Re: English Language

To be honest. I like to hear American phrases, especially New Yorker phrases as I think they are very direct and sometimes funny but I don't like to hear them here. Not because they are changing our language but because we blatantly copy them like sheep.

Re: English Language

That's what I was really meaning when starting this thread.

'Gotten' is American English.

In speech there's the 'rise' (as if it's a question) at the end of sentences that is becoming more and more prevalent too.

I'm not anti accents or dialects, it's all the copying of American phrases and words and ways of speaking.
I was intrigued why some English old farts on here are using Americanisms when they should know better. The youngsters are bad enough

Damn it, we're English ! People used to love the Englishness of the English. Save our Englishness

I see that neither of those I was thinking of have replied so I might never know why they use 'gotten'

Ever wish you'd never started a thread

Re: English Language

Too true Pesta - we invented the language and they can't even spell the same words as us. Colour - color etc
Even posting this, when I typed colour. it is underlined in Red. It's our language and bastardised by the yanks

Re: English Language

colour

Mine is still colour.... no bastardisation here gasman.

But color is

Re: English Language

This thread reminded me of a hand painted mural/poster the teacher in my junior school had pinned to a door. There was a picture of a large flower and the words "GOT is a weed that grows in sentences"

Re: English Language

You can change your spell checker to English (although for some reason they call it 'world English') rather than US English. Many people never bother, which is a shame as finding worlds misspelled but without a red squiggly line underneath must encourage people to assume they are spelled correctly.

Re: English Language

They say that language evolves, and I'm sure that when our young people are our age they'll be spelling such things as 'color' and 'ass' routinely. Actually, the latter is already very prevalent.

What makes it even worse is that so many of our journalists can't spell properly, but I suspect that is part of B Liar's 'dumbing down' policy.

Re: English Language

Ya gotta larf.

Colour - that's the English way!! No it isn't! it's FRENCH; like so many quirks of English spelling... QUirk? oh! that's right, "qu" is French too.

The American spelling of color is the Latin way and the original English way, it was those pesky French that changed it to colour (1066 and all that)

Re: English Language

Dunno about 'gotten' (sic), but my aloominum garaarge is outta sight. Oh man, I feel sooo cosmic right about now I could eat a tomayto.

Tex Floydy III (Jnr.)

Re: English Language

But seriously, folks, I'm thinking that the English language as we understand it now allows Americanisms into our lives courtesy of the beloved Collins dictionary.

Each year there are around 300 additions to our language according to the compilers of this book, so perhaps these words which seem alien (or indeed, American) to us are now in our vocabulary. Times change and maybe we should be accepting these "new" words into our everyday lives.

But then again, who has the actual authority to add these words to our language in the first place?