Creeping Americanisms
October 20th 2011 05:42
Not long ago, I wrote here about my interest in and enjoyment of the differences in English, whether written or spoken, around the world.
Not everyone agrees. Below is a link to an article from BBC News Magazine discussing the loss of "purity" in the language due to - guess who?
Right. America. Yes, to some folks over there, it's all our fault.
Really Long Link
While this concept is interesting and certainly worth thinking about, their followup article (link below) is even more interesting. In it, writers pointed out fifty of their own particular favorite examples of this creeping American virus that's eating away at the language. And besides those fifty, there were more. Many more. Reader comments were cut off, I believe, at 1295.
Really Long Link
To be fair, several people pointed out that all languages evolve, and someone mentioned the futility of trying to assign a particular date beyond which a language should not move. (The year 1066 AD was mentioned sarcastically by one reader.) And not everybody thinks that all of the changes are bad, either.
So what's the deal? Did we Americans set out to do this? Um... No, I don't think so. I doubt that you'll find a branch of the CIA devoted to language infiltration, not even in their Black Ops unit. Do we care that much who rules English? No again. At least nobody I ever talked to thought language domination was a particularly urgent national goal.
But am I making fun of the British for their fervent sense of protection? No. After all, France has the L'Academie Francaise, which formally institutionalizes the protection of the French language. At least the British haven't gone that far.
Words, word spellings, pronunciation, sentence construction - all of these things enter a language and become popular choices because people want to use them. It's that simple.
The fact is, I too prefer some of the British words and expressions. Take the word "whilst," for example. It sounds rather formal and elegant and perhaps for that very reason is best left to the British. You won't find too many Americans drawling out the word "whilst," and it's probably a good thing anyway. Most of us can't even pronounce "while": "WH-A-A-A-L"
"Whal yur up, Emma, git me a nuther brew."
All in all, some of our words are better than theirs and some of theirs are better than ours. Although I must say, I do prefer "truck" to "lorrie." After all, "My lorrie needs a new tailgate," sounds kind of insulting, and "I tricked out my lorrie," sounds vaguely like a Federal crime.
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