Does this annoy anyone else or am I the only dinosaur on here?
My latest pet peeve is the use of 'likely' as an adverb, even on the BBC. For example, the American-style 'Chesterfield will likely cheat at some point' rather than the English 'Chesterfield will probably cheat at some point'. (They could, of course, say 'Chesterfield are likely to cheat at some point' and that would be fine, but they don't.)
Of course there are dozens of other creeping Americanisations in this era of globalised entertainment and media but this one is all over the place at the moment. It grates every time I hear or read it. Does anyone else find it annoying?
Last edited by SwalePie; 20-01-2023 at 03:38 PM. Reason: Amended title for clarity
I hear you, Swale.
The most annoying one for me is the use of super as an adverb, as in 'I'm super happy' or 'it's super exciting'.
It's grammatically wrong. Super is an adjective, not an adverb. You wouldn't say 'I'm good happy', so why is 'I'm super happy' OK? Yet people use it all the time, in both speech and writing (at least where I work).
See also 'gotten'.
Another one for me, not necessarily an Americanisation, is when people say, so and so, off of the tele or so and so off of the radio. It is surely just 'off the tele/television/radio' or 'from the tele/television/radio'. I first heard Scott Mills off of Radio1 first say this, lol.
'Gotten'....grrrrrrr
Americans who drag their R's at the end of a sentence...
"I'm not really surrrrre" for example