Americanisms - Frustrating but Unexciting

There was an interesting piece on the BBC website the other day:

How Americanisms are Killing the English Language

A book released this year claims that Americanisms will have completely absorbed the English language by 2120. Hephzibah Anderson takes a look.

The piece begins:

So it turns out I can no longer speak English. This was the alarming realisation foisted upon me by Matthew Engel’s witty, cantankerous yet nonetheless persuasive polemic That’s the Way it Crumbles: The American Conquest of English. Because by English, I mean British English.

Despite having been born, raised and educated on British shores, it seems my mother tongue has been irreparably corrupted by the linguistic equivalent of the grey squirrel. And I’m not alone. Whether you’re a lover or a loather of phrases like “Can I get a decaf soy latte to go?”, chances are your vocabulary has been similarly colonised.

As a British ex-pat myself, living in the USA since 2004, I've been through the scratchy phases of having to accept, without question, what has been done to The Queen's English over here. I refuse to change my written English, continue to use 's' rather than 'z' in certain words, and insert the 'u' in colour, flavour etc. I will never, ever, while there's breath in my body utter "gotten"; and yet, and yet, as is told later in the linked piece, "When Dr Johnson compiled his seminal 1755 dictionary, ‘gotten’ was still in use as a past participle of ‘get’. But as Engel points out, good old English is not good new English."

I was mildly amused to note that Ms Anderson had slipped into what I see as an Americanism herself, and possibly without realising it. Here:

I was excited to find out how it would read after it had been ‘Americanized’, but I’ve noticed it’s fast becoming the norm for American works to make it into print over here without so much as having a ‘z’ switched for an ‘s’ or a ‘u’ tacked on to an ‘o’.

Americans use "excited to" in this way, I notice it a lot, and I do believe that a British English speaker would not be likely to use "excited" in that context - unless, of course, what they were looking forward to was something actually capable of bringing forth excitement: the flushed cheeks, the sweaty palms, the speeded-up heartbeat. What people mean in the American use, translated, is really just: "I'm looking forward to..." As in so many instances, in this star spangled, oft thought to be exceptional, nation, hyperbole rules.

Let us all, though, whether American or British, devoutly hope that the current American President's Americanisms will never find their way into widely accepted English: "bigly" is a case in point, or that fumble-fingered f-up: "covfefe".

HYPE and JUPITER

Jupiter, biggest planet in our solar system, rules all that is exaggerated, promulgated, published or expanded. Hyperbole, the figure of speech, matches all of those, so I'd say that Jupiter clearly rules hyperbole, and its modern journalistic contraction: hype.

I've found that people in the USA tend to speak and write in a far more hyperbolic fashion than most of my fellow-English folk. The English, those from northern England in particular, tend to shy away from exaggeration. The diverse mix of nationalities that have melded together in the USA, over a couple of centuries, no doubt accounts for what I've noticed in their mode of expression. But could there be an astrological link too?

In astrological charts popularly used as the "birth" charts for the USA - based on 4 July 1776 (or 2 July 1776 which is the one I prefer) both show Sun and Jupiter close together in Cancer: 5 & 13 or 5 & 11 degrees respectively. The 4 July chart linked above also has Sagittarius rising. Sagittarius is the home sign of Jupiter !

In the chart for "birth" of England: 25 December 1066 (I emphasise England as opposed to the UK or Britain, for simplicity), Jupiter lay in discerning Virgo, conjunct Saturn(the limitor and restrictor), but in harmonious trine to Sun in Capricorn, (Capricorn being Saturn's sign of rulership). I'd translate that as indicating a clear limitation on exaggeration, which, though seldom indulged in is well understood.

The English are generally considered to be a phlegmatic race, often possessing a dry wit and a steady demeanor, unlikely to be self-aggrandizing. As national characteristics these are generalisations, of course - as is my feeling that in the USA hyperbole is almost a way of life. My own hyperbole! Simon Cowell on the American Idol judging panel gave the lie to my generalisation about the English. He regularly would pronounce the performance of some hapless vocalist as "the worst I have ever heard". Pure hyperbole. He has obviously been in the States too darn long!

May as well throw in an example of hyperbole I hear or read frequently, and complain about to Himself: the use of "hilarious" to describe something that is, at best, mildly amusing.

Words of wisdom - from an Englishman:

The speaking in perpetual hyperbole is comely in nothing but love
Francis Bacon, Sr. quotes (English Lawyer and Philosopher. 1561-1626)