I work on ‘Paris French’, a site created by ‘admin’. It is irritating to negotiate American terminology such as:- trash, blue collar worker, sneakers, to play hookey and (the worst of all) that sucks!
Americans are destroying the English language but why allow them to do it here?
2 Likes
You’ve stumbled onto one of Memrise’s oldest courses, probably from about 8 years ago. Just pick a different course.
Another option is to continue in the course, and use the “ignore” feature for the occasional word that has a weird definition.
For your information: “blue-collar worker” is a sociological term, used in Britain as well as America. Before you start criticising this course’s use of “American English”, make sure you know what you are talking about.
I was born in Britain and lived there half my life. I grew up hearing this word used, especially in the context of “white-collar workers” and “blue-collar workers”.
I think a lot of these words are now also used by British people as well and nobody bats an eyelid. Languages are always changing and adopting words from other countries. English would be a case in point; it would not be the language it is if it hadn’t “stolen” vocabulary from so many different sources.
Accusing American English of being somehow “inferior” is judgemental and ill-informed. The use of the subjunctive - a form regarded as quite “advanced” and formal - is more widespread in American English than British English, as is the use of “whom” versus “who”. I have even heard American people say things like, “It is she” or “It is I” when answering the phone, whereas using this form - which is grammatically more correct than saying “that’s me” - in British English would be considered quite pretentious.
So, to cut a long story short, American English is just as “sophisticated” as any other version of English. Whether the culture of the country is equally sophisticated is another matter entirely, but one should not confuse the two.
13 Likes
deleted… for something.
We say fries instead of chips. Chips are chips. We are clearly better. : )
2 Likes
Instead of having a little rant regarding your inaccurate views of how we in Britain use our native language you need to read carefully what I said. If you do that you will see that I did not express any opinion on American English except to indicate that it is American. That being so, that is where I would like it to stay.
Thank you for making the only positive suggestion in the replies so far.
What do you mean you did not express an opinion on American English? It is very much implied here what your opinion is on the matter.
3 Likes
John, your comments remind me of the people on the American DuoLingo site who complain that British spellings, verb conjugations, and vocabulary are not used or that Spanish vocabulary from the Americas is being taught rather than that from Spain, even though Mexico is the largest Spanish speaking country in the world and the U.S. has the second largest Spanish speaking population.
DuoLingo, though, does it’s best to accommodate British users by adding British spellings etc. to the accepted answers, but it can be quit a daunting task for the programmers to put dual spellings, conjugations, and vocabulary in for all the differences, few though there may be percentage wise considering the vast number of words in the English language.
I think you should relax and not get all “bent out of shape”, or should I say “get your knickers in a twist”. I read somewhere years ago that English had more words than any other language because we adopt so many words from others cultures/languages.
Americans and Brits listen to each others music, watch each others movies and television programs, and even can hear each others news broadcasts. I’ve always liked learning different vocabulary words and phrases from our English speaking cousins, and cousins we are. It’s also not difficult to google a word or phrase with which you’re not familiar, to find it’s meaning.
You are coming across as very intolerant and condescending. It’s just as easy for Americans on this site to get confused by British terminology as it is for you to get confused by American.
Languages change with time and distance. We are not speaking the same English as Chaucer or even Dickens. Does your blood boil when you think of that? If you’re so angry at Americans for messing up English, you must really be upset with the Romans, Vikings, and Normans! I’m not trying to be mean to you, John, or make sport of you, I’m just trying to point out in a light fashion that it’s silly and wrong to demand that American contributors to a British owned site speak British English. It would be very impolite to tell Americans to bugger off because they bloody well can’t speak properly. That just sucks! 
8 Likes
Americans do not speak English, they speak American.
And for your information, a lot of the words Americans use are words no longer used by English speakers. When a people evolve, so do the language.
That said, yes, English speakers are using American words, which may come from all the American television that is watched.
The word Quit is an old Military term, whilst it basically means the same as the word Stop, back then it meant more. There are other various words too, that have come back over the Pond, as it is called.
As for the rest of the American language, that came about when some bloke over there decided to create a dictionary, so many words were changed to make English their own language, and that is why you get the American language.
To stress the point, Americans do not speak English, they speak American.
2 Likes
bunch of nonense, sorry…
4 Likes
You forgot to add that Mexicans speak Mexican, Canadians speak Canadian, Cubans speak Cuban, Australians speak Australian…
3 Likes
You are coming across as very intolerant and condescending. It’s just as hard for Americans on this site to get confused by British terminology as it is for you to get confused by American.
My point is that this is a British site run by British people, therefore it seems not unreasonable to expect British terminology.
My apologies for that. The statement is correct but as it is a whole much larger topic it’s probably best left for now.
I must have missed the point where you were put in charge of deciding who’s developing their own variation of a language and who’s ‘destroying’ it. 
American English exists. It’s existed for a while now. Deal with it. This is a site where users from all over the world make their own courses. They aren’t all obligated to adhere to what you view to be ‘correct’. If you’re really so intolerant that you can’t handle it, find another course. (Or make your own.)
6 Likes
Of course I do agree with you, save for this one … if one quits a course, because answers are marked “wrong” for being spelt British way, or one does not understand US slang(s), then one is intolerant?
(off topic and never “committed” by the previous poster! 1. in the old fora, non-US users were often labelled “pompous, arrogant, grammar nazi” etc for daring to mention such issues… 2. Reminds me a bit of “conflicts” around the issue of European Portugues pronunciation and orthography… gee, how many times I had to hear from Brasilians that I am an arrogant and unbearable whatever because I learn and speak Portugal Portuguese)
No it is you that is missing the point. American English belongs in America where I have no objection to its use. I don’t even have an objection to any courses here that are the province of Americans. However, when ‘admin’ sets up a course I expect it to be in English.
1 Like
“admin” is just the memrise name of the person who created this course. It wasn’t created by the memrise team, so it is not reasonable to expect this course to be in British English.
Courses created by the memrise team say, “created by memrise” and look like this:
The course you are doing is what is known as a “community-created” course. And it looks like this:
So, if you want a course that is in British English, then you need to look for one that says, “created by memrise” and that specifies that it is in British English.
1 Like
You wrote “Americans are destroying (my emphasis) the English language”.
That’s a pretty emotional way to describe it and expresses a pretty strong and negative opinion on American English.
Please don’t try to come the innocent; it is insulting to one’s intelligence.
4 Likes