Journalism in the 21st Century

When I told my brother last night that a local restaurant and bar reminded me of a pub I'd find in Ealing or anywhere in West London, "except then people spoke with American accents," he quipped with a laugh: "Including YOU!" He knows how to get my goat. He knows that my 14 months in jolly old England affected me in many ways including how I communicate. I wrote my dissertation in British English, receiving a mark just four points shy of distinction. I am rather proud of this. Yet, those British words and phrases are not helping me here in Connecticut. Instead, I must reassimilate - a process I never hear anyone talk about! - and learn to love the way my fellow Americans speak. I was gone 14 months, as I said, and though I returned on various trips I was basically spared Trump nation-speak. So following please note I make no apologies for hating the following: 1. "You got this." - If Brits are saying this as well, I have not heard them, and every time ...

What's happening to the English language? A twinkly-eyed customs agent at Heathrow would say I don't even speak English. When I arrived at his station in 2008, fresh off a trip to Prague, I breathily spat that I was "so glad to be back where I could speak English." He looked at me with an eye roll. "So is that what you call what you speak in your country." It was enough to bother me for, oh, since 2008. It's a story I recant as often as it's appropriate, but lately whenever I'm explaining to my French ESL student why we speak and write the way we do and how this differs across the pond. Unfortunately, I'm finding I have to also defend myself in my own country and outside the tutoring environment. Like when I'm watching a L'oreal Paris commercial and they brag that their product means "less wrinkles". Less wrinkles?! What happens when my student sees this, especially after one of our lessons on n...