Coup Droit wrote:

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Brendan F wrote:

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Considering who they vote for Americans don't do themselves any favours if it comes to a contest between who's right and who's wrong. I'm very much on SC's side here, I have an American girlfriend and she's happy to accommodate my whims that she avoid Americanisms in our conversations. 

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Lordy, you've got a bit of a controlling thing going on there, Brendan 

More seriously, I understand there might be specific terms/phrases you don't like but to ask an American not to use ANY American phrases/words/whatever? I mean, that's how they've been brought up, it's their cultural background, it would mean they'd be overthinking what they're going to say each time before they opened their mouth

If they say 'undershirt' instead of 'vest' (my latest 3-second confusion with an American friend re clothes buying), does it really matter? Obviously, if they're in the UK, it can cause confusion (hence above) but there's nothing wrong with it per se (I think my grandma used to call it an undervest, anyway, and we've sort of dropped the under bit) 

There are specific US terms that we've stolen - like 'playdate', 'no way', OK, 'boss', etc etc etc - do you veto those too?   

Mind you, there are a few specific ones that I'd put a stop to too 

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 As a teacher, she's happy to see it as an academic exercise. It works both ways because if I'm using proper English, ie the way English people speak, while she's speaking American then it's like we're having separate conversations so it makes sense to both of us to just stick to one. It's actually quite rare that any such words come up in the course of our conversations anyway. Mostly the dreaded f word instead of the lovely autumn.