Hated Americanisms

[Mortartube]

Which Americanism(s) that have crept into the English language, do you hate the most?

The one that jangles my nerves the most is when people want to buy something in a shop and say "Can I get a" followed by the product name.

[beso]

Get over it. Language is dynamic. Nothing annoys me like people who keep complaining about their language changing. Chill out.

[New Judge]

Yes, many of these things are annoying, and many of them are from the USA.

The trouble, beso is that many people do not like to see their language bastardised. It�s not a question of them needing to �chill out� (which is a particular phrase I am not fond of).The idea of a language is such that everybody using it can understand what anybody else using it says or writes. The �dynamism� which you say exists is often simply ignorance or laziness, and eventually leads to parts of the language being comprehensible only to the small section of users who make the changes.

In many cases awkward ripostes sometimes have the desired effect. For example �Can I get a cup of coffee?� could be met with �No you cannot, I�ll get it for you�. After your order has been taken, you may be met with �You got it!� You might then enquire �Well if I have it, where is it?�

Just try to make life as difficult for those who you cannot understand or who use inappropriate phraseology, as they do for you. It�s much more satisfying than �chilling out� (whatever that might mean).

[brionon]

''Oh my god''. In one film I saw it was said So often I had to turn it off.

[Ethel]

'Laters' makes my skin crawl - not sure if it originated in America though.

Also the unnecessary 'like'. It's so, like, unnecessary.

I was like so mad when I first heard it.

[andy-hughes]

I'm with beso - I try really hard not to let linguistic idioms annoy me - and mostly they don't.

Apart from the girl who sits across from me, and has to advise external people of jobs she wishes them to attend. So, she will always use what Rory McGrath beautifully termed the 'moronic interogative' - where her voice goes up at the end of every sentence? As though it's a question, but it's actually not?

Now that does annoy me!

[Gromit]

I have a friend who over uses the phrase

"Shoot the breeze"

I realise that means this means to have a relaxed and social chat, but I have grown to hate it. What does it refer to? It is obviously an American phrase that doesn't travel well, like "I'll touch first base with you". It is stupid and thoughtless expression, bourne out of watching too much cr@p US telly programmes.

[Marijn]

I don't like it when people say May 30th... instead of the 30th of May. Work emails now have this date on them ...... 05-30-08, instead of 30-05-08. Not only is it American, it's illogical and out of sequence.

[bravejordy]

Americanisms don't bother me in the slightest. It's the homegrown phrases like "Laters" and "Innit" that get my back up.

[FoxLee2]

When I've been in America, I get irritated by the greeting 'how are you doing?' (originating with Joey in Friends?) I always feel like answering 'how am I doing WHAT?'

[DaSwede]

I'm with beso and andy-hughes. As Louis De Geer said, language is an organism to be studied and not a set of rules to be guarded. If a usage wins territory it's because it fills a function. That doesn't mean you yourself have to change unless you want to.

Having said that, I'm not un-annoyable...

[ChuckFickens]

None really annoy me as I work closely with a bunch of Americans so have grown used to them (3 hours on the phone today to an American for example) but the one that always makes me wonder a bit is "y'all" (singular) and "all y'all" (plural) which just doesn't seem to make sense to me.

P.S. Ethel, "laters" I have only ever heard English people say, never an American.

[Bathsheba]

I'm more irritated by this "prom" custom that seems to have been adopted. The halloween thing was bad enough, but well really........

[Bathsheba]

Oh dear, you've set me off now- what about "I'll take a rain check"? (or is it cheque?) x

[Bathsheba]

Having said that, I'm just as bad- I've just posted "yay me!" on a thread! x

[delboy3]

"My bad" gets my heckles up every time, although mercifully it seems to have died out lately (fingers crossed).

[beso]

Britian has some of the most innane figures of speech. The Bill is a popular tv show here in Australia. Thankfully most of their weird expressions are too stupid to catch on.

What is the sense in refering to someone's courage as "the bottle" (invariably pronounced bo'le)?

What the hell is a "toe-rag" anyway?

[Mortartube]

Beso, this is for you.

TOW-RAG. A wastrel; someone beneath contempt.(Incorrectly spelled �toe-rag� in modern English). A tow-rag was a rag made of �tow�, or hemp, used to
staunch wounds by naval surgeons and then thrown away.

BOTTLE - courage, balls. eg "he lost his bottle", "he bottled out", "he's got a lot of bottle". The most common explanation of this term is that it comes from the Rhyming Slang 'bottle and glass' - 'arse'. ie. To loose ones bottle, to loose ones arse (incontinence produced by fear).

[THECORBYLOON]

For Mortartube toe-rag is not incorrect, see here, http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-toe1.htm

[Mortartube]

Tow rag or Toe Rag seems to be cited as coming form a number of different sources depending on your online reference guide.

The definition that I posted came from here.

http://www.mariners-l.co.uk/GenBosunSlang.html