Americans invented teenagers?!

America just celebrated its Independence Day. As someone from an ex-colony (that hasn't got independence yet), I've always found it interesting that like America, our main language is English - not just from another continent but named after 'the mother country'. Now it's not England but just its language that's doing all the 'colonising' around the world and in turn the language has been influenced by its colonies. Since England 'gave' English to America, America has contributed more new words to the language than England has. Here's a list of some of them from Bill Bryson's geeky but entertainingly readable 'Mother Tongue':

commuter, bedrock, snag, striptease, cold spell, gimmick, baby-sitter, lengthy, sag, soggy, teenager, typewriter, radio, to cut no ice, to butt in, to sidetrack, hangover, to make good (to be successful), fudge, publicity, joyride, bucket shop (Rose doesn't even know this one), blizzard, stunt, law-abiding, department store, notify, advocate (as a verb), currency (for money), to park, to rattle (to unnerve), hindsight, beeline, raincoat, scrawny, take a backseat, cloudburst, graveyard, know-how, to register (as in a hotel), to shut down, to fill the bill, to hold down (as in to keep), to hold up (as in rob), to bank on, to stay put, to be stung (cheated), and even 'stiff upper lip'!


Now, you can put them all into a story, or, better yet, a rap?

Yes, there's so much contention with language ('a definition of a language is a dialect with an army and a navy') but let's keep it short and celebrate some variety in our amazing language. So - Another book I love for its exploration of how English has been influenced over the years is Rotten English (ed Dohra Ahmad), an anthology (vernacular poems, sections from novels, and essays) written in English as it is spoken around the world - slang, creole, pidgin etc.



From Glasgow (and back in time to 1984) here's Unrelated Incidents -No. 3 by Tom Leonard

this is thi
six a clock
news thi
man said n
thi reason
a talk wia
BBC accent
iz coz yi
widny wahnt
mi ti talk
aboot thi
trooth wia
voice lik
wanna yoo
scruff. if
a toktaboot
thi trooth
lik wanna yoo
scruff yi
widny thingk
it wuz troo.
jist wanna yoo
scruff tokn.
thirza right
way ti spell
ana right way
to tok it. this
is me tokn yir
right way a
spellin. this
is ma trooth.
yooz doant no
thi trooth
yirsellz cawz
yi cannay talk
right. this is
the six a clock
nyooz. belt up