchill's World War 2 speeches. I find it amazing that he could refer to the London Blitz as "the current unpleasantness" without offending anyone. Bush would have never dared to refer to 911 as a mere "unpleasantness".

Posted: Thu Jul 21, 2011 9:40 pm

I have heard of the Civil War being called the Late Unpleasantness.It is an old expression though.

Posted: Thu Jul 21, 2011 11:12 pm

Wapiti is a caribou is a reindeer. The first is the Native name...not sure where the others orginate from...

Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2011 1:07 am

Quote:

Y'all forgot the y'all dialect. Don't alienate the south!

^^ Well, isn't that just precious!

Well, aren't you special?

Bless your heart! (Say that in a CCU!)

It's down yonder.

Bless your li'l pea pickin' heart.

It's rightch here!

Y'all come back now ya hear!

Sure I will carry you to town =Meaning you will give the person a ride to town

I carried him home = you gave him a ride home

I am fix'n to <insert what you are going to do>

And someone mentioned the "civil war" - we call that the War of Northern Aggression or the War Between the States.

What frosts my cupcakes though is mid-westerners ending their sentences with a preposition.

*** BANNED *** Joined: 18 Jul 2004 Posts: 2049

Tuco wrote:

Something I believe we have lost here to a degree, and not to our credit, is the British art of dry wit and profound understatement.

To be sure!

I have always found phrases such as "Can I see your tits?" to be very useful.

Baiting Guru Joined: 31 Jan 2007 Posts: 12237

Gold Hat wrote:

since Christ was a cowboy"

In the Military it was "since Christ was a Corporal" Laughing

Morgain Le Fay wrote:

Quote:

Y'all forgot the y'all dialect. Don't alienate the south!

I lived down South for several years, my favorites were "I'll tell what you do" and "Do what?'.

Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2011 5:51 am

Midwesterners do what now?

Baiting Guru Joined: 27 Mar 2011 Posts: 21158

Morgain Le Fay wrote:

Quote:

Y'all forgot the y'all dialect. Don't alienate the south!

What frosts my cupcakes though is mid-westerners ending their sentences with a preposition.

I licked the icing off the cupcake once and found a muffin!

Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2011 6:45 pm

Morgain Le Fay wrote:

What frosts my cupcakes though is mid-westerners ending their sentences with a preposition.

We don't exactly have a monopoly on that.

I Come From a Land Down Under -- Men at Work

Baiting Guru Joined: 08 Feb 2005 Posts: 2301

In Colorado, we say, "I want a glass of wadder." It irks my wife, who is British, since my "t's" are "d's". Then, she asks me what "ockey" team my Av's are playing?!?! WTF?

Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2011 11:55 am

Stargate wrote:

since my "t's" are "d's".

Gah! Thats one of the most annoying things about the accent!

Baiting Guru Joined: 08 Feb 2005 Posts: 2301

Olly3008 wrote:

Gah! Thats one of the most annoying things about the accent!

Accent? I don't have an accent. Everyone else does. Razz

Sex-starved Tikka Masala Joined: 04 Mar 2011 Posts: 259

Haters gonna hate.

Master of Master Baiters Joined: 27 Dec 2010 Posts: 586

damn straight! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14285853

Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2011 3:37 am

I had avoided this thread, but now that I am here, I have a few word usages which bother me along with many named above.

Graduate. "I am going to graduate College next year. What happened to the "from". In this phrase it sounds like you are issuing the diploma.

Worsh. Commonly said by people who are in my family, and not me. "I need to worsh my car. The White House is in Worshinton DC.

More Pet peeves:

"ATM Machine"
"PIN Number"
"HIV Virus"
"VIN Number"

Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2011 4:04 am

Hey, you want a coke?

Yeah I'll take a Sprite...

Name the regional dialect...

Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2011 4:17 am

ParaNoid wrote:

Worsh...

My dear Aunt (long since departed) also said 'worsh' instead of 'wash'. As a teenager, she attended an all-girls boarding school. One night, on her way to the showers, she stopped one of the teachers and asked for a 'worsh rag' and a towel. The teacher immediately start ranting "Worsh rag?. Worsh rag?"

My Aunt thought, "Oh my god, here we go. It's 'wash', not 'worsh'."

Imagine her surprise when the teacher said, "Young lady, it is called a 'worsh cloth', not a 'worsh rag!"

Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2011 6:32 am

Quote:

3. The phrase I've watched seep into the language (especially with broadcasters) is "two-time" and "three-time". Have the words double, triple etc, been totally lost? Grammatically it makes no sense, and is even worse when spoken. My pulse rises every time I hear or see it. Which is not healthy as it's almost every day now. Argh! D Rochelle, Bath

I was always under the impression that two-times = twice, and then it's just three and more times. I can think of no example where I would use double for two-times rather than twice.

Elite Baiter Joined: 02 Jul 2006 Posts: 1702

Lingusitics are incredibly interesting because they define a nation and its origins.

In the early days of america the middle classes and rich decided to make it there new home, the poor simply couldnt possibly afford the cost involved.

This was repeated by many countries, which meant the written and spoken word was from the start slightly better than its origins, its actually British that has changed, and it continues to do so. American on the other hand seems to be more stable with new words entering all the time, but a longer time scale between changes due to higher population.

The more people speaking in one manner the longer it takes for changes to impact the language Wink

Until the internet of course, thats causing all sorts of interesting and unexpected linguistic changes.

Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2011 7:44 am

English English has always taken what it needs and rejects the rest. Nothing new. I've noticed more youngsters using "Zee" instead of "Zed" for z.

These words always leap out when I hear them:

Aluminum
Debris
Presentation
Tomato
Herb
Oregano
Basil
Math
Jaguar
Lever
Moscow

I once heard something explaining that American English resembles English at around the time of the colonization. Transplanted dialects tend to stick where the originating one moves on.

Don't know how true that is because it doesn't explain Auzzie. Wink

Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2011 5:10 pm

I might as well provide you with the work of Xenophon Zolotas:

Quote:

Two of his speeches in English are considered to be historic. This is because they contained only terms of Greek origin. Here are the texts:
1957

I always wished to address this Assembly in Greek, but realized that it would have been indeed "Greek" to all present in this room. I found out, however, that I could make my address in Greek which would still be English to everybody. With your permission, Mr. Chairman, l shall do it now, using with the exception of articles and prepositions, only Greek words.

Kyrie, I eulogize the archons of the Panethnic Numismatic Thesaurus and the Ecumenical Trapeza for the orthodoxy of their axioms, methods and policies, although there is an episode of cacophony of the Trapeza with Hellas. With enthusiasm we dialogue and synagonize at the synods of our didymous organizations in which polymorphous economic ideas and dogmas are analyzed and synthesized. Our critical problems such as the numismatic plethora generate some agony and melancholy. This phenomenon is characteristic of our epoch. But, to my thesis, we have the dynamism to program therapeutic practices as a prophylaxis from chaos and catastrophe. In parallel, a Panethnic unhypocritical economic synergy and harmonization in a democratic climate is basic. I apologize for my eccentric monologue. I emphasize my euharistia to you, Kyrie to the eugenic and generous American Ethnos and to the organizers and protagonists of his Amphictyony and the gastronomic symposia.
1959

Kyrie, it is Zeus' anathema on our epoch for the dynamism of our economies and the heresy of our economic methods and policies that we should agonize the Scylla of numismatic plethora and the Charybdis of economic anaemia. It is not my idiosyncrasy to be ironic or sarcastic, but my diagnosis would be that politicians are rather cryptoplethorists. Although they emphatically stigmatize numismatic plethora, they energize it through their tactics and practices. Our policies have to be based more on economic and less on political criteria. Our gnomon has to be a metron between political, strategic and philanthropic scopes. Political magic has always been anti-economic. In an epoch characterized by monopolies, oligopolies, monopsonies, monopolistic antagonism and polymorphous inelasticities, our policies have to be more orthological. But this should not be metamorphosed into plethorophobia, which is endemic among academic economists. Numismatic symmetry should not hyper-antagonize economic acme. A greater harmonization between the practices of the economic and numismatic archons is basic. Parallel to this, we have to synchronize and harmonize more and more our economic and numismatic policies panethnically. These scopes are more practicable now, when the prognostics of the political and economic barometer are halcyonic. The history of our didymus organizations in this sphere has been didactic and their gnostic practices will always be a tonic to the polyonymous and idiomorphous ethnical economies. The genesis of the programmed organization will dynamize these policies. Therefore, I sympathize, although not without criticism on one or two themes, with the apostles and the hierarchy of our organs in their zeal to program orthodox economic and numismatic policies, although I have some logomachy with them. I apologize for having tyrannized you with my Hellenic phraseology. In my epilogue, I emphasize my eulogy to the philoxenous autochthons of this cosmopolitan metropolis and my encomium to you, Kyrie, and the stenographers.