If you use Americanisms just to show you know them, people may find you a tad tiresome, so be discriminating. Many American words and expressions have passed into the language; others have vigour, particularly if used sparingly. Some are short and to the point (so prefer lay off to make redundant). But many are unnecessarily long (so use and not additionally, car not automobile, company not corporation, court not courtroom or courthouse, transport not transportation, district not neighbourhood, oblige not obligate, rocket not skyrocket, stocks not inventories unless there is the risk of confusion with stocks and shares). Spat and scam, two words beloved by some journalists, have the merit of brevity, but so do row and fraud; squabble and swindle might sometimes be used instead. The military, used as a noun, is nearly always better put as the army. Gubernatorial is an ugly word that can almost always be avoided. [...]
How long indeed will it be before Americans replace to verb to transport with to transportate?
And, in the US, just do the exact opposite of what that article suggests.
__________________ Addicted to a naïve stimulus-response philosophy, we tend to take it for granted that people’s actions depend on nothing but the momentary stimuli that we, the manipulators, can control at will.
-Paul Kecskemeti
__________________
Standard disclaimer: the disgusting statements contained in this post are the views of the poster, and unless specified do not represent the views of the moderators or the site's owners.
What? You are suggesting making ridiculously long words even longer? So that we will have transportatation, courthouserooms and automomotobiles?
That is how I interpretate your exacting oppositional posture over whatever the said op-articulation pseudo-insinuates.
I'm suggesting that a great many of the words in the article that sound strange to British ears actually sound normal to American ears and the words the article suggests that folks use sound strange to American ears. It's pretty simple.
__________________ Addicted to a naïve stimulus-response philosophy, we tend to take it for granted that people’s actions depend on nothing but the momentary stimuli that we, the manipulators, can control at will.
-Paul Kecskemeti
Yes, I know. We occasionally get New York money centre guys arriving here who are flummoxed by the fact that our cabs are not yellow (they are mostly white) and ask, "hey guys, how do I get some transportation around here". We normally suggest dropping two syllables.
Okay? Americans sometimes get people asking where the lift is and think it's funny, too. Regionalisms can be amusing.
__________________ Addicted to a naïve stimulus-response philosophy, we tend to take it for granted that people’s actions depend on nothing but the momentary stimuli that we, the manipulators, can control at will.
-Paul Kecskemeti
"Cattle and pigs may be raised, children are (or should be) brought up."
Linear Mode
