Over two centuries ago, Paul Revere rode on horseback across the Massachusetts countryside declaring, “The British are coming.” That, of course, was a warning about an impending war. Today, the British are making an altogether different kind of incursion into the US: with their language.
That’s the claim that Ben Yagoda makes in his latest book, Gobsmacked! The British Invasion of American English. Yagoda, an author and professor of English, began tracking British words and phrases entering the American lexicon on his blog in 2011. The entries include such Britishisms as ‘banter,’ ‘cheeky,’ ‘laddish,’ and the titular ‘gobsmacked.’ Yagoda’s book includes more such crossover terms and delves into the forces that govern the transatlantic linguistic exchange.
Although birthed from British English, American English is today considered a major variant of its own. This has led to remonstrations from both sides about the other influencing, and in some cases corrupting, their version of the language. While attempts to add a moral color to these developments may be baseless, it is true that the English spoken in these two parts of the world is both unique and has been influenced by intermingling with the other.
A Brief History of Two Englishes
The first wave of immigrants from Britain carried their language to North America in the 17th century. Soon, America became its own little petri dish for the growth and mutation of the English language. American multiculturalism had a significant role to play in this process. The Dutch, Spanish, German, French, and other immigrants who arrived stateside all interacted with and transformed the English spoken here.
British and American English went off largely on their own paths from that point, like twins separated at birth and placed in different families. The USA’s independence from Britain was an important turning point for the New World’s linguistic destiny. Revolutionaries like Thomas Jefferson and Noah Webster believed that it wasn’t enough to stave off the British in wars, but to also put an end to the hegemonic control they might exercise through a shared language.
At this point, English lexicographer Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language was considered the authority on the English lexicon. Webster decided to fight its dominance by publishing the American Dictionary of the English Language in 1828. It featured words that had been transformed by the English spelling reforms that Webster advocated (‘center’ instead of ‘centre’ for example) and also included technical terms that were developing in the arts and sciences of the time in the USA. Webster’s dictionary formalized American English and laid the groundwork for the development of new words, spellings, and phrases in the North American version of the language.
The Brits Make a Comeback
The might of American soft power has meant that the country’s cultural artifacts are known across the globe. Consequently, American English has made its way from North America to just about every corner of the world. So while colonialism carried British English far and wide, America made its own tongue known to the world through its movies, pop stars, and politicians.
Lately, however, the Brits seem to be rallying. And by lately we mean since the 1990s (this battle is centuries old, remember). According to Ben Yagoda, there are a few reasons why American imports of British terminology intensified in the last decade of the last millennium.
It began with British journalists like Andrew Sullivan, Anna Wintour, and Christopher Hitchens moving to the United States. These and other British reporters and cultural commentators became fixtures of the airwaves of the ‘90s. This phenomenon has continued through to the present day, with Newsweek noting in a piece earlier this year that the “Brits are taking over US media.”
Next up were the Spice Girls. The girl group’s popularity reached its zenith when Spice became the best-selling album in the United States in 1997. Soon, the average American seemed to be more aware of how Britishers used terms like ‘posh’ and ‘ginger.’
British culture truly ascended to previously unimaginable heights in America with the arrival of the Harry Potter series. Now it is true that a lot of the language in the books was modified for American audiences (Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone becoming Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in the USA, for example). However, the books still contained many Britishisms that have gone on to become widely used in American English.
For example, Americans who would have previously used the term ‘redhead’ are now more likely to use the term ‘ginger’ to describe Ron Weasley. Similarly, words like ‘bugger,’ ‘kerfuffle,’ and ‘bonnet’ are more commonly used in America today thanks to the popularity of the books created by JK Rowling and the subsequent movie franchise.
The Cross-Pollination Continues
So as we’ve seen, the process of Britishisms entering the American lexicon in a significant way began at least three decades ago. American English has taken on a decidedly more British outlook thanks to intellectuals and art from the Isles making a bigger splash in North America than they ever had before.
But this isn’t the end of the story. If there’s one thing we know about language, it’s that it evolves. And it will continue to do so, even if we don’t fully understand the forces that effect these changes. The sooner we make our peace with that, the sooner we’ll be able to appreciate the different ways in which people express themselves, even if they’re speaking our language in a radically different way than we’re used to.
