Do Americans speak English?

What is starting to get on my nerves is the slippage of american english into proper English here in the UK. People have started saying "movie" instead of film and yesterday I heard someone on TV (British) say May the 8th instead of the 8th of May. It's only a matter of time before we are all spelling things wrong, nuking children and driving on the wrong side of the road.
 
deuse said:
Wonder how many French/german and so on words do we use everyday?
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I suppose it depends how far back you want to take it but there are thousands of words in the English language which have their roots in another language. We've nicked words from our neighbours for centuries and they have likewise appropriated others in return - plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Spawn said:
Exactly...ones like scouser, scottish, and cornish..those 3 are the worst and as much as i hate having to say it...i have to keep asking those people to repeat what they just said.
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Really, you can't differentiate between Scottish accents even in a general sense? There's a massive difference between a soft lilting Highlands accent and the harsher gutteral West Coast (Glaswegian) accent, East Coasters sound different again.
 
Doesn't annoy me, both the same languages with minor changes in terms of the language itself and funny accents for the UK.
 
semi-pro waster said:
Really, you can't differentiate between Scottish accents even in a general sense? There's a massive difference between a soft lilting Highlands accent and the harsher gutteral West Coast (Glaswegian) accent, East Coasters sound different again.
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....and worst of all, the working class Aberdonian accent, which, despite living here since I was 6, I can still barely make out.

Awww, fit ye deein min? Pit it in the bug min. Da dee it like at min.
 
EvilDreams said:
....and worst of all, the working class Aberdonian accent, which, despite living here since I was 6, I can still barely make out.

Awww, fit ye deein min? Pit it in the bug min. Da dee it like at min.
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And "fit fits fit fit?" means "which one fits on which foot?"
 
EvilDreams said:
What is starting to get on my nerves is the slippage of american english into proper English here in the UK. People have started saying "movie" instead of film and yesterday I heard someone on TV (British) say May the 8th instead of the 8th of May. It's only a matter of time before we are all spelling things wrong, nuking children and driving on the wrong side of the road.
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I'm not too bothered about American words and phrases being used here, as I said in my previous post, it's the evolution of language. Why not just go with the flow instead of getting caught up in vocabularian snobbery?

I'm not even sure if that's a real word but you can understand it, so who cares? lol
 
Do Scousers speak English?
Do Geordies speak English?
Do Stokies speak English?
Do Cockneys speak English?
Do Brummies speak English?
etc
 
baz047 said:
I'm not too bothered about American words and phrases being used here, as I said in my previous post, it's the evolution of language. Why not just go with the flow instead of getting caught up in vocabularian snobbery?

I'm not even sure if that's a real word but you can understand it, so who cares? lol
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It's just one example of how we are being americanised (or is that americanized?) First the stupid people (who love it), and then, when there are too many people doing it "the american way", everyone else has to bow down to it.

Next thing you know, we'll be brutally tearing our male newborn's penises to bits with clamps.
 
EvilDreams said:
It's just one example of how we are being americanised (or is that americanized?) First the stupid people (who love it), and then, when there are too many people doing it "the american way", everyone else has to bow down to it.

Next thing you know, we'll be brutally tearing our male newborn's penises to bits with clamps.
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But that happens with lots of languages every day, English words have started to sneak into Urdu for example, it just happens, it's not one country taking over, it's just the way language moves on.

If one language NEVER influenced another I doubt we would have moved on in communication for thousands of years.

...And I think the one with the 'z' is the American spelling.
 
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"Are you on vacation?" "No I'm on holiday!"

I don't mind americanisms said by americans but any english person who uses them instead of the english variant is and idiot or someone who spends too much time on the internet.

An english person cannot say mom because it's mum or mother!

But yes Americans do speak English
 
So do us English speak American then? If we use phrases such as, 'Hey', 'movies', and the like? - Does it work the other way around too?
 
Just reading this thread it's starting to look like people are having difficulty differentiating between Americanisms and their British varient.

I swear the amount of people in my school who spelt it 'center' and not 'centre'. Even though personaly I prefer the first one. seems more balanced...if that makes ANY sense to anyone else. lol
 
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