Crikey! Has anyone else noticed the rise of the Britishisms “amongst” and “whilst” among American bloggers? I can’t decide if people are being pretentious or simply being pulled along in the verbal tide, but I attribute it to the fact that there are so many clever and influential Brits brightening the blogosphere. The Guardian has certainly strengthened its reputation as an international paper of record by wholly embracing the web. And if you read enough Ben Hammersley cracking on about cigars, RSS feeds, and Florentine caffes, you too might rather fancy the occasional “whilst”. Can an uptick in “colour” be far behind?
Now back to our regularly scheduled programme…
Rambles Blog at Star Chamber 
No, I think that it’s because a new generation has discovered The Spanish Inquisition.
“AMONGST our weaponry are such diverse elements as fear, surprize, ruthless efficiency, an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope, and nice red uniforms – oh, damn!”
Are you picking on me again? I can’t get rid of some of the things I got over there.
I use the word “whilst” because it is a funny word. There is nothing funny about “amongst”.
I think amongst is pretty darn funny. Years ago, Microsoft’s American English spell checker disallowed it, but that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. Aluminium always makes me giggle. Organise is dreary, programme is monstrous, but W-X-Y-Zed, that’s funny.
Hurrah for monstrous programmes! I will continue to subvert the culture here with as much british colour as I can muster. If it makes you giggle, so much the better ;)
Zed’s dead, baby, zed’s dead
Dear all,
it’s so nice to hear true English being embraced. Here are some top bits from the latest survey of the tongue over here on ‘the little island off the coast of Europe’.
‘Program’ is, officially, a piece of software, whereas ‘programme’ is a sequence of events.
‘Z’ is now recognised as a legitimate alternative to ‘s’ in ‘organise’, ‘realise’ and suchlike.
‘Color’, ‘center’, ‘theater’ and ‘behavior’ remain abhorrent.
Please use ‘Britishisms’ – if only to sound twee. They’re ever so nice.
Justin