[OC] Which Americanisms do Britons use?

42 comments

1. Anyone who says ‘gotten’ in the UK needs a fucking slap.

2. I would argue that fairy cakes and cupcakes are different things, though you don’t see fairy cakes much these days.

3. I use pharmacy, Skeduke, neether, the past participle of get, Ass and truck and well we can’t see the last line.

   Did you know Randy comes from Hindi?

   Truck and Lorry don’t really mean the same thing.

   Not sure Fairy Cake was every a thing here.

   Its interesting with some of the pronunciation ones, its hard to tell which one is which as we are so familiar with both. American and British English mutually exist and language is always evolving and changing, so these kind of things are always a simplification.

4. Pharmacist reflects more a shift in the profession. Back in the day a Chemist sold chemicals, which might have pharmaceutical purposes but many had other uses. But a modern Pharmacy (staffed by a Pharmacist) merely dispenses pre-packaged medicines made by chemists in big factories, and give you funny looks when you try and buy plain chemicals. I (a proper chemist) see the use of the word for he-who-dispenses-prescriptions as an anachronism.

5. I’m an American and I pronounce “neither” both ways.

6. Pretty sure that pronunciation of neither and either isn’t an Americanism but regional variation within both countries (Fred Astaire ‘Let’s call the whole thing off’ literally has this in the lyrics for American English). 

   The other thing to note is that as people age, the choice of vocabulary can change. You can see this in Canada, where the majority of children say “Zee” rather than “Zed”, with this reversing in adults. This trend has stayed consistent over the last few decades, indicating that people are switching to the non-American “zed” as they get older and want to emphasise their Canadian identity. I suspect this could start happening in the UK too. 

7. This is interesting. I think a lot of it has to do with global communication. With Reddit and a lot of other social media being so American-dominated in terms of usership, I suppose it makes sense that this happens. Eventually, people adopt the habits of those they’re surrounded with.

   It looks like the people using Americanisms skew overwhelmingly younger, which would be consistent with this being a social media thing.

   I’m sure the road goes both ways.

8. Social media and online communication speak with an overwhelmingly American accent. Makes sense why the youngest would have switched, they’ve been immersed in those worlds for their entire life. 

   An interesting other element might be Brits who use extremely American terms like “folks” and “y’all”. Seriously, some of us can sound 100% Surrey when speaking out loud, only to turn into Billy Ray Cyrus the moment we start texting. 

9. I’m upset that 64% of any age group would use pissed to mean angry over drunk wtf

10. Since when is train station an Americanism?

    ‘Randy’ is the sort of shit people outside of porn stopped saying in the 70’s.

    Also, ‘pissed off’ would like to have a word.

11. Funny, Geoffrey never orders dictatorship from his politicians at home. What’s in this American Koolaid?

12. What’s the status on that aluminium router?

13. Too much Sesame Street.
    And since when do Americans say Pharmacy? It’s Drug Store.

14. [deleted]

15. I was going to say “lol, we really are controlling their speech so much” !

    Then I remembered the name of the language I speak….

16. Totally disagree that ‘sked-ule’ is American and ‘shed-ule’ is British. Pretty much everyone I know uses the former, you don’t send your children to primary shool do you?

17. I’ve heard more and more Brits using the typical American prounciations of words such as migraine, lichen, privacy, glacier, vitamin, patriot, and geyser.

18. This makes me want to vomit

19. “gotten better” can die a million deaths – It’s vile!

20. Americanisms are affecting Brits a lot but I’m not sure these are the best examples..

21. don’t you dare over take arse

22. I thought most people use pissed for angry and drunk

23. I’m from New Zealand (which also traditionally uses British English), in my 30s, and the *only* one of these where I use the British one is “holiday”. Never even heard of “fairy cake”.

24. I’m surprised that 43% of 18-24 year olds would even have heard of draughts, let alone have a preference of what to call it.

25. I love this stuff; thanks for your visualization. I think dialects and language change are inherently interesting. And I love how language is beyond anyone’s control — politicians may claim otherwise, and grammar teachers may lament, but language is going to do what language is going to do. 

26. The entire concept of gen Z (and all these other generations) is American and is not designed to fit with other societies.

27. I honestly thought that “shedule” was the American pronunciation. Everyone in the UK says “skedule”.

28. What about poop vs poo? *Both* are fucking infantile imho, but when I see poop in a UK sub, I lose my… shit.

29. I’d say that “train station” can no longer be called an Americanism when the majority of those over 65, and nearly half of those over 65, use it.

    Edit: Same goes for horny, except for the oldsters.

30. someone pls explain checkers/draughts

31. Lived in England for 1.5 years and never heard of a “fairy cake”.

32. TIL that Fairy Cakes == Cupcakes and Draughts == Checkers.

33. Well now I know what draughts are. Although I don’t think either of my children would recognize either of them.

34. I think film and movie are both commonplace in america.

35. ‘she’s got better at football’ is just not English.

36. Quentin Tarantino is the reason British kids pronounce the letter Z as ‘zee’.

    Because Zed’s dead, baby. Zed’s dead.

37. The decline of “randy” breaks my heart as an *Austin Powers*-loving child of the Y2K era. You’d think those movies would’ve revived some old ‘60s Swinging Britain slang…

38. Excuse me for butting in as a non-Englishman – but wouldn’t it be fair to argue that if 92% use train station instead of railway station, then it’s called train station?

39. Most of these feel very interchangeable to me.

    I wouldn’t have thought of Train Station as something purely American. Being more common in America doesn’t mean it’s not part of British English.

    I hear about Gotten vs Got a lot, honestly I’ve never seen as an Americanism, I’ve always used whichever version seems to flow better. I’m also suspicious of Schedule. Happy to be proven wrong on these.

    I don’t think either pronunciation of Either is American or British. I hear people from both sides of the Atlantic using these interchangeably.

    Using zee in Gen Z is common because the term started in America, not because people are calling Z zee.

    Horny I can find no evidence of being American, Randy is definitely a British term but both apparently have coexisted for centuries.

    Pharmacy and chemist I feel is a rational change as a chemist does chemistry, and a pharmacist does pharmacy. The university degree is pharmacy.

    Arse is seen as a swearword where ass isn’t. The two aren’t really versions of each other, use of the latter is more acceptable in most situations so it gets used in more situations.

40. So Brits don’t even speak correctly English ? What a joke

41. Gotten is one of the worst recent trends. What was wrong with got?

42. British parents in the 1960s used to get upset that their children were using the Americanism “yeah”. The Beatles got complaints that they weren’t singing “she loves you, yes, yes, yes”. Would any of us consider “yeah” to be an affected, eroding Americanism now?

    These things happen over time.

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