Gobsmacked!
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Ben Yagoda's new book, Gobsmacked!: The British Invasion of American English, is "A spot-on guide to how and why Americans have become so bloody keen on Britishisms—for good or ill". The publisher's blurb:
The British love to complain that words and phrases imported from America—from French fries to Awesome, man!—are destroying the English language. But what about the influence going the other way? Britishisms have been making their way into the American lexicon for more than 150 years, but the process has accelerated since the turn of the twenty-first century. From acclaimed writer and language commentator Ben Yagoda, Gobsmacked! is a witty, entertaining, and enlightening account of how and why scores of British words and phrases—such as one-off, go missing, curate, early days, kerfuffle, easy peasy, and cheeky—have been enthusiastically taken up by Yanks.
FWIW, Amazon now ranks this book as the #1 New Release in Lexicography.
For a preview, see Ben's 9/26/2024 Guardian article "The other British invasion: how UK lingo conquered the US", which starts like this:
I am an American, New York-born, but I started to spend time in London in the 1990s, teaching classes to international students. Being interested in language, and reading a lot of newspapers there – one of the courses I taught was on the British press – I naturally started picking up on the many previously unfamiliar (to me) British words and expressions, and differences between British and American terminology.
Then a strange thing happened. Back home in the United States, I noticed writers, journalists and ordinary people starting to use British terms I had encountered. I’ll give one example that sticks in my mind because it is tied to a specific news event, and hence easily dated.
In 2003, it became clear that the US would invade Iraq. Months passed; we did not invade. Then we did. Journalists faced a question: what should we call that preliminary period? In September 2003, the New York Times’ Thomas Friedman chose a Britishism, referring to “how France behaved in the run-up to the Iraq war”.
Dick Margulis said,
September 28, 2024 @ 8:25 am
Britishism appears to be a Briticism that has invaded US usage. Both spellings have long coexisted, but I just compared Google ngram plots for AmE and BrE. Indeed, Britishism has been gaining ground in the US and now slightly edges out Briticism, the former standard US spelling. (My browser's spell checker hasn't quite caught up yet. There are red squiggles under Britishism as I write this.)
Philip Taylor said,
September 28, 2024 @ 8:50 am
I know nothing about British exports to the American language, but my inclination would be to write "Anglicism" rather than either of the above. Google Ngrams confirms that it predominates — Briticism,Britishism,Anglicism,anglicism
Philip Taylor said,
September 28, 2024 @ 8:51 am
Sorry, meant to append hyperlink, not search strings — https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Briticism%2CBritishism%2CAnglicism%2Canglicism&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3
Joe said,
September 28, 2024 @ 9:55 am
Well I say good on him, full stop!
I hope he addresses the internet's recent role in this. In online text forums, no one can hear your accent. I think that's accelerated the exchange of vocabulary, in both directions, more than Hollywood ever did in the opposite direction.
Terry K. said,
September 28, 2024 @ 9:59 am
I would understand Anglicism to mean a word from English in another language. Though dictionaries recognize both that definition and it meaning a word particular to British English.
Ngrams does not confirm that Anglicism predominates for that meaning, because it does not distinguish between the two meanings of Anglicism. It only confirms it's a more common word.