I will be the first to admit that I am rather a pedant when it comes to grammar and spelling and I am a stickler for 'proper' ways of speaking but one thing that really does get my goat is the infiltration of American ways of speaking into our everyday language. Yes, the Americans are pretty cool, where would we be without Family Guy and Coca-Cola? However, Americanisms like 'dream', 'journey', 'totally', 'can I get a' and 'a half hour' really get on my nerves, mainly because they have no meaning whatsoever and are completely superfluous to any conversation. Talent shows like The X Factor and Britain's Got Talent fuel this dependence on linguistic candyfloss, the amount of times a contestant comes on declaring it has always been her 'dream' to go and sing in front of a bunch of talentless millionaires who would not know proper talent if it came and slapped them in the face is a real bug bear of mine. What does dream even mean? Usually when I refer to a 'dream' it is in the sentence 'I had a really weird dream last night', followed by a collective groan and roll of the eyes from everyone around me.
So, in summation, if you want to speak like an American (and you're not), speak like an American but you sound like an utter wally.
Rant Over.
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