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Hi listeners and welcome back to Luke's English podcast

this episode is the continuation of the last one which was all about Americanisms

in that episode I went through a list of American expressions which British people don't like.

This is a list published by the BBC of comments made by British people about American expressions that they hate.

Yes, hate. It's a pretty strong word to use, but basically, British people can be very sensitive

about hearing American expressions used in British English. Many of them just don't like it.

It infuriates them, causes their blood pressure to rise and their blood to boil.

But is it really worth getting so angry about the way

British English is influenced by American English? Are the expressions genuinely wrong grammatically? In most cases I don't think so. Most of the expressions are

grammatically okay. They're just examples of standard conventions of

American English and it's quite natural for American English to influence British

English. We watch American TV shows, interact with Americans on the internet and meet more

and more American people in our daily lives.

Perhaps some Americanisms sound less sophisticated than their British equivalents,

but in fact many Americanisms really are efficient bits of language.

They're effective tools of communication most of the time.

Also they're just the normal way in which Americans use the language and essentially American English has just developed

differently to the way British English has.

When British people don't like hearing other Brits using Americanisms, I think it's pretty small-minded

especially when the criticisms given are things like it's grammatically wrong or

...