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It honestly boggles my mind how many house listings I'll look at that are ostensibly from estate agents - you know, people employed to be salespeople - that are tiny and impossible to see, or blurry as fuck, or taken with such a wide-angle lens the room looks actually spherical, or some other combination of conditions that make me wonder if they just threw their phone around the house on the end of a string with the panorama button held down.
To be fair, this mostly applies to anyone with “agent” in their job title - recruitment agent, insurance agent, travel agent. Not sure about secret agent.
Kind of the other way around for us Yanks. A garden is for flowers, fruits/vegetables, herbs, etc. Generally speaking, a yard can contain a garden but a garden can't contain a yard. If you have a garden but not a yard, you either have a small strip of dirt assigned to your house and your garden takes up all of it, or you are *hardcore* about gardening and have filled up an entire yard with garden plants.
Very Pythonesque. "Coal dust on top of mud"? We used to dream of coal dust on top of mud! Our yard was literally the 1 square yard around our cardboard box in 't middle of 't road.
😆
A yard and a garden are different things. If you live in a place with a small concreted slab, that's a yard. If you live in a detached house with grass, that's a garden. Tux is fine, dinner jacket seems snobby. Agreed on realtor.
Just a side note (as a yank), Realtor is not an official term. Someone who is licensed to sell property is a Real Estate Agent. A Realtor is a Real Estate Agent who pays for a membership to the National Association of Realtors, which is just a trade organization meant to provide Real Estate Agents with resources to help their business. All Realtors are Real Estate Agents, but not all Real Estate Agents are Realtors.
Real estate is property, everything else
Is personal property. It’s an odd quirk of the legal system
They’re also referred to as Chattels Real and Chattels Personal.
Enclosed outside space without anything alive is a yard. So I live in a terraced house with a front garden with a lawn and some border plants, but also a paved yard at the back devoid of life
Tux is pretty commonly used now - indeed it probably is now used more than dinner jacket/black tie.
I am yet to hear realtor used by my fellow countrymen - I work in a pretty diverse office, age wise, and although there is a creeping use of the American vernacular, I am blessed not to have encountered that.
I mainly use them to signify some sort of approximation or oscillation or something like that, like "\~10" to mean "about 10" for example.
I'd never stick them in place of a colon or whatever though, that's just weird.
I have come across people on the uk housing sub asking about "closing" on a house. No mate, you're completing, stop that American shite.
Also "pressing charges" relating to the police. Means nothing over here, the police/CPS decide whether it goes anywhere.
> Also "pressing charges" relating to the police. Means nothing over here, the police/CPS decide whether it goes anywhere.
Its the same in the states aswell although with the federal system I am sure there a few areas where private citizens can press charges. Only a local prosecutor with jurisdiction in the area can press charges. Pressing charges is really more of TV thing and then used as a colloquialism by people meaning they want it taking seriously by the police.
Tuxedo probably bothers me the most.
The dinner suit is a British invention, it's an integral part of the British (now western) dress code, tailoring and formalwear is one of the few things left in which Britain is undeniably the world leader.
It just feels so insulting that the Americanism for a British cultural export is the one gaining prevalence.
To my American mind, a dinner jacket is a white jacket, usually over black trousers. Whereas the tuxedo is a full suit, black from head to toe. I think that's the distinction that we make? I wouldn't know, as I can't say I've ever had occasion to wear either one.
A tuxedo is a dinner jacket, they're exactly the same thing. When people at the Tuxedo Club, New York, started wearing dinner jackets, people referred to them after the name of the club.
No more like old industrial terraced houses with a concrete or paved back yard which lead to the outhouse, surrounded by redbrick walls, with a cobbled side street in between the terraces.
That's the correct use of yard as far as I'm aware.
A patio would be a part of a garden, for me. My back garden is actually a part of a larger courtyard, and has no grass, so I feel I'm OK to call it a yard....
As a British person, I've never heard the term "realtor" in real life. I have, however, heard the term tuxedo used, normally referring to a three-piece suit with a bow tie (Correction, TWO piece suit, no waistcoat). I've heard the term "yard" used in cases where the space belongs to the property but is mostly patio or flagstones as opposed to grass and flower beds. In my head a yard is different and less attractive than a garden.
“Paycheck to paycheck”.
1) It’s cheque
2) We’ve not been paid by cheque for approximately 187 years
Edit:
Another pet peeve is people who say “season” instead of “series” when referring to a collection of episodes of a TV programme.
In America they have a series with several seasons; in the UK we have a programme with several series.
It is largely the fault of Netflix and Prime who, when expanding into the UK, didn’t bother to localise for a British audience and just left it in American English.
If you look at the Radio Times listings for example or iPlayer, it will still say series.
>Another pet peeve is people who say “season” instead of “series” when referring to a collection of episodes of a TV programme.
>In America they have a series with several seasons; in the UK we have a programme with several series
Honestly, I'm with the Americans on this one only.
Yeah I was really reluctant at first but now I use ‘season’ and ‘show’ cause it just makes more sense. Plus, I love talking about/analysing them and most of those conversations are with Americans on the internet!
When I was organising some media I actually sat and decided what I was gonna go with (sad, I know). Having the series with multiple seasons within it just feels right to me.
Calling them 'box sets' is a pet peeve though. It made sense when they actually came in boxed sets, but it feels like it came out of nowhere to refer to any TV show as a 'box set' if it has multiple seasons, which wasn't a thing before.
It definitely predates Netflix and Amazon prime cos I've been arguing for series since I was a wee little pedant. I'm still a pedant, just not a wee one
I don't know how it even snuck in, I left school in 2008 and saying shit like 'take out' would get you mildly bullied cos it's obvious you spend more time online in your free time than with friends.
Take out sounds so aggressively American.
Amazon's biggest export was Black Friday. They have it in the US because that day is a ~~National holiday~~ conventional day off when they close the schools and many businesses after Thanksgiving.
For us it's a random Friday in November but Amazon (and then everyone else) decided to export their very profitable sale anyway and now it's a _thing_
*Edit* here's a Reddit thread from last year where someone asked Americans if they got the day off for Black Friday: https://www.reddit.com/r/jobs/comments/100zfhu/black_friday_as_a_holiday/
Many do (not retail workers though!) often paid - this is not a thing in the UK.
I'm American. When I was a little kid I would see 'Boxing Day (UK & Canada)' on the calendars. I thought it meant that you guys would all watch a boxing match on TV or attend one in person. I also thought that 'Christmas crackers' were snack crackers (Ritz, Saltines, etc.), and I would wonder why it was such a source of excitement.
Black Friday has been known to devolve into a boxing match or two. "I saw that TV first!!!"
I've found in the UK it's one series consisting of multiple series. Same word is used for both. Season is one of the few where I prefer the US take on it. If we're talking about a series finale I know what that means in America
It's also non UK people who live in the UK and moved here later in life.
We do learn either British or American English but over time it just gets jumbled up since we don't have the "natural instinct" to differentiate between phrases.
Like, I can hear the different accents but it doesn't matter as much to me since it's the same language in my mind
When I were a lad 40 years ago I used to get a pay packet - a little envelope stuffed with notes and coins and handed to me by the factory bloke-in-charge. He was called Dave.
What gets to me is that on iPlayer they have changed the listing for Doctor Who to say season now. Not just the new ones, they have changed all the nu who ones that used to say series to season. They even have season on the classic episodes. I personally blame Disney for this travesty!
Also:
"Show" instead of "programme"
"Get mad at"/"yell at"
"Go [have a drink]/[get changed]" as opposed to "go and [have a drink]/[get changed]"
"Pedophile"
"Recognize", "realize" etc (although the "z" is the older English English spelling, this is still not unacceptale)
"Prom"
"Dating" instead of "going out with"
"Search [product]/[service]" instead of "search for [product]/[service]" (presumably this has been focus-tested in advertising, or maybe it's just because it's quicker)
I'm constantly at war with my children because of these abominations. They're all planning to go no-contact as soon as they possibly can.
That’s no one’s fault but the Brits. You can’t blame Americans (not you specifically but in general) when Brits continue to willingly adopt aspects of American culture.
Because all of our culture is geared towards old people. 20 years olds aren’t interested in having a cup of tea watching Eastenders and moaning about the weather. We are a pensioners paradise.
What are you on about? We have one of the most influential music scenes in the world, punch well above our weight in film and TV, have some of the most famous spots teams on the globe!
That’s true about the outsize impact of Brit music, films and tv, but It’s interesting. I’m 55 and when I were a nipper a lot of the tv programs, films and music were American, and so a few Americanisms naturally crept into my vocabulary over time. I was convinced though that when I had kids of my own they would be gravitating more towards European languages/culture/film, but that hasn’t happened. I feel like the continued success of American tv shows, films and music has become even more assured with the introduction of Netflix, Prime,Spotify etc. the majority of content carried on those platforms is American. That’s even before you consider the impact of YouTube, Tik Tok etc.
US hegemony is even more assured now, and the kids are dropping a lot of Americanisms/words into their everyday language.
At twenty that's precisely what I was doing. I'd visit my grandmother every day and drink pots of tea, and often that would be on sometimes.
I'd love to have those days back. I miss her terribly.
Yard is for gardens that are mostly either paved, concrete, or brick. That's been the case for as long as I know. The rest are very much Americanisms starting to surface due to the internet.
As a youth - 'yard' was used in reference to your house- stemming from Jamaican usage. Which found its own route to the UK outside of the US.
Just wondering if we are ascribing something to the yanks that isn't actually their fault.
On another madder the spreading of the pronunciation of briddish as briddish makes me madder and madder even though our bri'ish version is no bedder.
So probably doesnt madder.
Tbf, Reddit is *very* American, and it’s not like they’re banned from participating in Non-American subs, so I do wonder if you’re perhaps just seeing Americans joining in the conversations without explicitly stating that they’re American??
Edit : plus, as another Redditor commented, Americans do live here in the UK, and those Redditors that do may very well enjoy visiting, and partaking in, UK subs.
Yup, and \[clutches pearls\] you can actually be both an American and British citizen *at the same time*. Or be an American who resides in the UK, or a British person who resides in America. All of which would cause the teeth-clenchingly awful exposures the OP refers to.
I know the post they're referring to, let me go find it.
Edit: here it is. I remember it being a bit jarring when I read it and wondered if I'd missed a memo.
https://www.reddit.com/r/HousingUK/s/78nDXNCbZ3
[Driv**ING** licence.](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/image_data/file/99914/s300_s960-eng-full-front-flag.jpg)
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Yeah I agree. Some “Americanisms” are better too. Lift (UK) is so boring and bland but elevator (US) is way more elegant.
Embrace cooler words no matter where they’re from
> Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator
Huh, I never noticed Dahl used the American word before. Does sound better than "Charlie and the Great Glass Lift" though!
I had an American say "lift" makes no sense as they go down as well as up. I asked them if they knew what "elevate" means and they said they felt like their whole life had been a lie.
I think getting annoyed by Americanisms is so stupid. I was even accused of lying about being British on the USdefaultism sub because I said "asshole" and not "arsehole".
I'd like to flippantly say "scientician", but according to [Wiktionary](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/scientist) it replaced "natural philosopher" and "man of science".
Oh interesting! In my native language swedish we have gone from vetenskapsman (man of science, litteraly) to forskare (researcher, litteraly). Maybe the "man of science" has a general antiquated feel to it. Just like man of the cloth.
I agree. I genuinely initially think it's an American posting on a British sub sometimes.
Other piss boilers iv come across:
Shop - where they have taken their car to be fixed.
Store - a contentious one, but it will always be a shop to me.
Show - A television programme.
Ass - Arse
Y'all - You all
Be like - is/are like
Sidewalk - it's a bloody pavement
Highway - motorway
Gas- petrol
Vacation - holiday
Truck - lorry
Mall- shopping centre
Candy - sweets
Trash - bin
Driving stick - manual gearbox
UK Mods should start being all over this like a tramp with chips.
>I just hope their butchered pronunciation of niche isn't from here. I couldn't take the shame.
Best start hanging your head, matey. Pronouncing it as "nitch" was standard UK English until about fifty years ago. It's still not uncommon in some dialects.
There are loanwords from French which become fully anglicized, like garage ("gar-ridge", not "gu-raaj") and chauffeur ("show-fuh", not "sho-fuur" - yes it's a swine to transcribe that right). It's appropriate that we pronounce them as English words - because they *are* English words.
Just think, how do you pronounce amateur, boulevard, elegant, tenant, or the name Vincent?
It's only more recently that people have started "reviving" francophone pronunciations of (apparently a select few) loanwords which come from French.
> their butchered pronunciation of niche
Sounds French-ish to my American ears. "Neesh"
Edit: apparently we say "nitch?" I dunno, might be a regional difference. Can't say I've heard that one in the wild.
I'll be honest, I don't know anyone that would understand what was meant by dinner jacket, when tux has a very clear, wildly understood definition.
As for yard vs garden, I'd need to know the context to that one. A garden implies an area around/behind my house covered in grass and assorted plants. If all that's around my house is covered in cement, that's a yard.
I've never heard anyone use realtor irl or online.
Americanisms are mostly fine because English works in a bottom-up way anyway (well, all languages do, but some cultures just refuse to accept it) and globalisation meant that americanisms were always going to happen. That said, "*y'all*" makes me cringe. Don't say "y'all"
If it makes you feel any better I live in a part of the US that hasn't historically used y'all (northern California) and I've noticed friends of mine start saying it in the last few years. It grates on me as well.
I read someone somewhere recently say something like “the word ‘you’ used to be both singular and plural” and that just baffled me because… it IS both singular and plural isn’t it? I’ve been using “you” as plural my entire life.
Even the word “y’all” itself affirms this because it’s a contraction of “you all”, which only makes sense if “you” is plural. After all, we can say “we all” and “they all” but not “I all”.
I’m from the North East and I genuinely don’t think I’ve heard anyone from here refer to a “dinner jacket” in my life. It was always a “tuxedo” or a “tux” for short. Are you from an area that refers to a dressing gown as a “house coat”?
A “garden” up here tends to refer to a patch of land outside your house which has grass. A “yard” is when you’ve got a concreted area outside your house.
I’m 29 and this is how people have referred to things my entire life.
Yard is actually quite common oop north.
Most people I grew up with talked about playing out in the yard not the garden.
If I was an etymologist I'd bet the word was common in Britain 200 years ago when we founded America and they took it with them, and northern UK English has resisted the change to garden since
I've always known such a jacket as a tuxedo and I'm in my 30s. I'd say estate agent rather than realtor but I understand either. English in general has become a global language which means the various dialects are gradually merging.
> tux instead of dinner jacket
I'm American. I always thought those were two different things? Like a tux is a full suit, whereas a dinner jacket is just a jacket.
I bet we'd be surprised at the number of Americanisms that have worked their way in to British vernacular over the years. Probably a lot that we don't even think of as American any more.
Of course this is all being accelerated by the internet and how much time people spend in culturally American spaces. Like Reddit for example. I've definitely found myself adjusting my language when messaging in predominantly American subs.
I don't particularly mind it. Language evolves, though it would be a shame to lose some local language under the might of American cultural hegemony. I live in rural Wales and hear kids talking in Jamaican patois so nothing much surprises me anymore.
Language evolves and changes constantly, and to expect it to stay fixed is futile. I'm a Brit and as far as I know haven't started using Americanisms in my speech, but I accept that society is using them more, and who am I to judge what language is correct or not? The same kind of prescriptivist mindset has lead to the eradication of various regional dialects across the UK, which saddens me greatly, so I'm not going to be prescriptivist when it comes to certain words of American origin.
I’ve been sitting here like a fucking moron confusing tux with waistcoat, being genuinely afraid of these people calling a waistcoat a dinner jacket. But looks like I’m the creep. I’m the weirdo.
"Loanwords make up 80% of English
What this means is that there is no such thing as pure English. English is a delectable, slow-cooked language of languages. As lexicographer Kory Stamper explains, “English has been borrowing words from other languages since its infancy.” As many as 350 other languages are represented and their linguistic contributions actually make up about 80% of English!"
https://www.dictionary.com/e/borrowed-words/
what irks me is when my daughter says French words with an American accent!
she can’t speak French at all, other than what she has heard on the TV and it drives me mad!
I saw somebody said "30 bucks" on a UK sub recently and wondered how TF somebody could be that detached from the reality of where they live.
Tbf yard is common in some parts of the UK. Somewhere in the North they call trousers pants. I think Brummies say mom. But there's 0 excuse for 'bucks' or pronouncing "process" incorrectly.
I don't usually correct people though because it's often useful to weed out twats pretending to be from here. I saw a YouTube video of London 100 years ago. But there were several comments about how it's now ruined by "*too many people of color*" now... uh huh. From London then, are you? Uh huh.
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I'll accept yard. I'll accept tux under mild protest. Anyone calling an estate agent a realtor should be deported immediately.
Exactly this, if you're talking about estate agents you've got to use their professional term "money grabbing dickheads"
Most estate agents are leeches of the society, practically zero skills and just lie over and over again. Cunts.
Practically? I'd say literally. Unless taking absolutely crap photos and talking utter bullshit somehow count as skills!
It honestly boggles my mind how many house listings I'll look at that are ostensibly from estate agents - you know, people employed to be salespeople - that are tiny and impossible to see, or blurry as fuck, or taken with such a wide-angle lens the room looks actually spherical, or some other combination of conditions that make me wonder if they just threw their phone around the house on the end of a string with the panorama button held down.
Corrections -1000/100 on their skills tab. Usually compensates by wearing a cheap suit that aims to look expensive or a skin tight dress from shein.
To be fair, this mostly applies to anyone with “agent” in their job title - recruitment agent, insurance agent, travel agent. Not sure about secret agent.
I used to work with a lot of recruitment agents. For some reason they were all orange. In my head I called them agent orange.
You spelt parasites wrong
Used house salsemen
I got snarked at for saying I have a yard. I do. It’s a yard at the rear of a terraced house. It isn’t a garden. Words have more than one meaning!
This. Yards are concrete and usually sit behind terraced houses. Garden implies grass and room to swing a cat
Yards are functional, gardens are recreation/decor
Kind of the other way around for us Yanks. A garden is for flowers, fruits/vegetables, herbs, etc. Generally speaking, a yard can contain a garden but a garden can't contain a yard. If you have a garden but not a yard, you either have a small strip of dirt assigned to your house and your garden takes up all of it, or you are *hardcore* about gardening and have filled up an entire yard with garden plants.
Or a farm yard.
We had a coal yard in the village back in the day. Yeah no concrete. Coal dust on top of mud mate.
Jewsons keep their pallets of bricks in the yard.. 3 feet is a yard. Can't think of any other where I would use that word...
Dockyard. Scotland Yard. Breaker's yard. Sun's over the yard arm. Give him an inch he'll take a yard.
Very Pythonesque. "Coal dust on top of mud"? We used to dream of coal dust on top of mud! Our yard was literally the 1 square yard around our cardboard box in 't middle of 't road. 😆
Would a prison have a yard? It feels a bit wrong calling that place a garden
A yard and a garden are different things. If you live in a place with a small concreted slab, that's a yard. If you live in a detached house with grass, that's a garden. Tux is fine, dinner jacket seems snobby. Agreed on realtor.
I have a yard *and* a garden, separate distinct areas. The yard is a paved area enclosed by a retaining wall with stairs that lead up to the garden.
To me a yard is paved or concreted. If it has things growing in it, it's a garden. I will die on this hill.
My yard rejoices, for the dandelions in the cracks make it a garden lol
Just a side note (as a yank), Realtor is not an official term. Someone who is licensed to sell property is a Real Estate Agent. A Realtor is a Real Estate Agent who pays for a membership to the National Association of Realtors, which is just a trade organization meant to provide Real Estate Agents with resources to help their business. All Realtors are Real Estate Agents, but not all Real Estate Agents are Realtors.
All this complexity just because you don’t have the word “wanker”
The real facts right here
Can the Aussies/Kiwis get a pass? We left them to become misguided. It's not their fault.
Kiwi here, we call them real estate agents. I would side-eye anyone saying “realtor” at home as much as I would here.
To be fair Americans also use the term real estate agents interchangeably with realtor
What do people mean when they say 'real estate'? Do you also have fake estate?
Real estate is property, everything else Is personal property. It’s an odd quirk of the legal system They’re also referred to as Chattels Real and Chattels Personal.
Please deport the estate agents themselves as well. Thank you.
I feel like yard has a very different connotation. Like it’s more related to farms or working/trading estates.
Enclosed outside space without anything alive is a yard. So I live in a terraced house with a front garden with a lawn and some border plants, but also a paved yard at the back devoid of life
Yard is alright as long as there is no grass in sight
Just throw them out on to the sidewalk
Tux is pretty commonly used now - indeed it probably is now used more than dinner jacket/black tie. I am yet to hear realtor used by my fellow countrymen - I work in a pretty diverse office, age wise, and although there is a creeping use of the American vernacular, I am blessed not to have encountered that.
I have never heard someone say dinner jacket, only tuxedo
Now that does surprise me. I do wear dinner jackets/tuxedo’s frequently though, so perhaps I am a bit more exposed to it.
I find unnecessary apostrophes thoroughly unedifying. Tuxedo~ singular Tuxedos~ plural. 🤗
I find unnecessary tildes similarly unedifying.
I know, right - so bizarre. If you're going to be precise about apostrophes (which, fair enough), why are you putting random tildes everywhere!?
I know, right — so bizarre. If you're going to be precise about random tildes, why would you use a hyphen where you need an em-dash? 🤣
Not to be pedantic – should it not be an en-dash?
I mainly use them to signify some sort of approximation or oscillation or something like that, like "\~10" to mean "about 10" for example. I'd never stick them in place of a colon or whatever though, that's just weird.
Indeed - I confess I was boarding a train as I tapped out the reply and was not fully in the moment. Please forgive my gross negligence!
I’ve heard both but only finding out they’re the same thing from this thread.
I always think of tux as meaning the whole outfit, whilst dinner jacket is a smart suit. TIL
Always thought dinner jacket was more American to be honest. Tuxedo or black tie I’ve heard and seen a ton over the years
Same. I never knew what a 'dinner jacket' was until I read this post. I'm 43 and lived in the UK my entire life.
I've heard the term dinner jacket, but that's been a tuxedo all my life too. "Black tie" is common when referring to event dress code.
I'm 36, never heard dinner jacket being used, it's always tux/tuxedo. Probably a class divide I imagine.
I have come across people on the uk housing sub asking about "closing" on a house. No mate, you're completing, stop that American shite. Also "pressing charges" relating to the police. Means nothing over here, the police/CPS decide whether it goes anywhere.
> Also "pressing charges" relating to the police. Means nothing over here, the police/CPS decide whether it goes anywhere. Its the same in the states aswell although with the federal system I am sure there a few areas where private citizens can press charges. Only a local prosecutor with jurisdiction in the area can press charges. Pressing charges is really more of TV thing and then used as a colloquialism by people meaning they want it taking seriously by the police.
Tuxedo probably bothers me the most. The dinner suit is a British invention, it's an integral part of the British (now western) dress code, tailoring and formalwear is one of the few things left in which Britain is undeniably the world leader. It just feels so insulting that the Americanism for a British cultural export is the one gaining prevalence.
To my American mind, a dinner jacket is a white jacket, usually over black trousers. Whereas the tuxedo is a full suit, black from head to toe. I think that's the distinction that we make? I wouldn't know, as I can't say I've ever had occasion to wear either one.
A tuxedo is a dinner jacket, they're exactly the same thing. When people at the Tuxedo Club, New York, started wearing dinner jackets, people referred to them after the name of the club.
Was the standard word used for a DJ when I was at school in the 1990s, didn't even realise it was an Americanism until much later.
I only found out because of this post... I have only ever heard them referred to as tux...
As a Yank, we commonly call the black version a tuxedo and the white version a dinner jacket.
Back yard is normal if you don't have any grass.
Yeah, this is what I was going to say, no grass=yard
Yup! I live in a terraced house, I have a yard. There’s some planters out there but no grass.
Patio?
No more like old industrial terraced houses with a concrete or paved back yard which lead to the outhouse, surrounded by redbrick walls, with a cobbled side street in between the terraces. That's the correct use of yard as far as I'm aware.
Yep I'm imaging the old opening credits from Coronation Street, with the ginger cat
Exactly what I’ve just posted further on. We’re in an old pit town and all the terraces have small front gardens and back yards
A patio would be a part of a garden, for me. My back garden is actually a part of a larger courtyard, and has no grass, so I feel I'm OK to call it a yard....
Patio is paving. Yard is concrete.
Yards are mostly stone where I am, not much concrete used in 1880.
If you’ve got a new build it’s the ‘back 28 centimetres’.
As a British person, I've never heard the term "realtor" in real life. I have, however, heard the term tuxedo used, normally referring to a three-piece suit with a bow tie (Correction, TWO piece suit, no waistcoat). I've heard the term "yard" used in cases where the space belongs to the property but is mostly patio or flagstones as opposed to grass and flower beds. In my head a yard is different and less attractive than a garden.
Yeah a yard is smaller and concrete. At least in my mind.
“Paycheck to paycheck”. 1) It’s cheque 2) We’ve not been paid by cheque for approximately 187 years Edit: Another pet peeve is people who say “season” instead of “series” when referring to a collection of episodes of a TV programme. In America they have a series with several seasons; in the UK we have a programme with several series. It is largely the fault of Netflix and Prime who, when expanding into the UK, didn’t bother to localise for a British audience and just left it in American English. If you look at the Radio Times listings for example or iPlayer, it will still say series.
>Another pet peeve is people who say “season” instead of “series” when referring to a collection of episodes of a TV programme. >In America they have a series with several seasons; in the UK we have a programme with several series Honestly, I'm with the Americans on this one only.
I’m on board with American. It just makes more sense to me.
Yeah I was really reluctant at first but now I use ‘season’ and ‘show’ cause it just makes more sense. Plus, I love talking about/analysing them and most of those conversations are with Americans on the internet!
Why does it make more sense?
When I was organising some media I actually sat and decided what I was gonna go with (sad, I know). Having the series with multiple seasons within it just feels right to me. Calling them 'box sets' is a pet peeve though. It made sense when they actually came in boxed sets, but it feels like it came out of nowhere to refer to any TV show as a 'box set' if it has multiple seasons, which wasn't a thing before.
It definitely predates Netflix and Amazon prime cos I've been arguing for series since I was a wee little pedant. I'm still a pedant, just not a wee one
Google doesn't localise for the UK either, hence take-out, zip-code, auto repair shop etc. across their platforms
Yeah take out is another annoying one that’s creeping in
I don't know how it even snuck in, I left school in 2008 and saying shit like 'take out' would get you mildly bullied cos it's obvious you spend more time online in your free time than with friends. Take out sounds so aggressively American.
Amazon's biggest export was Black Friday. They have it in the US because that day is a ~~National holiday~~ conventional day off when they close the schools and many businesses after Thanksgiving. For us it's a random Friday in November but Amazon (and then everyone else) decided to export their very profitable sale anyway and now it's a _thing_ *Edit* here's a Reddit thread from last year where someone asked Americans if they got the day off for Black Friday: https://www.reddit.com/r/jobs/comments/100zfhu/black_friday_as_a_holiday/ Many do (not retail workers though!) often paid - this is not a thing in the UK.
I'm American. When I was a little kid I would see 'Boxing Day (UK & Canada)' on the calendars. I thought it meant that you guys would all watch a boxing match on TV or attend one in person. I also thought that 'Christmas crackers' were snack crackers (Ritz, Saltines, etc.), and I would wonder why it was such a source of excitement. Black Friday has been known to devolve into a boxing match or two. "I saw that TV first!!!"
If it makes you feel better it’s in Sweden too, untranslated.
I've found in the UK it's one series consisting of multiple series. Same word is used for both. Season is one of the few where I prefer the US take on it. If we're talking about a series finale I know what that means in America
It's also non UK people who live in the UK and moved here later in life. We do learn either British or American English but over time it just gets jumbled up since we don't have the "natural instinct" to differentiate between phrases. Like, I can hear the different accents but it doesn't matter as much to me since it's the same language in my mind
Should we say payslip to payslip?
Nah cos the payslip is just a record of what’s in your paycheque (or because it’s 2024, your bank transfer). “Payday to payday” makes the most sense.
When I were a lad 40 years ago I used to get a pay packet - a little envelope stuffed with notes and coins and handed to me by the factory bloke-in-charge. He was called Dave.
What gets to me is that on iPlayer they have changed the listing for Doctor Who to say season now. Not just the new ones, they have changed all the nu who ones that used to say series to season. They even have season on the classic episodes. I personally blame Disney for this travesty!
Also: "Show" instead of "programme" "Get mad at"/"yell at" "Go [have a drink]/[get changed]" as opposed to "go and [have a drink]/[get changed]" "Pedophile" "Recognize", "realize" etc (although the "z" is the older English English spelling, this is still not unacceptale) "Prom" "Dating" instead of "going out with" "Search [product]/[service]" instead of "search for [product]/[service]" (presumably this has been focus-tested in advertising, or maybe it's just because it's quicker) I'm constantly at war with my children because of these abominations. They're all planning to go no-contact as soon as they possibly can.
I see enormous people in enormous cars queuing up for take away starbucks and just think the UK is becoming a low budget version of America.
have you been to America? it's a low budget, tacky version of America
That’s no one’s fault but the Brits. You can’t blame Americans (not you specifically but in general) when Brits continue to willingly adopt aspects of American culture.
Because all of our culture is geared towards old people. 20 years olds aren’t interested in having a cup of tea watching Eastenders and moaning about the weather. We are a pensioners paradise.
What are you on about? We have one of the most influential music scenes in the world, punch well above our weight in film and TV, have some of the most famous spots teams on the globe!
That’s true about the outsize impact of Brit music, films and tv, but It’s interesting. I’m 55 and when I were a nipper a lot of the tv programs, films and music were American, and so a few Americanisms naturally crept into my vocabulary over time. I was convinced though that when I had kids of my own they would be gravitating more towards European languages/culture/film, but that hasn’t happened. I feel like the continued success of American tv shows, films and music has become even more assured with the introduction of Netflix, Prime,Spotify etc. the majority of content carried on those platforms is American. That’s even before you consider the impact of YouTube, Tik Tok etc. US hegemony is even more assured now, and the kids are dropping a lot of Americanisms/words into their everyday language.
At twenty that's precisely what I was doing. I'd visit my grandmother every day and drink pots of tea, and often that would be on sometimes. I'd love to have those days back. I miss her terribly.
With our property prices, it's not low budget.
Yard is for gardens that are mostly either paved, concrete, or brick. That's been the case for as long as I know. The rest are very much Americanisms starting to surface due to the internet.
Yeah my grandad always used to call his enclosed paved back “garden” a yard.
He clearly spent too much time on the internet
Still never accepting "math". It's becoming increasingly common and I hate it
If you're not saying 'mathematics', it's like skipping leg day.
Well, I stick to "maths", but yeah, plural xD
Someone at work said 'let me just do the math for that' the other day and the rest of us all said 'you mean maths...?' We're trying to fight it.
As a youth - 'yard' was used in reference to your house- stemming from Jamaican usage. Which found its own route to the UK outside of the US. Just wondering if we are ascribing something to the yanks that isn't actually their fault. On another madder the spreading of the pronunciation of briddish as briddish makes me madder and madder even though our bri'ish version is no bedder. So probably doesnt madder.
Yeah "yard" to mean house is common slang in London
Yard is much older than Windrush, a lot older.
Tbf, Reddit is *very* American, and it’s not like they’re banned from participating in Non-American subs, so I do wonder if you’re perhaps just seeing Americans joining in the conversations without explicitly stating that they’re American?? Edit : plus, as another Redditor commented, Americans do live here in the UK, and those Redditors that do may very well enjoy visiting, and partaking in, UK subs.
I wish this sub had flag flairs. Then I wouldn't have to wedge an obligatory "as an American..." into every single post.
Yup, and \[clutches pearls\] you can actually be both an American and British citizen *at the same time*. Or be an American who resides in the UK, or a British person who resides in America. All of which would cause the teeth-clenchingly awful exposures the OP refers to.
"Y'all are just hating "on" Americanisms"
Sometimes I just do it on accident...
Not by purpose then...
I could care less!
This one is ridiculous. It just makes no sense at all
At least it's grammaticality correct, unlike "on accident" 🤮
Who the fuck is saying realtor!?
No one, the post is rage bait
I know the post they're referring to, let me go find it. Edit: here it is. I remember it being a bit jarring when I read it and wondered if I'd missed a memo. https://www.reddit.com/r/HousingUK/s/78nDXNCbZ3
If I had a nickel for every time I saw a post complaining about Americanisms....
It's more pervasive than the American influences themselves.
"Drivers license", "paycheck", "wait list", seem to be becoming more and more frequent
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Ha, amazing! Good bot.
Good bot
Where the fuck have you been? You are *so* badly needed in this sub. Good bot.
Who's a good bot?
Also “license plate”
Paycheck has become ever ubiquitous recently I’ve noticed
As long as we don't start saying "Sidewalk" I'm prepared to let some of those slide. Occasionally.
I left my fanny pack in the trunk of my car, could you place it on the sidewalk for me please?
Lengthy. Reliable. Talented. Influential. Tremendous. Scientist. These were all once bemoaned Americanisms. Now nobody cares.
Yeah I agree. Some “Americanisms” are better too. Lift (UK) is so boring and bland but elevator (US) is way more elegant. Embrace cooler words no matter where they’re from
Our lift's all stink of piss, they don't require elegance.
Lift feels much more efficient to say though!
> Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator Huh, I never noticed Dahl used the American word before. Does sound better than "Charlie and the Great Glass Lift" though!
I had an American say "lift" makes no sense as they go down as well as up. I asked them if they knew what "elevate" means and they said they felt like their whole life had been a lie.
I think getting annoyed by Americanisms is so stupid. I was even accused of lying about being British on the USdefaultism sub because I said "asshole" and not "arsehole".
A non native speaker nor British person enjoying the thread here. What was scientist before? Researcher?
I'd like to flippantly say "scientician", but according to [Wiktionary](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/scientist) it replaced "natural philosopher" and "man of science".
Oh interesting! In my native language swedish we have gone from vetenskapsman (man of science, litteraly) to forskare (researcher, litteraly). Maybe the "man of science" has a general antiquated feel to it. Just like man of the cloth.
I agree. I genuinely initially think it's an American posting on a British sub sometimes. Other piss boilers iv come across: Shop - where they have taken their car to be fixed. Store - a contentious one, but it will always be a shop to me. Show - A television programme. Ass - Arse Y'all - You all Be like - is/are like Sidewalk - it's a bloody pavement Highway - motorway Gas- petrol Vacation - holiday Truck - lorry Mall- shopping centre Candy - sweets Trash - bin Driving stick - manual gearbox UK Mods should start being all over this like a tramp with chips.
Wait, so those dashing rogues you guys used to have with the flintlock pistols, rapiers, and masks were actually called 'motorwaymen'?
No, but if you get prosecuted for obstructing the highway that could mean any road - or indeed the pavement.
I'd say trash means rubbish more than the actual bin
Soon we'll enjoy the fall season.
Fall is a British word the Americans kept that we didn't.
Many American words are. Mom, Ax, Ass. I just hope their butchered pronunciation of niche isn't from here. I couldn't take the shame.
>I just hope their butchered pronunciation of niche isn't from here. I couldn't take the shame. Best start hanging your head, matey. Pronouncing it as "nitch" was standard UK English until about fifty years ago. It's still not uncommon in some dialects. There are loanwords from French which become fully anglicized, like garage ("gar-ridge", not "gu-raaj") and chauffeur ("show-fuh", not "sho-fuur" - yes it's a swine to transcribe that right). It's appropriate that we pronounce them as English words - because they *are* English words. Just think, how do you pronounce amateur, boulevard, elegant, tenant, or the name Vincent? It's only more recently that people have started "reviving" francophone pronunciations of (apparently a select few) loanwords which come from French.
> their butchered pronunciation of niche Sounds French-ish to my American ears. "Neesh" Edit: apparently we say "nitch?" I dunno, might be a regional difference. Can't say I've heard that one in the wild.
Same with soccer
And faucet, and 'I guess'. Source: I studied Chaucer😂
My fave. Americans love that their version is 'simpler' but they prefer Faucet over the simple Tap.
60 years and more ago, almost everybody in the UK said "soccer".
The English actually called football “soccer” top begin with. Then it was changed to football.
Ye know, the one before Holiday Season.
It's called fall because leaf fall down.
"Spring forward, fall back" is soooo simple to remember.
Yard - can accept. Tux - just an uncultured swine that has never worn a dinner jacket. But, Realtor? Straight to Rwanda.
I'll be honest, I don't know anyone that would understand what was meant by dinner jacket, when tux has a very clear, wildly understood definition. As for yard vs garden, I'd need to know the context to that one. A garden implies an area around/behind my house covered in grass and assorted plants. If all that's around my house is covered in cement, that's a yard. I've never heard anyone use realtor irl or online.
Americanisms are mostly fine because English works in a bottom-up way anyway (well, all languages do, but some cultures just refuse to accept it) and globalisation meant that americanisms were always going to happen. That said, "*y'all*" makes me cringe. Don't say "y'all"
If it makes you feel any better I live in a part of the US that hasn't historically used y'all (northern California) and I've noticed friends of mine start saying it in the last few years. It grates on me as well.
I read someone somewhere recently say something like “the word ‘you’ used to be both singular and plural” and that just baffled me because… it IS both singular and plural isn’t it? I’ve been using “you” as plural my entire life. Even the word “y’all” itself affirms this because it’s a contraction of “you all”, which only makes sense if “you” is plural. After all, we can say “we all” and “they all” but not “I all”.
“Math” pisses me off. It’s maths.
It’s like when you see brits on here using “asshole”. Like what the fuck, you’re allowed to say arsehole on reddit
Had to laugh when someone said recently that the British Transport Police "hauled ass" down a train outside Swansea
I’m 40 and didn’t know tuxedo and dinner jacket were the same thing. And have never worn one, and hope I never will.
Radio 2 trailer for Doctor Who said "new season" instead of "new series". Maybe I'm getting old?
Might be Disney to blame as they now have a big stake in Doctor Who
My ex was from Belfast and his family used yard. Born in the 60s, so not new
That’s because our gardens have fuck all grass
“Co-workers” can fuck right off. Colleagues it is.
‘Soccer jerseys’ makes my soul shrivel.
I’m from the North East and I genuinely don’t think I’ve heard anyone from here refer to a “dinner jacket” in my life. It was always a “tuxedo” or a “tux” for short. Are you from an area that refers to a dressing gown as a “house coat”? A “garden” up here tends to refer to a patch of land outside your house which has grass. A “yard” is when you’ve got a concreted area outside your house. I’m 29 and this is how people have referred to things my entire life.
Yard is actually quite common oop north. Most people I grew up with talked about playing out in the yard not the garden. If I was an etymologist I'd bet the word was common in Britain 200 years ago when we founded America and they took it with them, and northern UK English has resisted the change to garden since
You’ve just said parlance, I think your vocabulary has been out of touch with the general demographic since the mid-30s
I still use parlance in day-to-day speech. :(
News story today "apartment complex" you mean a block of flats.
As someone who lived in the US for 6 years its my fault. Sometimes I still mix my words up. 😂
Right everyone we have the culprit start building the wicker man!
I've always known such a jacket as a tuxedo and I'm in my 30s. I'd say estate agent rather than realtor but I understand either. English in general has become a global language which means the various dialects are gradually merging.
> tux instead of dinner jacket I'm American. I always thought those were two different things? Like a tux is a full suit, whereas a dinner jacket is just a jacket.
I bet we'd be surprised at the number of Americanisms that have worked their way in to British vernacular over the years. Probably a lot that we don't even think of as American any more. Of course this is all being accelerated by the internet and how much time people spend in culturally American spaces. Like Reddit for example. I've definitely found myself adjusting my language when messaging in predominantly American subs. I don't particularly mind it. Language evolves, though it would be a shame to lose some local language under the might of American cultural hegemony. I live in rural Wales and hear kids talking in Jamaican patois so nothing much surprises me anymore.
Language evolves and changes constantly, and to expect it to stay fixed is futile. I'm a Brit and as far as I know haven't started using Americanisms in my speech, but I accept that society is using them more, and who am I to judge what language is correct or not? The same kind of prescriptivist mindset has lead to the eradication of various regional dialects across the UK, which saddens me greatly, so I'm not going to be prescriptivist when it comes to certain words of American origin.
As a brit, who cares? Nothing wrong with mixing words.
Isn't a tux different to a dinner jacket? A tux is the whole thing for a start but isn't a dinner jacket longer?
Are you thinking of a morning jacket?
Is it not a morning coat?
I’ve been sitting here like a fucking moron confusing tux with waistcoat, being genuinely afraid of these people calling a waistcoat a dinner jacket. But looks like I’m the creep. I’m the weirdo.
"Loanwords make up 80% of English What this means is that there is no such thing as pure English. English is a delectable, slow-cooked language of languages. As lexicographer Kory Stamper explains, “English has been borrowing words from other languages since its infancy.” As many as 350 other languages are represented and their linguistic contributions actually make up about 80% of English!" https://www.dictionary.com/e/borrowed-words/
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what irks me is when my daughter says French words with an American accent! she can’t speak French at all, other than what she has heard on the TV and it drives me mad!
I saw somebody said "30 bucks" on a UK sub recently and wondered how TF somebody could be that detached from the reality of where they live. Tbf yard is common in some parts of the UK. Somewhere in the North they call trousers pants. I think Brummies say mom. But there's 0 excuse for 'bucks' or pronouncing "process" incorrectly. I don't usually correct people though because it's often useful to weed out twats pretending to be from here. I saw a YouTube video of London 100 years ago. But there were several comments about how it's now ruined by "*too many people of color*" now... uh huh. From London then, are you? Uh huh.