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Noticed more than ever on last weekend's trip to Blighty that you lot have joined us in Americanaland in that you now do your shopping in a 'store' rather than a 'shop'. Now I was always thought that the store was the dingy room at the back of the shop where they actually, y'know, stored stuff. Or, more precisely, the room where the lad went for a smoke while pretending to check whether they had any spare bogroll. This pretence at looking is annoying, by the way, but it is infinitely better than you asking if they have any spare stock and him, without listening, giving you the lazy-assed automaton reply 'everything we have is on the shelves', which makes you ask him why the fugg they built the huge fugging room out back so with the price of real estate.
What reminded me of all this is that I'm in a doctor's waiting room (knee injury - nothing serious) and as every person comes to the desk and does the 'morning, how are you?' routine their standard answer is 'I'm good'. What?
Are you? Are you 'good'? Are you well-behaved? Morally sound? A beacon of goodness in this bad, bad world? Well, nice to know, I'm sure. But are you well? That, after all, is more pertinent info and would be an appropriate answer to the question while we're at it.
Good! Californian Disney Ar$e-scutter! Away with you!
"The opposite of love, after all, is not hate, but indifference."
Least Favourite Americanisms on 23:36 - Nov 12 by isawqpratwcity
Momentarily.
It means brief, not soon, you gits.
It was even used in the egregious manner by Data in TNG, whose speech is supposedly so correct that he won't use a contraction like 'I've' for 'I have'.
[Post edited 13 Nov 2015 4:10]
The "momentarily" things gets on my nerves.
In my job I spend a fair amount of time on conference calls.
The recorded (American) message always tells me that if I have a problem an operator will be with me "momentarily".
Well that's no sodding use to me. If I need help from an operator I'll need them to stay on the line until such time as it's sorted.
Grrrrr....
If any Americans are reading this this is the way the word actually should be used
"The QPR board momentarily stuck to their strategic long term plan" "QPR managed to defend momentarily at Fulham" "The QPR fan base have momentarily felt optimistic this century"
One that really gets on my nerves is 'speaks to', as in 'speaks to the issue'. It sounds like something somebody would say when trying to impress at a university debating society. Sean Wheelock, the US contributor on World Football Phone-In keeps on using the damned phrase.
Least Favourite Americanisms on 23:55 - Nov 12 by scot1963
I was going to say that pissed for pissed off as well. Not that any of it really pisses me off but I've also noticed, on Judge Judy etc, the use of edgewise instead of edgeways and 'whenever' where a plain old 'when' would be correct. Not relating to the spoken word but the date thing of reversing the day and month is annoying so today is 11/12 rather than 12/11
[Post edited 13 Nov 2015 0:00]
You're right, the date thing is a big gripe of mine. Who is right though? I'd like to think we are.
[Post edited 13 Nov 2015 21:26]
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Least Favourite Americanisms on 02:37 - Nov 14 with 4298 views
Least Favourite Americanisms on 09:07 - Nov 12 by nix
Not a problem, in response to any perfectly normal request. How could it IN ANY CONCEIVABLE UNIVERSE be a problem to have a menu in a restaurant or a ticket at a train station?!
Don't know if it's American but it drives me crazy? Aaaaarrggghhhh!
Ahem, sorry, in foul mood today.
Don't you mean railway station dear boy...?!
Agree about 'not a problem or no worries' ....'you guys' is another very annoying term used by those who might be serving me in a restaurant.
'Can I get' by a million miles is the worst offender for me.
A great thread Brian and I agree that 'I'm good' is a term used far too often.
Truck rather than lorry, movie rather than film (whatever happened to the pictures)?
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Least Favourite Americanisms on 09:33 - Nov 15 with 4145 views
A few of us were in New York on St Patrick's Day years ago and we were talking to some birds in a pub. I was on good form and had them laughing non stop. All of a sudden one of them said 'you're fat'. I said pish off, I'm not fat, he's fat, pointing at a bigger mate. He in turn said pish off and pointed to another mate and said 'he's fcukng fat'. The girl who said it immediately saw there was confusion and explained what she meant. 'Phat, as in good guys'. I'd never heard of it before. We had a laugh about it though :-).
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Least Favourite Americanisms on 12:48 - Nov 15 with 4105 views
Least Favourite Americanisms on 20:24 - Nov 13 by HanwellHoop
You're right, the date thing is a big gripe of mine. Who is right though? I'd like to think we are.
[Post edited 13 Nov 2015 21:26]
Of course we're bloody right.
Firstly, because the first thing you need to know about the date is the day number - you have to be pretty clueless not to know what bleeding month it is.
And secondly, because we just are.
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Least Favourite Americanisms on 22:03 - Nov 15 with 3985 views
Least Favourite Americanisms on 19:21 - Nov 15 by CiderwithRsie
Of course we're bloody right.
Firstly, because the first thing you need to know about the date is the day number - you have to be pretty clueless not to know what bleeding month it is.
And secondly, because we just are.
When did British people start calling Wednesday hump day FFS also I can't stand it when somebody starts a statement with here's a thing.
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Least Favourite Americanisms on 22:13 - Nov 15 with 3976 views
One that always annoys me is "cellphone". And on twitter a few weeks ago Carly Lloyd from the U.S womens "soccer" (fcuking tw@ts) team, or should i say Team U.S.A, called the halfway line "the midstripe".
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Least Favourite Americanisms on 02:47 - Nov 16 with 3921 views
Least Favourite Americanisms on 02:40 - Nov 16 by qprjeff1882
One that always annoys me is "cellphone". And on twitter a few weeks ago Carly Lloyd from the U.S womens "soccer" (fcuking tw@ts) team, or should i say Team U.S.A, called the halfway line "the midstripe".
The Nerb Prize – given to nouns pretending to be verbs – has had a bumper year, with six dazzling runners-up. To effort. To front-burnerize. To town hall. To potentiate. To future. To value add. Any would have been a worthy winner; yet all were swept aside by “to language”. A reader overheard a colleague saying: “There must be a better way to language it.” He’s right – there must.
September is still a beautiful word, and gravitates south to December, through October and November, for a reason. To call September 9 defiles every language gift we were given. September will always be September, and never 9. Knuts.
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