Fears of British English’s disappearance are overblown

PAUL REVERE’S ride through Concord, Massachusetts, warning that “the British are coming! The British are coming!”, is said to have saved America’s revolution from an early defeat that could have proved fatal. Much of the story, sadly for his legend, is myth. But now many Britons suspect that British English is losing a war to the American kind. As with Revere’s ride, it can be hard to winkle out the truth.

In 2011 the BBC published a broadside by Matthew Engel, citing five common Americanisms, and inviting readers to send in their own least-favourite ones. They did so with gusto, adding that these Yankeeisms made them “thoroughly disgusted” and the like. Mr Engel had hit a nerve, and last month he published “That’s the Way it Crumbles”, a book bemoaning the Americanisation of British English. He is at pains to say that he is not anti-American. He merely wants to protect his country’s distinctive dialect.

But in that article from 2011, four of five of Mr Engel’s “Americanisms” were, in fact, of British origin. So were many of the ones readers sent in. “Gotten”, one wrote, “makes me shudder.” Yet it is the original English participle, replaced later in Britain by “got”. “Fall” for autumn and “mad” for angry, too, were born in England, before fading there in the early modern era. Mr Engel is more careful in the new book to point out such round-trippers.

It is true that America is influencing British usage. “Smart” is increasingly describing the intelligent as much as the well dressed. (Never mind that “smart” first was used this way in Britain in 1571.) Many Britons prefer “movies” to “films”. And “fries” and “cookies” are now appearing alongside “chips” and “biscuits”. But are they always replacing them?

No: “smart” is savvy, whereas “clever” is swotty. “Fries” are thin and crispy, and “cookies” are American styles like chocolate-chip, notes Lynne Murphy, an American linguist at Sussex University writing her own book about the relationship between British and American English. “Movies” tend to come from Hollywood; “film” is still preferred for the latest gritty cinema from Europe. In other words, these Americanisms are not an impoverishment of British English. They are additions to it.

The traffic goes both ways: “scones”, both the things and the word, have made their way to America (though not the pronunciation: most Americans make it rhyme with “cones”). Ben Yagoda, an American academic, keeps a website of “Not One-Off Britishisms” used by stylish Yanks, from “ginger” hair to “nick” for “steal”. Mr Engel replies that these are limited to intellectuals in America. Americanisms, he says, are taking deeper root among ordinary Britons.

English has always sucked up words from around the globe. Mr Engel’s fear is that in the past half-century, one source has come to dominate: America, thanks to its cultural, technological and political heft. But he goes even further in saying that, in a century, it is possible to imagine “American English absorb[ing] the British version completely”.

This is—to use another Americanism—horsefeathers. American and British English differ on many levels: spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary, style and grammar. Mr Engel focuses on showing that some British words are giving way to, or making room for, American alternatives. But these are a fraction of the huge vocabulary otherwise shared by the two dialects. It is easy to find a newspaper article in which not a single word (spelling aside) is distinctly British or American. In other domains (recipes and car-parts, for example) differences are frequent. But these domains are local and personal, and highly resistant to change.

Overall, British English is in rude health. Pronunciation differences affect virtually every word, and British pronunciation is hardly converging on American. The few grammatical differences (for example “I will” in America, versus “I will do” in Britain) show little sign of changing either. There is little appetite in Britain for American spelling. And that ineffable quality of style makes articles by British or American writers distinct, even in the absence of obvious shibboleths.

American influence on global (not just British) English is rising. But varieties from Ireland to India to Australia retain a clear identity. Even within America, local dialects, especially the southern one, are going strong. All of these, and British English too, are constantly innovating. Mr Engel is right to dread a “linguistic monoculture”. He is wrong to think that it is likely.