【高级听力】（文末附视频）Are Americans Trashing the English Language?

Are Americans Trashing the English Language?

《文 末 附 视 频》

This may not be a word-for-word transcript.

The Economist’s language expert, Lane Green, knows a thing or two about English. This is Lane’s office. These are some of the books he might review. Lane is a fan of words, lots of words. 

Lane Green: What interests me is the history of the words – where they come from.

And Lane is an American living in London. He’s become accustomed to British English slang.

We refer to a pub as a “boozer”.

That’s what we refer to.  

Yeah.

Or a car as a “motor”. 

Yeah, yeah, motor. 

But Lane often hears Britons complain there are too many American words and expressions creeping into British English.

There are some expressions that I don’t like.

Okay, what’s a good example?

Do the math. 

Lane Green: Most British people are, of course, polite enough not to mention their feelings about American English directly to me. But I do see a general dislike of American words and American phrases.

These are called Americanisms. 

Lane Green: Originally, Americanisms were for things that were found in the Americas by British and other colonists and settlers, things like moccasin, canoe. But over time, Americanisms came to refer to words that arose in America and later entered British English as new words.

The Queen’s English seems to be giving way to the Yank’s English. To so some people, that represents the gentle decline of an old idea of Britain.

British writer Matthew Engel can’t stand Americanisms being used in Britain and even wrote a book about it. 

Matthew Engel: Grassroots, spin doctor, lobbyist, slush funds. Everything conspires to make the world speak the language of the world’s dominant country. That is a step to a rather homogenized and boring world. The American spellings derive entirely from the opinion of one man.

Lane Green: Noah Webster was an American dictionary writer, a lexicographer. It was Webster who decided that words like “centre” should be spelled with an “-er” rather than with the “-re”. He took the “u” out of words like “colour”. Words like “music” were then still written with an “-ick”. He decided that “k” could go.

Matthew Engel: There was a huge peak in the 1930s after Hollywood came in. It became immensely cool to speak just as the movie stars did. Now, you have 24-hour television that are coming out of 500 channels, you have the Internet. Something that had been manageable has become completely overwhelming.

Lane Green: Certainly, now Americanisms are entering British English and they are influencing the language. You might hear people talking about “fries” instead of “chips”. 

But, are Americanisms thrashing British English?

According to Lane, many of these American words are actually British in origin. We took Lane out to pound the sidewalks of London to see if Londoners knew the origins of their words.

What would you call this that we’re walking on right now?

Pavement, okay?

Now, if I said the word “sidewalk”, what would that make you think of?

America.

I’d call it a “pavement”, okay?

And if I said the word “sidewalk”, what would that make you think of?

America.

Lane Green: “Sidewalk” is an obvious Americanism, except that it originated in Britain. It was being used already in the early 1800s to describe the footpath along the Westminster Bridge.

If I said someone was “mad”, what would that make you think of?

Probably “insane”.

“Insane”. But if I if I said they were angry and that’s how they were “mad”?

No, we wouldn’t use. No.

Matthew Engel: “Mad”. Yeah, “That makes me mad.” That’s a pure American usage.

Lane Green: “Mad” meaning “angry” goes all the way back to at least about 1400, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

Matthew is not impressed with this argument. He thinks that once British words go to America, they should stay there.

Matthew Engel: If someone whose ancestors emigrated to America centuries ago, they can’t turn up at Heathrow and say, “I’m British, let me in.”

Strangely though, for an American, Lane is more sanguine about the future of our native tongue.

Lane Green: British English is in very, very good and healthy shape. Languages change at every level and they do it all the time. 

The adoption of new words is a sign of a rich, evolving language. 

We have our own dialect within different parts of England, especially London, we have Cockney-rhyming slang, for example.

I like America language. They are pretty basic people, the Americans. They don’t, excuse my language, they don’t bullshit around.

Lane Green: People like belonging to groups that make them different. That is certainly true British English and this is another reason why I don’t see British English or any other kind of English being blandly homogenized into one global, mostly American, variety of the language.

Far from trashing the English language, Americanisms are enriching the way in which we speak, whichever side of the pond you’re on.

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