Bergin's blog

The English language in England has taken an awful turn in recent years. I understand that there will always be changes in language, and indeed, I understand that this is beautiful thing. But this trend annoys the bollocks off me and shames the youth of this country. Honestly, I couldn’t care less about how they talk in America, or how they behave. It’s all relevant in American and stems from trends that actually originated in that country, and I’m happy for people over there to speak in whatever way they’d like.

You’ll never see me cringe at an American uttering words like “dude” or “awesome”, which are, for the most part, words that were popularised in that country by the California surfer culture in the 90’s. But what does make me convulse is the trend of younger people in England over the last few years to forcibly adopt an American lexicon into their everyday speech. Why? Television.

These kids have grown up watching American television and have taken on so many of the terms that you’ll be hard pressed to find a young English person (between 14-21) that doesn’t speak like a stereotypical American surfer. I’m serious. In some cases you’ll struggle to tell the difference between an American teenager and an English one. From my experience, they tend to grow out of it eventually, but this nonsense can continue all the way through university. With this language goes a certain type of fashion and a trained, feigned lazy attitude, both of which I abhor. Fashion is vanity, and vanity in males is inescapably repugnant.

The following is a list of words that you have no place using as an English person, unless completely relevant to the meaning of the word:

Dude (This is a big no no. Under no circumstances should you be using this word. This is the equivalent to an American calling his friend “mate”. It wouldn’t sound right, and of course, why would it?)

Awesome (formerly a lovely word, but ultimately stolen by the surfers. Ask yourself why you say it. Perhaps it’s because everyone else says it, or maybe because you heard it a lot on television when you were growing up)

Sucks (as in “that fellow over there really sucks at cricket”. I rest my case on that one.)

Man (This one has exceptions. I think people in the North of England can get away with this one; I’m fairly certain that their usage doesn’t stem from America. Otherwise, I detest this more than you can imagine)

Dork (You’ve no place using this word. You may as well start calling football “soccer” if you want to continue in this way)

I would also request that you get your hair cut (mainly to get it out of your eyes) and please, for the last shred of humanity in me, put down the skateboard.