Ever noticed that everyone on the internet is American? This puzzles me. Is it because Americans are more prone to forum use? Is it simply the forums and blogs I frequent which are American-centric? (Unlikely, because the blogs I like are a pretty eclectic mix). Or did New Zealand somehow just get tacked on to the American Internet, and are other countries in fact happily surfing away on their respective nets? An English Internet, for instance (no smileys) and a Canadian Internet which is presumably bilingual? I do not know. Sometimes the fact that there must be billions of web pages out there in Japanese, which I do not speak, awes and frightens me: the thought of hundreds of separate Internets for hundreds of people groups is just too much for my tiny brain. What if I’m missing something? What if someone once said something really witty on the Internet for Ex-Pat English-Speaking South Africans, and I missed it? What if the Northern Irish Internet has a blog dedicated to photos of steampunk reptiles, but I can’t see it? Boggles the head, is what.
Anyway. My point was, pumpkin pie good, Grand Canyon good, liberty and justice for all, swell; but it peeves me that the US of A has so thoroughly taken over media that we feel Othered in our own living rooms. If we post a message on a gardening forum we have to gulp and explain that our seasons are the wrong way round and we’re not, in fact, mad to be planting tomatoes in October. If we post a recipe on a message board we automatically substitute light corn syrup for golden syrup, knowing that nobody reading it is likely to know what golden syrup is. If we watch a movie we don’t even notice the American accents, but a Kiwi accent popping up has us all wincing. Not just because the Kiwi accent is fairly atrocious - so are plenty of American accents, I happen to think - but because it just seems wrong to hear a Kiwi on the big screen… because, well, that’s where Americans go. (And Brits, yes. But even though British accents aren’t as jarring, I think we do notice them more than American accents. Or don’t we? I do.)
Anyway, the reason this is getting my goat is that I notice I’ve started to use American spellings. And I don’t even like American spellings. They may be etymologically purer and easier on the fingers, but they don’t have the quaintness and class of British spellings, and in theory I eschew them. But after years of reading message boards dominated by Americans - not to mention writing for Suite, where American spellings can be better for SEO - I find “labor” creeping up in my writings.
It frightens me.
It also frightens me that I know a considerable amount about Twinkies, Oreos, Dr Pepper, Ding Dongs and Cheese Whiz, despite the fact that none of these items are available in this country. Actually I think Oreos may have crept in pretty recently. Also Reese’s Pieces, but I’m comfortable with that.
That is all.
Mathew Says:
Smokering Says: