“This book’s footnotes are whatever the opposite of scholarly is, many of them completely daft.”–Dwight Garner, New York Times, November 6, 2012, review of “Bruce [Springsteen],” by Peter Ames Carlin

Linguist Geoffrey Nunberg weighed in on NOOBs a couple of days ago on the public radio program “Fresh Air,” graciously crediting this blog. He had a nice metaphor for the whole phenomenon: “Adding a foreign word to your vocabulary is like adding foreign attire to your wardrobe. Sometimes you do it because it’s practical and sometimes just because you think it looks cool.”

He named one off as a useful addition to the American lexicon, and dab hand, spot on and gobsmacked as having “a whimsical appeal.”

One the other hand, he went on:

…other words are imported just for effect. “I’m not very keen on it, but I’ll have a go.” People claim to discern some useful nuances of meaning there, but who are they kidding? It’s like explaining that you bought that $800 Burberry plaid tote bag because it gives you a better grade of vinyl.

And Nunberg had a good innings on the difference between Not One-Off Britishisms in the U.S. and Not One-Off Americans in the U.K.:

Actually, the British are the ones who have conniptions over foreign words. Whenever the British media run a piece on Americanisms, it gets hundreds or thousands of comments, most of them keening indignantly over the American corruption of English: “I cringe whenever I hear someone say ‘touch base.’ ” “Faucet instead of tap??? Arrrrrrrghhh!”

That might seem a little over the top for a race that’s not known for its demonstrativeness. But the Brits have had to endure an inundation of American popular culture that has saturated every corner of their vocabulary with Americanisms — probably including the word “Brits” itself….

We react very differently to Britishisms. To the British, our words “wrench” and “sweater” are abominations; to us, their words “spanner” and “jumper” are merely quaint. To Americans, after all, Britain is just a big linguistic theme park. The relative handful of Britishisms that do find their way here may raise some eyebrows, but they’re hardly a threat to American culture. After all, British English comes to us through a much narrower pipe than the one that floods Britain with our words. They pick up our language from Friends and The Avengers. We pick up theirs from Downton Abbey and Inspector Morse. And when they do send us an occasional blockbuster like Harry Potter, they’re considerate enough to Americanize “dustbin” to “trash can” and “pinny” to “apron.”

No doubt some of the newcomers will wind up as naturalized American citizens. After all, “tiresome” and “fed up” were considered affected Britishisms when they made their American debut in the 19th century. My guess is that “spot on” is already on the way to becoming everyday American. But it will be awhile yet before it reaches the cultural outer boroughs.

Plenty of food for thought there. As for me, I’m planning to have a go at have a go.

There was some grumbling after gap year–meaning a year taken off between high school and college–made a good showing in the recent  poll asking readers to vote on potential new NOOBs. Not really a Britishism, some said. We Americans were saying it back in the 70s, one person claimed.

I don’t think so.

It’s certainly the case that gap year is common in the U.S. now. My own kids and their friends tossed around the phrase when they were at that age a half-dozen years ago. The New York Times observed a couple of months ago, “The idea of a gap year between high school and college could be tempting to students who are not ready to transition to the next level of education.” There is an organization called USA Gap Year Fairs that hooks students up with gap year providers. Moreover, I have no doubt that U.S. students were taking a year off before college in the 70s.

But they weren’t calling it a gap year. That is a Britishism, without a doubt. The OED’s first citation is from The Times (the one in London) in December 1985: “Many young people are making deliberate decisions to take a year off, often referred to as the gap year.” The wording suggests the phrase had been relatively recently coined. The use of the word gap in this context may have been a contribution of a British organization called Latitude Global Volunteering whose website states that it was founded forty years ago under the name Gap Activity Projects.

The first U.S. use of the phrase on the Lexis-Nexis database comes from a 1996 Atlanta Journal Constitution article that leaves no
doubt as to the phrase’s newness in the U.S. or its national origin: “… taking a break before or during college can be beneficial, according to a new book, ‘Taking Time Off’… It’s a practice common in other countries. For example, in England many college-bound students take a “gap year” for travel before beginning their studies.”

The New York Times’ first reference came in 2000 and has the same vibe: “Students taking a year off prior to Harvard are doing what students from the U.K. do with their so-called ‘gap year.'”

Final proof comes via Google’s Ngram Viewer, which, in an exciting development, now allows comparison of U.S. and British use of a word or phrase on the same chart! The Ngram below shows compares use of gap year in Britain (red) and the U.S. (blue) between 1995 and 2008:

Not really. This was the payoff of a Conan O’Brien bit where he lamented the demise of Newsweek and showed some magazines that have weirdly outlasted it, including “Pond Hoppin” (a cover lines notes that the periodical is “Brought to you by BASSIN’ and Crappie World”) and “Where to Retire.” He then brought in some fake mags, including the above compendium of ginger news. The fingers in the photo are Conan’s.

 

“… there are people in Iran who have the same aspirations as people all around the world, for a better life. And we hope that their leadership takes the right decision.”–Barack Obama, third presidential debate, October 22, 2012. (Thanks to Gigi Simeone)

Skint didn’t get much love in the NOOB readers’ poll, but legendary Baltimore Sun copyeditor (aka subeditor) John McIntyre is a fan:

A couple of days ago, I asked you to vote on a new NOOB most likely to succeed, from the suggestions offered by BBC listeners.

The results are in, and all I can say is, you’re a predictable lot. Shag won in a veritable landslide, followed by flat; row and gap year tied for third. I will consider all of them in due course, though I have to say I’m highly skeptical that I will find much evidence on these shores of row, either as a noun or verb meaning argue/ment.

I actually forgot to include twit in the poll, so I’ll look at that one as well.
Many thanks for voting–all the Yanks out there, make sure you do the same on the first Tuesday in November.

The BBC’s online article about not one-off Britishisms asked readers to send in their favorite examples, and the results of that exercise have now been published. Going through the list, I see I have already weighed in on quite a few of the nominated terms: bloody, bum (meaning buttocks), cheeky, cheers, fancy (verb), gobsmacked, holiday (meaning vacation), kit, loo, mate, mobile (as in “call me on my mobile”), proper, queue, roundabout, and suss out. (My God, I have been doing this for a long time.)

A few of the others are indeed common in American English, but I’m highly doubtful that they can be called Britishisms: autumn, an item (meaning a romantic couple), and frock (meaning a girl’s or woman’s dress). One reader suggests pop over, meaning to come by for a visit; am I nuts, or have Americans been saying that for decades? Knickers is used here exclusively in the expression knickers in a twist, never as an actual term for a woman’s undergarment. I have actually been working on a post about wonky, which, like snarky, has taken on a decidedly different meaning in the U.S. than it originally had in the U.K.

Here are the remaining terms  (definitions are from the BBC post)

• Chav, n. Pejorative term to express young person who displays loutish behaviour, sometimes with connotations of low social status.
• Flat, n. An apartment on one floor of a building.
• Gap year, n. A year’s break taken by a student between leaving school and starting further education.
• Innit, adv. A contraction of isn’t it? Used to invite agreement with a statement.
• Muppet, n. A stupid person; from the name for the puppets used in the TV programme The Muppet Show.
• Numpty, n. A stupid person.
• Row, n. and v. A noisy or violent argument, a quarrel with someone.
• Shag, v. To copulate with.
• Skint, adj. Penniless, broke.
• Twit, n. A fool; a stupid or ineffectual person.

Bringing back a favorite feature from NOOB’s past (I’m talking to you, Hal Hall), I ask readers to vote on up to three of these expressions that they feel have actually taken hold in the U.S. It’s a free world out there, but I would ask those of you from the U.K, Oz, Canada, etc., not to vote, unless you’ve been observing American usage. I’ll announce the results tomorrow and get to work on posting about the winners.