As blended cultures in the United States, we tend to butcher the English language in casual conversation and don't think twice about it.
We continue on speaking our "American-English" until an overly-observant foreigner points out our unique manner of speaking.
Sadly, they are so right.
How dare judgy non-Americans break our stride by making us self-conscious!
But we won't go down like that. Like, we're Americans and we totally persist, m'kay?
A Buzzfeed article highlighted old and new observations from the grammar police who pointed out our peculiar use of colloquialisms heard from sea to shining sea.
In response, some of the commenters agreed about proper English usage while others passionately defended our unique expressions.
Here are some examples of what people around the world are telling us Americans "like to say" and the hilarious responses that followed.
How many of these are you guilty of?
We love to emphasize things by verbally saying the punctuation mark.
This statement applies towards expressing things are going swimmingly.
Those with selective hearing are guilty of saying this when something bears repeating.
Who's buying?
Ex-squeeze me?
I bacon powder?
Irish they were more clear about this.
Level of annoyance varies by tonal pitch.
What were they expecting?
In fast food joints, some of us start speaking before making a decision but fill the silence after the horse has left the gate.
This here is a dig.
Yup.
Guilty.
This predates the use of emojis.
We totes like to abbreviate things.
It's like saying, "are you listening?"
Okay, like, some things are a regional thing.
Get off my lawn.
Adjectives are hard.
You guuuys, here's the thing. It's a free country and we will continue speaking the way we do regardless of what y'all say. Yup. Period.
Anyway, you're good. LMAO.
If you need a definitive list of American-English sayings and slang, McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions: The Most Up-to-Date Reference for the Nonstandard Usage, Popular Jargon, and Vulgarisms of Contempos is available here.
@jaketapoer/Bluesky
@BillAckman/Twitter