Pedants' Paradise

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Hmm! Very few West Indians in N.E Derbyshire.

[Roehre]

... Someone (was it you?) said there are strong similarities today between Frisian and the dialect of the Fens...

thanks pabmusic. Yes, it was me

[Pabmusic]

thanks pabmusic. Yes, it was me

Credit where credit's due, Roehre - a fascinating fact.

[vinteuil]

Many speakers of British English resent what they perceive as a creeping Americanisation of the language.

I had not known that there was some reciprocity here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19670686

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

If they don't like our language, they should call it "American".

[Angle]

Indeed, they should, EA.

[Pabmusic]

If they don't like our language, they should call it "American".

I think it's just a taste of our own medicine. By coincidence, I posted this on another thread a few days ago:

Quite literally thousands of our everyday words entered British English from America in the last 150 years. Here's a very small sample:

commuter, snag, gimmick, babysitter, lengthy, sag, soggy, teenager, to butt in, hangover, blizzard, to fudge, stunt, joyride, currency (money), telephone, radio, raincoat, law-abiding, notify, to advocate, to take a backseat, graveyard, to stay put, to keep a stiff upper lip , to fly off the handle, to bark up the wrong tree, to pull the wool over one's eyes, to stub one's toe, to face the music, to knock spots off another, neither hide nor hair, to go haywire, con man, stag party, to be out on a limb, fit as a fiddle, to peter out, to pass out, to check in, to show off, to hold on, to highlight, to panic, to progress, to notice, to donate, to park, balance (remainder), census, standpoint, outhouse, immigration, reliable, influential

We have been complaining about Americanisms since at least 1745, when the Englishman Francis Moore visited Savannah, which is situated on a hill "which they in barbarous English call a bluff".

[jean]

That's an interesting list, but surely census is an odd inclusion? We used the word for the Roman thing it first denoted - Gibbon does, certainly - but had no use for it for ourselves until we had a census of our own, which we did some time later than the USA.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

"to panic" and "to progress" are only two examples of the American habit of using nouns as verbs. That too has become widespread in Britain.

[jean]

That's not an American habit. We've been doing it for centuries.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Do Americans ever pronounce the letter "T" other than at the beginning of words? It generally is pronounced as a "D". So we have St Peder for St Peter, gonna for going to, etc.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

That's not an American habit. We've been doing it for centuries.

Evidence?

[vinteuil]

"to panic" and "to progress" are only two examples of the American habit of using nouns as verbs. That too has become widespread in Britain.

... I'm sure we have already established (many times, many many times... ) on these Boards that the ability of the English language to turn substantives into verbs ( and vice versa, and many another flexibility... ) is a regular characteristic of the language - it has nothing to do with our American cousins...

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Fair enough.

I still think my earlier reference to Peter Hain using "Parliament Act" as a verb was going a bit too far.

[amateur51]

I do baulk at "to leverage" tho'