🇬🇧 BRITISH ENGLISH vs THE AMERICAN INFLUENCE 🇺🇲
Hi ladies and gents! How are you all doing? I'm working my socks off getting ready for the upcoming conference in Kazan! Anyway, I was asked a really interesting question yesterday about to what extent UK and US English influence each other. So I thought: make a post you лысый гастарбайтер!😎
✅ Ok, let's start with some metaphorical image.
👉🏻 Imagine two lanes of a road running parallel heading in the same direction. One lane is UK English and the other US English. At this point our English is identical (we wouldn't be able to tell one from the other at least in written form. Spoken, the accent would give it away). As the lanes continue parallel to each other they slowly start to curve away from one another. This is where tiny differences occur in spelling, choice of grammar etc. As the lanes curve away even further leaving a bigger gap, we have slang terms, regional variations. As the lanes curve even further apart heading in opposite directions, we have culturally specific registers, regional stylistics that you would never know about unless you lived there and at this point it might be hard to actually understand each other.
✅SPELLING
👉🏻 Our spelling is 99.9% identical minus a few known differences like with the U in COLOUR, FAVOURITE etc. We in the UK throughout the 90s took on a lot of US spelling rules for one simple reason: we all started using computers and Microsoft Office didn't recognize UK spelling (the bastards!). Many programs still don't. Look at my precious sentence: recognize should be recognise but even VK doesn't allow British spelling would you believe. So many people through auto-correct and bad habits have adopted US spelling or often switch between the two. There is no evidence to suggest that UK spelling has influenced US English.
✅ YOUR USUAL NOUNS
👉🏻 We know TRUNK is US and BOOT is UK. We know PANTS is US and TROUSERS UK. Such typical nouns that you find in textbooks differentiating our English will never influence each other (to a 99% extent) as they're so imbedded into our brains. However, when it comes to popular culture, some words do find their way into UK English as SWEATPANTS sounds simpler and cooler than JOGGING BOTTOMS. APARTMENT (US) sounds a lot more upper-class than FLAT (UK) (But again, some might say: I have a swanky London flat). With popular culture having been dominated by the US over the last few decades, it's safe to say that more US nouns have worked their way into British English than vice versa.
✅ SLANG
👉🏻 You've got two main types. The slang you have in TV shows, vlogs etc (it's standard) and the slang that is regionally specific that you would never know unless you lived there. That's why Russians think we don't have many swear words as you only ever hear a selected few in films/TV series. Get on a plane and spend a week with the locals and you might be shocked at the number we possess. Like above, the UK was influenced on a superficial level due to pop culture, music but we retain a lot of our own, which is seriously imbedded. But guess what? Many Americans have become more aware of British slang due to the trend of having British actors play huge Hollywood roles over the last 20 years. That doesn't mean the UK has influenced US English much but those Americans who do watch TV will know more about our slang. Aaaaand, many Americans admit to UK slang being superior. As for whether certain words/phrases are used in one place or the other, depends who you speak to. If you asked an Englishman: Is this US slang word common in the UK. You'd get a different answer between someone who regularly watches US Netflix shows vs someone who doesn't and prefers the BBC. 💪🏻
✅ CONCLUSION
👉🏻 The message to take away from this: It's not so black and white as there are so many parameters. When people ask me: Do the Americans use it? My reply is always: Maybe yes, maybe no. Depends how close those lanes are still: if it's standard English I can tell you, if those lanes start to curve away from each other, best ask an American. The differences between us ON A STANDARD LEVEL of English is 0.1%. On a regionally/culturally specific level, I might not understand someone's speech even, which did happen once as I had a guy from San Francisco translate between me and a guy from a village in Idaho (we were drunk though). So while US English has had a slight influence on us, it's good to say that it's minimal, in specific cases, and that in most cases, our language is pretty much identical. Keep heading down those lanes and it's no longer sensible to ask: is it British or American? Better ask: is it UK South-East, slang, sarcastic? is it US West coast regionally specific to central California? Tough, right?
🤪 SHOCK THERAPY
👉🏻 Has it ever happened to any of you that you've been learning and learning and when you set foot down in an English speaking country, engaging with the locals was a shock to the system? (Depends how good you are of course). They were using lexis you'd never heard of, the speed of speech was uncanny etc. Yep, happened to me with German. And there's a good reason for that. The English you get in TV shows, films, even blogs, is for international audiences, standardized (for the most part) and where the piece can be edited again and again until clear and crisp. Yep, that doesn't happen when you've drunk a few pints with locals who don't grade their speech. There IS a difference between watching a film and, say, conversing with locals. I call it "Street English" or "Everyday English." This is where we Brits might have some difficulties with US English and vice-versa depending where, with whom, accent, drunk/sober, age, education... and the list goes on.
😎 Thanks for reading guys! ❤
