50 Americanisms That Brits Apparently Hate

[Megahedron]

Z

Well, I have met a handful of Irish and British people in my lifetime and I see Canadians with moderate frequency, but not once have I sat down with them and sang the ABCs. Well, once, but that was in Preschool and she probably just sang "zee" with the rest of us because that's what the teacher said. In fact, the only time I've heard the pronunciation "zed" out loud was when listening to stand up comedy. So yeah, the random anecdotes are supposed to be saying that it isn't that surprising that the pronunciation of a letter isn't a part of the average American's consumption of foreign media.

 

[Jacco]

39. My favourite one was where Americans claimed their family were "Scotch-Irish". This of course it totally inaccurate, as even if it were possible, it would be "Scots" not "Scotch", which as I pointed out is a drink. James, Somerset

I'm American and this bothers me as well. It's almost (not quite) as bad as saying someone is "Pennsylvania Dutch" which in fact means they are of German ancestry. Ugh.

 

[WildFire15]

I found both the list and the reactions hilarious. These are the sort of morons who'd rarely leave their homes. Hell, they'd probably never go to the north of England (past Birmingham, I'd be surprised if they made it as far as Manchester) as the accents alone would terrify them, let along any of the slang. People like this arn't worth any attention.
Still, I do find some 'Americanisms' (I doubt the average American uses most of them), a bit pointless. Deplane? Really? what's wrong with disembark?
This article was in responce to another equally silly article about how words have made it across the pond and some people hate them, like Talented for example. I see nothing wrong with that word, it's quite useful after all. 24/7 is simply a quicker way of saying 24 Hours, 7 Days and again useful.

 

[ultimateownage]

90% of those are reasonable complaints. Also, they weren't all British people complaining.

I love it when people get pissed at Britain for us getting annoyed when people make your language make no fucking sense any more. Why is Aluminium spelt 'Aluminum' if it isn't pronounced that way?

 

[Goldeneye103X2]

Riiiiight....

English people are just xenophobic. Nothing new. And most of them tend to be quite elitist about which country is better. Quite scary.

 

[Polarity27]

Finally, here is a topic that I can relate to. May I add to that list? As a Brit currently living in America (particularly a rural part of America), one pet peeve of mine is saying, "Ya'll" as opposed to "you all"...like as in "Ya'll come back now, ya' hear?" instead of "You all are welcomed back any time".

Well, a pet peeve of mine, as a Northerner currently living in the South, is when people misspell "y'all". "Ya'll" makes no sense, mate.

(BTW, what's the deal with "turn that off"? What's wrong with that?)

 

[Holyeskimo]

29. I'm a Brit living in New York. The one that always gets me is the American need to use the word bi-weekly when fortnightly would suffice just fine. Ami Grewal, New York



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14201796

That one i think she just screwing with them, but now i want to use fortnightly in a conversation, also i think i would unconsciously do these things in an effort to annoy english/british people

 

[Heartcafe]

"Gotten" is a real word though? It's the past participial of got.

38. My worst horror is expiration, as in "expiration date". Whatever happened to expiry?
This made me die of laughter. I facepalm'd myself when I read this. They mean the same thing but different ways of saying it. (Right? I hope.)

"Gotten" isn't a word. To use it in the past you would have to say "I just got etc."

And really, it's an awful word to hear. (This coming from an American.) Seriously, say it out loud. I feel literally dumb when I say it.

Hmmm. It's a real word according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gotten

 

[Sparrow]

Most of these are clearly tounge-in-cheek. I do wish folks would stop using this as an excuse to insult my country.

[sup]I do die a little inside any time an Englishman pronounces "z" as "zee", though.[/sup]

Also, I might add, some of these appear to be by Americans and Canadians. Silly Yanks. Them Canadians are 'aight though. Commonwealth, represent!

Riiiiight....

English people are just xenophobic. Nothing new. And most of them tend to be quite elitist about which country is better. Quite scary.

Yes, and all Americans are clearly fat. Please don't pigeon hole an entire fucking country.

"Gotten" isn't a word. To use it in the past you would have to say "I just got etc."

And really, it's an awful word to hear. (This coming from an American.) Seriously, say it out loud. I feel literally dumb when I say it.

Hmmm. It's a real word according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gotten

He is right on one point though: it sounds silly when you say it out loud. It seems kind of a redundant word, regardless. I can't think of an instance you'd say gotten when you could just say got instead.

 

[Mr Companion]

As a Brit I see this as seriously dumb, the arguments here are utterly petty. I think the only time I ever cringed at an Amaricanism was in Alpha Protocol when all the main characters kept pronouncing Moscow as Moss-cow. Oh yeah then why don't we go to Lon-don and My-amy ffs.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Wow, some of these people have sticks so far up their asses it's a wonder they're not poking out the top of their heads.

 

[Polarity27]

39. My favourite one was where Americans claimed their family were "Scotch-Irish". This of course it totally inaccurate, as even if it were possible, it would be "Scots" not "Scotch", which as I pointed out is a drink. James, Somerset

I'm American and this bothers me as well. It's almost (not quite) as bad as saying someone is "Pennsylvania Dutch" which in fact means they are of German ancestry. Ugh.

No, it means they're of a particular distillation of German ancestry, Pennsylvania Deutsch, elided over time to be Pennsylvania Dutch. People who live there know full well what it means. At least, those for whom it matters do.

Although yes, I'll give you the general problem that over time people forget that elided letters are meant to exist. I do say "I could care less", and until I saw wank about this online I never realized that people have actually forgotten that the letters "n" and "t" exist in it, and not simply that they don't pronounce them. I wonder if some day people will forget that "kinda" means "kind of"?

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

You know I really could care less but I care so little as it stands that I just can't bring my self to try.

 

[tharglet]

A bunch of these I don't really consider American imports - I think some may have evolved over here too. I bet some people complain about the Westcountry "where are you to?".

I've never heard "deplane". Does that really exist anywhere?

Mrgh, some of the magazine-stuff that the BBC do is really rather rubbish.

 

[tharglet]

Also, what the hell is a "regular Americano?

The coffee chains over here call a regular coffee an "Americano". Why I don't know, but there you go. They have fancy-pants names for the rest of them so "regular coffee" prolly had to go

 

[JackClandestine]

These all seem to fall into one of four categories:

1. Things who's opposites we would consider "Britishisms"
2. Retarded slang that few people use seriously.
3. Corporate speak, which sounds dumb to anyone who isn't an executive.
4. Stereotypes, from people whose experiences with people from the US is clearly limited to TV.

Also, a couple of the listed "Americanisms" whose corresponding "Britishism" annoy me:

"Maths", as those you have some sort of unit of math- "I'll take three maths, please".

Saying "zed" instead of "zee"; no good reason for it to bother me; just does.

The "Season vs Series" thing for TV shows just started out as parallel developed lexicons, but as we globalize television more and more, you have to admit that the US nomenclature just makes more sense.

 

[Fiad]

Most of these seem very petty.

 

[tharglet]

And here I thought the Beeb didn't trouble themselves with such petty stories...this is something I'd half-expect Fox to do.

They started BBC Magazine as a place for all this petty rubbish. No idea why. Occasionally there's something good, but I've seen plenty of articles in the magazine that make me think "whyyyy...".