[HN Gopher] The other British invasion: how UK lingo conquered t...
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The other British invasion: how UK lingo conquered the US
Author : n1b0m
Score : 47 points
Date : 2024-10-01 23:54 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| richliss wrote:
| The first non-shite thing I've seen from the Graun in years.
| dekhn wrote:
| I once was talking wit some british people whilst in california
| and said "oh you can throw that garbage in the trash". They
| laughed and said it sounded really coarse, what did you do with
| it after? "It goes into a truck which takes it to the dump. Why,
| what do you say?" "We say you put your rubbish in the bin and the
| lorry takes it to the tip" which did sound more pleasant.
| WrongAssumption wrote:
| Hmm, lorry takes it to the tip sounds dirty to me.
| benoau wrote:
| It is very dirty, and they just dump load after load right on
| the tip.
| hi_hi wrote:
| A word of warning as a Brit in Australia. You'll get funny
| looks when talking about routers and root!
| rikroots wrote:
| (Note that my HN name is the same as my real name, without
| the space).
|
| On my first (and only) visit to Australia I got stopped at
| passport control. The security bloke took my passport and
| looked at it. Then kept looking at it, in silence. His face
| was straight and sour, but his shoulders were ... twitching.
| This went on for more than a couple of minutes until,
| finally, he looked up from the passport, stared into my eyes
| and asked: "Is that your real name?" Confused, I nodded. He
| handed me back my passport and waved me through - to his
| credit, the man never smiled or laughed at me, but I could
| see it had taken him a lot of effort to maintain his control.
|
| A day later I learned about the Wombat Joke. I grew to hate
| the Wombat Joke. I'd love to visit Australia again, but I'll
| probably use a false passport next time.
| hi_hi wrote:
| Haha, thank you for sharing that, great story.
|
| I'm embarrassed to admit I'm not aware of the Wombat Joke.
| I'm assuming you were warned about the danger of Drop Bears
| though :-)
| Scoundreller wrote:
| iunno, the last time I asked if I could bum a fag, it was made
| very clear to me that UK lingo has NOT conquered the US
| throwup238 wrote:
| Same when I asked my neighbor to "knock me up in the morning."
|
| That was a very weird morning...
| dekhn wrote:
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knocker-up)
| OJFord wrote:
| Word of warning then -
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LDsfzJXGAo8
| card_zero wrote:
| > It was early in April in the year '83 that I woke one
| morning to find Sherlock Holmes standing, fully dressed, by
| the side of my bed. "Very sorry to knock you up, Watson,"
| said he, "but it's the common lot this morning. Mrs. Hudson
| has been knocked up, she retorted upon me, and I on you."
| ccppurcell wrote:
| See also: "ejaculation" used to be synonymous with
| "exclamation" and it's used heavily all across the Sherlock
| stories eg
|
| "The ejaculation had been drawn from my companion by the
| fact that our door had been suddenly dashed open, and that
| a huge man had framed himself in the aperture."
|
| For a list see
| https://thetaleofsirbob.blogspot.com/2013/07/watson-and-
| othe...
|
| If you mentally insert some commas some of them are really
| funny.
| 1659447091 wrote:
| > "The ejaculation had been drawn from my companion by
| the fact that our door had been suddenly dashed open, and
| that a huge man had framed himself in the aperture."
|
| Makes the "romance" books my grandmother would read sound
| like they were lifted from the Sherlock stories
| OJFord wrote:
| > "In the future" refers to a general or specific time that has
| yet to occur, and "in future" is used to mean "from now on". (The
| recent business jargon, on both sides of the Atlantic, is "going
| forward".)
|
| Funnily enough, I think 'going forward'/'going forward _s_ ' is a
| transatlantic difference?
| throw0101b wrote:
| How about the spelling of the word aluminium?
| defrost wrote:
| Can you say that out loud in a sentence please?
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Yeah, they at least pronounce aluminium like they spell it.
| It's not a "Leicester" piss take.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > It's not a "Leicester" piss take.
|
| It's a funny example but to be fair to the British that
| also happens in other Germanic languages and it also
| happens a hell of a lot more in Romance languages.
| happymellon wrote:
| Hopefully Map Men might help with this.
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uYNzqgU7na4
|
| TLDW; We have multiple different root languages in English
| city names, and you are only thinking one dimensionally,
| with the Roman Latin root. Cirencester is a good example,
| pronounced how you might expect while further north the
| town names get more germanic, and eventually Scandinavian.
|
| The video helps it makes sense.
| ClassyJacket wrote:
| We say it how we spell it and so do americans.
| nullhole wrote:
| Spell it however you like, just don't make your tyres out of
| it.
| cardamomo wrote:
| How curious! (I feel that I've observed the Britishization of the
| word "curious" in my lifetime. As a child, it meant only
| interested, intrigued. Now it also means strange or bizarre.)
| pdpi wrote:
| Huh. Curiouser and curiouser.
| authorfly wrote:
| The meaning of strange-comedic-unusual-interested is...
| curiously... conflated in several languages (even being a false
| friend in some to others).
| madaxe_again wrote:
| This might be my fault. I was in Charlottesville for a few
| months about 16 years ago doing some work for a startup,
| hanging out in my off hours with a group of sorority girls who
| had worked for me in London when I'd been an impresario.
|
| I say (or rather, said, as this episode made me very conscious
| of it) "hmm, curious" almost reflexively when working on
| something. They aped me. They partied, they spread the meme.
| Within a week I was suddenly overhearing people in cafes and
| gas stations going "hmm, curious" and by the time I left town I
| felt like I was living in a poorly written Monty Python sketch
| (or perhaps a Lovecraft bit), as an epidemic of "mmm, curious"
| had taken over the townspeople and the UVA student body. The
| latter all then went home at the end of the year, towards the
| end of my stay there, and spread it to every corner of the U.S.
|
| When I went back a year later, they were all still at it.
|
| I guess this ties in with the whole "teenage girls introduce
| new language" piece a few weeks back.
| physicsguy wrote:
| I think the default understanding here (UK) would still be the
| same. I wonder if it's Sherlock making the other understanding
| more popular.
| SturgeonsLaw wrote:
| As an Aussie I get a kick out of seeing Australianisms get picked
| up in the global vernacular. No worries seems to be increasing
| common outside of Australia, and cooked (to describe something
| that's fucked up) also seems to be prolific on social media these
| days.
| defrost wrote:
| No wuckers, coming soon?
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| I'm finna grab that phrase with glee, and stow it in my
| tucker bag.
| bigger_cheese wrote:
| I think more Aussie way to say that would be:
|
| 'I'm heaps keen to chuck that saying into the old tucker
| bag'...
| CTDOCodebases wrote:
| Yeah nah.
| psd1 wrote:
| That's heaps more Aussie, eh
| hi-v-rocknroll wrote:
| As an American, I always find it kind of ironic that Aussie
| colloquialisms and colloquialisms my Texan grandparents used
| overlap, likely because of being drawn from a similar pool of
| British & Irish expats some 100-150 years ago. "I reckon" is
| one that comes to mind first.
| TheBruceHimself wrote:
| Somehow the fact you chose word "vernacular" comes across as
| amazingly Australian to me. It's like Australians instinctively
| know that you need to sprinkle your sentences with some
| interesting vocabulary every so often. I'm probably making no
| sense to anyone but myself but I find the Australian manner of
| speaking to be sharp swings between the most basic brutish,
| often vulgar, english to the complete opposite. Like, you'll
| hear someone blurt out "Slow down you cunt, These pills they've
| got me taking take are praying bloody murder on my fucking
| knees" and then effortlessly it just flows into something like
| "That said it's not worth grieving or shedding too many a tear
| over. They've done a marvelous job at alleviating my various
| ailments. My wife's taking them to and it's all but cured her
| rheumatism".
| brailsafe wrote:
| It's not occurred to me in ages that "no worries" could be
| Aussie in origin, thought it was just a degradation of "don't
| worry about it" here in Canada, or picked up from the Lion
| King, but we do have a ton of aussies here, at least on the
| West Coast, so it seems plausible enough. I guess we just don't
| add "mate" as commonly.
| ajb wrote:
| I would guess it was popularised by "Crocodile Dundee" in the
| 80s, so that's long enough to feel native to a lot of people.
| brailsafe wrote:
| Yep, that could very well have been my first exposure to
| that saying.
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| For real life?
|
| (Bluey. The single greatest contribution to exporting
| Australian culture.)
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Juice Media's "honest government ads" are a goldmine for
| Aussie-speak, "colossal shitfuckery" so perfectly nails the
| dank machinations of Australian tech and politics.
| defrost wrote:
| Now with added US colossal shitfuckery:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHuMjIhS6t0
| malshe wrote:
| The article starts off with "run-up." What's the origin of that?
| I have heard of run-up in cricket.
| defrost wrote:
| According to the O.E.D. it's been used in the US in a stock
| market context since 1935.
|
| As an example of how seriously the British take their language,
| here's a _shortened_ entry for the phrase "run-up".
| 1.The act of running up to a certain point; esp.
| 1.a Coursing. The race between two greyhounds up to the first
| turn or wrench of the hare. 1834 Thacker
| Courser's Comp. I. 134 One dog is sometimes behind the other in
| the first run up to the hare 1.b The act of taking
| or sending a ball up to the goal or into a position for final
| play. Also attrib. Chiefly in Golf. 1897
| Outing XXX. 484/1 Foster.., after a clean run from 'way down
| the field, puts the ball through the uprights... The excitement
| of the run-up has been intense. 1.c A run made in
| preparation for jumping, throwing, etc., in Athletics; in
| Cricket, the bowler's approach to the bowling crease before
| delivery. 1897 Encycl. Sport I. 52/2 Pace in
| the run-up supplies the impetus; spring enables the jumper to
| lift himself into the air. 1.d = run-in | RAF
| lingo. 1942 R.A.F. Jrnl. 27 June 8 Another
| Stirling and a Wellington adopted almost identically the same
| run-up as ourselves. 1.e A period of time or
| series of occurrences leading up to some important (freq.
| political) event; an action which prepares the way for one on a
| larger scale. 1966 Sunday Times 20 Nov. 48/2
| The Petit Palais show offers, also, invaluable evidence in its
| drawing section of the ways in which Picasso manoeuvred during
| the crucial run-up to the 'Demoiselles d'Avignon'.
| 1968 Listener 5 Dec. 761/1 The run-up to the election of
| Oxford's new Poetry Professor has aroused a good deal of
| mirthful interest 2 Bookbinding. (See
| quot. 1875.) Also attrib. 1875 Knight Dict.
| Mech. 2004/2 Run-up, a fillet-mark which runs from head to tail
| on the back, without mitering with the horizontal cross fillets
| on the panels. 1880 J. W. Zaehnsdorf Bookbinding
| 131 With a 'run-up' back, the edge of the leather round the end
| papers is to..have a roll run round it in gold.
| 3 On the U.S. Stock Market, a rapid increase in the price or
| value of a commodity. Now also in gen. use.
| 1935 Sun (Baltimore) 13 Apr. 17/8 Corn advanced to 1 to 13/4
| cents a bushel, but cotton was reactionary after Thursday's
| run-up. 1942 Ibid. 1 Oct. 21 Laclede gas preferred
| had a runup of 61/2 points.
| bigger_cheese wrote:
| As an Aussie cricket comes to mind, you run-up from a standing
| start before releasing the ball.
|
| I think equivalent for US would be "Wind-up" (at least I think
| pitchers in Baseball performs a wind-up before releasing the
| ball)
| zdw wrote:
| I've never been so chuffed to read an article...
| silisili wrote:
| There's two I like in particular as an American, but mostly
| because their counterparts are ruined.
|
| 'Good on you' is the biggest one. 'Good for you', especially in
| text, to me comes across as bitter or sarcastic because of how
| often it's used that way, whereas the other doesn't.
|
| 'Mate', while I don't use it, is a solid word. We have buddy,
| pal, guy, etc, but again, they can each have their own negative
| connotation. Maybe 'mate' does too, but it always seemed like a
| neutral, friendly word.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > Maybe 'mate' does too, but it always seemed like a neutral,
| friendly word.
|
| It can be negative, definitely, if said with the right
| intonation.
| TheBruceHimself wrote:
| Brit living in the US here. Despite being here 7 years now i'll
| every so often have an American point out how odd something I say
| is. Recently it was me saying "I'll need to head home and get my
| swimming costume before heading to the pool". To which the
| response was "wow wow wow, "swimming costume"? Really? A costume.
| Not a uniform but a costume; something you wear for halloween?
| OMG that's adorable" Turns out Americans say "swim suite" :).
| yesco wrote:
| Having grown up in the US with what I would consider a higher
| than average exposure to the early 2000s internet, at least
| compared to other peers my age, much of my ability to read and
| write actually came directly from social media, instant
| messengers and online games rather than books. This meant I often
| found myself struggling with spelling errors in English class
| which sadly resulted in deducted points from my essays.
|
| I eventually came to realize many of my spelling "errors" were
| actually due to my exposure to the British spellings for many
| common words I would see online, like color/colour or
| behavior/behaviour for example. Unfortunately my teachers were a
| little unreasonable about this and would still deduct points when
| I pointed this out...
|
| To this day I still inconsistently use all spelling variants, and
| curse Noah Webster for his half assed attempt at regional
| spelling reform. In practice my phone just auto corrects them
| without me noticing though.
| dataflow wrote:
| > Unfortunately my teachers were a little unreasonable about
| this and would still deduct points when I pointed this out...
|
| I can see the teacher's perspective here. I don't think it's
| unreasonable for teachers to mark this down, though I don't
| think your request to get back the points was unreasonable
| either.
|
| Communicating effectively with your particular audience (the
| local American audience one in this case) is arguably a skill
| they're trying to teach you. Using language constructs that are
| unnatural for your audience can distract them and disrupt their
| flow. You don't want your reader to see "enrol" and spend the
| next 5-10 seconds pondering if you're illiterate or unable to
| run a spellchecker instead of spending that time digesting your
| actual point. This friction gets in the way of your point, thus
| ultimately hurting your own cause in addition to wasting their
| time. So when you keep doing that on your assignments and
| exams, you're effectively showing that you haven't mastered
| this skill -- and so it's not unreasonable for your grade to
| reflect that.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| its also entirely inconsequential after school, so do your
| job and follow the district mandates
|
| but for the rest of us, the point of language is to convey a
| shared concept, and if the sender and receiver are doing that
| then mission accomplished
| carstenhag wrote:
| If you live in the US, I agree that you must use American
| English.
|
| But even us people that live outside of the US/UK/related
| countries often got errors marked, because we used the wrong
| regional variant... In Europe, British English is used as a
| reference point, but I had a similar problem as GP.
| dataflow wrote:
| > If you live in the US, I agree that you must use American
| English.
|
| Why though? I think you missed my point with the rationale
| for this. See below.
|
| > But even us people that live outside of the US/UK/related
| countries often got errors marked, because we used the
| wrong regional variant... In Europe, British English is
| used as a reference point, but I had a similar problem as
| GP.
|
| That makes perfect sense though? The point wasn't "act
| American because you're in America", the point was "they're
| trying to teach you to communicate with {whatever audience
| they believe you will most often find yourself needing to
| cater to in the future}". Obviously in Europe they deem
| that to be British-English speakers. In America it'd
| obviously be American-English. etc.
| rjsw wrote:
| > If you live in the US, I agree that you must use American
| English.
|
| Unless you are writing International Standards. ISO
| requires British English spellings in documents.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Communicating effectively with your particular audience
| (the local American audience one in this case) is arguably a
| skill they 're trying to teach you_
|
| Please find me the numpty who can't distinguish colour from
| color.
|
| > _don 't want your reader to see "enrol" and spend the next
| 5-10 seconds pondering if you're illiterate or unable to run
| a spellchecker instead of spending that time digesting your
| actual point_
|
| Fair point. At the very least, one should be aware of the
| different usages.
| dataflow wrote:
| > Please find me the numpty who can't distinguish colour
| from color.
|
| Not sure what you mean by "distinguish". But just because
| you understand something that doesn't mean it can't slow
| you down, distract you, or be detrimental some other way.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _just because you understand something that doesn 't
| mean it can't slow you down, distract you, or be
| detrimental some other way_
|
| Sure. I'm just sceptical that errant signal isn't lost in
| the background of the American dialect's regional
| heterogeneity.
|
| If I ask someone in San Francisco "what colour pop" they
| want, the friction won't come from the "u."
| Izkata wrote:
| A better example for why regionality matters: what does
| "pants" refer to?
| lupusreal wrote:
| That's what a tired dog does.
| 1659447091 wrote:
| > I eventually came to realize ...
|
| At least you use the "ize" suffix, so all else should have been
| forgiven!
|
| I prefer the "u" in colour/behaviour as I find it more
| aesthetically pleasing. But I absolutely despise the "ise"
| spelling of realize (realise) and am not entirely sure why.
| Though, I vaguely remember spelling all words with "ise" and
| getting some wrong some right and not understanding why (I'd
| learn later I'm dyslexic so I chalked it up to that and called
| it a day)
| CTDOCodebases wrote:
| Now time to conquer CSS.
| mmmBacon wrote:
| Yeah I don't think UK lingo has conquered anything here in the
| US. I find most UK lingo rather dorky and quaint. To me it's like
| talking to cousins you like from a quaint town that's woefully
| behind the times. It's not their fault though and it's kind of
| endearing.
|
| However, Americans who use British lingo are the absolute worst;
| they remind me of a Will Farrell character except they are not
| funny.
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