Do any Brits resent excessive US influence?

TVN24 showed a glimpse of a London shop with a Chrsitmas display in mid-summer as a tourist attraction. One couldn't help but notice that the beared gift-giver shown there was not the traditional English Father Christmas but the typical American department-store Santa.

That got me to thinking. Some better educated Poles feel too much American influence is ruining the language ("dwa w jednym", for instance), excessive US-style fast and snack food is undermining the nation's health, esp. that of its young people, and that there is too much American programming on Polish TV.

Do any Brits feel their culture, language, eating habits and traditions are being McDonaldised and overwhelmed by Americanism or do they welcome it all with open arms?

As Johnny Reb once observed, America invented the British, so no wonder that Santa Claus slowly replaces the English Father Christmas. You are just splitting hairs.

And "dwa w jednym" doesn't ruin the language at all. The fact that the Americans gave the name to this concept doesn't mean that translating the name of a concept ruins the language. It could have, only if we used the original American name of the concept. "Haloween" does ruin the language as both the concept and the name are foreign.

Yes, a typically idiotic comment from him.

Agreed. A strange thing to say.

So are you saying that the American cultural invasion has been wholeheartedly accepted by all UK-ers? Any of them disagree or dislike some facet of the invasion?

It hasn't happened. There was an issue back in the 80s with American TV shows creeping onto British TV, a good example was Dallas and Dynasty being shown at peak times and things like Cheers later. It was happening on most days. This happened because the shows were cheap to screen and a series of strikes had slowed down production of British original shows. It was stopped by the government on the basis that the TV companies have a legal duty to maintain a certain quality.

Britain is doing fine, and no 'cultural invasion' from some country thousands of miles away.

Yes, I think so. And they are happy with it and would like more of it. Without America they would be just nothing and their petty language has acquired importance only through the influence and power of the United States. In fact it should be called "American" rather than "English" these days.

The language in which over 90% of the world's literature is written? Most of it not American...

Yes, billions of people in Asia, Africa, the Americas and Oceania speak English because of the influence and power of the United States, you're so right.

Ziemowit, you are using this great language. Perhaps you know the word 'irony'.

It's important to remember that we Brits invented America; at least, the America that people are complaining about. Many Americans have British ancestors, they speak our language (albeit badly) and aspire to recreate (or buy) our heritage and values. So if we decide to adopt some of their shallow commercialism, unhealthy food and cosmetic enhancements from time to time, there's no harm in it.

Beyond the telly, there are fast-foods McDonald's, KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell -- you'd think since the UK is the fatso centre of Europe health authorities would be up in arms. BTW are there any British fast-food chains serving up UK specialities - pasties, shepherd's pie, fish & chips, steak & kieney pie, etc.?

In France they are more sensitive about cultural bastardisation. In Poland you find that only amongst the educated classses and even there it's marginal.

There are a grand total of six Taco Bells in the UK, two of which are only available to your countrymen who are serving in the USAF in the UK.


No it isn't.


Yes. One of them has hundreds more outlets than the chain you think is everywhere in the UK.

The thread's title is "Do any Brits resent excessive US influence?" so it is actually a question addressed to Brits. Somehow it looks like the "Brits" don't feel that way, yet many "Non-Brits" say that the "Brits" do feel that way.

None of my British friends seem to resent anything in terms of American influence.

One of them is a mechanical engineer that lives in Dubai. Someone indicated to him a certain volume of liquid in "gallons" and when asked to clarify whether he meant imperial or US gallons he said "naturally US gallons, nobody uses imperial gallons". My friend proceeded to remind him that in Dubai at the time gasoline (petrol :-) ) was sold by the imperial gallon.

I feel that way but my post would take too long to write and I'm skiving as it is. My gripe mainly concerns language. Back to work, Roger.

But Brits get an Imperial pint at the pub, dont they? The US pint is a tad smaller.

Litres are legal now for alcohol. They didn't used to be. Part of the move towards Europe.

Pints, gallons, feet, yards, inches, pounds are just yet one more example of the British influence on America. As opposed to the other way round.

I'm not sure if it's still legally defined as such, or if it's just 568ml but can be sold as "a pint".


I'd agree with you, actually. I strongly dislike a lot of it - for example, I've seen "wstęp free" and many other disgusting examples. It's fair enough when there's just no Polish word that can be used, but it seems like a lot of it is just pointless. Another one that caught my eye - "Umowa o współpracę z firmą outsourcingow" - disgusting.

Mostly a result of WW1 and WW2.


There once was a British Empire, or so I've heard...

There is something like an Anglo-American cultural imperialism, no doubt, and many countries such as France try to do something against it (keeping the language French for example).

I know adversity produced many writers in the English-speaking world, but how are the two wars connected to the sheer volume of literature written in (non-American) English?


That term only started to be used, relatively late, and by that time the government and people were deciding how best to get rid of it.

Though yes, the British influence in the world extends far and wide. May her shining bounds increase.

Just a quick example:
Before WW1, German was the language most used in science, just like French was the language of diplomacy. The German language lost its position after WW1 and was replaced by English. After WW2, the Anglo-American culture pretty much took over - making the English language even more dominant (both spoken and written).

bbc.com/news/magazine-29543708

Indeed it is legally defined in the weights and measures legislation which states that the only things you can sell in imperial measures are draft beers and ciders (must be a third, half or full pint), milk (pint) and precious metals (troy ounces). Everything else must be in metric measures and if you display the imperial equivalent it has to be less prominent.

As for the US influence (trying to keep on topic) I don't think it's as big as people who don't live in the UK like to believe. The great Wallmart invasion (through their takeover of Asda) has hardly been an outstanding success for example. It's probably most noticeable in London and the other big cities but try going to say Harrogate and claim the Yanks have taken over for example.

IMHO the biggest cultural change is actually from the influence of advanced communications via the web and social media which you might argue are US led, other than the fact that www was thought out by a Brit.

In summary, I've spent a lot of time in the Sates over the years and the UK still remains refreshingly different in many, many ways.

Where on earth did you get this number from Jon?

Check it out.

There's only room for one truly global language. There are several other major ones, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic however English (specifically in its British form) had already become predominant even before the Internet consolidated things. Only a certain part of that can be attributed to American influence.

Well, I don't know where you got this number from, but it looks very unlikely.

Even if we just focus on the current period, where English domination is probably at its highest (compare to say 200-300 years ago), China publishes almost 50% more books every year than the US (440,000 vs 305,000) and 2,5 times more than the UK.

And if one just looks at the top 10 countries, they publish annually 1 438 000 books. The US and UK represent together just 21% of this total! So I cannot see how the 90% number can be reached by any stretch of the imagination

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books_published_per_country_per_year

I was surprised when I read it too. It reflects very well on British cultural influence. Remember that a lot of the books in China were originally published in English and were translated into Chinese - whether they're counted in the 90% or not, I don't know. If they are, it would change your figures hugely. Also don't underestimate the size of the market in English speaking countries.

The link you provided is by the way per 'new title' - it makes no reference at all to the actual number of books, the type of book (instruction manual or great literature) or the size of the market. Some of those Chinese ones are probably computer printed pirate translations of work and sell a handful of copies.

American publishers grumble that only 3% of what they sell is translated from another language (translations are cheaper for them) however closer to the topic, they sell a disproportionate number of books that originate in Britain. Also, within Europe, the largest single country of origin of literature is the UK.

And don't forget e-books. Again, Britain is the European leader. Some American influence, but proportionately far more from the UK when you factor in population.

Anyway, this is in danger of going very off topic. At least we've established that in literature and high culture there's no risk or resentment of any American influence - British influence to their culture is disproportionate positively to the population sizes involved and, negatively, vice versa.

Couldn't edit because internet went off for ages, but still just about on topic since it does relate to US influence on British culture (or lack of it), albeit high culture.

It's a couple of quick links that contradict that wiki page somewhat
nownovel.com/blog/which-country-reads-the-most-books/
outthinkgroup.com/the-10-awful-truths-about-book-publishing/

They do show that American cultural influence exists but isn't excessive in Britain because there's so much cultural output.

And of course there's popular music as well...

I don't challenge your premise of anglo cultural influence (more US than British because I believe it is overwhelmingly coming from the US as opposed to Britain) but I still do not believe the 90% number, it is so counterintuitive.

In qualitative terms, the debate is open (and sensitive!), but I believe that Germany, Italy, Spain, France. have at least as great number of writers as UK or US.. To try to get "objective", one can look at Nobel Prize winners in literature: France leads the pack (15 prizes), ahead of the US and UK (10 each) and Germany and Sweden (8 each). That comes to an overall "anglo" (US + UK) percentage of 18% (20 out of 111).

If one looks instead at the proportion of Nobel prize winners who wrote in English, the percentage climbs to 27% (30 out of 111).

I therefore believe that a number between say 20 and 30% is much closer the reality if one wants to try and measure "anglo" influence in literature.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_in_Literature

I didn't believe it either when I was first told, though it is apparently true. Nice to see that France leads the pack in literature Nobels. I remember when I was at university being told that the place I studied had produced more living Nobel laureates than France - perhaps that was for the sciences.

Remember it isn't the number of authors or the number of new titles even. It's the number of books printed and sold that are in, or originally were written in, English. And more of those originate in the UK rather than the U.S relative to population size.

This is in danger of going off topic, however in hIgh culture rather than low culture, there is no danger of American influence in the UK being excessive - in fact the influence going in the other direction is disproportionate to the size of the population.

Of course the Brits resent the Us influence.
The USA is superior in Military, fashion, wealth, infrastructure, agriculture, world dominance,
national parks, athletes, National sports, economy, stronger dollar vs.pound, more freedoms,
on and on.
Of course they are jealous just look at what the Brit Bullies post here with their inferiority complexes.
Pitiful I mast say.

And gun crime, percentage below the poverty level, even having to pay when you see a doctor!

No, you can keep those. And there's no particular cultural influence their either, except perhaps among the lower classes.