I suppose I've been aware of the gradual Americanisation of English, as spoken in the UK, for around half a century. I think 'radio' replaced 'wireless' in my late teens', it cannot have been much earlier. An OE writing in the 1955 edition of the school magazine commented as follows on the differences between Canadian and British English: 'I found that some care was required in speaking the language … such ordinary alternatives as wireless and radio, lift and elevator … are easily learned …' 'Train station' for 'railway station' is more recent and its usage at first was confined to the less-educated sections of society. Today it's virtually universal.
The North American influence has also affected the way most people pronounce our language: stressing the first syllable of 'research' rather the second, and the second of 'lamentable' rather than the first; pronouncing 'covert' to rhyme with 'overt' in defiance of the word's meaning, though I don't think anyone's yet started to mis-pronounce 'covert coat'. The other day I heard someone on Radio Four pronounce the first syllable of 'patent' as a homophone of my wife's christian name. No doubt in five year's time it'll be the norm.
The latest insidious change is the addition of the American 's' to words indicating categories: sport has become sports, bread breads, fruit fruits, and meat meats. Again, the change has spread rapidly from the lexically challenged to the educated classes: I caught Simon Hoggart using it in the Guardian a few days ago.
'So what?' you may ask. Language is in a continual state of flux, always has been, always will be. But this, I would argue is different: it is not about the adoption of words from a foreign language or a shift in meaning of a particular word. Rather it is the displacement of one language by another. And languages differ from one another not simply in their vocabulary but in the way they structure experience. To give a couple of simple examples: an Englishman will say, 'I miss you', an Italian 'Mi manchi' - literally 'You are missing to me'. An Englishman will say, 'He waited until the rain stopped', an Italian 'ha aspettato finché non ha smesso di piovere - literally 'he waited as long as it had not stopped raining'.
American English in speaking of 'fruits', 'meats', 'breads' etc emphasises the differences between the items in a category, traditional British English what they have in common. The former is an expression of individualism, the latter of civilisation. Although it is fashionable in this politically correct age to refer to the 'civilisation' of nomadic peoples such as the Australian aborigine or the native American the word is being misused. Rather, they have cultures, in many cases worthy of respect. Civilisation refers to a complex culture organised around the cives or inhabitants of a city. It functions through the interdependence of the individual and the common good. The shoemaker makes his living by selling shoes to the farmer who raises beasts whose hides are sold to the tanner who sells his leather to the shoemaker who sells his shoes to the haulier who transports the beasts from the farm to the tannery.
Whilst America is a continent of cities, its self-image is the frontiersman, dependent on nothing but his own resources and a Winchester rifle. In the US anything which smacks of collectivism is rejected by large numbers of those who in fact would be its beneficiaries: Obama's health reforms were demonised as 'socialistic'. Unfortunately this myopic rejection of state power has been fervently adopted on this side of the Atlantic too: the NHS is gradually being reshaped into a 'facilitator' of private provision; coherent educational provision by LEAs is being fragmented by the promotion of 'independent' Academies and 'free' schools; and any attempt to protect ordinary people's living standards through collective bargaining vilified.
Whilst America is a continent of cities, its self-image is the frontiersman, dependent on nothing but his own resources and a Winchester rifle. In the US anything which smacks of collectivism is rejected by large numbers of those who in fact would be its beneficiaries: Obama's health reforms were demonised as 'socialistic'. Unfortunately this myopic rejection of state power has been fervently adopted on this side of the Atlantic too: the NHS is gradually being reshaped into a 'facilitator' of private provision; coherent educational provision by LEAs is being fragmented by the promotion of 'independent' Academies and 'free' schools; and any attempt to protect ordinary people's living standards through collective bargaining vilified.
And so the people of this once proud country wheel their trollies down the supermarket aisles shopping for breads, meats and fruits before going home to watch sports on television and dream of winning the lottery or an audition for The X-Factor. All the time vowing to resist the unelected bureaucrats from Brussels, and preserve their country's mythical independence. In reality they're simply unenfranchised Americans.
