Irritating American names for things

whisky_galore · 30-11-2020 12:31pm

Invidious wrote: »

I'd say Ireland has a hybrid culture. Some aspects are clearly Irish, such as the Irish language & literature, GAA sports, and traditional Irish music. But many people also follow English football and soaps, watch American films and TV, eat Asian food, and so on. And then there are the ever-increasing numbers of foreign-born residents: One in six people living in Ireland was born elsewhere. So it's an open question as to what "our own identity" actually means anymore.

Irish Trad music is played on instruments that aren't Irish for the most part.

Celmullet · 30-11-2020 12:37pm

I don't know if it has been mentioned already but the one that bugs me the most is "On Accident".

dxhound2005 · 30-11-2020 12:43pm

Celmullet wrote: »

I don't know if it has been mentioned already but the one that bugs me the most is "On Accident".

They don't do it On Purpose.

30-11-2020 12:48pm

mikemac2 wrote: »

Their recipes

They just love to break everything down into cups

This drives me mad so I use the "everything metric" chrome extension and it adds metric to everything.

tringle · 30-11-2020 11:48pm

Celmullet wrote: »

I don't know if it has been mentioned already but the one that bugs me the most is "On Accident".

I did just a page or so back and while i now know its not a new thing i have only heard it in the past few weeks and multiple times, it just doesnt sound right. Its like something a 3 year old would say and you would correct.

Ikozma · 30-11-2020 11:53pm

When they claim their sports teams are world champions when they win their own national leagues drives me bloody simple

dxhound2005 · 01-12-2020 2:40pm

tringle wrote: »

I did just a page or so back and while i now know its not a new thing i have only heard it in the past few weeks and multiple times, it just doesnt sound right. Its like something a 3 year old would say and you would correct.

It doesn't sound right because it is still rare. In 200 years time things could have reversed and there will be complaints about By Accident. That is the danger of thinking short term about language development. I can't see any logical argument against it, if On Purpose or On Average are OK.

Usage notes
In the US, on accident is about 1–2% as common, on average, as by accident (COCA). However, usage varies geographically; some regions use on accident much more than others.
In the UK, on accident is about 3% as common as by accident (BNC).

whisky_galore · 01-12-2020 2:40pm

Ikozma wrote: »

When they claim their sports teams are world champions when they win their own national leagues drives me bloody simple

World Series.
Lol.

Stateofyou · 01-12-2020 3:08pm

whisky_galore wrote: »

World Series.
Lol.

I asked this before too. Take the World Series for example in Baseball. I was told that the name origins came from the newspaper that sponsored them in the late 1800's; it was called The World. It was a marketing gimmick basically. It spread from there. So it's nothing to do with thinking they're masters of the world or anything like that.

Baseball is also a professionally sport played in many countries around the world believe it or not, and they compete with each other every 3-4 years (can't remember how often). Apparently it's one of the most popular played sports ww.

Barna77 · 01-12-2020 3:16pm

Happy holidays... :mad:

dxhound2005 · 01-12-2020 4:12pm

Stateofyou wrote: »

I asked this before too. Take the World Series for example in Baseball. I was told that the name origins came from the newspaper that sponsored them in the late 1800's; it was called The World. It was a marketing gimmick basically. It spread from there. So it's nothing to do with thinking they're masters of the world or anything like that.

Baseball is also a professionally sport played in many countries around the world believe it or not, and they compete with each other every 3-4 years (can't remember how often). Apparently it's one of the most popular played sports ww.

The explanation about it being from the World newspaper is supposed to be an urban legend.

https://www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2014/10/6-faqs-brits-america

garrettod · 04-12-2020 12:21am

Am American saying, rather than word for something, but does my head in....

....

Thank you, for your service :mad:

Demonique · 04-12-2020 1:57am

Eduard Khil wrote: »

Color

Where's the U gone

I heard it's because there was a time when printing costs were per letter, so the yanks eliminated the u from a lot of words to keep the costs down

But I also heard it's because the US wanted to show its independence from england

Gaoth Laidir · 04-12-2020 8:10am

One expression I can't stand (and it's not exclusive to Americans; it seems all English speakers use it) is: "What it is is..."

What that is is is pretty annoying.

The Continental Op · 04-12-2020 10:13am

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

One expression I can't stand (and it's not exclusive to Americans; it seems all English speakers use it) is: "What it is is..."

What that is is is pretty annoying.

I think I know what you mean as I know an American that often says "It is what it is".

Randy Archer · 04-12-2020 11:22am

Oh where do we start?

Fanny , Sidewalk , The mall ,Candy , Cell phone - and how they pronounce mobile

Their use of the word “fag”

Their term for Happy Christmas , despite being predominately Christian nation (least on paper)

How they spell words like night -nite ; colour /color

Driving on the wrong side of the road

While not unique to them , their piss poor understanding of political theory like left wing , socialists , liberal etc lol

Extra special ire is reserved for the nerd wannabe whose academically challenged who says “fun fact” and proceeds to enlighten the world with an ill informed and boring “fact” about something that they copied and paste from Wikipedia

Wibbs · 04-12-2020 11:41am

Randy Archer wrote: »

How they spell words like night -nite ; colour /color

To be fair that's just simplifying the spelling in a language whose spellings often make no sense phonetically. LIke WTF is a gh doing in night. Nig hit?

Driving on the wrong side of the road

We can largely blame the French for that feck up. A generally innovative and clever bunch who can go rogue from time to time. Before them pretty much every European society drove/walked on the left. The Romans certainly did. Later on in the late medieval when the church sent out a how to guide for pilgrims they repeated this tradition and instruction. Apparently a trend in France for very large horse drawn trucks by any other name meant the driver had to sit on the left to watch for clearance and it took off from there. Their empire followed suit. Ditto for the British.

In mainland Europe it could get weird. Though Italy switched to driving in the right in the 20's IIRC, they continued to make sports and racing cars RHD well into the 50's, while ordinary cars were LHD. Apparently this was down to the layout of European race tracks which favoured RHD cars. In race cars this continued into the 1960's Here's an American Ford GT40 built to piss off Enzo Ferrari and win races in Europe.

2-interior-w800-h800.jpg?ssl=1

Though the gear shift is on the right like in a LHD car the overall layout is RHD. Given the majority have the right as the dominant hand, it makes sense to keep that on the wheel at all times rather than the less dominant, so for me anyway RHD is "superior" in that respect.

While not unique to them , their piss poor understanding of political theory like left wing , socialists , liberal etc lol

Yeah that's an odd localisation that has since gone worldwide on the interwebs. I reckon it's down to America's culture being more aimed at the individual rather than the group and government being seen as more local with the government being seen as distant, so 19th/early 20th century political group movements like socialism, even fascism never took a big hold there, though they had smatterings of both. This in turn led to a suspicion and simplification of any group movement and anything group based outside of religion to be vaguely "unamerican".

Actually Unamerican is a weird one. I can't think of another culture that has a similar label. It's a shifting definition too.

Wibbs · 04-12-2020 11:45am

An outlier on RHD/LHD in the US were early limousines with drivers. They were often RHD so when parking on a street the driver was closest to the path, sorry sidewalk, so didn't have to walk around the car to let his passengers out.

Harry Palmr · 04-12-2020 12:48pm

"Call out" which started as an Americanism - challenge/attack/highlight but please don't call out unless you need a tradesman.

ohnonotgmail · 04-12-2020 12:53pm

Wibbs wrote: »

An outlier on RHD/LHD in the US were early limousines with drivers. They were often RHD so when parking on a street the driver was closest to the path, sorry sidewalk, so didn't have to walk around the car to let his passengers out.

Not the only outlier. US mail vehicles for rural delivery are right hand drive so the postman can put letters in the kerbside postboxes without having to get out.

smilerf · 04-12-2020 1:27pm

The difference with cnut is amazing. In Ireland it's not so harsh
You fat **** lazy **** etc but Americans go bat **** crazy like it's the worst word ever
I'm aware it's used at women there though

Duffy the Vampire Slayer · 04-12-2020 1:40pm

Stateofyou wrote: »

I asked this before too. Take the World Series for example in Baseball. I was told that the name origins came from the newspaper that sponsored them in the late 1800's; it was called The World. It was a marketing gimmick basically. It spread from there. So it's nothing to do with thinking they're masters of the world or anything like that.

Baseball is also a professionally sport played in many countries around the world believe it or not, and they compete with each other every 3-4 years (can't remember how often). Apparently it's one of the most popular played sports ww.

That's not true though. The newspaper never sponsored it.

But yes, baseball is probably the most widespread sport to originate in the US. It's massive in much of Latin America and East Asia.

Hangdogroad · 04-12-2020 7:58pm

"How we roll" , ie how we do things.

Solely used by complete and utter cnunts.

boardise · 05-12-2020 2:44am

They mispronounce 'lingerie ' as 'lingeree' ...possibly influenced by 'negligee'.
Now,predictably, it is seeping into Irish usage as well.

Kaybaykwah · 05-12-2020 2:52am

boardise wrote: »

They mispronounce 'lingerie ' as 'lingeree' ...possibly influenced by 'negligee'.
Now,predictably, it is seeping into Irish usage as well.

Yes, that was a funny one for me growing up. They pronounce it "lawngeray" and that is totally unrelated to the French pronunciation.

Gaoth Laidir · 05-12-2020 8:19am

Ah now to be fair we're pretty bad at the oul pronunciation of fordn words ourselves. Not just by the general population either; it's also rife in the media, where many names are pronounced incorrectly in adverts. That shouldn't happen and is just sloppy.

Examples:

Car brands:
Lancia (should be Lanchya, not Lansya), Dacia (Dachya, not Dassia), Škoda (Shkoda, not Skoda). I'm not even going to mention Volkswagen.

The best one, though, is tagliatelle. The latest Supervalu ad has your man saying the "tag-lee-a-telly" instead of talyatel-leh.

There's no excuse for professionals doing this. What amazes me more is that the companies paying for these ads don't correct them.

So let's all take a look on our own doorstep first before dishing out the criticism.

dxhound2005 · 05-12-2020 11:42am

Those are the easy ones. Impress your friends with your authentic Japanese pronunciation of Mazda. They honestly won't think your are some sort of idiot with a speech impediment. And don't forget to say Par ee (with that nasal intonation) instead of Paris.

Wibbs · 05-12-2020 11:57am

Thank christ I drive a Honda.

Gaoth Laidir · 05-12-2020 12:17pm

dxhound2005 wrote: »

Those are the easy ones. Impress your friends with your authentic Japanese pronunciation of Mazda. They honestly won't think your are some sort of idiot with a speech impediment. And don't forget to say Par ee (with that nasal intonation) instead of Paris.

Off topic useless info alert:
In the case of Mazda, its actual Japanese written name is the 3 katakana characters マツダ (ma-tsu-da), which phonetically reads the founder's surname, 松田 (which means "pine-tree rice paddy"). So that is the actual name of the company, but for the sake of international branding they simplified it to 2 syllables.

dxhound2005 · 05-12-2020 12:24pm

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

Off topic useless info alert:
In the case of Mazda, its actual Japanese written name is the 3 katakana characters マツダ (ma-tsu-da), which phonetically reads the founder's surname, 松田 (which means "pine-tree rice paddy"). So that is the actual name of the company, but for the sake of international branding they simplified it to 2 syllables.

And I anglicise the pronunciation of plenty of foreign words, and will expect the same by other English speakers, professional or otherwise. And should not expect to be condemned for doing it.

Irritating American names for things

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