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Culture
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British v American English
英式英语vs美式英语
What's your cup of tea?
哪种是你的菜？
Johnson on language
约翰逊语言专栏
Gobsmacked! By Ben Yagoda.
《惊呆了!》，本·雅戈达著。
British intellectuals enjoy bewailing the influx of Americanisms into the language of the mother country.
英国知识分子喜欢为了美式英语大量涌入其母国的语言而哀叹。
The BBC once asked British readers to send in the Americanisms that annoyed them most and was flooded with thousands of entries, including “24/7”, “deplane” and “touch base”.
英国广播公司曾请英国读者提交最让他们恼火的美式英语，结果收到了数千条回复，其中包括“24/7”（全天候，即全天24小时，每周7天不停歇）“下飞机”和“与某人联系”。
Matthew Engel, a writer who had kicked off the conversation with an article on unwanted Americanisms, even turned the idea into a book, “That’s the Way It Crumbles”, in 2017.
马修·恩格尔是一位作家，他曾发表过一篇关于不受欢迎的美式英语的文章，从而引发了这场讨论，他甚至在2017年将这个想法写成了一本书，名为《你学的英语是英语？》。
The furore—which Americans would call a furor—seemed to die down.
这场群情激奋的讨论——美国人会称之为furor——似乎平息了。
But in September Simon Heffer of the Daily Telegraph revived it with a column and book exploring Americanisms, a trend he situates “in the past 15 years”.
但在今年9月，《每日电讯报》的西蒙·赫弗在一篇专栏文章和一本书中探讨了美式英语，从而重新提起了这个话题，他认为这种趋势“在过去15年间”产生。
His language evokes violence, bemoaning American words’ “poisoning”, “linguistic assault”, “conquest” and “penetration”.
他的语言让人想到暴力，他悲叹美国词汇的“毒害”“语言攻击”“征服”和“穿透”。
In the end, though, even the hyperbolic Mr Heffer concedes that Brits are, in fact, “willingly adopting” these words, especially via two channels associated with America: digital technology and “corporatespeak”.
但在最后，就连夸张的赫弗也承认，事实上，英国人“愿意采用”这些词汇，尤其是通过与美国相关的两个渠道：数字技术和“企业用语”。
He just wishes his countrymen would stop.
他只是希望他的同胞们能够停止使用美国词汇。
But linguistic exchange can also be seen in a more upbeat way.
但是语言交流也可以从更乐观的角度来看待。
This is the approach of Ben Yagoda, emeritus professor of English at the University of Delaware, in “Gobsmacked!”
这是特拉华大学英文专业荣誉退休教授本·雅戈达在《惊呆了！》一书中的看法。
The trend is older and more extensive than many think.
英式英语进入美式英语的趋势比许多人认为的更为古老和广泛。
Mr Yagoda describes Britishisms like “it’s early days” and “gone missing” taking hold in America almost entirely below the radar in the 1980s and 2000s, respectively.
雅戈达写道，一些英式表达，如“早期”和“不见了”，这两个表达分别在20世纪80年代和21世纪初在美国流行起来，而且几乎没有引起人们的注意。
Mr Yagoda identifies the intensifier “awfully” (as in “awfully tired”) as the first Britishism, having been noticed (disapprovingly) by an American commentator in the 19th century.
雅戈达指出，“极其”（如“极其疲惫”）这个强化词是第一个传入美国的英式英语，19世纪时被一位美国评论家注意到（并对这个词表示不赞成）。
The early 20th century saw many more Britishisms take hold, especially via military contact: “gadget”, “cushy”, “scrounge”, “bonkers”, “dicey” and “shambolic” all made their way from the British Tommy to GI. Joe, and thence to the wider American public.
20世纪初，更多的英式英语表达流行起来，尤其是通过军事接触：“小装置”“轻松的”“乞讨”“发疯的”“不确定的”“混乱的”都从英国士兵传到了美国士兵那里，然后又传给了美国大众。
The internet has spread English in both directions.
互联网在英到美和美到英两个方向上传播了英语。
Being able to read the Guardian and to binge “The Crown” on Netflix has probably speeded up the passage of British terms into American speech.
能够阅读《卫报》，能够在网飞上刷《王冠》，这种情况可能加速了英式用语进入美式英语的过程。
Mr Yagoda has compiled a “top 40”, including “brilliant” (merely “OK, good”), “chat up” and “ginger”.
雅戈达编制了一份“英式用语前40名”清单，包括“很好的”（意思仅仅是“不错，很好的”）“搭讪”和“姜黄色的”。
Each term gets a rating on a five-notch adoption scale, from “outpacing” (signifying Americans now use the term more than its coiners in Britain do) to merely “on the radar”, meaning only a few newspaper columnists are using it.
每个词都有一个五分制的采用率评级，从最高的“超过”（表示美国人现在使用这个词的频率超过了创造这个词的英国人）到最低的仅仅“在雷达上”，表示只有少数报纸专栏作家在使用这个词。
American Anglophiles tend to be part of a media elite who holiday in Europe (and might even use “holiday” as a verb), whereas American slang is seen as passing to Britain through less rarefied channels.
美国的亲英派往往属于媒体精英，他们在欧洲度假（甚至可能把“度假”用作动词），而美国俚语则是通过不那么精英的渠道传到英国的。
Lynne Murphy, a linguist at the University of Sussex, notes that “Friends”, an American comedy show, is often blamed wrongly for the rise of “Can I get…?”at coffee shops in Britain.
萨塞克斯大学的语言学家林恩·墨菲指出，美国喜剧《老友记》经常被误认为是“我能要……吗？”这种表达方式在英国咖啡店里兴起的罪魁祸首。
In her study of online lists explaining British terms to Americans and vice versa, she found the ones about Britishisms for Americans were often framed positively (for example, “a guide to the best Britishisms”), whereas for Brits Americanisms were more often negative (“41 things the Americans say wrong”).
她研究了向美国人解释英式英语以及向英国人解释美式英语的网络清单，发现给美国人提供的英式英语清单通常是以积极的方式呈现的（例如，“最佳英式英语指南”），而给英国人提供的美式英语清单则常常是负面的（“美国人说错的41件事”）。
Which Britishisms tickle American fancies?
哪些英式表达让美国人觉得有意思？
A few sounds recur, such as adjectives ending in “y”, from “cushy” and “smarmy”—Britishisms but no longer seen as such in America—to more recent ones like “cheeky” and “dodgy”.
有几个发音反复出现，比如以y结尾的形容词，从“轻松的”和“拍马屁的”——这两个词是英式英语，但在美国已不再被视为英式英语——到更近一些的“厚脸皮的”和“狡猾的”。
B- and p-sounds also feature, including in made-up words (“bumbershoot” is not, as some Americans believe, a British word for an umbrella).
B和p的发音也是一大特点，包括在虚构单词中（bumbershoot并不是像一些美国人以为的在英式英语中表示伞）。
The Oatmeal, a web comic, summed up how British English sounds to Americans: “I remember my days at Oxford, we’d often dabble in a little rumpy-pumpy before dingbangling a fresh todger, haha!”
网络漫画《燕麦粥》总结了英式英语对美国人来说听起来像什么：“我想起我在牛津的日子，我们经常在稍微打情骂俏之后再风流一下，哈哈！”
That hints at another source of Britishisms making their way west: insults and “naughty bits” like “shag” and “wanker”.
这暗示了英式英语向美国传播的另一个源头：侮辱性词汇和“下流”词汇，如“上床”和“手淫”。
A spirit of playfulness pervades Americans’ use of these British words; they may even tend to overuse them and underestimate their rudeness, because the sounds are so silly.
美国人在使用这些英式词汇时充满了一种玩闹的精神，他们甚至可能倾向于过度使用这些词汇，并且低估了这些词汇的粗鲁程度，因为这些词汇的发音非常滑稽。
It is possible that the British need “Gobsmacked!” more than their American cousins.
有可能英国人比他们的美国表亲更需要《惊呆了！》这本书。
The Americanisation of British English is well known; the Britishisation of American English, not so much (as a Californian teen might say).
英式英语的美国化是众所周知的，而美式英语的英国化则不那么为人所知（一个加利福尼亚青少年可能会这样认为）。
A country not sure what influence it still has in the world might like to know that the superpower across the ocean still fancies the mother country and its culture.
一个国家如果不确定自己在世界上还有什么影响力，那么它可能会想知道大洋彼岸的超级大国仍然喜欢其母国及母国的文化。
