Americanisms, and the evolution of language

[apple_pathways]

The planets have aligned once again to provide me with a topic for blogging: faery_fall posted a video of Stephen Fry discussing language as part of her 15 Day Meme, and fail_fandomanon had a discussion thread wherein a poster was complaining about the comments to an article on the BBC website about Americanisms creeping into British language. Surely these two occurrences are more than worthy of a mash-up here on this journal?

First, full confession: I used to be a total grammar pedant. I love language, and I love grammar! Mine is a brain easily seduced by the idea that there's a 'correct way' and an 'incorrect way' to do things. I love the idea that things can be done with "perfection", and I love to torture myself with the idea that perfection is obtainable. Unfortunately, I have a sneaking suspicion that it's not obtainable: or even desirable! And yet, despite a couple years of linguistics courses, my grammar pedantry persisted for years.

I can remember the exact day I gave it up.

I went to visit a close friend of mine: we were going swimming at the pool in her parent's condo complex. Before heading off, we chose reading material from her collection to read poolside. I was excited to discover she owned a copy of Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, by Lynne Truss, a book I'd been eying up in stores for months. I delight in learning grammar and punctuation rules the way sports enthusiasts obsess over the minutiae of the game.

I could barely make my way more than a few pages in before I was absolutely disgusted with the tone of the book: the way the author describes the shrieking paroxyisms of pain she experiences at the sight of a misplaced apostrophe! The agony of inadequate commas! Incorrect capitalization! Oh, the horror! THE HORROR!

*eyeroll* Please! It didn't take me long to realize I didn't want to give people the same vibe I was getting from this author.

After that experience, I quit cold turkey: no more complaining about the "10 Items or Less" line at Trader Joe's. No more "it's 'whom', not 'who'!" No more "better than 'they', not better than 'them'"!

(I still do have my Do Not Cross lines: it's "should have" or "should've", not "should of"!!! I am taking that one to the grave...)

All of this is to say: I know where these angry commenters are coming from. Really, I do! But...well, just look:

(These are responses readers sent in in response to the article about Americanisms creeping into British culture. I cherry-picked the most hyperbolic responses. You can read all of them in the article listed at the end of this post.) (Bolding is mine.)

14. I caught myself saying "shopping cart" instead of shopping trolley today and was thoroughly disgusted with myself. I've never lived nor been to the US either. Graham Nicholson, Glasgow

22. Train station. My teeth are on edge every time I hear it. Who started it? Have they been punished? Chris Capewell, Queens Park, London

27. "Oftentimes" just makes me shiver with annoyance. Fortunately I've not noticed it over here yet. John, London (Then why are you mentioning it?)

29. I'm a Brit living in New York. The one that always gets me is the American need to use the word bi-weekly when fortnightly would suffice just fine. Ami Grewal, New York

50. "I could care less" instead of "I couldn't care less" has to be the worst. Opposite meaning of what they're trying to say. Jonathan, Birmingham


(I had to mention that last one, as I've heard it before. It's actually a misunderstanding of the American phrase: "I could care less" is meant sarcastically.)

I have to confess that whenever the discussion of Americanisms comes up, I tend to find myself confused: America is a big country, and some vocabularly is not as wide-spread as one might imagine.

I remember listening to one of my favorite BBC radio programs, when one of the hosts started talking about a program on language that they'd recently listened to. He started talking about the phrase "tit-bits". "Did you know it's actually supposed to be 'tid-bits'?" he said. "'Tit-bits' is an Americanism!"

This was news to me! I've always said "tid-bits", and I'd never heard "tit bits" before I started listening to that program! It might be a genuine Americanism (as I said: it's a big country, and I'm not familiar with all its vocabulary) but I can't imagine that it is: mostly because the word 'tit' is much more common in the UK. I think it's considered a much ruder term in the US.

Which is to say: it's often confusing what terms and phrases are attributed to one country or another. Some 'Americanisms' actually originated in the UK, but fell out of use there before being re-imported via American media. Some Americanisms, reviled at their introduction, have simply merged with the language and become common use everywhere English is spoken: 'lengthy', 'reliable', 'talented', 'influential', and 'tremendous' all originated in the Colonies. (The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge was particularly disgusted with the word 'talented'. Read the article listed at the end of this entry for more!)

(Lest anyone think all the Brits are hyperbolically annoyed, here's my favorite reader quote from the article:

19. I enjoy Americanisms. I suspect even some Americans use them in a tongue-in-cheek manner? "That statement was the height of ridiculosity". Bob, Edinburgh

*touches nose* Bingo! Somebody get Bob a prize... And yes. I made up the word 'hyperbolically' to illustrate Bob's point!)

There are many Americanisms I wouldn't bother to defend. No, I take that back: I wouldn't bother to defend any of them! Because that's not how language works. Societies don't choose their vocabulary by committee: language evolves, with little influence from most individuals. (Oh, that I had the influence of Shakespeare and all of the many words he coined!)

The concluding point of the original article is that the author mourns the erosion of British culture as distinct from American culture. I can see why that would be worrying: the increasing globalization of the world means that a lot of change is happening very quickly, and I'm sure all sorts of culture and customs get lost in the shuffle. I just wonder if policing language is the tact to take? (I don't think so. Language evolves, and there's not much use in trying to stop it.)

I do think I might have lost the point in this long ramble of an article: I think mostly I want to spark discussion, as I love talking about language! So, here's a list of discussion questions, followed by a list of resources:

• Do you have an unfavorite Americanism?
  
• What about your grammar and/or punctuation pet peeves?
  
• Pro or anti-pedant?
  
• How do you feel about the natural evolution of language? Should we try to prevent it from happening in certain instances, or stand out of its way?
  
• Any favorite language anecdotes or facts to share?

Resources:

Stephen Fry! (The video faery_fall posted.)

The BBC articles:
Viewpoint: Why do some Americanisms irritate people?
Americanisms: 50 of your most noted examples

Separated By a Common Language: I should have guessed that she would be discussing these articles! :P I was merely going to suggest this as an excellent blog dealing with the differences between American and British English. It's written by an American linguist living in the UK.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I thought you had for a while... :O
I had tried to comment on your last two or three entries and it wasn't working at all, just giving me errors.

Would you be able to point me in the direction of your sources regarding could/couldn't issue? Let's just say it will take a lot to convince me and I have plenty of ammunition with which to counter the sarcasm or irony position. I don't want to argue though, I'm just really curious as to how someone with a literary bent like yourself comes to be on that particular side of the fence.

I have another question which may not be related to American English. Do you say (or have you heard others say and cringed) "somewhat of a _____," instead of "____ is somewhat _____" or "something of a ____"?

Also, sorry for not participating the the Q & A, I'm launching forth on a tangent.

[apple-pathways.livejournal.com]

Oh no--LJ has been under DDoS attack for the last week or so, and hence the inability to access livejournal! I haven't turned off anonymous commenting at any point.

As for my original source of the "could care less" having a sarcastic meaning? I have no idea what it is! But here are some resources: here and here.

The point is: both "I could care less" and "I couldn't care less" are idioms. Since when do we expect idioms to make logical sense?

Do you say (or have you heard others say and cringed) "somewhat of a _____," instead of "____ is somewhat _____" or "something of a ____"?

I'm not positive: perhaps if you gave more context as to when one might use the phrase? I can't say that "somewhat" is generally part of my vocabulary, though.

If you're wondering if the phrase is an Americanism: it very well could be! As I said, it's a big country, with more regional variation than Americans themselves often realize. Despite a particular sort of American English being most common in our media, there still are regional phrasings that sound more natural on the tongue. :D

[stick-poker.livejournal.com]

Idiom is the thing. 'Could care less' has become an idiom so while we can guess that as it was first used it was used sarcastically, there are probably now a lot of people saying it without really thinking about what it means, just using it as an idiomatic phrase, so without the sarcasm, which means it technically doesn't make any sense. I mean, what the hell, it doesn't matter because we all understand what it means (if we didn't how would we know what they 'ought' to be saying?) but I can see how it's also understandable to be irritated by it when people say it in the non-sarcastic, idiomatic way, the way that you can tell they'd look at you funny if you decided to point out what they'd actually said.

My pet hate on that front is that a surprising number of people say 'cheap at half the price' when they mean 'cheap at twice the price'; I'm sure 'cheap at half the price' was a originally a sarcastic version, but now people just say it, and don't seem to realise what they're saying. And look at me funny if I point it out.

[apple-pathways.livejournal.com]

'Could care less' has become an idiom so while we can guess that as it was first used it was used sarcastically, there are probably now a lot of people saying it without really thinking about what it means, just using it as an idiomatic phrase,

Ashamedly, this only occurred to me later! (After making my initial argument.) I just assumed that because I mean it sarcastically, so must everyone. I've since come across a lot of discussion from Americans who feel the same way, but also a lot of doubt as to the actual origins of the variation.

Although I can't say that I can see being any more irritated by that one than by any other idiom. Though I have discovered through trolling the internets that it is singled-out as a particularly hated phrase for many Brits, which goes a long way toward explaining the intensity of the reaction to it! John Cleese made a rant similar to David Mitchell's: (Shame on you, David, you hack! ;)



And I've never heard the expression "cheap at half the price" before: is it wrong that I'm tucking it away into my arsenal should this thorny "could/couldn't care less" debate crop up again? :P

[stick-poker.livejournal.com]

It feels like a guilty admission after all this but I don't mind it as a phrase; it doesn't push my buttons, not the way 'cheap at half the price' does. I mean, yes, I entirely understand the issue, but I could care less about it. *grins*

[apple-pathways.livejournal.com]

I'm not particularly invested in its use one way or the other, either! (My inner pedant, shocked and appalled that we might be doing something incorrectly, would have no trouble bullying the rest of me into submission and changing my personal use of the phrase!) (And discovering that this is, indeed, the way I actually talk when engaged in intellectual discussion, are you at all surprised to discover that people usually expect me to fall on the other side of this debate? :P)

*sigh* One of these days I'll learn not to throw myself whole-heartedly into every discussion as if it were my gospel truth!

[zolac-no-miko.livejournal.com]

I would not be surprised if many Americans used "could care less" without even thinking about the literal meaning and whether or not it is sarcastic, but I think this point from the first link in apple_pathways' comment above is very telling:

Stephen Pinker, in The Language Instinct, points out that the pattern of intonation in the two versions is very different.

There’s a close link between the stress pattern of I could care less and the kind that appears in certain sarcastic or self-deprecatory phrases that are associated with the Yiddish heritage and (especially) New York Jewish speech. Perhaps the best known is "I should be so lucky!", in which the real sense is often “I have no hope of being so lucky”, a closely similar stress pattern with the same sarcastic inversion of meaning. There’s no evidence to suggest that I could care less came directly from Yiddish, but the similarity is suggestive. There are other American expressions that have a similar sarcastic inversion of apparent sense, such as "Tell me about it!", which usually means “Don’t tell me about it, because I know all about it already”. These may come from similar sources.

It's definitely true that you use different intonation when you say, "I could care less," as compared to when you say, "I couldn't care less." It's the intonation in "I could care less" that makes me think, "Oh! Sarcasm."

I also think it's funny that so many Brits seem to be hung up on this idiom more than any of the myriad others that seem to be equally nonsensical.

...Regardless, this is not just a British vs. American argument. Just a week and a half ago I had a conversation with my mother, uncle, and aunt, all of us thoroughly American, and the topics of "I could care less" vs. "I couldn't care less" and the different understandings of the phrase "begs the question" came up spontaneously.