LMDTFY News

Are Americanisms Acceptable?

If so, where do we draw the line?

Are you one of those people who’s being driven mad by stray Zs creeping into the English language where there used to be a perfectly good S? Does utilize make you cringe? As a UK Virtual Assistant, I’m interested to find out.  

Some Americanisms are inoffensive enough. A truck is much the same as a lorry and a man is interchangeable with a dude, bloke, fella or chap depending on his age and social status. Use any of these and you’ll be fine.

But words like burglarize (AKA burgle) are just ridiculous. Utilization is even worse. What’s the point of getting your tonsils around utilization when you can simply say use? And if you say, to a UK audience, that you’re ‘fixin’ to’ do something rather than going to do it, you’ll turn a few heads.

Some cultural differences are too comical to be absorbed into UK English in the near future. I mean, would you trust a man that went out into the world at large in his pants and vest? And ‘trash can’ is just ugly. You wouldn’t talk about Granola in the UK, we only do Muesli. In the States fannies are bums and bums are homeless people. None of these translate at all well into UK communications even though most of us know what they mean when we hear them on CSI or whatever.

And, last but never least, the teenagers’ favourite ‘whatever’ is an Americanism most parents could probably do without!

As a general rule it is probably still best to stick with English, stray Zs included. But because language is a living thing, you might find yourself on the streets in your pants and vest before you know it!

Comments Closed