The Guardian vs. American English

[alp227]

If you get your news from British newspaper The Guardian, you might want to read this blog by production editor David Marsh about British readers complaining about the increasing presence of American English expressions in the British publication. Perhaps that could be why that site gets a big American following (including I, who have posted many Guardian articles on DU before). One comment:

Your journalists are increasingly using ugly Americanisms, presumably in the belief that it is 'edgy' and trendy to do so. Recent examples include pony up, mojo, sledding, duke it out, brownstones and suck, many of which are quite meaningless to me. If your journalists are unable to write in British English, then maybe you could provide a glossary <* see below> of American slang for your fuddy-duddy British readers like me? I am beginning to wonder whether you are aiming your publication at the USA rather than the UK, and whether the two newspapers are now American-owned. I am not anti-American, but I do not see why our language should be corrupted by sloppy writing, and why there should be so much emphasis on all things American.

Marsh responds:

There is nothing new about such complaints. The 1950 Manchester Guardian stylebook gravely listed "Americanisms" to avoid, including "aim to do" (instead of "aim of doing"), "balding", "to call" (rather than "to telephone"), "to contact", "to date" (rather than "so far"), "to help him finish the job" (instead of "to help him to finish the job"), "high-ranking officer", "to pinpoint", "teen-ager" and many similar outrages that no doubt exercised letter writers of the time.

While you think about what we should call teenagers had the Manchester Guardian succeeded in banning the word, I will make two points.

First, we do not write for a British readership: 60% of Guardian readers live outside the UK. However, we do employ British English. When someone writes a headline such as "Knox back in court to appeal conviction", as happened a couple of days ago, I point out that omitting the preposition after "appeal" may be grammatical in American English, but not in British English.

[snagglepuss]

1. I had to deal with Brits (whom I love) in my last job, slang and differences

in pronunciation really presented a challenge so I empathize with the Guardian reader.