Tuesday, 14 April 2020

Americanisms

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Of interest to those people who passionately (murderously in some cases) dislike Americanisms, the word furlough, which is much in the news, is not one. Dr Johnson's Dictionary defines furlough as "a temporary leave of absence from military".


Lengthy and talented, on the other hand, are Americanisms and so, I think, is hotel.

I love the vitality of American English. I love 'mall rat', 'babe hoover' and 'fuzzy math'. I take some 1990s examples, because I am out of touch. 

But I don't want Americanisms to replace English English as the American grey squirrel has replaced the English red one. I am proud that I have taught a dozen Romanians to pronounce the first syllable in schedule as shed. 

I have even gone so far as to teach one or two to say 'frightfully' in order to annoy Americans.

3 comments:

  1. dfordoom15 April 2020 at 07:32

    I love the vitality of American English....

    But I don't want Americanisms to replace English English as the American grey squirrel has replaced the English red one.

    I agree on both counts.

    That's how I feel about American pop culture. I like a lot of American pop culture but it has now entirely swamped everybody else's pop culture.

    Back in the 60s and 70s there were lots of pop cultures. There was Italian pop culture - spaghetti westerns, sword & sandal epics, Italian gothic horror movies and even Italian science fiction movies and they all had a distinctly Italian feel. There was British pop culture - pop music, movies, distinctively British TV shows like The Avengers, even peculiarly British youth subcultures. In the 70s there was even Australian pop culture (such as ozploitation movies and Australian soap operas which were quite different from British and American soap operas).

    Now it seems that the Japanese (and maybe the Koreans) are the only ones with their own pop culture.

    And American pop culture has not only become totally dominant. It has also become crass. It's no longer fun.

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