Sir, – Regarding your correspondent’s letter on creeping Americanisms (February 7th): other creeping, and indeed creepy, Americanisms that should be expunged might include presenters referring to their programmes as shows and radio and television journalists speaking in a manner appropriate for 11-year-olds in California.
If RTÉ’s director general Kevin Bakhurst fined them a day’s salary each time they were heard to talk in this childish unspeak, they would soon learn.
The most egregious of all of these imports is the widespread practice of newscasters, weather presenters et alia telling us to have wonderful/amazing/fabulous days, evenings or weekends. – Yours, etc,
The response of the writer SJ Perelman (and his final words) to being told by a taxi driver to “have a nice day” “was “I’ll have any sort of f*****g day I want“. Were this response to be widely adopted, that creeping Americanism might hurry back to where it belongs. – Yours, etc,
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Rossa Bunworth,
Clontarf,
Dublin 3.
Sir, - Apropos Ursula Gavin’s letter (Letters, February 7th) regarding creeping Americanisms, I say down, also, with: “reach out”, “rest up”, “pushback”, “lay”, “a bunch”, “trust me”, “good job”, “go-to”, “must-see”, “stood down”, “totally”, “normalcy”, etc. – Yours, etc.
George Ryan,
Stillorgan,
Dublin.
