freezeframe
Key Member
- Joined
- Mar 28, 2011
- Member Type
- Academic
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- English
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- Canada
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- Canada
I found this article very funny because it came across as a little... hysterical. I especially liked the part where the British should be worried about being on the receiving end of imperialism.
No offense to the British readers of this forum, of course.
Americanisms swamping English, so wake up and smell the coffee | Mail Online
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No offense to the British readers of this forum, of course.
Americanisms swamping English, so wake up and smell the coffee | Mail Online
Actually, I know all about the get-go or, worse still, the git-go. It's an ugly Americanism, meaning 'from the start' or 'from the off'. It adds nothing to Britain's language but it's here now, like the grey squirrel, destined to drive out native species and ravage the linguistic ecosystem.
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And so, hi guys, hel-LO, wake up and smell the coffee. We need to distinguish between the normal give-and-take of linguistic development and being overrun - through our own negligence and ignorance - by rampant cultural imperialism.
But it is time to fight back. The battle is almost uncertainly unwinnable but I am convinced there are millions of intelligent Britons out there who wince as often as I do every time they hear a witless Americanism introduced into British discourse.