Few days
ago I was eating lunch with my friend. In the middle of the relation from the
baby shower I attended she exploded “I can’t stand that”. She said she doesn’t
want to hurt me or offend but I’m using too many Americanism[1] and
it drives her crazy. As foreigner I never paid attention to distinguish
American words from British ones because they all were part of my vocabulary
and I only cared about knowing their meanings.
On my way
back home I was thinking why I am culpably using American equivalents for
British words. I realised that my generation was growing up in the late 20th
century, the time of globalization spreading the American English on other
countries through new technologies, films, music and Internet what fructified
with borrowing and then adopting Americanisms. It’s obvious under how big
influence of a ‘new’ language we were just by watching our favourite cartoon or
listening to Britney Spears’ songs and we hadn’t got a choice to learn them or
not.
I couldn’t
help but wonder how we can stop the process of Americanisation of British
English.
Few decades
ago United States has been seen as a highly status country and people wanted to
imitate Americans to feel a little bit like them. The imitation of American
English was the cheapest way to feel that oversea's glamour and the world
domination of American culture made it much easier than you can think. From the
usage of countertypes for British words, e.g. Chips (Am.E)/ Crisps (Br.E),
Elevator (Am.E)/ Lift (Br.E) through acceptance of taboo language and slang to
elisions and insistence on correct spelling (which is not a standard one in
British English).
When using
slang or countertypes is freewill, the automatic spell checker is not. Our
computers are helping us a lot but they do not know the distinguished
difference between American and British English so we end with American
spelling in our document like ‘color’ instead of ‘colour’ or common exchanging
‘s’ for ‘z’ in words, for example ‘realize’. Children think it’s a right spelling as the omniscient computer suggests it and they start using it every
day. Since it becomes a part of their vocabulary there’s no chance for changing
that and one day they will tell their children that it is the right spelling of
that word.
Here’s
coming the help known as the Plain English Campaign which is fighting not only
with Americanism but with all loan words which became a part of the British
lexis. The PEC is trying to convince us to use British words as there are many
forgotten ones which mean exactly the same thing as the word borrowed from any
other language. Americanisms are the most danger loan words as they’re coming
from the same language as the British English was the base for American
variation.
It’s
showing how flexible and open for evolving Britsh Language is but there’s
always going to be someone who will complain.
Matthew Engel in
his article for the Daily Mail from May 29 2010 was concerned about the fact
that people don’t know the boundry between American and English and we are not
doing a selection of words we’re borrowing from Americans.
In For Thought Broadcast (13th July 2011) Engel said that usage of some
phrases which have a „vigour
and vivacity” is acceptable (I think it might bring some freshness into British
English) but losing a distinctive phraseology and that difference between
Britain and US in the language is actually a losing an origins of English
language.[2]
The life
goes on, the language change but patterns stay the same. We are importing new
fancy words to show our intelligence and sound better (even Americans do it)
but by that we are forgetting the beauty of the original language we are using
since our first words.
It has been noticed that Americans are using
more British words for over prestige (to sound sophisticated and well educated)
and also just because they like their sound. Moreover, linguists noticed that
British English is evolving faster than American one what makes it seems more
traditional. Maybe one day, when Americans will be ready, we will britishnise
their English and make it more posh sounding. Who knows…
No comments:
Post a Comment