Is English English comtamined by American English?

It's no secret that the British as a whole are probably the "least liked" people in the whole of Europe for various reasons, and not just because of the much quoted "War in Iraq".

I reckon the French are the "least liked" country in the whole of Europe

I've only just noticed that totally unwarranted and nasty assault on Uriel, one of our most respected posters in this Forum, but as ever the lady held her own as expected and responded in kind and with the use of inoffensive language, unlike our assumed English poster who resorted to abuse littered with obscenity.

I was hoping that "yankee doodle" (how very original!) was not in fact Scottish, as we Scots are already in deep doo-dahs with the Americans through no fault of 99.9% of the overall Scottish people who are every bit as upset over the issue of the Lockerbie bomber affair.....Lockerbie, a really pleasant, peaceful wee Scottish town which also lost eleven of its citizens on that fateful night almost 21 years ago. The real blame for recent events lies with a very small number of misguided politically motivated people, but the bloke at the centre of this whole rumpus is going to die anyway within the next few months at the most, so what the.....hey ho!

YD's comment to Uriel:

<<<If all of a sudden English films and English terms such as Wanker, twat, codswallop etc etc became normal use in America>>>

According to some Brits now living in America the word "wanker", especially, is in fact used by some Americans in certain situations, some of which are unfortunately (for them) quite inappropriate. It seems that these Americans are not fully aware of what it means here in Britain. Or are they? In biological terms "wanking" means manual sexual stimulation, usually of the male variety...self abuse as it was once called.

In the UK "wanker" is now a general term of verbal use, much like "bastard", and often used in moments of anger and frustration. Here in London, where traffic congestion is universal, road rage is quite common. I thought Edinburgh was bad but here in London it's almost a religion, and to see and hear an angry driver lean out of his car or lorry window and yell: "You fucking wanker!" at some other driver or hapless pedestrian is virtually an every day occurrence. All part and parcel of high pressure big city life.

A person may also be called a "wanker" even when it's not really meant in an abusive or hostile way....I've heard it yelled out by someone to someone else in the office I work in even when the issue at hand is really trivial. It can also be used between friends during playful banter, invariably between males.

On the British Expats in the USA website (discussing the use of British terms in America among the Americans) one of the British guys in there recounted the occasion when he was working in a large car rental organisation in Central London. One day an American gentleman walked into this man's office and loudly announced: "I have reserved a car...I'm Wanker!" It soon turned out that this really was the American man's name, for real. The British man had to stand his ground, of course, trying his level best to remain completely impassive in a truly professional way, while at the same time all his colleagues, who had heard the American's words, instantly beat a retreat into another nearby office while this poor Brit had to listen to their howls of laughter while keeping a deadpan face as he dealt with Mr Wanker with due aplomb.

It's a bit like all the English speaking tourists driving around Austria who find themselves approaching a wee village where the sign on the side of the road indicates the name of "Fuck". Surely those signs must be the most photographed in the whole of Europe, and the local Fuckers are resigned to all the hilarity the name of their village produces.

As far as I know, wanker is understood here to mean the same thing that it means in the UK. We already have our own homegrown version of the idea, however -- we'll call a person of the same caliber a "jackoff" (or jerkoff). Those are the slang terms we use for masturbating -- jacking off or jerking off (and I suspect one is a variant of the other). That may be why the term hasn't taken off as much in the US -- we already have one of our own. But sometimes words are picked up simply because they sound funny -- and "wank" sounds pretty funny!

As I appear to be the lone Canadian on the thread.... who has just recently returned from the UK and Ireland.

I agree with everything Uriel has written.

Canada is inundated with American TV programs, nightly new and so on... Perhaps 20% of Canadian programming is 100% Canadian.
We have a few truly Canadian magazines/newspapers but most of them are rehashed articles, pictures and opinion pieces from American sources.

Our language is littered with stuff LIKE slang from obvious uncanadian sources, LIKE cliches from places LIKE south central L.A., or LIKE back in the day.. Hawaii - Hang Ten, or LIKE, you know, from Austrailia - No worries Mate... or whatever.

Language is flexible, not static. The english language has lifted words from almost every language it has come in contact with. Why would it change now? Legislating it is a bit Orwellian don't you think. Newspeak doubleplus ungood anyone?

When I was in Ireland, the majority of programs on TV I watched were from England. Newspapers, ads, radio voices.... Somehow, mysteriously, they've managed to hold on to their accent and slang despite the daily English barrage. Wales managed to create a whole population that somehow manages to withstand english altogether.

Everyday I write on a computer that attempts to correct my Canadian spelling. I'm used to it. I still say eh! I know what a toque, a nanaimo bar, poutine, a beaver and a wanker mean. I haven't lost my identity, my soft accent or my understanding of the metric system because of the american influence.
I travel a great deal. I like listening to Regional dialects, words, cliches but they die, expand, change, fade. Accept it. It's part of life.