What americanisms do you hate?

[bhaexpress]

Yes but you shout darling.

 

[US Seagull]

I've lived in the US for 15 years and have got used to most of those you've mentioned, but they all got up my nose at first.

But the one that still gets to me is the word 'winningest', as in 'The winningest coach in college basketball.' and stuff like that.

I have to give you that one. "Winningest" is most definitely not a word!

 

[Tazman]

Color.......its fcuking "coloUr" grrrrrrrrrr

 

[Beach Hut]

Just the whole country - much easier

 

[Chesney Christ]

i cant really reply to this thread even though bha wants me to lose my temper everyone has the right to thier opinions.

i mean the thing that i hate about englishmen would be words like
wanker, bloody hell, end of, take it as read. i mean come on does it really make a difference about how people talk as long as they speak when spoken to.

What's wrong with wanker and bloody hell?

 

[US Seagull]

Bigots who fly the confederate flag - America's swastika

 

[Zeitgeist]

I hate THIS Americanism!

 

[London Irish]

It's Xenophobic actually. Being irritated by the way our beautiful language has been bastardised by another country doesn't make one racist. Get a dictionary.

Well, there is actually two sides to this story, Phaedrus. Don't believe it's just the Americans who bastardise the English language, the English have done it quite well over the centuries too.

Take a nice Yankee word like "inventories", meaning stocks.

In fact, inventories was a word that was commonplace in 17th-18th century England. A few English people sailed over to America at this time, became Americans, and happily carried on using the word "inventories".

Meanwhile, the word virtually died out in England and we came to use the word stocks.

In this case it is the Americans who have preserved the original English useage, and the Brits who've bastardised the language.

Believe it or not, there are a lot of words that we think of now as cornily American that Shakespeare would have been familiar with. I was once given a list of them a few years ago, but the only one that has stuck in my mind is inventories.

 

[alan partridge]

we're only having a larrrrrf

anyway, americans can be appalling in not realising other english words exist beyond their shores

i don't have such a problem with the word soccer (never use it mind). however i have been corrected by americans a fair few times over my use of the word football. candaians/australians etc have never done this. really annoying

oh and management/business speak is horrendous wherever it originates from

enough already

 

[Lord Cornwallis]

Shut up with your "gotten" bollocks.

And please don't refer to London as "London, England" or Paris as "Paris, France".

These are world renowed cities and are unlikely to be confused with your shitty tin pot hicksville settlements that have copied the name. Please clarify the location of your own noddy little versions if you must, but as far as I'm concerned, I know where London is.

(Incidentally, London in Ontario is not a small place, but you don't find Canadians constantly referring to our capital as "London, England")

Post of the week.

 

[bhaexpress]

Bigots who fly the confederate flag - America's swastika

Mate I have four rebel flags tattooed on me yet I'm no bigot. I actually put that avatar flag on there. As you live in Dixie don't you realise that most Southerners have a fiece pride in their heritage ? Apart form anything else Dixie is just about the one part of the US that has any real history.

The whole issue about the Confederate flag has been distorted by the PC brigade. Yes it's true that racists in the US do use the rebel flag as a symbol, but it's exactly the same was as the handful of racists in this country sport the Cross of St George.

Don't know whether you were joking but bearing in mind people in the US have lost their jobs for having a Confedrate Flag Tattoo it's a bit ridiculous. None of our many black friends have a problem with it.

 

[Lord Cornwallis]

Mate I have four rebel flags tattooed on me yet I'm no bigot. I actually put that avatar flag on there. As you live in Dixie don't you realise that most Southerners have a fiece pride in their heritage ? Apart form anything else Dixie is just about the one part of the US that has any real history.

The whole issue about the Confederate flag has been distorted by the PC brigade. Yes it's true that racists in the US do use the rebel flag as a symbol, but it's exactly the same was as the handful of racists in this country sport the Cross of St George.

Don't know whether you were joking but bearing in mind people in the US have lost their jobs for having a Confedrate Flag Tattoo it's a bit ridiculous. None of our many black friends have a problem with it.

Complete rubish.

 

[bhaexpress]

Complete rubish.

You must stick out like a sore thumb in your neighbourhood. What's rubbish about that then ? I am astounded that as somebody who actually lives in the South take that view. Clearly my experience is very different to yours. Most Afro Americans are not the least bit intimidated by a Rebel flag as it doesn't say anymore than the Cross of St. George does.

Believe me you don't have to wear Rebel artifacts or fly the Confederate flag to be a racist. What does appall me is that fact that so many racists are also Bible bashers. My wife's ex inlaws are a case in point. They wouldn't have a Rebel flag in their house as it's politically incorrect but hell, they won't let my stepson's girlfriend on their property as she's black.

Irony is that they actually have their own (whites only) church.

Oh, BTW, there's two 'B's in 'Rubbish'. Too much of an American education ?

 

[Rowley Birkin Q.C (Deceased)]

FRIENDLY FIRE

 

[Brovion]

MRSBHA, don't get too offended, it's just a bit of fun. We get annoyed when American movies portray us all as Hugh Grantish homosexuals.

London Irish - You are correct, there are loads of Old English words and terms Americans have preserved; two that stick in my mind are the verb 'to skedaddle' meaning to leave, and the expression 'Fall' for Autumn.

Also don't forget Americans have preserved 'correct ' pronunciation such as the long 'R' sound in words. That only disappeared from English speech in the 18th Century when dandies thought it far more refined to clip their words so that Harbour for instance would be prononouced 'arba'.

As an aside the actress Geena Davis (Thelma and Lousie) once said "My name is Virginia Elizabeth Davis. Both sides of my family come from the Martha's Vineyard area and can trace their ancestry right back to the Mayflower. You can't get more English than that!"

 

[bhaexpress]

Brovian, I can asure you that Mrs BHA takes it all in fun too. (I know her personally) I just like to keep her in check from time to time. To be fair she's no great patriot and reflects the apathy that so many Americans have.

Incidentally she says she doesn't speak English she speak fluent 'Georgian'. I can vouch for this as it normally takes her until about 2PM to say anything comprendable.

Oh I can get more English than you too. My father's family can be traced back to the Middle ages (some members of our clan actually did so, the sad bastards).

 

[Hungry Joe.]

Well, there is actually two sides to this story, Phaedrus. Don't believe it's just the Americans who bastardise the English language, the English have done it quite well over the centuries too.

Take a nice Yankee word like "inventories", meaning stocks.

In fact, inventories was a word that was commonplace in 17th-18th century England. A few English people sailed over to America at this time, became Americans, and happily carried on using the word "inventories".

Meanwhile, the word virtually died out in England and we came to use the word stocks.

In this case it is the Americans who have preserved the original English useage, and the Brits who've bastardised the language.

Believe it or not, there are a lot of words that we think of now as cornily American that Shakespeare would have been familiar with. I was once given a list of them a few years ago, but the only one that has stuck in my mind is inventories.

That is fascinating and I take your point. What got my goat was the inference that taking exception to another cultures use of language makes someone a xenophobe (or phone box as earlier pointed out). Seeing as we all speak a mixture of germanic & latin (with a bit of arabic thrown in for good measure) makes the whole debate pretty pointless really. I think we need closure. Ha ha. Apparently f*ck is not an Anglo Saxon word as many belive, it is arabic in origin. My ex colleague who's a bit of an authority on Anglo Saxon culture told me that.

"IT'S ALL GOOD STUFF DEAR"

 

[US Seagull]

MRSBHA, don't get too offended, it's just a bit of fun. We get annoyed when American movies portray us all as Hugh Grantish homosexuals.

To be fair, I think it's English movies that do that more than anything. I'm trying to remember the last time I watched a British film and it didn't have a homosexual in it. It's a little embarassing for me as a Brit in the US.

 

[looney]

Well I certainly hit a nerve with this thread.

3 things I hate,

The fasion to express disgust as Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwww.

People dont make genuine noises of disgust like that, trust me, I disgust a lot of people.


2 people who woop and howl like monkeys in ordiances, did someone mention Trisha?

The third one I cant remember!!!

Its a word added to an end of sentence to express exasperation, please dont remind me, maybe I'll never hear it again.

 

[US Seagull]

Mate I have four rebel flags tattooed on me yet I'm no bigot. I actually put that avatar flag on there. As you live in Dixie don't you realise that most Southerners have a fiece pride in their heritage ? Apart form anything else Dixie is just about the one part of the US that has any real history.

The whole issue about the Confederate flag has been distorted by the PC brigade. Yes it's true that racists in the US do use the rebel flag as a symbol, but it's exactly the same was as the handful of racists in this country sport the Cross of St George.

Don't know whether you were joking but bearing in mind people in the US have lost their jobs for having a Confedrate Flag Tattoo it's a bit ridiculous. None of our many black friends have a problem with it.

Now I'm not accusing you of being a racist. But the confederate flag is a symbol of oppression and hatred and not heritage. It's a case of revisionist history that has painted the south with this veneer of respectibility and dressed up their actions with the myth of southern chivary. They were nothing but a bunch of racist slave holders who betrayed their country and plunged the US into the bloodest war it ever saw, and now they are celebrated like heros
Take the recent movie Cold Mountain. Notice how the slaves were conspicuous by their absence? Or how about this: there is a memorial to the confederate soliders erected by the Daughters of the Confederacy in Washington state despite the fact that they never reached there. Revisionist history?
And have you ever visited Gettysburg? How many battlefields have you visited where they monuments to the lossers of the battle? There is one I remember in particular that depicts a confederate soldier trampling over the body of a union standard bearer holding the confederate flag up high while the union flag lies in the dirt. For a country that gets so fired up when anybody touches their flag I find it unbelievable that the federal government would but such a thing in a national park!