5. Americanisms most frequently complained about
One of the most complained about Americanisms that has entered the English language in recent decades is: “Can I get…” For example: “Can I get a cinnamon bagel?” A lot of people blame the American TV series Friends for this, but Dr Lynne Murphy has worked out it appears only 30 times in more than 200 episodes. Another favourite bugbear for the British is management speak. Dr Lynne Murphy looked at a list of 20 most hated management terms and discovered that a quarter of them were originally British terms. 360-degree thinking and singing from the same hymn sheet – both British. Sorry. There is a tendancy to see what you look for with American-English and point the finger of blame in the wrong direction.
Nobody uses 'groovy' anymore. Words like this go through trend cycles - one generation will say it to death, the next will only use the word in deep irony.
6. Awesome trends
Some words are destined to change more than others. Euphemisms, for example: the way you talk about bodily functions is going to tend to change with the times. When you are using a euphemism too much, it starts to get dirtied, so you look for a new euphemism. Also, evaluative adjectives – nobody uses groovy anymore, not many people use marvellous, people are saying brilliant a lot less - are the kinds of words that go through cycles. The cycles tend to follow the pattern that what one generation strongly takes up, the next generation will only use in deep irony. Some American words become intertwined with trends in certain years, for example the word groovy was in heavy use back in the 1990s but has subsequently fallen out of use, or is used in an ironic way. Meanwhile, imported terms like Black Friday are picked up because of American trends adopted in to British culture.
7. Should we be totally worried?
Is America dominating the rest of the world with its language? The country certainly has a huge cultural clout worldwide. With a larger population and greater economic size it had a great influence throughout the 20th century. The future of the British language is bright though; it does still make its own new words. As we look to the future, British-English may be neither British nor American, because the language is used by so many people in so many countries worldwide. Dr Lynne Murphy talks about how the American Century is over and the World English century may be upon us in her blog.
