American Cultural Imperialism

nwallace

Read a book once with lots of 18th century quotes in it. The Duke of Argyll at the time liked replacing e's with ' and s with z.

Unfortunately I've forgotten what word it is that demonstrated this. It wasn't Appologiz'd but it demonstrated what i mean. Major Caulfield liked s and ' like Appologis'd.

Unfortunately there is a really good letter from the Perthshire commissioner of roads from the same period to Maj Cawfeld which has many non-standard spellings that make total sense when you know how older people from Perthsire speak. Unfortuante becasue I can't find it again.

Eurostar

As a one time linguistics student I can categororically state that we English formerly used zeds a lot (as in organize). We have since switched to esses, as any fule kno. Those colonial retards have not kept up.

In ye olde dayz spelling was far from normalized. Shakspere spelled his name at least three different ways.

pneumatic

Qute right! And Chaucer couldn't spell to save his life!

Hasufel

Crapaud wrote:

Hasufel wrote:

Aw jings my daughter and her friends all speak that way down here in Marlow: "It was like this one time? At band camp? cue cookie girl from American Pie

Aaarrrggggghhhh!!!

I know.... :oops:
:twisted:

passout

Have you noticed that such Americanisms don't really seem to get past the midlands and seem most common in the SE of England? Something to do with having our own daft accents up here I assume (thought I'd get it in first).

Same with Ali G speak to some extent - although it has made it to Lancashire.

Perhaps teenagers in the South feel that they need an edge for some reason or perhaps their own regional identity has been eroded somewhat?

richardjallen

Perhaps people in the North feel they need the edge so have their own regional accent. Perhaps everyone with a regional accent feels the need to have the edge and know who is not from their patch. Localism. Is that an Americanism? I'm trying to coin the phrase.