Dang Your Fanny Pack! How Americanisms Are Infiltrating UK Language

Americanisms are gaining popularity in Britain, with more than one in four Gen Z and Millennials opting for ‘restroom’ or ‘washroom’ over the good old-fashioned bog or loo.

Commenting on the stats, published by Admiral Home Insurance, Sociolinguistics Professor Mercedes Durham of Cardiff University says that regional and geographical differences in language are decreasing, and Americanisms are increasing because of travel, UK-wide radio, TV, and social media.

Well, I can see this future better than most. Having just returned from six years living in the USA, I’ve now got a ten-year-old with an accent akin to the north Atlantic drawl of an 80s Radio 2 DJ and a thirteen-year-old capable of sounding like Taylor Swift and Lily Allen in the same sentence.

So, what could this mean for the way we speak? In my years spent across the pond, I was consistently surprised at how many words and phrases had different meanings or were different altogether, I mean, English is English, right? Well, you’d think.

Here are some of the classics. Could this be in our spoken future?

American curses: Bad words in disguise!

So, in this category I’m putting both blatant swear word alternatives and cuter ways of saying bad things, something Americans do well. This is our equivalent of dropping something on our foot and saying, ‘oh sugar puffs!’

How about these:

• DANG! – guess what this is used in place of? It’s that word’s cuter little brother, right? Everyone says it. Oh dang! Dang it! All the ways you’d use the other word.
• HECK – For religious purposes, the word this stands in for is generally not liked, but Heck yeah! This is fine.
• SHOOT! – You can imagine Ned Flanders from The Simpsons saying this, can’t you?
• GO POTTY! – Potty in this instance is pronounced a bit like ‘paaahdeee’. It means loo. I hope we stick with loo. Please millennials, let’s stick with loo.

(And special note: In America a fanny is bottom. Bum bag = fanny pack. If you don’t snigger at this, are you even alive?).

Then there’s food.

• CILANTRO – To all intents and purposes, this is coriander, or coriander is a seed related to Cilantro. Whatever it is, for Americans, coriander isn’t a thing that goes in guacamole.
• CHIPS – For Americans, these are crisps, and that’s all crisps, not just the ones that look like chips.
• BISCUITS – These are effectively scones – maybe a bit larger, and they’re often topped with a white, glutinous sauce, sometimes with bits of sausage in it. Whatever, do not dip them in your tea.
• ZUCCHINI – It’s a courgette, oh and similarly, an aubergine is an egg plant. The emoji appears to be the same wherever you go.

And a little subcategory here, British food that doesn’t even exist in America: Caster sugar (and yes, I did once try substituting icing sugar, which did not work), mushy peas, (drinking) squash – however there are about 15 kinds of vegetable squashes, one of which creates substitute spaghetti. Yes, that’s a thing.

Things that are just different that you may not have expected.

• A car boot is a trunk, but trunk is still the nasal appendage of an elephant.
• A torch is a flashlight. If you say torch, an American is expecting you to be carrying a large open flame, as per the Olympic opening ceremony.
• A trolley is a cart in the context of shopping. A trolley is something akin to a tram.
• Lorry isn’t a word. Lorries are trucks, or semi’s, which I think is a big lorry, sorry, truck. We won’t go there on semis.
• They don’t have jumpers, they are sweaters, trainers are tennis shoes, even if you do any other sport than tennis in them.
• A tank is a vest, and a vest is a waistcoat (are you still following?).
• Tea is not an evening meal for the everyday family, it’s only a drink and in that instance, it’s usually iced, which is basically very sugary brown water with an artificial fruit flavoured overtone.

Anyway, this is all just speculation, you never know, it might all just be a load of shoot.