How to irritate the Redcoats

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) ran a story on its Web site earlier this month about words coined in the United States, which are known as ?Americanisms.? The author, Matthew Engel, says Americanisms are now omnipresent in British English and many Brits don?t even know it.

I was surprised to learn that words such as lengthy, reliable, talented, influential and tremendous were all born in the US of A.

Engel writes, ?All of these words we use without a second thought were not normally part of the English language until the establishment of the United States.?

Not all such coinages have gone unnoticed. In fact, quite a few American words and expressions are reviled in Britain. Engel?s article generated so much fan mail that he wrote a second article about the 50 most irritating Americanisms, as submitted by his readers.

I was not aware of some of the Americanisms that so annoy the rest of the world. One reader from Holland was incensed that Americans use the word ?deplane? to mean exit an aircraft. That?s news to me, but then again I don?t fly much.

What struck me most about the list was how petty the complaints were. Graham from Glasgow wrote, ?I caught myself saying ?shopping cart? instead of ?shopping trolley? today and was thoroughly disgusted with myself.? Don?t worry, Graham. You?ll get used to it. We have.

Stuart in Sunderland is up in arms about Americans using ?period? instead of ?full stop.? Philip in Nottingham can?t stand how Americans say ?bangs? when referring to a ?fringe of the hair.? Julie in Warrington shudders when she hears the word ?gotten.? Simon from Worcester wonders why ?take-out? has replaced ?takeaway? in restaurant parlance.

To be fair, some letter-writers raised legitimate points about questionable English heard on this side of the pond. Ami from New York (yes, from the USA) asked why Americans say ?bi-weekly? when ?fortnightly? does the trick. Good question, Ami. I don?t like using ?bi-weekly? or ?bi-? anything for that matter because your listener doesn?t know if you mean twice a week or once every two weeks.

Adam in London wants to know why Americans inquire where something is at. ?Where?s my grammar book at?? His point is that ?at? is redundant when used with the word ?where? because the word ?where? means ?at or to what place.? I have not consulted a linguist to answer this question, but my guess is that the redundancy serves to clearly distinguish the sense in which ?where? is used (to refer to location in the example with ?at?) from other senses of ?where? such as ?Where is the book from?? Or it could be that the speakers are not paying close attention to what they?re saying.

Jonathan from Birmingham scratches his head when he hears Americans utter the phrase, ?I could care less.? Don?t they mean, ?I couldn?t care less?? Yes, Jonathan, they do. No one knows how the British phrase ?couldn?t care less? became ?could care less? once it was exported to the United States in the mid-20

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century. However, there are other phrases which, when said sarcastically, convey the opposite meaning of the literal interpretation of the words. Examples are ?Tell me about it!? when the speaker doesn?t really want you to tell him about it, and ?I should be so lucky!? a phrase associated with New York Jewish speech which means something closer to ?I have no hope of being so lucky.?