North Americans, has British English been seeping into your language or is it purely online?

r/

I’ve noticed over the past five years a slow increase in British English being adopted online.

Initially it was use the words like “brilliant”, “cheers” and even “bloody” or “wee” by American commenters and YouTubers and then more recently it’s been influenced by the Essex and MLE accents which I think has derived from Love Island and seeing British TikToks. For example, using “babes” to refer to someone often in a patronising way, calling fast food workers Bossman, use of man/mans as a pronoun.

It isn’t simply the adoption of British terminology but how sentences are phrased. I’ll notice when a comment almost reads British but is slightly off.

I’m wondering, is this an online thing or has it seeped into how people speak in daily life?

Comments

  1. mulletguy1234567 Avatar

    I pretty much only see it on Reddit. Occasionally someone in real life will say some British slang ironically or to be kinda silly, but it’s really not a thing.

  2. sendme_your_cats Avatar

    Maybe in other regions, but I haven’t heard any English colloquialisms here in the south. Or online tbh

    Maybe cheers?

    Which American commentators have used them?