"Americanisms" that Brits hate

I must admit, i regularly visit Maccy-D's. I love the 9-piece Chicken McNugget meal. Thanks for inventing McDonalds, America.

 

I know, its horrible. Aside from the atomic bomb, fast food was the single worst creation of the 20th century...

 

The masses dont seem to think so.

 

That's masses with no definite shape, I suppose.

 

We cant help it if they find our food delicious.

 

I moved back to the UK after 25 years in the US and I do miss Taco Bell and Wendy's.

I still confuse me by using "Excuse me" instead of "Pardon me" when I bump into them in the narrow lanes of UK supermarkets. In the UK, "Excuse me" means "Please could you get out of my way" while "Pardon me" means "Please forgive me for bumping into you".

 

No that is incorrect. You understand that Americans mean they could not care any less, when they say "I could care less." Literally it means they could actually care less, how much we don't know. However, the message is conveyed accurately. We all understand those people mean "couldn't care less." However, as I said, I always say "couldn't care less" and I don't remember having heard anyone say it any other way. They may have, I just don't care enough to notice. If it is so inconsequential I don't even notice it, well then, it could matter less(see what I did there!!).

 

I disagree with your assessment. An inefficient government is better equipped to safeguard the rights of the individual, therefore, is preferrential to a nimble government that can add and subtract individual rights efficiently.
Our forefathers built elaborate checks and balances into our Republic so that the majority couldn't easily tread on the indididual.
For instance, to enact or remove a Constitutional Amendment, it takes a supermajority of legislative bodies AND states in order to occur. This is almost an impossible task, which is why things such as "the right to keep and bear arms" will never be constitutionally outlawed.

LOL. Your "British" is showing. It's Mickey-D's. Nobody in the states calls it Maccy-D's.

 

The masses also buy Buicks, watch Jersey Shore, and think Lady Gaga's refuse qualifies as art. They're hardly a baseline for higher level thinking.

That's inherently contradictory. Only bloated governments are inefficient -- bureaucracies bog down political processes. Conversely, small governments are the nimble ones, as they don't have fields of red tape to clog through.

We must also remember that the ability to turn on a dime is not necessarily a hindrance, but is often an asset. Who wants soulless, lumbering beasts of political institutions running things? Its inherently stagnant and anti-progressive.

Sounds like you'd be more at home living under the Soviet politburo.

 

You're wrong. Our system isn't inherently bloated, but it is inherently deliberate.

You say that as if it was a bad thing. IMO, a government that has worked for over 200 years, making us the greatest nation in the world shouldn't have to turn on a dime.

Sounds like you are totally ignorant of the USSR. The Politburo could act in an instant because it didn't need the consent of the governed. That's the antithesis of my position. Our system is cumbersome precisely because big changes require the consent of the MAJORITY of Congress AND the governed.

 

Hip hop has not achieved world domination because of "advertising". A chunk of the first hip hop albums went platinum with NO radio airplay. The Texas board of education recently decided to remove hip hop from the American cultural curriculum. Hip hop survives and thrives based on its own merit more so than any other form of popular music. Centrally planned authoritarian regimes in different parts of America have consistently tried to ban hip hop.

And the British invasion was not "sold" back to America. It is some of the best music ever created. When was the last time you saw a billboard or internet ad for the British Invasion? Care to guess how much their annual royalties currently are... a lot more than Britney spears in 40 yrs.

 

Never once did I say our system was "inherently bloated," as you preposterously claim.

As if it were a bad thing? Yes, it is. Imagine if types of government never changed -- you'd still be singing "God Save the Queen." I know your type; you worship the constitution in its present state as if it were as precious as the Bible on your nightstand.

Little do you know, I'm sure, that Thomas Jefferson advocated popular revolution at least every 20 years. Imagine his horror if he were to appear today and see how little we've progressed.

Quite the opposite (especially as regards the ignorant remark). Educate yourself: http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-04222009-112811/unrestricted/twisstm_etd2009.pdf

Being able to snappily fire off a nuclear salvo is hardly the breadth and depth of governmental activity. Likewise, neither is amending the Constitution, in the case of the United States. Quick and effective administration of everyday affairs is the key.

That's not cumbersome. You were correct the first time; it's deliberate when it comes to matters of the utmost import. There's a marked difference between a careful government and an inept one.

 

To an American citizen's ear, there most certainly is a British accent. Just as as an average Brit would have trouble distingishing between regional differences in speech from an American midwesterner (Chicgao) and one from the westcoast (Los Angeles), they could readily determine one from the rural South from a New Yorker. An average American would have an equal task of distingishing between accents of British royalty from native East End region of London. Regional dialects do determine what is a British or American accent

 

The old war time axiom: "Americans are over paid, over sexed, and over here" --still rings true. Before the 1060s, America was still a very racially segregated place. Many radio stations would not play music of Black artist.
It took British rock groups to combine and re-package Black blues music and White Rock and Roll to start a hugely popular, mega recording industry genre, which appealed to mainstream audiences everywhere. However, most recent Hip-Hop and Rap "music" has not translated as well except to very limited, very young audiences. Reason being; lyrics are impossible to understand against music that all sounds basically the same. Although I love music, H-P & rap have left me in a past where music required real muscians and real talent now abandoned

 

Your system is failing currently, since none of your political leaders seem to understand what is required to lead and establish effective policy. The idea that a government must be ineffective to guard political rights is rather odd to me. However, I am certain you and I have different opinions on what should or should not be a political right.

 

I think you are essentially correct. Although it is a bit of a stretch from HM's accent to those of Eastenders, they are recognisably British. Just as a Bostonian accent and a Texan accent are light years apart, but recognisably American.

I suspect the accent which is universally comes to mind as British, is received pronunciation (what was known as BBC English). It is generally accepted as the clearest form of pronunciation, and while some more rounded vowel sounds may be foreign to Americans, Canadians, and Australians, very few English speakers (native or foreign) find difficulty in understanding RP. It is primarily for this reason that it has been the accepted standard of spoken English for a very long time.

 

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU-9Lx0_wR8"]‪Ray Winstone - worst date ever‬‏ - YouTube[/ame]

cockney accent of Ray Winestone

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDaTTVR2JXY&feature=related"]‪Jamie Carragher Butchers the English Language (with subtitles)‬‏ - YouTube[/ame]

Scouser (Liverpool) accent of Jamie Carragher (I am sorry for the pure anguish this accent causes.)

 

LOL, I suspect you did not intend to say "before the 1,060's ..." At that time the Americas were probably quite monocultural, as were the Anglo Saxons of the British Isles (although that was about to change within six years).

But as for Hip Hop and Rap, I am generaly regarded as a younger person (in my last year of high school) and it is not my fave genre of 'music'. I am studying music (although that does not make me any sort of an authority,) and as far as I can make out, Rap (in particular) does not meet any of the requirements of the musical tradition. There is no melody, only a beat, and the traditional musical structure of exposition, development, and recapitulation, is absent. So there are no mechanisms for the creation and resolution of musical tension, which is what makes many musical forms so satisfying. There are no complimenting harmonies, no point and counterpoint, no dialogue between instruments, no subtle colouration - nothing except talking to a beat. If it may, by a stretch of the imagination, be regarded as an art form, it is one at the most primitive level. People may like it, and its performers are not without a certain skill, but it is not music.

 

There isn't a correct language or a correct spelling.

Each dialect has their own spellings.

For example in Spanish in Andalucia(South of Spain) they talk differently to the rest, they eat consonants...

Well, the dialects are that, dialects and each dialect has his own characteristics, neither better or neither worse. Whatever. Moreover English doesn't have a standard language, so it is normal that it has different spellings depending of the region.

 

Right you are, my friend! I meant 1960s. I totally agree with your assessment of H-H and Rap. Neither qualifies as music but a concopheny of repetitive noises and unintelligible voice overs

 

Well I was like walking down the like road like and then like I saw a man emmm and like he was like wearing this strange like hat like and em then I thought like em like where did he buy that like hat man like emmmm?
Anyway like i thought like that guy aint got no style like emmmmmmmmmmm, ain't he got none like mirror in his like house like emmmmmm

What is that 'like' thing all about?

and the 'ain't done nothing' thing?

Is 'like' the most used word now in the USA?

 

My like daughter like says like like, like all like the like time like! It like drives me like up the wall like!

Don't know where the habit comes from (it certainly isn't from me!), and she's by no means stupid or uneducated, but it's just something she's picked up somewhere, and it's just like stuck! Very annoying!

 

The english are a people that have evolved over a thousand years together.
The americans is like Cambells Soup or Chili Con Carne. Its no wonder that americans cant speak proper english.

 

there was a show - about seven episodes - called the Story of English, narrated and co-written by Robert MacNeil. I have it in VHS. I enjoyed it when it first came out & I still do.

Also years ago, I was stationed in Korea. At the time, the Black Watch was also there and the younger troops thought they could chatter away in Scots dialect without the dumb Americans understanding them. Thanks to listening to my grandmothers, this was not the case and, after a few of them ran down the American Army I asked them, in Scots, if their mothers knew they were in Korea. Funny. They shut up rather quickly & one of their sergeants (who had listened in) & I had a good laugh and a few beers, in that approximate order.

 

what does this matter in the grand scheme of things. There are plenty of things that concern me about the brits and language is not one of them. I'm more concerned that the government is destroying itself and the country AND its citizens in order to be politically correct with muslims and crime. I'm concerned that as old a civilization as the british are, they have succumbed to something that is so wrong and evil.