Luke’s ENGLISH Podcast

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Hi listeners, and welcome back to Luke’s English Podcast.

This episode is the continuation of the last one which was all about Americanisms. In that episode I went through a list of American expressions which British people don’t like. This is a list, published by the BBC of comments made by British people about American expressions that they hate.

Yes, ‘hate’. It’s a pretty strong word to use but basically, British people can be very sensitive about hearing American expressions used in British English. Many of them just don’t like it. It infuriates them, causes their blood pressure to rise and their blood to boil. But is it really worth getting so angry about the way British English is influenced by American English? Are the expressions genuinely wrong grammatically? In most cases, I don’t think so. Most of the expressions are grammatically ok. They’re just examples of standard conventions of American English, and it’s quite natural for American English to influence British English. We watch American TV shows, interact with Americans on the internet and meet more and more American people in our daily lives.

Perhaps some Americanisms sound less sophisticated than their British equivalents, but in fact many Americanisms really are efficient bits of language. They’re effective tools of communication, most of the time. Also, they are just the normal way in which Americans use the language, and essentially American English has just developed differently to the way British English has. When British people don’t like hearing other Brits using Americanisms, I think it’s pretty small- minded, especially when the criticisms given are things like “It’s grammatically wrong” or “It makes my blood boil”. Is it really grammatically wrong, or are you just arrogantly assuming that British English is the only way. And if Americanisms really do make people that angry, they should just calm down a bit.

small-minded:kleinkariert, engstirnig

British people like to think that because we are British, we have the right to be superior about the use of English. As if to say “well, it’s our language, so we can decide how it should be used”. I think we feel we have a connection to the real source of English heritage – Shakespeare and all that. However, in my experience, most British people don’t really have the linguistic knowledge to back up their complaints about American English, so when they complain about Americanisms, they just sound conservative, small-minded or snobbish. So, really, when a British person complains about American usage, do they really have a good linguistic point, or are they just being a bitjudgemental about American English?

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language

judgemental:voreingenommen

In this episode I will continue to go through the list of British people’s most hated Americanisms, as published by the BBC. I will explain each comment, and then give my opinion. I’ve also got some comments from a language expert called Grammar Man who works at the University of Carolina.

The main questions I consider when judging these Americanisms are:

-Are they grammatically correct or not?

-Are they effective tools for communication? Do they effectively communicate a message? and

-Is the complaint really justified, or is it just snobbishness?

There is a transcript for pretty much everything I am saying in this episode, again you can check it out on the website, which I am sure you know by now: Luke.. do I ….what is it again? That’s it: teacherLuke.podamatic.com.

How could you forget? How could I even forget that?

So you can read whatever I am saying. If there are words and phrases that you hear me saying and you think: ‘What does that mean?’ And then I don’t explain it, you can check it out on the transcript.

Okay, so, where did we stop in the last episode? I believe it was comment number 16. So here it is. So -

Number 16:

“I’m good” for “I’m well”.

‘That’ll do for a start’, says Mike in Bridgend, in Wales.

So he is complaining about the expression ‘I’m good’ instead of ‘I’m well.’

That would be for example: ‘Hi, how are you?’

‘I’m good, thanks’, rather than: ‘How are you?’

‘I am fine, thanks’, or ‘I am well.’

To be honest, I don’t think we say ‘I am well’ when someone says ‘how are you?’ ‘How are you doing?’

Well, I don’t think people do that even, so already, Mike, you are on shaky ground because I think we say: ‘I’m fine, thanks’ and so what’s the problem, Mike from Wales with ‘I am good?’ Well, I have heard lots of British people complain about this before. Americans do say that: ‘Hey, how you doing? ‘I’m good,’ you know and so lots of British people say that this is, well – first of all – they think it’s grammatically incorrect which is not true because it isgrammatically correct because if you think about it, ‘good’ is an adjective, fine, like fine is an adjective and adjectives are used in this structure. We have for example the subject, for example ‘I’ plus the verb ‘be’, which in this case is ‘am’ and then you can have an adjective. It’s just a well-known structure. ‘It is interesting’, for example. ‘I am good’, so grammatically it is fine.

Good is an adjective. You can put an adjective there in the sentence.

I think another thing when British people complain about sometimes is that the meaning is a bit ambiguous, as if to say ‘I’m good’ could mean ‘I am a good person’. But to be honest I don’t think that’s usually a problem because in that context you have to try to misunderstand, wouldn’t you? If you say to someone: ‘Hey, how are you?’ I may say: ‘Well, I am good’, and you think: ‘Does he mean he is a good person?’ I don’t think that would happen. I think it’s normal for you to assume that ‘I am good’ means ‘I am good, I am not ill, I am sort of healthy.’ Right? ‘I am in a good mood, I am not unhappy.’ So, ‘I am good.’

So I can’t imagine, really how anyone could misunderstand: ‘I am good’ to mean ‘I am a good person.’ Unless, you know, you are in sort of a Lord of the Rings movie, where it’s very important to establish that you are a good person when you meet someone, before you can kind of get to know him because, you know, in the Lord of the Rings or in Star Wars most people are just good or bad, aren’t they? So if you meet someone, so: ‘Hello stranger, how are you?’

‘Don’t worry, I am good, I am a good guy, don’t chop my head off with an axe’. But in the real world, of course, you don’t do that, you don’t establish whether you are a good person or not at the beginning of a conversation. So I think you have to try to misunderstand: ‘I am good’ to mean ‘I am a good person’.

What does Grammar Man say?

He says: ‘There is a difference between good and well, indeed. The former is an adjective; the latter, an adverb. This distinction does elude many Americans, I admit. So you are saying that sometimes the difference between the adverbs and the adjectives is not obvious to some Americans.

latter: letztgenannt

the latter:letzteres

latter part:Hinterteil (Gesäß)

to elude sb.:jdm versagt bleiben

to elude capture:sich der Gefangennahme entziehen

For example: ‘How is the project going?’

‘It’s going good’. Now, I can understand that. You should say: ‘It’s going well’, because we need an adverb there. You shouldn’t say: ‘It’s going good. So, that is a mistake that Americans make sometimes but ‘How are you?’

‘I am good, thanks.’ I think that’s all right.

He goes on to say: ‘However, adjectives, not adverbs, follow linking verbs - verbs like to be. Hence, the correct response to ‘How are you?’ is in fact ‘I’m good.’ The Brits are wrong again.’

Linking verbs do not express action. Instead, they connect the subject to additional information about the subject.

Well, I think we are all wrong because I think I have got it, but I think; Mikefrom Wales, you don’t really have a point. I think ‘I am good’ is okay and it’s just more a question of usage. The Americans tend to say that whereas the British would say: ‘I am fine.’ So I suppose when Mike hears that he goes: ‘I can’t bear to hear American English being used the United Kingdom.’

United Kingdom is called the ‘United Kingdom’ because apparently we were united by a King. In fact, actually it’s a Queen whose family originally come from Germany so you know what does that say? I don’t know. So, right

Number17:

We got lots of points to go through so I shouldn’t mess around. Let’s just get through these fairly quickly, shall we? Okay then. Number seventeen: .

“Bangs” for a fringe of the hair.” Bangs for a fringe of the hair. That’sPhilip Hall in Nottingham.

Well, we don’t really say ‘bangs’ in the UK, but I think in the USA, you know like a girl has got a fringe. That is just above her eyes or maybe just the fringe of the hair is just on the eyebrows. You know that kind of look, somehow like ‘Ris with a spoon’ tends to have this haircut which is like a fringe going over the eyebrows,okay? And in America they call that ‘bangs’, bangs of hair, right? And in Britain we don’t say that. In fact, we don’t really have a name for the individual bits of hair in a fringe. In America they do. They call it bangs. So in fact really, we are missing a word there, aren’t we? As we don’t know what else to call it.

Date: 2015-01-02; view: 936