Americanisms: A Yankee Scandal

Americanisms have been plaguing the UK for a long time now and many Brits aren’t happy with it. Who are they to come and replace our beautiful language with their disgusting substitutes and incorrect spellings? It’s insulting. Stick to your own language, you Yanks, and just please leave us alone.

Americanisms are almost always, without fail, just confusing for everyone. Bringing up a child with the English language just proves more complicated when Americanisms exist. The kid’ll start using ‘elevator’ instead of our glorious ‘lift’, or a ‘vacation’ when they’re actually going on a ‘holiday’. If I’m talking to someone and they even try to pull an unbelievable stunt on me and attempt to use one of these terms on me, I’m turning around and never interacting with this person for as long as I possibly can, they’re a traitor and should have their citizenship revoked immediately. Don’t even get me started on chips vs. crisps.

OK, you got me started. They’re not chips, how are they a chip? When you bite into one is it a crisp texture? Yes? Yes, it is. It’s a crisp. Thin fries are called fries, because they’re fried. That makes sense. Chips aren’t exclusively for potato chips, they were even originally used for fruit, too, so they’re chunky potato chips, not fries, fries are different things entirely. A packet of crisps isn’t a bag of chips, they don’t even remotely fit the definition of a chip, how did you even get to that conclusion? It makes so little sense, elevator is somewhat understandable, though wrong, since it elevates you. Chips just fills me with unimaginable rage.

There’s also some other foods, like pancakes. A pancake isn’t a large fluffy thing that you stack up loads and stick syrup on, well, you can stick syrup on it if you like, but you don’t stack them, nor are they as thick as you have them. And don’t call ours crêpes, either, they’re not. They’re thin, but they’re not crêpes, so you can shut up about that too. Biscuits ≠ cookies. A cookie is a lovely chocolate chip item of food, a biscuit can range from a custard cream to a chocolate digestive, not that Americans would know either of those delicacies. It’s an outrage that they don’t have sausage rolls, too, but I’m getting off topic here.

There are, arguably some benefits to Americanisms, though the list is small and completely disrespectful, there are some who would disagree greatly with what I’m saying. That Americanisms are more convenient, as it brings up more synonyms for words to vary your speech much more, and it truly doesn’t interrupt the English language to too big an extreme. I will not be waiting for the day that we begin to drop the ‘u’ in ‘colour’ or spell ‘laser’ with a ‘z’ (zed, not zee), but maybe it’s inevitable, maybe it’s something that’s necessary for our progression. That we need to become more American in order to establish a common, global language or to evolve as a species. However, I will not be contributing to this blasphemy in the slightest, it’s a load of trash.

British is the original, superior version of the language, and Americans should be ashamed of themselves.