Interessant.

Wenn man selber eine Zeitlang in einem Land gelebt hat und eine Zeitlang in einem anderen, dann kann man solche Veränderungen, Entstehung von Modeworten oder bestimmte anderssprachige Einflüsse sogar zeitlich ziemlich genau eingrenzen.
Wenn man selber kontinuierlich lange Zeit im selben Land lebt, passiert das oft so schleichend, dass man's kaum merkt oder sich dessen erst bewusst wird, wenn das Wort schon zehn Jahre im Umlauf ist.

Denselben Effekt beobachten ja die Österreicher bei sich zu Hause, gelle?

Without having looked at the article yet, I wonder if this new word 'Britishism' might be one of them -- that is, briticisms.

I think we've collected some from time to time elsewhere in the forum, like 'take a decision,' snarky, ...

I read through most of the article, and have always used many of the words mentioned: cheeky, ginger, amongst, chat-up, go missing, trousers, and occassionally "fortnight." Never really thought of them as being BE. Wonder whether that has to do with my age (57), which wouldn't make much sense in view of the article :-))

I assume they don't mean ginger in the sense of the spice ...

re #2: You mean that the Austrians, as minority speakers, notice that their usage is occasionally being adopted in Germany by the majority speakers for a change, instead of the other way around?

No, ginger used for "red hair" - supposedly came into being with the Harry Potter books.

Hmm ... I was thinking of ginger in the sense of spunk, pluckiness, but come to think of it, that might not be BE as much as just old-fashioned.

re #4: Trousers is old-fashioned or regional for men's pants, but I can't say I've noticed any Americans using any of the others you mention themselves, though of course we come across them in BE writing.

I use pants, too, but didn't know trousers was old-fashioned :-)

We were taught "amongst" in school...is that no longer in use? Then there's ginger cats + we used ginger to describe hair that wasn't quite so red. Hadn't thought of ginger in the sense of spunk, for years, but we used it way-back-when :-)

hm, How would you express "My cat's gone missing"?

Carly in #6, es hätte mich doch sehr überrascht, wenn "ginger" für rothaarig so neu gewesen wäre. Das erste Beispiel im OED stammt von Dickens:
". dial. and slang.
a. A light sandy colour, resembling that of ginger.
1864 Dickens Our Mutual Friend (1865) I. i. ii. 8 Mature young gentleman; with..too much ginger in his whiskers.1889
E. Peacock Gloss. Words Manley & Corringham, Lincs. (ed. 2) , Ginger, a light red or yellow colour, applied to the hair.
 
b. A cock with reddish plumage; also, a red-haired or sandy-haired person.
1785 F. Grose Classical Dict. Vulgar Tongue at Ginger-pated, Red cocks are called gingers.
1797 Sporting Mag. 9 338 In cocking, I suppose you will not find a better breed of gingers.
1857 W. H. Ainsworth Spendthrift xvi. 109 Examining the cocks, and betting with each other..this backing a grey, that a ginger.
1885 in Eng. Illustr. Mag. June 605 There is..‘Ginger’, the red-haired, who [etc.]."

Lady Grey, da war ich auch überrascht :-)

And here's another one mentioned in the article - but I picked that one up here in LEOLand, and never thought of it as being BE, either :-)

Spot on - it's just ludicrous!" snaps Geoffrey Nunberg, a linguist at the University of California at Berkeley.

edit:

He goes on to state:

"You are just impersonating an Englishman when you say spot on."

"Will do - I hear that from Americans. That should be put into quarantine," he adds.

Since when is "Will do" BE?

The dog's missing.
The dog's disappeared/vanished/run away/run off.
Where's [name]?
What happened to [name]?

I don't think ginger hair is new to the language either, but it does sound old-fashioned or poetic or something, not typical in everyday use. You might think of it if you were listing synonyms for red hair, like 'carrot-top' ...

'Will do' could be sort of jokey AE, but not everyday AE; that would just be 'Sure,' 'Okay,' etc.

*f5* Tsk tsk, imagine Nunberg being prescriptive about something. (-;

I'm beginning to take these "differences" with a ever larger pinch of salt; recently noticed: in Greene's "Our Man in Havana" (the book) his characters (British) mention "elevator" and "going to the movies", and in an Orson Welles film, "Touch of Evil", I believe, two men "take the lift"...

Then I must have picked that up here in LEOLand, too :-) Can't recall when I first used "will do," but it's in my active vocabulary.

I am confused by most of these examples. "Spot on", "will do", "gone missing", "sell-by date", "cheeky", "keen on", "bit", "book (a hotel)"? These were all part of my vocabulary since before I can remember. They compare sell-by date with expiration date, but those are two different things in my (personal) dictionary. So either I've been watching too much British television from an early age (not the case) or some of these "trends" (BTW, trendy is a British word??) started up and established themselves well over 30 years ago...

I do agree that "ginger" in the sense of hair color is up-and-coming in American English, and I suppose attributing it to Harry Potter is fair enough. In 2001, during my first trip to England, one of the Brits started calling me "ginger bird" and I had to have it explained to me. But several years ago there was the "ginger" episode of South Park, and that's probably a good sign that something's become mainstream.

re #2: You mean that the Austrians, as minority speakers, notice that their usage is occasionally being adopted in Germany by the majority speakers for a change, instead of the other way around?

Jupp. "Palatschinken" beispielsweise hat bis heute keinen deutschen Bruder gefunden.

I had overlooked "keen on" - but we were keen on (boys)/things when I was in my teens :-)) Also hadn't seen: To book (eg a hotel) - Americans would say "reserve" Well, I've been booking hotels/rooms for decades (was part of my job). Same holds true for "bit" - not at all BE to my mind.

MW lists "ginger," but as chiefly British - though, from personal experience, I tend to disagree :-):

— ginger adjective, chiefly Brit
▪ The child has ginger [=reddish-brown] hair.

Who knew? English influenced by the English! Wow.

#15 Palatschinken ist mir erstmal im doppelten Lottchen untergekommen.
Seitdem nenn ich es so und nicht Pfannkuchen oder gar Omelette.

Tolles Wort :-)

Ist übrigens mit Mutterkuchen, placenta verwandt, und nicht mit Schinken ;-).

#15 Palatschinken ist mir erstmal im doppelten Lottchen untergekommen.

Stimmt, dito. :-) Und was hat man sich als Kind darunter dann für ein mysteriöses Gericht vorgestellt!
Allerdings sind die auch danach lediglich Teil meines passiven Wortschatzes geblieben.


# 19 Ist übrigens mit Mutterkuchen, placenta verwandt, und nicht mit Schinken ;-).

Wir wünschen guten Appetit...

I've been noticing Briticisms spreading rapidly on National Public Radio. The reporters have obviously been listening to a lot of BBC. Heard this morning: queueing up. Heard last week: taken to hospital. Gack.

I can confirm that today's high school students use ginger a lot to mean redhead. I hadn't heard it until a few years ago and obviously missed it in Harry Potter, unless I was reading Americanized versions. Gack.

Nothing against BE, but I prefer my BE to be BE and my AE to be AE.

I grew up saying trousers and davenport, though, and possibly other "old" words that have a BE flavor.

*waving at Carly*

I don't think a bit of cross-pollination between the variants of English would hurt, especially where it happens naturally in the course of global communication.

I would also hazard a guess that the intrusion of Americanisms into British English and Australian English (presumably via movies and TV shows) is a much more noticable effect than the occasional word from British English being absorbed into American English.

While I am not a native speaker of English I have been living in the US for almost 20 years now, and like other thread participants I doubt that all items on the list of "recently adopted" Britishims are in fact that. For example, I use "Will do!" quite frequently and have done so for a long time. I consider it unlikely that I picked it up from the very small number of BE speakers I have encountered over the years.

Interessant, was ihr dazu zu sagen hattet :-).

Hier der "Follow-up"-Artikel mit den Beiträgen von Lesern:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19929249

Can anyone tell us what's British about "taken to hospital"? (#21)
What does an American say?

taken to THE hospital, mikefm :-))

oh no! - so "How's your aunt keeping?" "Well, unfortunately she was taken to the hospital on Thursday." e.g. would sound strange in BE? Sounds OK to me; I've been away too long it seems :-)