Britishisms sneaking into American vernacular

[Big Bertie]

Quite so BB...North East Derbyshire/South Yorkshire isn't on and is quite different from even it's near neighbours, when I go down to the bottom of the shire the people down there have difficulty with my accent, especially the young people as they all now appear to speak a 'Hollyoaks' type dialect.

Matlock/Buxton/Eyam? I know that area, but I'm from Durham so technically Geordie. Sadly the accent was thrashed out of me by an elocutionist in league with my parents. The TV effect on accents is not to be underestimated - a while ago I detected a definite Aussie inflection in my daughter and her friends, the result of watching too many Aussie soaps as children.

 

[angeljenny]

Matlock/Buxton/Eyam? I know that area, but I'm from Durham so technically Geordie. Sadly the accent was thrashed out of me by an elocutionist in league with my parents. The TV effect on accents is not to be underestimated - a while ago I detected a definite Aussie inflection in my daughter and her friends, the result of watching too many Aussie soaps as children.

I find that classic dramas subtly influence how I speak as do old films. Odd really! Yorkshire with a slight RP edge - strange combination. I tend to pick up phrases and words from books too .... and then use them without thinking. Termagant and foxed are recent ones that I remember being asked to explain.

I do find accents fascinating!

 

[esteban68]

Matlock/Buxton/Eyam? I know that area, but I'm from Durham so technically Geordie. Sadly the accent was thrashed out of me by an elocutionist in league with my parents. The TV effect on accents is not to be underestimated - a while ago I detected a definite Aussie inflection in my daughter and her friends, the result of watching too many Aussie soaps as children.

I've lost count how many people I meet do the Australian inflection at the end of a sentence like asking you a question, you know? they tend to wear it as a badge of honour and I believe much/some of it can be due to 'backpacking' in that part of the world, they seem 'to get it' even if only in country for a month or two!.............A mate of mine, a real Derbyshire lad went to Uni in Newcastle IIRC, there he met a local lass and a few years later married her and moved up there, he's a PE teacher rather like the one in KES, anyhow I digress when ever we all go up to York for the races/music festival he comes down with his brother in law and his new Geordie mates, we all get on really well with never any animosity at all, later on it becomes hilarious as he sits between the two groups and translates going from broad Geordie to Derbyshire and back again in an instant! we always stop in the hotel on the racecourse and god knows what they think of it all?

It takes us about 3 days or so to get all the Geordie out of him when he comes down at Christmas just in time for him to go back up and relearn it all!

 

[Big Bertie]

I find that classic dramas subtly influence how I speak as do old films. Odd really!

I don't know if, like me, you watched much weekend TV as a child, but when I was growing up it was all Cruel Sea, Brief Encounter and Ealing classics, and there is no doubt (along with the elocutionist) it affected how I speak - even now. And now I slightly doubt whether those old films really were an accurate portrayal of how people spoke then.

 

[esteban68]

Me too AJ, I would love to have gone to Uni to do languages but as my grandfather used to say " tha far too common t gu t universite", he was probably right in 1984 choices were limited around here to " t pit, t steelworks or in t army" that was the advice from the school careers advisor and that was with 4 O levels, A levels were never on the cards!

Still find accents as you say fascinating, sometimes villages side by side will have differing words and on occassion slight differences in accents.

 

[Big Bertie]

I've lost count how many people I meet do the Australian inflection at the end of a sentence like asking you a question, you know? they tend to wear it as a badge of honour and I believe much/some of it can be due to 'backpacking' in that part of the world

My daughter and her friends picked it all up here in the UK as youngsters just watching TV - Neighbours etc. But oddly enough, now she has finally been there for a couple of months on holiday, she has finally lost the inflection! Apparently the Aussies she met (mostly in South Australia/Queensland) had much less extreme accents than she had expected.

 

[angeljenny]

I don't know if, like me, you watched much weekend TV as a child, but when I was growing up it was all Cruel Sea, Brief Encounter and Ealing classics, and there is no doubt (along with the elocutionist) it affected how I speak - even now. And now I slightly doubt whether those old films really were an accurate portrayal of how people spoke then.

I used to watch old Doris Day films and lots of Disney. Not much television. I remember trying so hard to sound like Mary Poppins!

I used to want to go to an elocutionist as my accent is atrocious (Yorkshire plus private school) but I am pretty much settled with it.

 

[W-D Forties]

How bona to vada your eek! (how good to see your face)

I just wondered if the US lounge members were aware of the Polari language..ostensibly a ‘gay’ slang, once used widely in the theatre but also by sailors in British Merchant Navy and by others. This language/slang isn’t used much nowadays but some of the words and expressions have crossed over into the mainstream such as ‘naff’…also used in "naff off!" to mean “get lost!” or “clear off!”
Is the word "Zhoosh" used in the US at all, meaning to spruce up or smarten up…as in ‘You’ve zhooshed up (your outfit)…now you have a bona drag”?
A woman might “Put her slap on in the khazi” which would be to apply make-up in the restroom.

I'm sure there must be some American cryptolects which have become mainstream...any examples?

p.s I've not heard of naff as coming from naafi..but its etymology is uncertain
"If naff is from Polari, as in phrases like naff omi, a dreary man, it’s most probably from the sixteenth-century Italian gnaffa, a despicable person".

Apologies if this one has already been answered (haven't gone back/forward through the whole thread yet) but NAFF is short for a straight man i.e. Not Available For F***ing (apologies!).

I remember Princess Anne telling photgraphers to 'Naff Off' years ago - I don't think she knew the origin either!

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Suspenders can be cause for some amusing confusion too as can pants.

Ray Noble used to tell a funny story about Al Bowlly. One night on their American tour Al Bowlly was getting dressed in his hotel room and his suspenders broke so he called down to room service for some new braces. Moments later a puzzled hotel maintenance man with a brace and bit came knocking on the door and says, "Bub, I don't know what you want with this but if you're going to wreck the room you better let me do it."

 

[Benzadmiral]

I grew up reading Agatha Christie and other English authors, and my mother was Canadian (Alberta), so I tended to pick up all those little expressions. "Going round to" or "went round to" somewhere; I still call a can of soup a "tin"; now and then I'll say "I rang him up" instead of "called." But I've never referred to the shopping district as "the shops," and I long ago gave up saying I'd "hired" a car instead of "renting" it.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

This thread makes me think of this advert. lol

[video=youtube;TsHDcBccfQU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsHDcBccfQU[/video]

 

[vitanola]

The sort of distinct regional dialects which exist (or perhaps existed) the Mother Country are (or were) not unknown over here. I was raised partly in a Cleveland suburb, and partly in New York.

Having spent about half of each of my formative years roaming the Big Apple I have long noted the subtle variations in speech
which change with the neighborhood. With folks of a certain age, those born between, say, 1920 and perhaps 1950 or 1955, I can generally identify the neighborhood in which they were raised simply from their speech. For example, a couple of years ago I was introduced to on of my new next door neighbors, a charming lady of East Indian heritage. In conversation she mentioned growing up in the New York area. My response was; "Yes, I noticed. Pelham or New Rochelle?" Her response was gratifying; "Pelham Heights, near Woodside. How did you know?" Just last month I ran into a shoe salesman in Strongsville, Ohio, who was evidently from The City. Whilst my elderly Mother and Father debated the merits of White v. Beige New Balance sneakers, the salesman and I chatted. He mentioned recently moving to Ohio to be closer to his wife's family. I mentioned that he sounded alternately like he came from Nassau and from Astoria. He explained that he grew up in Steinway, and moved with his family out to Uniondale.

The distinct neighborhood accents may perhaps yet exist in younger folk, but the general speech patterns of the City have changed so materially of late decades that I cannot distinguish one neighborhood from another. The youngsters all sound to my ear to be generically "New York".

On the other hand, in Cleveland, there were ethnic and class distinctions, but no neighborhood dialects. A Slovenian from Settlement Acres sounded much like one from Saint Clair Avenue.

 

[davidraphael]

Let's not forget the great fictional English languages and argots created by some of Britain's most accomplished authors:

1. "Newspeak" (from George Orwell's 1984)
I think this is doubleplusgood! Some words from Orwell's newspeak dictionary have found their way into 'real' English on both sides of the Atlantic, ie, 'thoughtcrime,' 'sexcrime.'

2. "Nadsat" (from Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange")
As a bezoomny chelloveck, I think to govoreet this argot is real horrorshow. And, again, some of the slang has found its way into common usage, ie, 'Cancer Stick' for cigarette.

 

[Tango Yankee]

I wish that making proper British tea would sneak into American restaurants.

I have been in places that were called tearooms where the waitress brought a glass coffee pot around to put hot (really warm) water in to top off the metal teapots on peoples tables.

AMEN!!! I just quit trying to get tea in American restaurants. Usually if you ask for milk with your tea they want to fill up a glass and charge you for it and it's very messy trying to pour from a regular glass into a teacup or mug.

I did find a nice tea room near a campus I support in Bellevue, KY across the river from Cincinatti. Proper teapots, milk pitchers, wonderful food. Unfortunately I rarely get there.

Cheers,
Tom

 

[esteban68]

I can't believe it's so hard to get decent tea abroad, I generally take my own teabags now, had 1 possibly 2 decent cups in 30 years or so of foreign mainly European travel.....it's not that difficult really just put in roughly 3/8" of coild milk into a cup put teabag in and add boiling water, stir leave a minute or so until the colour of nicely tanned skin and remove squeezing the bag on the way out....it don't matter if full /half fat milk thats to taste, as is sugar ...purists will say you should use loose leaf but thats a crock as none does that anymore even over here or at least very few....you can also put the bag in first add water stir a bit add the milk then leave for a minut or so another quick stir, remove bag and voila!

 

[kiwilrdg]

In America there is a problem that most of the water is from coffee brewers that are set to heat the water to 180 degrees or less at first then letting the water cool more due to an inadequate burner under the pot. The possibility of getting sued from someone being burned by hot coffee is of more concern than good products. When that is added to the steel pots that conduct what little heat there was while the tea is brewing (or in the heavy ceramic cup that is an even better heat sink) and it is not possible to get a decent brew.

 

[LizzieMaine]

They've got it down to a science at the place where I get breakfast -- they bring me a cup of the hottest water they've got, throw the bag in, and I leave it there until I'm done with the sausage and eggs. Let it steep fifteen minutes or so and it's good and strong, gulp it down straight, and I'm ready for the day. It ain't about the taste or the ritual as far as I'm concerned, it's about the caffeine.

 

[kiwilrdg]

gulp it down straight, and I'm ready for the day. It ain't about the taste or the ritual as far as I'm concerned, it's about the caffeine.

That is my point exactly. Proper British tea is a very enjoyable drink. I am not worried about the ritual in making the tea but I do want a nice tasting tea.

 

[esteban68]

we 'd call that builders tea over here, only real thing I do motice is that it shouldbe served in a china cup or mug, I've done the taste test challange and it's definately better than anything else, idealy keep it away from stainless pots as I thgink it taints the tea IMHO.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Yes yes yes. Serving tea in a glass or one of those abominable hipster sippy-cup things is bordering on savagery. You might as well put sugar in your tea.