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Britishisms invading American English


Ormond

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one of the terms i do not recall hearing much in this thread that the british have made legendary and i like to throw around in my speaking is 'cunt.' thanks a lot, britian! i love it. have for years and years. i know it is not always to be used in polite company. i know it has sexist connotations. but, i just cannot stop using it.

Had no idea that partcular word was particularly British. It's one step beyond "b!tch" for describing a "not nice female" in our house. yup.

Chaucer, huh? I guess that explains it, living with a poet and all.

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Now you're just listing British things. I'm a huge fan of Blackadder (not The Blackadder) but I've never met an American who has seen it or even heard of it. Any way you look at it, the total amount of British cultural exports that Americans consume is tiny compared to the amount that goes the other way.

Hey, nobody expects the spanish inquisition. :cheers:

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Cunt is a britishism? Really?

(It's one of my favorite swearword, thought admittedly on the harsher end, but not at all used exclusively for women. Maybe it's because cock is used very androgynously as a swearword in hebrew.)

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Cunt is not a "Britishism". It was certainly in use centuries before any English speaking person set foot on the North American continent.

What does seem to be different to me is that people in the UK are more likely to refer to men as well as women they don't like as "cunts." In the USA its use as an insult is more restricted to women only.

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I've very rarely heard a woman referred to as a cunt where as almost daily (In fact probably more than once daily) i've heard or called a man called a cunt. To be honest i've also heard and used in an non insulting and more than once endearing way

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one of the terms i do not recall hearing much in this thread that the british have made legendary and i like to throw around in my speaking is 'cunt.' thanks a lot, britian! i love it. have for years and years. i know it is not always to be used in polite company. i know it has sexist connotations. but, i just cannot stop using it.

I hate the word 'cunt' and always will, at least how it is used in America. I don't call either men or women cunts. I try to stay away from all gendered insults, even "dick". I don't know why, they just bother me.

As a result, I have to be creative with my insults.

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I hate the word 'cunt' and always will, at least how it is used in America. I don't call either men or women cunts. I try to stay away from all gendered insults, even "dick". I don't know why, they just bother me.

As a result, I have to be creative with my insults.

I almost rarely use it either as it also means the female genitalia here. It is really a pretty gross word to most in these parts.

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Hey hosers! Take off, eh?

(Mackenzie is an acknowledged dialect of Canuckian, right? And that's practically British, so it should totally count for this thread.)

This skit should count for the

, too: long underwear!
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I avoid the whole toilet/bathroom/lavatory minefield by simply announcing loudly and to all within earshot; "I must be away posthaste, and will return after I have defecated. But I may tarry, for I feel a real 'hanger' brewing. You there, chap, kindly direct me to the nearest receptacle for human waste, for I did eat a burrito for lunch, and am in dire need of it's particular service."

Most people arent as classy as me though.

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If Britishisms are invading US English, will we be looking at the US switching to the correct spelling of grey, labour, colour, theatre, centre, etc?

No, no, no. Even those of us who've adopted some Britishisms aren't pretentious enough to correct meaningless spelling differences.

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Min, what's the british version of cigarette? My Brit friends say it the same way my American friends do. And "waiting on"? I've used that, I guess, but much more common is "waiting for."

Usually the stress is on the final syllable (cigarETTE) rather than the first. See also magazine. Though this was 18 years ago and I have no smoker friends any more, so it's possible the world caught me up and I didn't notice.

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If Britishisms are invading US English, will we be looking at the US switching to the correct spelling of grey, labour, colour, theatre, centre, etc?

In this case, I expect this to happen about the same time the earlier name of 'aluminum' is accepted worldwide. (Except 'grey', which I have anecdotally seen gaining traction as a regular US spelling.)

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