BBC - Americanisms: 50 of your most noted examples

Articles like this really bug me.  As the American said who wrote in on the article itself, language is fluid, dynamic, and changing. Being offended by changes the English language took in America over the last 300 or so years seems like a pointless endeavor. I could watch nothing but British tele and movies 24/7 (ha!) and not pick up things like "ta", "brekkie", and "cuppa", which I find, especially the latter two, to be totally ridiculous.  The people who say they're picking up American words and slangs and they've never been to the US are picking it up from our TV and movies.

Sigh, I'm trying to make an intelligent point, but this just aggravated me.  I agree with previous posters, a lot of this is bad grammar that annoys us just as much.

I miss their iced coffee.  It was awesome.

I make iced coffee most days in the summer and it tastes just like DD's.

This was an interesting read. Let's turn the tables now shall we?

Aluminium foil? Tin foil or leave out the first U ok?
Murial instead of Mural? Really?
Hoovering? How about just plain vacuuming
Washing up liquid instead of dish soap
Loo?
Having your Tea? What happened to having your dinner or supper?

My husband calls supper/dinner lunch.  So he says things like, we can have those leftovers for lunch.  Then when I eat them, he gets upset because this time lunch meant dinner. 

Here's an interesting rebuttal posted on a linguistics blog:

http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2011/07/anti-americanismism.html

Murial instead of Mural? Really?

Where did you hear that one?  I studied Art History here and I've never heard it referred to as a murial... 

Where did you hear that one?  I studied Art History here and I've never heard it referred to as a murial... 

That one had me stumped too! 

Thanks for that link, woadgrrl.

(I'd give you a rep point, but I can't on the news board, so here's an invisible + and a+1) for good measure.

Where did you hear that one?  I studied Art History here and I've never heard it referred to as a murial... 

Must have watched Coronation Street back in the '80's! It was a joke that Hilda Ogden, trying to be posh had a "murial"

Thanks for that link, woadgrrl.

(I'd give you a rep point, but I can't on the news board, so here's an invisible + and a+1) for good measure.

Aww...thanks! :p

TykeMan is correct it's from Coronation street but I also heard it from my MIL and on Changing Rooms it was Lawrence who said it. It was probably tongue in cheek now that I think of it.
I loved that link woadgrrl you are "the bomb". Now that's one for you all to chew on...

BTW my scottish husband was discussing something with my daughter last night and he said "the bottom line" at least 12 times in 10 minutes. Arrrgh!

Here's the Economist's language blogger's response:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2011/07/peeves

Heh. Thanks for that, historyenne.

So many "Americanisms" are actually an original British usage that changed here but not there ("ize" compared to "ise" for example).

I'm American and "normalcy," instead of "normality," makes me cringe.

I've never even heard an actual human being use the word "normalcy"!

Here's an interesting rebuttal posted on a linguistics blog:

http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2011/07/anti-americanismism.html

That is so full of win