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34. Make British English Great Again? ๐Ÿ˜‚

Writer's picture: English and BeyondEnglish and Beyond





[00:00:01.790] - Oliver (Host)

Welcome back to another episode of English and Beyond. As always, you can find the transcript available for this episode, as well as vocabulary flashcards on our website, www.morethanalanguage.com.


[00:00:18.280] - Oliver (Host)

I will confess at the beginning of this episode that this is not a topic that I thought I would ever do. In fact, I might go so far as to say that alongside food and the weather, it's probably one that I actively was avoiding. However, a viewer on YouTube suggested the topic, and it struck me, it occurred to me that it was actually a nice idea. So thank you very much to that listener from Belgium.


[00:00:43.420] - Oliver (Host)

English may have originated, it may have begun in my country, the UK, and it may be an official language in 66 other countries, apparently. But it's pretty much unquestionable, it's pretty much undeniable, it's certain at this point that US dialect is the most influential nowadays, and with it, US culture and politics. This actually presents a somewhat odd conflict, a clash for many British speakers of English. On the one hand, we benefit from English being the lingua franca, the global language of the 21st century. But on the other hand, we hear a version of the language that is actually, to be honest, quite annoying, quite irritating to many of us - though I hasten to add, I want to point out quickly, that I personally don't feel that way.


[00:01:36.440] - Oliver (Host)

As I've mentioned in other episodes, I believe, my parents were always big fans of the USA, the United States of America. My mum was a stewardess, a flight attendant, when I was little, so we got great deals to go on holiday to the USA. And when we did visit America, the whole family was always very impressed by how far ahead of the UK the USA to be in many respects, in many ways. I remember, for example, going to the American-style shopping malls in the US before they became a really worldwide phenomenon, and I was just staggered, I was amazed. We did have shopping centres in the UK, but it just wasn't even nearly the same. For example, when I was a child, I was a voracious reader. This word voracious means that I devoured books. I read them from to cover very quickly, one after another. The books that I read came mostly from two cultures, the UK, unsurprisingly, and the US. When I was maybe 10 or 11 years old, I used to love a couple of American book series which were called Goosebumps and Animorphs.


[00:02:48.830] - Oliver (Host)

I think the Goosebump books were probably the origin, the starting point of my love of the horror film genre, which I talked about in episode 12. When I went to shopping malls in the US, I remember there being massive monster footprints on the floor as soon as you got inside. If you followed these footprints, they took you all the way to the bookshop and the huge Goosebumps section. Even just going to the mall in the USA felt like going to a theme park, to Disney. Little details like that made me incredibly excited to read the series, and I would read them, as I said, cover to cover in record time. And it wasn't just the books - I loved all aspects, all parts of American culture when I was growing up. I didn't often watch British television shows or dramas. I was watching Nickelodeon, Friends, The Simpsons, and pretty much anything that came from across the Atlantic, across the ocean. America seemed, to a young Oliver, to be a very different place from the grey UK, and I jumped at the chance to get my hands on any little piece of US culture. And unsurprisingly and inevitably, that had an impact, an effect on the way I speak and the words that I use.


[00:04:09.950] - Oliver (Host)

Most of the media I consumed, that is, I watched or I read, was American, and I certainly picked up, I certainly learned a lot of the slang from that. But one ironic, one unexpected element about this is that my parents, though admirers of the US, absolutely hate it when they hear me use any Americanisms in my speech, any words or phrases that my parents perceive to have been influenced by US speech patterns. For example, my mum absolutely cannot stand, she cannot tolerate the word 'gotten'. If I ever say, I've gotten better at something, she corrects me immediately, telling me to say, I've got better. To her, gotten is unnecessary, clunky and manifestly wrong. But to me, as someone who watched Friends, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sex in the City, et cetera, as a teenager, 'gotten' sounds completely natural because it's what I grew up hearing all the time on television. Incidentally, my dad has also literally called me up to ask me why I use gotten in this podcast, so it's a problem for both my parents and not just my mum. There are many such examples of small differences in grammar and vocabulary between these two English dialects, and many of these differences, well, they make Brits' skin crawl, they make Brits feel very uncomfortable or annoyed.


[00:05:43.020] - Oliver (Host)

However, arguably, often the reaction that my mother has with gotten is a British overcorrection. A lot of these so-called Americanisms that people love to complain about aren't actually American at all. Their remnants, their leftovers of an older English that British colonists took over to the Americas. This English lived on in the new world while British English moved on. In some ways, the English that the Americans speak is actually purer than the British variation. With that word gotten, for example, it's not actually a modern American invention at all, despite what my parents might believe. It's actually an old English word that was used in the UK during the 1600s. Over time, British English dropped gotten in favour of got, but the Americans kept it. Another example is the word fall instead of autumn. We often hear Brits say, fall is such an American word. But actually, fall was also used in England during the 1500s. It just faded away. It stopped being used here while it stuck around in the US. Even accents followed a similar pattern. The American accent, where you pronounce the R in words like car or hard, is actually closer to how English was spoken in the UK centuries ago.


[00:07:09.660] - Oliver (Host)

Meanwhile, the British accent shifted over time, dropping the R sound in many places. So although that doesn't mean that an American accent will be any more or less annoying to a British ear, I think it should give someone pause for thought - that is, they should think carefully - before they complain too much about Americanisms in British English. But it also doesn't change the fact that differences do exist between the two dialects, and that now we see the influence of the American dialect on British English. For an older generation, certain Americanisms feel intrusive, they feel unwelcome, or even a bit of a betrayal of Britishness. But I think that for my generation, and definitely for people younger than me today, Americanisms have just become part of the way that we speak. I mean, how often do you hear people say movie instead of film now? And plenty of people in the UK say apartment instead of flat, especially if they're trying to make their new home sound posh. And after all, language is never static, it's never fixed. It changes all the time, and most of those changes are shaped by culture.


[00:08:24.440] - Oliver (Host)

Right now, we live in a very American-influenced world. Hollywood dominates global entertainment. American tech companies like Apple and Google shape how we communicate, and social media platforms like TikTok are spreading American slang faster than ever before. And this isn't new. Britain was obviously exporting and imposing its culture around the world during its colonial period, a major part of the reason why so many people speak English nowadays. Now, these new Americanisms are being exported back into the UK. So can British English speakers really complain that our own language is changing due to foreign influences? However, having said all that, I don't want all British teenagers to start talking like their American counterparts, their American peers. I think it's a shame that globalisation and the internet have made many fashion or linguistic trends a global change. And I think it's charming that different countries maintain their own way of phrasing things or vocabulary that is very specific to that culture. And for all of the open-mindedness that I have just professed, that I have just stated in this episode, there are certain turns of phrase, there are certain expressions that are used in the USA that I cannot stand. For example, we would say in the UK, If I had known the truth, I wouldn't have acted in that way. But many Americans would say, If I would have known the truth, I wouldn't have acted in that way, which It just sounds so weird to me.


[00:10:03.530] - Oliver (Host)

Furthermore, there are loads of great British English words that many Americans may not understand out of context. I would be very sad if we lost those in favour of a more sanitised, simplified international version of English based on the American dialects. For example, one of the best British adjectives to describe when you feel really upset, really distraught, is to say that you feel gutted. That is, as if you've had your intestines removed, like you've been disembowelled. What a great word. It's fun to use phrases like, It's an absolute shambles, it's a big mess, or to say something that is not your cup of tea when it isn't your taste or it isn't your preference. Then there are plenty of confusing videos of Americans struggling significantly with the pronunciation of British place names. For example, it's always confusing for British people to hear Americans asking about Lie-ces-ter Square in London instead of Leicester Square, or Birming-ham for Birmingham, or Hertford-shire for Hertfordshire, the county where I'm originally from. Ultimately, in the end, I guess what I want to emphasise, to point out, is that I recognise that English is now a truly global language, and there's no right version of it.


[00:11:23.460] - Oliver (Host)

You, learner, you don't have to use exclusively American or British resources when you study the language. I think the examples of communication difficulties that we have, even when we speak the same language natively, are really fun. Long may they continue. Whether you use British or American spellings, whether you say film or movie, the most important thing is making yourself understood. Absolutely, don't stress about sounding perfect. Even native speakers mix things up. They make mistakes all the time. As my mum and dad, and in fact, my sister would tell you about me and the word gotten.


[00:12:06.050] - Oliver (Host)

So, Cรฉsar, what do you think about American English versus British English?


[00:12:12.650] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

I've never thought about this. No, I actually thought about this a lot because, well, firstly, in Europe, in continental Europe, I think most countries used to teach British English. I was taught British English at school.


[00:12:31.240] - Oliver (Host)

How is it differentiated? How does one learn British English instead of American English? What do you mean by that?


[00:12:39.350] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

Well, some grammar bits, vocabulary, things like that. But I was surprised because my sister, I'm a millennial. My sister is Gen Z, and she was taught American English.


[00:12:54.620] - Oliver (Host)

By that, you mean they would learn words like elevator instead of lift?


[00:12:58.610] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

Exactly, and the accent .


[00:13:00.250] - Oliver (Host)

What about the spelling?


[00:13:02.110] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

It was American English. I listened to some of the audio clips that she had to listen in order to do her homework, and it was American accents. Whereas in my case, when we were learning English, it was always British.


[00:13:18.960] - Oliver (Host)

I never studied Spanish at school, but I would imagine that they probably had... I think that nowadays, they have a variety of accents. Sometimes they're bad, sometimes their accent that are spoken by continental Spanish people, peninsular Spanish people, pretending to be from other places.


[00:13:39.450] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

Yeah, like Mexican, Argentinian. You can actually tell.


[00:13:42.960] - Oliver (Host)

And that's the worst. That's the worst case scenario. Absolutely, if there's a section in your sister's English course where they have some Americans putting on British accents and saying, "Let's go to the Queen's house for tea". That would obviously not be ideal. You learned British English at school, but did you make an effort outside of school to learn British English specifically?


[00:14:11.890] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

I didn't even know I was being taught British English when I was little, when I was at primary or secondary school. I wasn't really that interested...


[00:14:23.240] - Oliver (Host)

In English?


[00:14:23.650] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

In English at the time. Once I decided, when I first visited London and I made the decision of living in London for a while. I wanted to get my scholarship or my grant, my European grant, in order to move there and study there for one year. Then I actively decided to try to teach myself British English. I would watch only shows from the BBC, and I was like, "What the hell is this?" Because I was watching things like Skins or Misfits, and the people on those shows had very tricky accents for a foreigner who had, at the time, lower intermediate level.


[00:15:14.700] - Oliver (Host)

Well, you got a real glimpse into authentic British life instead of the Britain from American films.


[00:15:21.200] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

Exactly. It was very grim.


[00:15:23.840] - Oliver (Host)

Grim, yeah. One of my favourite examples of that is, (actually), to be fair, I don't think it's actually London in the film "The Holiday", where Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet swap places. But I don't know where that is in England. I'm sure it was shot in England, maybe somewhere else in the British Isles. But it's so quaint and cute. The idea that it's within a 10-minute drive of London is quite amazing.


[00:15:53.070] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

What does quaint mean?


[00:15:54.310] - Oliver (Host)

Luckily, I have the internet on my fingertips for a total definition or a perfect definition. It says attractively unusual or old-fashioned. And the cott-, the example they give is quaint country cottage. Charming, pleasant, pleasantly old-fashioned. There you go.


[00:16:14.240] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

Old but cute.


[00:16:16.380] - Oliver (Host)

Old but cute, I guess. Yes. Speaking of asking people what things mean, that's a very nice segue into what we're going to do next, because we're doing something we've never done before, where I'm going to put you to the test.


[00:16:32.170] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

Oh, really?


[00:16:32.790] - Oliver (Host)

Yeah, exactly. Without any warning.


[00:16:36.070] - Oliver (Host)

I mean, it's quite late. I'm tired.


[00:16:39.710] - Oliver (Host)

I'm going to give you five phrases.


[00:16:41.570] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

Okay.


[00:16:42.100] - Oliver (Host)

You're going to tell me, are they British or American? And you're going to tell me what you think they mean. Okay. Would you like the first phrase?


[00:16:51.670] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

Yes.


[00:16:53.200] - Oliver (Host)

It's a dog's dinner.


[00:16:55.440] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

It's clearly British. It couldn't be more British.


[00:16:59.790] - Oliver (Host)

That is true. Yeah. What does it mean?


[00:17:02.950] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

I think it means that that meal is not really good. It's the leftovers maybe or not very quality.


[00:17:12.300] - Oliver (Host)

Is that why you think it's a British expression because the food is bad.


[00:17:15.930] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

No, what it means is when you have some food that is not very good, you might say, "Oh, this is the dog's dinner." This is not really worth.


[00:17:24.530] - Oliver (Host)

This is a dog's dinner.


[00:17:25.960] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

A dog's dinner.


[00:17:26.850] - Oliver (Host)

Yeah, you can't just say, "It's dog's dinner". No. Well, the idea is of low quality, but it's not restricted to food. I could say this episode is a dog's dinner.


[00:17:40.720] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

Okay, so low quality, anything.


[00:17:42.660] - Oliver (Host)

It's a mess. It's something badly done. It's a dog's dinner. Okay. To put the cat among the pigeons.


[00:17:52.520] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

That sounds very British as well. But I'm going to go for American.


[00:18:00.390] - Oliver (Host)

It is British.


[00:18:01.330] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

Okay.


[00:18:02.230] - Oliver (Host)

What does it mean? Put the cat among... Between...


[00:18:07.550] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

Okay. I guess when you put something or someone with other people that don't get along with or are not really connected, out of context, putting someone in a completely different context than this person is normally with?


[00:18:31.330] - Oliver (Host)

Yeah. Again, with a dog's dinner, that is the literal sense of it, the literal explanation. And then it takes on a figurative or a metaphorical meaning. It would be defined as to do what that causes trouble or excitement. Okay. Okay. Number three, to have skin in the game.


[00:18:59.340] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

That sounds very American.


[00:19:01.170] - Oliver (Host)

Very American? Yeah. It is American.


[00:19:03.250] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

What does it mean? Well, to have something to lose, right?


[00:19:09.340] - Oliver (Host)

Yeah, that's very succinct. That's very concise.


[00:19:11.960] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

If you invest money in a business, for example, you have skin. What is it?


[00:19:18.100] - Oliver (Host)

Skin in the game.


[00:19:19.080] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

Skin in the game, yeah. You care.


[00:19:21.780] - Oliver (Host)

You are right. Very well. I mean, now because it's about business, potentially, now you understand it. Yeah, so very American, very concisely expressed, that is, expressed correctly in very few words, you have something to lose. So to have skin in the game, well done.


[00:19:38.190] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

Is there any prize in this little competition?


[00:19:41.760] - Oliver (Host)

No.


[00:19:41.790] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

Who am I competing with? Myself?


[00:19:43.960] - Oliver (Host)

You have no skin in this game.


[00:19:45.910] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

Okay.


[00:19:46.580] - Oliver (Host)

So next one, to have itchy feet.


[00:19:51.100] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

I think that's American as well. No, it's British.


[00:19:56.920] - Oliver (Host)

Well, you have to decide.


[00:19:57.980] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

It's British. Just because your -


[00:19:59.930] - Oliver (Host)

The audience can't read my facial expressions.


[00:20:01.550] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

I can.


[00:20:04.410] - Oliver (Host)

What is it?


[00:20:06.070] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

I think it means you like to have this weird sensation of feeling that something is going on, but you don't know what it is exactly. You cannot put your finger on it.


[00:20:20.140] - Oliver (Host)

Yeah, okay. That's not what it means. But it's a good guess. It could mean that. It's a good guess. Did you say it was British or American?


[00:20:26.820] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

British, just because of your face.


[00:20:28.370] - Oliver (Host)

It's American. So Obviously, I'm a good actor. To have British feet. To have itchy feet means to be restless, to have a strong desire to leave a place or to travel. Your feet are itching, and therefore, you want to get up and go and move. Lastly, then, to be on the pull.


[00:20:51.180] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

On the pole?


[00:20:52.140] - Oliver (Host)

On the pull. Not on the pole, on the pull. If I pull you towards me, so to be on the pull.


[00:21:03.200] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

That must be American.


[00:21:05.930] - Oliver (Host)

American is your answer?


[00:21:08.730] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

Yeah.


[00:21:09.140] - Oliver (Host)

It's British. It's so British. This is the most British expression.


[00:21:13.370] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

No one has ever said that to me.


[00:21:15.470] - Oliver (Host)

Well, you will have heard this. If you've gone out clubbing with people.


[00:21:20.740] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

Pulling someone.


[00:21:21.700] - Oliver (Host)

Exactly.


[00:21:22.250] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

Which means kissing, making out, like kissing with tongue, French kissing.


[00:21:26.910] - Oliver (Host)

To pull someone means French kissing, kissing with tongue. Well, actually, to pull, it can mean anything from kissing someone to taking them home with you that night.


[00:21:37.270] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

What for?


[00:21:38.850] - Oliver (Host)

Whatever. Board games. To have some tea, all sorts and things. But to be on the pull means that you're looking out for a new romantic partner. You go to a club and you're like, "Oh, I could see you're on the pull tonight", that kind of thing.


[00:21:58.280] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

I know an expression that I think is very British for that as well. When someone is willing to meet other people, to be single and ready to mingle.


[00:22:07.690] - Oliver (Host)

Single and ready to mingle. That does sound also to me very British, but I don't know. The other ones I actually checked. It took me quite a long time to check where the original usage of all of these expressions were. Some I had to abandon because "the penny dropped", for example, which means to realise something, there were conflicts about whether it be British or American, so I actually deleted them. But on the pull, there's no doubt, very British.


[00:22:38.900] - Oliver (Host)

Obviously, we've had this conversation then about whether something is British or American English, and to an extent, it doesn't really matter anymore, right? Because you are exposed as an English learner to expressions, accents, vocabulary from all over the world nowadays. My question was actually going to be about when you were working, for example, in English. In Spain, you were working in English. Sometimes, lots of your colleagues were from England. When I was working in Germany in English as a lawyer, I often heard that now a new world English has been created, one that is not definably American or definably English. Instead, they cut away lots of things like these expressions that arguably give language its colour. Instead, it's just very understandable for everybody. What do you think about that? Is that something that you've experienced working in English in an international setting? Was it different from the English that you heard when you were working in English in the UK?


[00:23:51.470] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

Yeah, because when I was working in the UK with not only British people, but people who had an advanced level English, everyone was using these phrases or more complex phrasal verbs, more complex structures. Whereas in Europe, in Barcelona, where - Barcelona in English - when I was working with people from all around Europe, the English we used was more standard, more simple to understand because not everyone had the same level of English. I made an effort to not use a specific phrase that I knew that some of my colleagues might not understand because at the end of the day, the purpose of communication is being able to get your message across being understood. If I say something like, "This is a dog's dinner". I restrain myself from saying things like that sometimes. I guess everyone did the same. In the same way when I speak to someone in Spanish as a Spanish teacher who's got a lower intermediate level, I'm not going to be speaking the same way I speak to you or to my mum. I adapted my language.


[00:25:14.080] - Oliver (Host)

I think it's interesting to me the idea that someone would spend so much time trying to learn, trying to use interesting idioms and expressions, and then actually having to purposefully and consciously avoid using them. When they actually want to use the language to work.


[00:25:31.420] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

You know how much I love my idioms? When we first met.


[00:25:36.300] - Oliver (Host)

I know. It's going to be, he knows his onions.


[00:25:40.950] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

Yeah.


[00:25:42.220] - Oliver (Host)

That was actually one of the phrases I considered using, but it was a waste of time. That phrase, what does he knows his onions mean?


[00:25:49.980] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

I used to listen to a podcast called The English We Speak.


[00:25:55.920] - Oliver (Host)

Please don't promote our competitors.


[00:25:59.830] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

Well, actually, I have to say, so I was learning by heart memorising all these phrases, and then I realised that most of them were quite old fashioned. No one speaks like that anymore. One of the phrases was to know your onions, which means to know, being very knowledgeable about your job or the things that you do normally. I used it with Oliver, and he was like, "What do you mean?" What do you mean by that?


[00:26:27.860] - Oliver (Host)

I just assumed that you had translated something literally from Spanish. Yeah. I understood in context what you meant, but I laughed and I was like, That's a great expression. We should have that in English. But of course, we do, but I didn't know. But since you said it, obviously, I have now seen it in so many different contexts.


[00:26:50.690] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

Your grandma used to say it.


[00:26:53.490] - Oliver (Host)

Did she?


[00:26:54.440] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

That's what your mum said to you.


[00:26:56.120] - Oliver (Host)

I remember that my mum said that she knew the expression totally. But yeah, these things come and go. I don't know. Some expressions stick around for centuries and some disappear.


[00:27:09.740] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

I'm thinking that in 300 years' time, someone will be listening to this podcast and they will be like, "Wow, the old English."


[00:27:23.040] - Oliver (Host)

It might be the case that no one now has made it to the end of this podcast. So I think that this might be a good time for us actually leave it here in the hope that people are still listening. Thank you, listener, for listening. I hope that you have learned at least a couple of weird idioms from this episode and that you have enjoyed it. Thank you very much. And until... Oh, follow us on Instagram, @BritishEnglishandBeyond. Until next time.


[00:27:49.720] - Cรฉsar (Guest)

And very important, follow the podcast. Okay, wait, that's fine.


[00:27:57.230] - Oliver (Host)

Okay, so the camera has told us it's the end of the episode. Very much, everybody. Goodbye.

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