Thetownend.com

So, with the gradual infusion of boredom and a certain degree of pedantry I submit the following observations.

The TEF has generally upheld certain traditions. To name but a few......we don't agree with the existence of Franchise. We don't like drums. Town should play in white shorts. We should preserve the Rolex clock....we should somehow bring back the sound of the Railway works Horn. The list goes on.....

Additionally, scorn is poured over text speak and other linguistic mis-givings.

So why, oh why, is nothing said of Americanisms which seem to flow quite freely, not just on here, but definitely on social media and within society in general ?

I submit the findings of a recent poll whereby it was found, amongst the respondents, that about two thirds were aged 36 or older. Yet many, shockingly, still lapse into Americanised fodder. Disgusting.

I'll give a few examples that have become noticeable over recent weeks:

It's Programme, not Program
It's Centre, not Center
It's Metre, not Meter
It's Got, not Gotten
It's Heading, not Headed

I'm sure there are several more examples. No, we can't blame auto-correct....otherwise we relinquish the right to blame the Adver for their typos. We all have the ability to proof read.

And one for Reg....since when did a railway station become a train station ? I joyously await the time when Heathrow Airport becomes West London Plane Station. Or not.

Surely, if we can't preserve the traditions of our own language, which was passed on to our American cousins, then what right do we have to maintain and preserve those traditions which we claim are closest to our hearts ?

Fuck yeah!

No... It's Fuck Yes :D

That sucks, man!

Gee, that Hammer dude sure is a buzzkill.

High five

I'll agree with some of that.  But a computer program has always been a computer program.  And I don't think I've ever talked about a 'railway station' in my life.  (And that one can't be an Americanisation, can it?  There are only about 4 places in the US where they have trains.)

You guys suck

Its a hooter not a horn yanky capitalist shit

Jeez, what a douche

It's an interesting subject Hammer and one that is a bug bear of mine. As has been mentioned though, train station is not an Americanization, it's just a question of 'train' being quicker and easier to say than 'railway'. If we started calling them 'railroad' stations that would definitely be an Americanization.

I would love to know though, on what date and at what time did films become movies, biscuits become cookies. When did the first school 'prom' take place and the first British kids go 'trick or treating'? When was the first (and this is the most nauseating for me) baby shower? The first person to call a pavement or foot path a side walk should be executed (although I suspect we are already on a slippery slope there)

Some of these things a very recent. I was in New York for Thanksgiving in 2010 and remember explaining to people when I got back, what Black Friday was. Now you can't escape it.

I suppose it's mostly down to t'internet, films/movies and peoples' limitless capacity to be brain washed.

I'm wondering if the 'z' in the thread title is ironic deliberately.

Language is constantly evolving, and always will be. For example, we took spellings such as centre and metre from the French. The American spelling is more traditional English, if that's the aim.

Get with the program guys

 :clap:

chill out bro!

my bad

Get in the hole
Limey
Aloooominnumm  ::)
Vacation
Reserme (sp)
Woohoo
Wassup

Oxford standard form I  think. Which is more than enough reason not to use it.

It's Railway Station. My grandfather worked on the railways all his life in some form or another and if he ever heard one of us using 'Train Station' we'd be in the shit.

I am in two minds with Americanisations - on the one hand language is a constantly evolving thing, on the other I expect British culture and language to retain its sense of identity and not be overwhelmed by American culture. I think when new words are added to the language, then that is fine (this happens on a yearly basis after all, even without outside influence), but altering spellings to fit in with America, no.

May I posit the cause of the problem being the spellcheck on people's browsers being set to American?

For firefox users, a British dictionary can be downloaded here (http://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/british-english-dictionary-/)

It pisses me off but then it seems most computers are set to American English by default, so even I end up using it on occasion.

Oddly, Canada uses The Queen's as opposed to the yanks. Dedication to the commonwealth there.

I do agree that a lot of the examples above are annoying, but I'm also fairly sure that - in general - the pace of Americanisation has slowed.  As recently as the 1980s, pop acts would sing with American accents more often than not, for example.  There was a piece on the radio yesterday about the Radio 1 Chart Show over the years and the jingles from the 1980s (Bruno Brookes era!) were 100% mock American cheese.  It stood out a mile.  You'd never get that now.  People would ask 'Why is that being sing with a stupid/fake American accent?'

It has to be to do with how people think of the US these days.  From the end of WWII to the end of the Cold War, America - to most - was always something to look up to.  Folk were more often than not to swallow American culture whole.  I think that's really changed now.  George Bush Jnr and the neo-cons have a lot of that to answer for.  We're still friends, but a lot more critical.  America no longer automatically equals cool.  The cultural hegemony is on the wane.

The Americanisation of the Europe must have started with the myths of Wild West, talkies and records.

I'm always surprised that it irks people so much.

Precisely. It's all about what's in fashion, the same way French words were in fashion so we adopted their spelling. American bands sing in British accents too.

You can no more stop it than you can stop the tide coming in.

lame.

Correct. But you can get really annoyed by it.

'Getting annoyed' has to be my favourite/favorite pastime these days. It dovetails rather nicely with my other favourite/favorite pastime of following STFC...

I'm not sure your generalisations stand up to close scrutiny.....certainly, for many in the working class and Trade Union movement they looked to the USSR for inspiration.....I suppose this "many" never climbed much above maybe 25% of voters, and it would be fair to say it's a passing generation, since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Swindon used to have a thriving Communist Party, whose social club was the Star Club....(not to be confused with the Star Bar, which tends not to be full of politicos) The CP always put a candidate up for a General Election. The Star Club was always a good midweek venue for a late night pint, as the pubs closed at 10:30....sort of place you could meet Chilean refugees from Thatcher's mate General Pinochet  :)

The planet Uranus should have the same pronunciation as ones arse hole and not "yourranus"
Fucking yanks and being a proud Wiltshire bumkin, it's wench not women. If we have to say women, then drop the W

Critical difference between the US and Russia/USSR, though, is soft power.  During that period, it was never cool to copy Russian music, or fashion.  How many household Russian names were there that people looked up to as cultural icons?  Approximately none.

The reason so many of our icons were American was that during the post-War years of austerity, America was an escape.  Russia, by comparison, was shit and bland...and scary.  At least in the minds of most people.  There was no contest.  Eric Hobsbawm termed the 20th Century as 'the American Century', and he was spot on.

 Sky is now showing something known as the MLS....which apparently is pro association football in the the US.  Out of curiosity I watched a bit....a big fuss was being made out of New York having a franchise now, after a long wait.....they could have had the Dongs a while back....not many would care over here.

 Hugely annoying was the oppo fans, were singing "can you hear the New York sing....no...no...can you hear the New York sing?  I can't hear a fucking thing.... etc with American accents.

Just wrong.

Plus an ad board for Tires. 

I'd always been grateful that the Americans didn't get football.....hopefully this will go the same way as New York Cosmos etc

Yanks. They bastardise everything they come into contact with and then present it as their own. Science, technology, engineering, it doesn't matter. Fucking colonials...

I love America, especially the southern states.
The people in Florida in particular are thick but extremely friendly - and they love the British.

I blame Friends. Not my friends but the TV program (sp).  Loads of people copied their lifestyle and sayings and that's also the reason there are so many coffee houses around now.

It reminds me of Neighbours. Not my neighbours but the TV program (sp) . That's where i first heard the term "Item" for a couple  now every fucker says it.

Anyway enough already of this shit , I've got to update my stat us on Facebook. Laterz

yeah it was me who used "gotten" but I WAS quoting from "Scooby Doo".Sorry

It's Neighbours that is also directly responsible for kids going to 'uni'.  Remember hearing the phrase on there 20 odd years ago and wondering what the #### they were talking about.

Americans actually think the British are cool now, the cultural flow is starting to swing the other way. Used to be they made fun of us for having shit teeth and being overly polite, now lots of yanks are starting to model themselves after what they've seen on Downton et al.

If you go anywhere in America (other than perhaps New York or the major tourist traps like Disneyworld/Universal Studios) it is honestly hard to go a day without someone going 'Hey, are you British?! Cool!' or similar and striking up a conversation.

*Neighbors

That's a far stronger example of a transatlantic culture swap than any of the americanisation examples in this thread.

Dunno why I clicked this link, but def a frontrunner for muppet thread of the year, fuck me there is some grade a drivel in here.

Possibly so Sutton, yet I felt I should do my best to maintain the 80% Bollocks quota.

Yes FH, the "z" in Americanization was quite deliberate.

Also, it has been correctly pointed out that the words "train station" aren't exactly an Americanism but probably more to do with a general dumbing-down of our language. Recently, I sent a package for which I wanted to pay for 'Recorded Delivery', only to be told it is now called 'Signed For'. Yeah ok.

Literacy and numeracy levels amongst our kids aren't particularly brilliant, yet are generally regarded as being better than those of their peers. Thinking of some of my friends and colleagues, it wouldn't surprise me.

And one thing really grates. (Knowing full well that it is grammatically incorrect to start a sentence with the word "And" ).

My grand-daughter doesn't receive Texts from her friends.....She receives Texes. No...you fucking don't. The plural of "Text" is "Texts", still one syllable, not two. It isn't a silent "T".

She also claims that she "has just 'Text' a friend". No, no you fucking didn't. You just "Texted" a friend. Past participle, two syllables and, yet again, not a silent "T".

So, to be fair, the decline in the quality of the Anglo-English language (both written and spoken) is probably little really to do with any American "invasion", yet, more likely to do with an attitude of ignorance and laziness, coupled with an inability and unwillingness of older generations to correct any relevant failings.

Fuck Yeah.

Is it in decline though? I know plenty of older people that can hardly string a sentence together and plenty of the younger generation that are perfectly fluent and articulate.

I think it's really a case that the internet makes it appear as though the use of the language is in decline because it is now easier for the illiterate masses, that have always been there, to put their illiteracy on display.

Successive generations always think that language is in decline. It's just evolving, because it's a living usage that isn't tied to the written standards and never has been. Going back to the original premise of the thread, the OP talked about the TEF as a bastion of "tradition", implying that the British version of the English language was somehow more "traditional" than the American variant. Well, no, they're both offshoots of English as it was spoken in the 17th century. In fact, American English is in many ways closer to "standard" 17th Century English than British English is. Because British English has evolved more. The same is true of Australian English vs British English vs 18th/19th Century English. Unless you're looking to have us all talking like Beowulf or Chaucer then the language will continue to evolve and develop. That would be quite amusing though, I'd quite like to see a Beowulfian TEF.

Rather than harking back to a "tradition" that was itself a fluid evolution of what had come before, surely we'd be far better sneering at the Americans for their under-developed and unevolved English compared to our far superior version? :)

As long as it still involves sneering at yanks, it works for me.

Basically, "they talk like a bunch of 17th Century peasants, the backwards slack-jaw fuckwits" is the essential premise. I think that's something we can all rally round.

In civility thou seem'st so empty.

I share your annoyance Chalky, particularly with Micro$oft (see what I did there?) software. The language options are always listed as:

English (British)
English (United States)

NO, IT'S JUST ENGLISH. NOT FUCKING BRITISH ENGLISH. ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Very true....but there's no reason why we can't have standards on the TEF.

I paid a visit to view the Magna Carta in Sarum Cathedral last week....it is written in Medieval Latin, now I've an "O" level in Classical Latin, so could pick out a few words and phrases....seemingly mostly about keeping the Welsh in their place.

However Latin is a classic  :) example of what happens when a language doesn't evolve.

Carpe Diem, Reg.

Assuming that wasn't just a vehicle for a terrible pun, it kind of isn't as Latin did evolve - the very fact that you could only pick out a few words and phrases because of the difference between Classical and Medieval Latin demonstrates that. What did for Latin was conquest and the fall of empires. The same could yet well do for English. But it won't alter the fact that while there are people speaking English, the Americans are speaking a backwards 17th century peasant version of it.

I hate the way the yanks say pheNOMenOM rather than un.

I hate the way the 82ers say ideal instead of idea.

 How the fuck did that come about?

One that bugs me: "I could care less" instead of "I couldn't care less".

Ngghhh.

Years of shit education and the fact that they like the fact that it makes them different!!!

I've pondered this, and can only assume its one of those strange quirks probably caused by inbreeding.....I believe Bristol was originally called Bristow.....stow being an old word for a market. It presumably ended up Bristol, like idea ended up ideal.

A similar thing would be the lispy speech defect in Spanish ....apparently due to Habsburg family inbreeding, that was the only way the king could speak. so his courtiers thought they'd they'd better do it as well, and it caught on.

Back to the topic of the thread: I went to Oxford Pride yesterday. Had a wander round the center of AngloDisney and heard loads of American accents. I overheard a couple of yankee lads saying how hot it was & it would be nice to 'go barefoot'. That really has invaded the UK. Correctly it should be barefooted, like bare headed and bare chested.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=om7O0MFkmpw

Yesterday I was told 'You look tan'. Tanned you that.

Oooh, just noticed this thread... don't get me started!

'Friends' must take the blame for that horrible, horrible expression, "Can I get....?" instead of "I would like..." or "Please may I have..." in a restaurant, cafe, bar, etc.  Makes me shudder each time I hear it.

'Neighbours' must take the blame for the equally nasty interrogative inflection, where people state a fact but sound like they're asking a question, thereby making themselves sound incredibly dim.

Husband hates it when he and I go out for a meal and we are addressed as "Guys" by the waiting staff.  Something else that very probably originated in the United States.

Urban legend I think.....

This! Fucking pisses me off that one. You barely hear anyone ask for anything without using it nowadays.  :suicide:

I've heard an extra 'l' in a few words. My favourite being them saying 'drawling' instead of drawing.

How about BBC wilts/Swindon Saturday SOCCER special. Morgan you penis it's football.

The word Soccer originated in England as a bastardisation of Association Football.

Not sure if this a US thing, but a guy said to me 'I've just cummed'. Now that is weird.

My Outlook at work is constantly defaulting language to US and trying to z all my s's. Something to do with our exchange servers.

Takes far more time that it should to try and catch them all.

Indeed, soccer is proper English, like rugger.