Are we becoming too Americanized, dudes?

snowstorm445

I've been living in Dublin for several years now and I have to say that of all non-American people in the world (apart from maybe the Canadians), the accent on some people (mainly southsiders) in Dublin is the most American sounding one that I've come across anywhere. Perhaps its just me coming from Cork where our accent is still fairly strong, but among young Dubs I have a hard time distinguishing it from many Americans you'd hear around the place.

I'm not just talking about the standard D4 accent which has a bit of a weird British influence in it as well, but in this case even the tones and turns of phrase are almost indistinguishable from Americans. A really droning sort of accent that clashes fairly noticeably with regular Dublin accents. American pronunciation of certain words as well (eg. "zebra", the letter z, even the word tomato) is quite common as well.

Also there tends to be a large amount of idea diffusion from America that has had a significant impact on our cultural and political outlook. Obviously there are things like names (many names that are given to children these days are fairly transparently American) but it's also visible in terms of social issues; Irish social liberals for instance spend an inordinate amount of time importing wholesale political activism on problems that afflict American society for sure (such as racial diversity in the media, politics etc.) but which patently don't apply in a more homogenous society like Ireland. Numerous articles in some papers for instance complain about the extent of white privilege in a country where even today more than 95% of the population is characterised as "white".

So, like, what do yall think? Are we more and more 51st state like in our general character than we like to think?

mada82

Awesome post.

ArnoldJRimmer

You spelled the thread title wrong, its Americanized

Barry Badrinath

10-4 Big Daddy

Panthro

Gosh no!

Arghus

Americanized my ass.

snowflaker

aluminium

Surreptitious

What you say about my mother?

Agricola

By "we" you mean Dublin? Probably then, yeah.

The rest of us are still humble aul Irish gobsh1tes thank God. Soft to day to ya.

...And Justice

snowstorm445 wrote: »

I've been living in Dublin for several years now and I have to say that of all non-American people in the world (apart from maybe the Canadians), the accent on some people (mainly southsiders) in Dublin is the most American sounding one that I've come across anywhere. Perhaps its just me coming from Cork where our accent is still fairly strong, but among young Dubs I have a hard time distinguishing it from many Americans you'd hear around the place.

I'm not just talking about the standard D4 accent which has a bit of a weird British influence in it as well, but in this case even the tones and turns of phrase are almost indistinguishable from Americans. A really droning sort of accent that clashes fairly noticeably with regular Dublin accents. American pronunciation of certain words as well (eg. "zebra", the letter z, even the word tomato) is quite common as well.

Also there tends to be a large amount of idea diffusion from America that has had a significant impact on our cultural and political outlook. Obviously there are things like names (many names that are given to children these days are fairly transparently American) but it's also visible in terms of social issues; Irish social liberals for instance spend an inordinate amount of time importing wholesale political activism on problems that afflict American society for sure (such as racial diversity in the media, politics etc.) but which patently don't apply in a more homogenous society like Ireland. Numerous articles in some papers for instance complain about the extent of white privilege in a country where even today more than 95% of the population is characterised as "white".

So, like, what do yall think? Are we more and more 51st state like in our general character than we like to think?

Yep. It's the opposite to the far right in Germany, we are going extreme left, to make our younger generation full of shít.

Pelvis

snowflaker wrote: »

aluminium

A loo minimum?

snowstorm445

mada82 wrote: »

Awesome post.

Like oh my gawd I know, right?

LeinsterDub

Be the lord Jesus not this feckin thread again

Jim Bob Scratcher

mada82 wrote: »

Awesome post.

Radical post

...And Justice

LeinsterDub wrote: »

Be the lord Jesus not this feckin thread again

Yep it only ends in bans.

biko

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnGPgCVJUsI

seachto7

As long as we keep building and naming petrol stations after presidents and selling paddywhackery to tourists, mainly Americans, we deserve everything we get.

The Backwards Man

Bust a cap in his azzzzzz

snowflaker

I'm not in the correct place, right now, to digest this post op, so I'm gonna ask you to respect my safe space and refrain from using judging words while I take a Xanax

Westernyelp

seachto7 wrote:

As long as we keep building and naming petrol stations after presidents and selling paddywhackery to tourists, mainly Americans, we deserve everything we get.

How dare you dis the Barack Obama plazaaaaaasaaaa!!

snowflaker

Wheres Trump's Pumps? Clare???

Westernyelp

Westernyelp wrote:

How dare you dis the Barack Obama plazaaaaaasaaaa!!

I think it has 2 Supermacses!

mada82

The last 15 years has been an incredible journey

Fr_Dougal

My god, he has a gun; shhoooot him!

Grayson

...And Justice wrote: »

Yep. It's the opposite to the far right in Germany, we are going extreme left, to make our younger generation full of shít.

I think you just proved the OP's point.

I have this liberal/conservative bullsh1t. I'm pretty much a centrist. I believe in the freedom of the individual but also believes that we should always see if it negatively affects others. I pretty much always look for the middle ground. Because of the american bull that's polluted our discourse I'm apparently a tree hugging lefty who's destroying the country and is making the younger generation full of ****.

sjb25

snowstorm445 wrote: »

I've been living in Dublin for several years now and I have to say that of all non-American people in the world (apart from maybe the Canadians), the accent on some people (mainly southsiders) in Dublin is the most American sounding one that I've come across anywhere. Perhaps its just me coming from Cork where our accent is still fairly strong, but among young Dubs I have a hard time distinguishing it from many Americans you'd hear around the place.

I'm not just talking about the standard D4 accent which has a bit of a weird British influence in it as well, but in this case even the tones and turns of phrase are almost indistinguishable from Americans. A really droning sort of accent that clashes fairly noticeably with regular Dublin accents. American pronunciation of certain words as well (eg. "zebra", the letter z, even the word tomato) is quite common as well.

Also there tends to be a large amount of idea diffusion from America that has had a significant impact on our cultural and political outlook. Obviously there are things like names (many names that are given to children these days are fairly transparently American) but it's also visible in terms of social issues; Irish social liberals for instance spend an inordinate amount of time importing wholesale political activism on problems that afflict American society for sure (such as racial diversity in the media, politics etc.) but which patently don't apply in a more homogenous society like Ireland. Numerous articles in some papers for instance complain about the extent of white privilege in a country where even today more than 95% of the population is characterised as "white".

So, like, what do yall think? Are we more and more 51st state like in our general character than we like to think?

.

Wibbs

snowstorm445 wrote: »

the accent on some people (mainly southsiders) in Dublin is the most American sounding one that I've come across anywhere. Perhaps its just me coming from Cork where our accent is still fairly strong, but among young Dubs I have a hard time distinguishing it from many Americans you'd hear around the place.

I'm not just talking about the standard D4 accent which has a bit of a weird British influence in it as well, but in this case even the tones and turns of phrase are almost indistinguishable from Americans. A really droning sort of accent that clashes fairly noticeably with regular Dublin accents. American pronunciation of certain words as well (eg. "zebra", the letter z, even the word tomato) is quite common as well.

Yep that's definitely been a shift alright. Previously the D4/Dort accent was more aping the received British accent(which was as irritating), but in the last 20 years the shift has been towards the American, mid Atlantic accent. Both are doing, but the mid Atlantic one even more so. It seems more prevalent(though not exclusively) among younger women. Where some seem to need to run some adenoidal race to prove how droning and nasally they can be. Add in the imported words like "Mom"* and going to the "store" etc(a while back someone on here asked me what was wrong with "store". Nothing, only it used to be a place you kept stuff, rather than where you went to go shopping). Among said types water has become "waaaader" and the like. Vowels have lengthened. Hell even a desiccated old fart like Prince Philip of the UK noticed it on that Irish trip with his missus, when he asked a local in Trinity College "are you from around here, you sound American". She was and she wasn't.

Now language and accents change. That's what they do, but it does grind on my ears. Maybe because I'm of an age when a mid Atlantic drawl was seen as the sad preserve of local radio DJ's, or ex pats who lived in the US a month coming back with the accent trying to sound "cool" and were regarded as anything but?





*in before the "well it's always been Mom in an enclave of Kerry/Connemara", it sure as hell wasn't in Dublin or Cork or Waterford or...

Westernyelp

Westernyelp wrote:

How dare you dis the Barack Obama plazaaaaaasaaaa!!

I think it has 2 Supermacses!

languagenerd

Actually a recent study found that Twitter users in Ireland used the fewest American spellings of any nation and the second-fewest American vocabulary terms (only Britain used fewer). Twitter is obviously a subset, but their study included every public tweet in English with a location within a certain timeframe. Going by that, our English is far less Americanised than we think.

https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/13/american-english-language-study

That said, chains like Starbucks taking over cities points to a lot of Americanisation of culture.

Sexual Chocolate

Ayatollah Khomeini is that you ? :pac:

No seriously I agree but I always thought when it comes to kids speaking in such a way that it was down to television.

And dont a lot of Israelis have an american twang in there accents as well ? Though no surprise.

Academic

snowstorm445 wrote: »

I've been living in Dublin for several years now and I have to say that of all non-American people in the world (apart from maybe the Canadians), the accent on some people (mainly southsiders) in Dublin is the most American sounding one that I've come across anywhere. Perhaps its just me coming from Cork where our accent is still fairly strong, but among young Dubs I have a hard time distinguishing it from many Americans you'd hear around the place.

I'm not just talking about the standard D4 accent which has a bit of a weird British influence in it as well, but in this case even the tones and turns of phrase are almost indistinguishable from Americans. A really droning sort of accent that clashes fairly noticeably with regular Dublin accents. American pronunciation of certain words as well (eg. "zebra", the letter z, even the word tomato) is quite common as well.

Also there tends to be a large amount of idea diffusion from America that has had a significant impact on our cultural and political outlook. Obviously there are things like names (many names that are given to children these days are fairly transparently American) but it's also visible in terms of social issues; Irish social liberals for instance spend an inordinate amount of time importing wholesale political activism on problems that afflict American society for sure (such as racial diversity in the media, politics etc.) but which patently don't apply in a more homogenous society like Ireland. Numerous articles in some papers for instance complain about the extent of white privilege in a country where even today more than 95% of the population is characterised as "white".

So, like, what do yall think? Are we more and more 51st state like in our general character than we like to think?

You’ve combining unrelated things in this post.


(1) Accent. This works in both directions. Having you ever spent time in U.S. cities? The Irish accent has strongly influenced American pronunciation, even among people who themselves are not of Irish descent. The phenomenon is probably strongest in the northeast, but you’ll also encounter it in Midwest cities like Chicago. I’ve never heard an American complain about how the Irish accent has changed American pronunciation, even though it self-evidently had.


(2) The political stuff has been done to death here, so I’m not going to bother commenting.


(3) Other posters are upset about not the accent question but about semantic questions. Having more than one word for something (“crisps”/”chips” or “flats”/”apartments,” for example) honestly doesn’t bother me in the least. Who cares?

con___manx1

Everyone thinks Americans are the good guys but if you have a look at what has been going on in the world you will see that they are not.
Irish people are much smarter in my opinion along with a lot of European country's.
I hate the way some Irish love Americans and talk with American English . I hate the words awesome or dude when they are said by Irish people. I just think have some respect **** America your irish in ireland be proud.
I have been to several us city's by the way and some of these American lovers haven't even been there.

Westernyelp

con___manx1 wrote:

Everyone thinks Americans are the good guys but if you have a look at what has been going on in the world you will see that they are not. Irish people are much smarter in my opinion along with a lot of European country's. I hate the way some Irish love Americans and talk with American English . I hate the words awesome or dude when they are said by Irish people. I just think have some respect **** America your irish in ireland be proud. I have been to several us city's by the way and some of these American lovers haven't even been there.

Cool story bro

languagenerd

Academic wrote: »

(3) Other posters are upset about not the accent question but about semantic questions. Having more than one word for something (“crisps”/”chips” or “flats”/”apartments,” for example) honestly doesn’t bother me in the least. Who cares?

I read something recently that suggests we take on American words alongside our own, to mean something more specific. So to an American, "cookie" means any type of biscuit, but to us, it's a specific biscuit (ie chocolate chip cookies, originally from America). We still use "biscuits" as the overarching term, but "cookie" fills a vocab gap. Similarly, "candy" means "sweets" to an American, but if we do use the term, it's usually more specific (candy floss, candy cane). It hasn't replaced the word "sweets", just exists alongside it. We generally use "fries" to mean a certain type of "chips" (the skinny so-called French fries, which are actually more American), and if we use "chips" to mean "crisps", it's mostly for specific types like nachos.

Not sure if it applies to everything, but it makes some sense. I can't think of many/any American terms that have completely replaced the original term we used (which in most cases is the British one). Maybe "movie" instead of "film", but I think the two are used interchangeably.

Larbre34

con___manx1 wrote: »

Everyone thinks Americans are the good guys but if you have a look at what has been going on in the world you will see that they are not.
Irish people are much smarter in my opinion along with a lot of European country's.
I hate the way some Irish love Americans and talk with American English . I hate the words awesome or dude when they are said by Irish people. I just think have some respect **** America your irish in ireland be proud.
I have been to several us city's by the way and some of these American lovers haven't even been there.

Go ahead and blog that for me boss.

Nobody in their right mind believes America are the good guys, they are in fact the dysfunctional shell shocked veteran who sits on his front step, mumbling with his finger resting on the trigger guard of his big ole shotgun, but they do supply us most of our screen entertainment so we tolerate them.

My 11 year old niece was brought up in Rathgar and has never been further than France, yet has a fully American accent, not just affected South Dub, she could actually pass for a native of Grosse Pointe, Michigan or some such copy and paste town. And thats a great pity, Id hate to think we'll lose our distinct accents in a generation or two.

Tuco88

Why is it all the ****ty American lines.

More of the cool 60/70s cop show like dirty harry.

"I aight to bust you right in the ass mack"

Eh never mind that... sounds a wee bit gay.

Ah now I have more full metal jack ones.

"Out ****ing standing private"
"Anytime today snowflake"

I'll start using them today.

votecounts

No, Now I am just going to hit the head

LadyMacBeth_

I grew up in Cork and have noticed a similar pattern amongst middle-upper class young people, I went to college in Dublin and it was definitely more pronounced but it is happening in other places too. Some Americanisms annoy me, like awesome or take out or garbage or candy, we have our own words for those things, people who say stuff like that annoy me. Then again though I use Americanisms myself that I previously didn't even know were Americanisms until someone pointed them out on boards, such as calling children kids.

I have been asked if I am American one time by a GP but then other people in Dublin thought I was a right bogger, some hear a very neutral accent and others can hear that some words are pronounced with a Cork accent. It is odd though, I think peoples' accents in cities in Ireland are becoming more neutral sounding. My parents have much stronger accents than me and my sister, and we were raised to say "mom/mum" and that is what my friends at home and in school said too (I went to a private secondary school though). My mum thought that mam/mammy sounded common even though she called her own mother mammy. I was looked after by my grandparents while my parents worked so you think that would have had an influence, maybe all of us picked up mom from the television? I do remember making friends with some teenage boys who were from a rough area and they teased us for saying mom and other things that sounded American to them but we'd never even thought about it before.

Rumpy Pumpy

Whip out your cock. Examine it. Is that a socialist cock or a capitalist cock?

con___manx1

Larbre34 wrote: »

Go ahead and blog that for me boss.

Nobody in their right mind believes America are the good guys, they are in fact the dysfunctional shell shocked veteran who sits on his front step, mumbling with his finger resting on the trigger guard of his big ole shotgun, but they do supply us most of our screen entertainment so we tolerate them.

My 11 year old niece was brought up in Rathgar and has never been further than France, yet has a fully American accent, not just affected South Dub, she could actually pass for a native of Grosse Pointe, Michigan or some such copy and paste town. And thats a great pity, Id hate to think we'll lose our distinct accents in a generation or two.

I have a friend from Latvia. When she moved here she had an American accent she picked up from learning English at home from American tv and music.
She has since moved to Germany and has tried to loose the accent for a German one as they are really anti American there at the moment apparently.

A dub referring to someone as "dude", instant notification they're a w@nker

Jurgen Klopp

LadyMacBeth_ wrote: »

My mum thought that mam/mammy sounded common even though she called her own mother mammy.

At least the the concept of getting notions about yourself hasn't disappeared anyway

Did she insist on much decking be put down during the boom?

Noveight

Ketchup is red sauce and crisps are Taytos. If it's America ye want get yerselves to Dún Chaoin and head Wesht.

LadyMacBeth_

Jurgen Klopp wrote: »

At least the the concept of getting notions about yourself hasn't disappeared anyway

Did she insist on much decking be put down during the boom?

So much decking and so many houses, it's an embarrassment.

techno_radio

i'm moving to the usa next month,

gonna head down to one of the hipie communes in the dessert and make amerika grate again

RDM_83 again

Grayson wrote: »

I think you just proved the OP's point.

I have this liberal/conservative bullsh1t. I'm pretty much a centrist. I believe in the freedom of the individual but also believes that we should always see if it negatively affects others. I pretty much always look for the middle ground. Because of the american bull that's polluted our discourse I'm apparently a tree hugging lefty who's destroying the country and is making the younger generation full of ****.

No genuinely your probably on the social left, I personally hate the Americanization thats occured where being a social democrat or centrist means you have to endorse at least the majority of the "Social Justice" type views, it was only as far back as the 80's that a giant of social democracy (Chancellor Kohl) was quietly considering deporting half the Turks in Germany, a policy that hard-line would be rejected by Le Pen and De Wilders as too far today.

A really easy way to see this is in relation to the Abortion issue

The most support for a change to the 8th amendment, whats clear from polling is that the stronger pro-choice position is not the centrist position. AFAIK your pretty strongly pro-life [1]

its not just you I am singling out for this its, just a demonstration on how in my view because of American cultural/political influences and theories on social issues the center, which should be what the majority of people believe, has been shifted left, and much of what appeals to the actual center has been labeled as traditionalist, right, populist and so on.

People complaining about SJW, Feminists and similar things may be annoying to some but its reactive and its reactive against IMO against a deliberately imported Americanized view point.

Last week a member of one of the Oxbridge student Unions was complaining about how white people have "colonized" Dalston (in London), let take a look at Dalston in its pre-colonized virgin state which is unfortunately being lost to us because of all those white people moving into the area :rolleyes:



In short there is not a recognition that Europe isn't America by many SJW types.


[1]https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/poll-shows-public-support-for-abortion-is-cautious-and-conditional-1.2995696

TLDR: You lot started it :P

Academic

Augeo wrote: »

A dub referring to someone as "dude", instant notification they're a w@nker

Arguably age has to be a factor in some cases. One can’t very well speak of a young person having lost some aspect of “Irishness,” linguistic or otherwise, that he or she actually never had in the first place.

jimmycrackcorm

TLDR Cork people sound as annoying as ever.

techno_radio

the irish built america

Robsweezie

Know an irish girl with no american background, irish parents, just spoke in an American accent the whole time. She has a personality disorder though, so im guessing its part of that. I found it odd listening to her speak like ellen page in Juno, when her mother is as irish as they come.

KungPao

techno_radio wrote: »

i'm moving to the usa next month,

gonna head down to one of the hipie communes in the dessert and make amerika grate again

Fascinating.