Latest news with #Americanisms
The Guardian
5 days ago
- General
- The Guardian
American style has gotten out of hand
Following Donald Trump's demand that news agencies amend their style guides to reflect current US terminology (like 'Gulf of America'), has the Guardian now fallen into line too? Martin Kettle (Opinion, 29 May) tosses in a casual 'gotten' ('so far Charles has gotten away with it') and Rebecca Nicholson (TV review, 28 May) idly talks of turning on a 'faucet' ('the faucet of public attention'). I suggest a 25% tariff on unwonted and unwanted ElmesLondon Gwyneth Paltrow once said that, according to her father, the secret behind her parents' 30-year marriage in the divorce-ridden world of Hollywood was that 'they never wanted to get divorced at the same time' (Letters, 27 May).Richard EhrlichLondon We have children because they grow up and leave home, and we have dogs because they don't (Are millennials really substituting dogs for children? Obviously not – as any dog owner would know, 28 May).Roger LeitchBath Look, some of us just prefer dogs to children, OK?Geoff HolmanKnutsford, Cheshire It's no surprise that Keir Starmer's Labour is happy with the decline of swift numbers (Letters, 28 May). After all, they are BibbySheffield Since my total colectomy operation, I have neither a colon nor even a semicolon (Letters, 28 May), but thanks to the NHS my life has not come to a full EptonBrigg, Lincolnshire Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
The Courier
23-05-2025
- Business
- The Courier
MARTEL MAXWELL: Why Dundee McDonald's handed 10-year-old me the hottest ticket in town
It is December 3, 1987, and the 10-year-old me has the hottest ticket in town: Michelle Palmer's birthday party. She's the first in our P7 class to turn 11 and has invited us to a newly-opened restaurant. The very first McDonald's in Scotland – resplendent with Golden Arches on Reform Street. In the month since opening, I pass by several times, lingering, taking in the unfamiliar yet mouthwatering smells, the shiny chrome surfaces, the scale of two pristine floors, the smiling staff. Had they all come from America? And what was a Big Mac? Finally, we were there. The memory of that afternoon – the excitement of joining the queue, rolling the terms 'Quarter Pounder' and 'large fries' on our tongues for size, being told by Michelle's mum we could order anything we wanted, my now-husband ordering two Big Mac meals – is as vivid today. I thought about McDonald's on Wednesday driving home from filming in Leeds. Johnny Vaughan was telling listeners on Radio X there was some breaking news – good news. The kind of news you would never expect. It was that McDonald's is good for you. My mind raced – maybe the occasional drive-thru for the kids could be more frequent. No washing up, no cooking, newly discovered nutrients. Joy. Alas, the news wasn't quite that it should be a staple of our diets but that there was growing agreement between migraine sufferers that fries and a Coke was the best cure for relieving pain. This anecdotal evidence was backed by experts. Eighty-five years after the chain was founded by brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald in San Bernardino, California, its success and newsworthiness – even for the smallest findings – is unstoppable. Often news has been bad – from staffing practices to lawsuits involving scalding coffee – but the storms have been weathered and negativity replaced by not infrequent positive PR, like the millions of free books the brand gives to children in the UK every year. If I was to tell you brothers Andy and Jamie Murray owed their success to McDonald's, you might laugh but perhaps it's not so far-fetched. Their mum Judy once told me she always knew the importance of making any tennis tournament – and there were many with journeys across the country – fun. Whether they won or lost, they looked forward to a trip to McDonald's on the way home. They came to associate competitions with the treat, no matter the result. Every day, McDonald's continues to be a parental gift. How many times, from Fintry to the Ferry, are these words uttered with magical effect? 'Go on, do a bit more study/try your best/be a good boy…and we'll get a McDonald's tomorrow.' No one's advocating a daily dinner there, but it has its place and that place is gold. You'll have your own memories of McDonald's – I'd wager it's touched us all. Often I have lamented the increase in Americanisms into common parlance. 'It's rubbish not garbage, trainers not sneakers, flat not apartment, sweets not candy, petrol not gas, centre not mall,' I say ad nauseam to my eye-rolling boys. But then, sometimes, what's the harm? I won't budge on the dilution of English or Scots language but if our kids grow up watching American shows, why shouldn't they hanker for the glow-up of a prom dress and hot date? Maybe some American things are better than our lower-key marking of events. McDonald's has outlasted several British bastions of the high street. It is 38 years since that first one came to Scotland, narrowly beating Kirkcaldy which opened the second a few weeks later. The Dundee branch, with its 70 newly recruited staff, broke sales records and needed to draft in extra staff and stock. The opening week was the second busiest in McDonald's UK history at the time, taking the restaurant another 20 years to beat that week's sales. That level of headline-grabbing fervour might not be sustainable, but I'll tell you what is: a 10-year old's delight. For that little girl from 1987 now looks at her own 10-year-old son and sees the smile spread across his face at the mention of a trip to the Golden Arches. Almost 40 years on, he is every bit as giddy. To be as important, as current and as relevant now as then is some feat – and the saviour of parents everywhere still lovin' it.
Daily Mail
27-04-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
QUENTIN LETTS: There's been an uptick in groovy Americanisms - but going forward you can toss them in the trash can!
At his St George's Day party in Downing Street, clunky Keir Starmer laid on pork pies, Pimm's and Eccles cakes. It was almost a surprise he didn't pull out a ukulele and start singing George Formby's It's Turned Out Nice Again. With the PM so desperate to stress his Englishness, just one question: why does he spout so many Americanisms? Sir Keir is forever 'calling out' people of whom he disapproves. Not long ago a British speaker would have 'deplored' or 'denounced' but now it's 'call out', that American expression presumably being considered more with-it. Where once MPs used cricket metaphors they now turn to baseball: 'first base', 'stepping up to the plate', 'brand new ballgame', 'playing hardball', 'hitting it out of the park' and 'touching base'. What was wrong with sticky wickets, long stops, googlies and whacking things for six? Alas, our dreary political class dislikes British culture and reaches instead for something foreign. No longer content with 'all day', MPs speak of services being available '24/7'. They think it sounds groovier, I suppose. Groovy? Another Americanism! If you were 'in the groove' as a 1930s American jazz musician you were good enough to have your music committed to vinyl records, which had grooves. Americanisms no longer impart grooviness. They have become stale. When MPs say 'from the get-go' (ie 'from the start') they sound teenagerish and fake. And guttural. 'Outage' is another stinker. It was much evident in the Commons a month ago when a sub-station blew up at Heathrow Airport. In the 1970s we had 'power cuts'. An alternative was 'black-out', but you would not want to say that nowadays for fear of a midnight raid from the constabulary. Researchers recently studied parliamentary debates from the past quarter of a century. Americanisms had risen by nearly 40 per cent. One was 'reaching out', American psychobabble for 'embrace'. David Cameron, Boris Johnson, Theresa May and Dominic Raab frequently spoke of 'reaching out to emerging powers' or 'reaching out to victims'. 'Reach out' has a plastic, insincere quality. During lockdown we were told to 'stay home' – a sloppy, bossy Americanism. We British might have preferred to 'stay at home' but the slogan was devised by Mr Johnson's spin doctor Isaac Levido, an Australian who had worked on Republican campaigns for the US Senate. The then Health Secretary Matt Hancock loved slipping into a transatlantic accent to show how hands-on he was. Then came video footage of him with another chap's wife and we saw 'hands-on' did not quite do him justice. It is a wonder Mr Hancock did not open his frequent Downing Street pandemic briefings with a US sergeant-major's 'now hear this!' Things started going awry in November 1997 when Tony Blair wriggled out of an early corruption scandal by drawling, 'I think most people who have dealt with me think I am a pretty straight sorta guy'. David Cameron used twice as many Americanisms as other recent PMs. Was this a surprise, given he was a pukka Etonian? No. Etonians are chameleons. One reason they are so often successful is they learn to disguise their elitism. And so Mr Cameron would talk of 'a learning curve' and say 'back in the day', instead of the British 'formerly' or 'in the old days'. He and his Chancellor George Osborne pronounced 'leverage' in the Wall Street manner, the first syllable rhyming with leveret rather than eave. They wished to depict themselves as masters of a universe that was, to them, led by America. How odd that they so fatally placed their faith in the European Union. That dull dog Sir Keir Starmer, when not droning about this being the time to 'step up', also said 'leverage' in the yankee-doodle way last week. And he loves to 'double down' on policies. Why not 'accentuate' or 'reinforce' or 'reassert'? As a lawyer, Sir Keir must know precise English. Why demean himself with these American expressions? Is it because he lacks imagination? Sir Keir also has a weakness for 'back-to-back'. Why not say 'successive'? Conservative MP Simon Hoare recently said 'normalcy' in the Commons. Reform MP Lee Anderson wanted the farm tax 'thrown in the trash can'. Stroud's Labour MP Simon Opher asked about his local 'train station'. That has driven out the British 'railway station' as much as the American grey squirrel has destroyed native British reds. Matthew Pennycook, planning minister, says 'build out' when he simply means 'build'. Americans love to add a preposition in the mistaken belief that it will add weight. 'Up-lift', 'up-tick' and 'up-surge' all now pollute Westminster debates. In a Commons committee, an expert witness, one Professor Bogg, talked of an 'upsurge in union recognition'. What, O Bogg, was wrong with an unadorned 'surge'? Every day in the Commons you can hear sentences start with 'so'. There is a blizzard of Californian surfer rising inflexions, a plague of 'going forwards', and little horrors such as 'fess up' and 'driver's licence'. 'Invite' and 'quote' are used as nouns (instead of invitation and quotation). 'Behaviours' is deployed in the plural. My Chinese daughter-in-law is puzzled by how many Britons say 'different to' instead of the correct 'different from'. She is puzzled by our lack of linguistic pride. 'You have a great language,' she says. 'Why do you not cherish it?'
Yahoo
10-02-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Pre-school children's screen time at 'crisis point'
Pre-school children's speech and language development is in "steady decline" due to an over-reliance on screen time, an expert has said. More than 25% of three- and four-year-olds own their own smartphone and half of children under 13 are on social media, according to a recent Ofcom report. One early years centre in North Yorkshire said that some of its pupils even used Americanisms like "diaper" and "garbage" that they had learned from their viewing, but could not communicate basic needs such as needing the toilet. The Department for Education said it has set a "clear milestone" including advanced early language support to make sure thousands of children are school-ready by age five. Kate Beck, from Mill Hill Community Primary in North Allerton, said she thought screens were a "big factor" in the steady decline she has seen in children's language skills. "Some children use American vocabulary which they are definitely hearing from a screen", she added. Ms Beck, who has been a teacher for 20 years, also said some children were not experiencing the world first-hand but seeing it through "someone else's eyes" when they were watching someone play with toys on YouTube. Meanwhile speech and language therapist Sandy Chapell, from Health Professionals for Safer Screens, said she has seen a decline in children's communication skills over the last 10 years and an increase in referrals. She said more young children were being referred with delayed speech and language abilities as well as poor social, attention and listening skills. Ms Chapell believes parents don't know how harmful screens are for young children and is calling for a public health campaign to highlight the issue. While it has been widely reported the pandemic had an impact on children's development, Ms Chapell said pre-school children today were too young to have been affected by lockdowns. "Giving a child a device to calm them down means they don't learn how to regulate their own emotions, which can lead to behaviour problems," she added. Health Professionals for Safer Screens suggest children age 0-2 should not be on any screens at all and those age 2-5 for a maximum of 30 minutes per day. However some parents said this was "unrealistic". One parent from Mill Hill Community Primary said having older children meant their younger child wanted access to the same devices, while another said screen time was a concern but they kept it "limited". They also admitted that it was a "struggle" to get the device away from their child. A Department of Education spokesperson said they were "urgently" working towards strengthening and joining up family services through "continued investment" in the Family Hubs and Start for Life programme. They added: "More robust evidence is needed to reach clear conclusions on the impact of smartphones on children, which is why we have launched our own research, led by the University of Cambridge, into the impact of social media on children's overall wellbeing." Listen to highlights from North Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North or tell us a story you think we should be covering here. 'I cut phone screen time in half and life changed' How is the rise in screen time affecting children?
BBC News
10-02-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Experts warn pre-school children's screen time at 'crisis point'
Pre-school children's speech and language development is in "steady decline" due to an over-reliance on screen time, an expert has than 25% of three- and four-year-olds own their own smartphone and half of children under 13 are on social media, according to a recent Ofcom report. One early years centre in North Yorkshire said that some of its pupils even used Americanisms like "diaper" and "garbage" that they had learned from their viewing, but could not communicate basic needs such as needing the Department for Education said it has set a "clear milestone" including advanced early language support to make sure thousands of children are school-ready by age five. Kate Beck, from Mill Hill Community Primary in North Allerton, said she thought screens were a "big factor" in the steady decline she has seen in children's language skills. "Some children use American vocabulary which they are definitely hearing from a screen", she added. Ms Beck, who has been a teacher for 20 years, also said some children were not experiencing the world first-hand but seeing it through "someone else's eyes" when they were watching someone play with toys on speech and language therapist Sandy Chapell, from Health Professionals for Safer Screens, said she has seen a decline in children's communication skills over the last 10 years and an increase in referrals. She said more young children were being referred with delayed speech and language abilities as well as poor social, attention and listening skills. Ms Chapell believes parents don't know how harmful screens are for young children and is calling for a public health campaign to highlight the it has been widely reported the pandemic had an impact on children's development, Ms Chapell said pre-school children today were too young to have been affected by lockdowns. "Giving a child a device to calm them down means they don't learn how to regulate their own emotions, which can lead to behaviour problems," she added. Health Professionals for Safer Screens suggest children age 0-2 should not be on any screens at all and those age 2-5 for a maximum of 30 minutes per day. However some parents said this was "unrealistic". One parent from Mill Hill Community Primary said having older children meant their younger child wanted access to the same devices, while another said screen time was a concern but they kept it "limited". They also admitted that it was a "struggle" to get the device away from their child.A Department of Education spokesperson said they were "urgently" working towards strengthening and joining up family services through "continued investment" in the Family Hubs and Start for Life added: "More robust evidence is needed to reach clear conclusions on the impact of smartphones on children, which is why we have launched our own research, led by the University of Cambridge, into the impact of social media on children's overall wellbeing."Listen to highlights from North Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North or tell us a story you think we should be covering here.
