Americanism (general)

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Americanisms are words and phrases that people living outside the United States believe to be characteristic of English as spoken or written in the United States, and which they generally view with some dismay.

An example of this would be "outta", as used in: "Let's get outta here." This is a commonly heard phrase in the US referring to leaving some place. It is a contraction of "out of".

Explanation

Many Commonwealth nations are culturally bi-lingual, albeit with English as the second tongue, and with the better educated population classes attending upper class schools which are generally modelled after British schools and culture.

In general, all languages evolve to meet new situations and, when one group devises a new word, others may borrow it. So many of the nations just discussed embrace or disdain new terms at their own pace and independent of the others being discussed despite the continuing influence of the cultural renewal discussed above. Thus, English has acquired agent provocateur from the French language, Kindergarten from the German, etc.

Within a group of native language speakers, different social groups use language differently, adding new drift impetuses to the cultural mosaic. For example, the word "bling" was coined in the American hip hop music community and is characteristic of the way in which people who are members of that culture speak and write but, as a word, it has yet to become sufficiently widely used to be considered an (widespread) Americanism. This illustrates that any words or phrases used by one group may be adopted by another, but, to be considered an Americanism, Britishism or any other "ism" that matches a nation, those who live outside the given nation must recognise the word as being typical of the way in which the local people of the first country speak or write their version of the language.

One way American English has diverged from other varieties of English is through the creation of new language features to describe new products and activities. Another way it differs is by preserving old characteristics that have not survived in other varieties of English. So, for example, an ace reporter looking for some action in an armpit of a town, might drop into the first glitzy place he saw and look for a likely prospect to put some moves on. Each usage would be considered typical of the slang or clichés that Americans might use. Whether this classification is true is irrelevant; what makes a word or phrase an "Americanism" is that foreigners believe it to be typical.

See also

• American and British English differences
• List of British words not widely used in the United States
• List of American words not widely used in the United Kingdom
• List of words having different meanings in British and American English
• List of British idioms