There's nothing wrong with Americanisms: it's management-speak that is the enemy of English &8211; Telegraph Blogs # There's nothing wrong with Americanisms: it's management-speak that is the enemy of English # A study of children’s writing by the Oxford University Press suggests that our language is being Americanised . Of course English as spoken here and as spoken in the USA have always played off each other – understandably – and the influence of American films # The examples of Americanisation culled by the researchers from OUP look pretty thin. Children apparently now write about cupcakes rather than fairy-cakes. Well, apart from the fact # sh Dictionary is a good guide, because Chambers has always taken an interest in American English. The 1872 edition included an eight-page appendix of Americanisms, printed in small type, three columns to the page. Nowadays it notes “U.S.” or “esp. U.S.”, if a word is more commonly found in American rather than # Be that as it may, there is nothing that should worry us about this sort of American infiltration of the language. Not only is a colloquial Americanism likely to be lively, useful and agreeable; it is often an English word or expression that has fallen out of use here and is now restored to us. # Tags: americanisms , chambers english dictionary , English , language #