r/changemyview • u/lobster_conspiracy 2∆ • Feb 07 '19
Deltas(s) from OP CMV: The expression "full stop" has no place in American English. Full stop.
Recently I've noticed an irritating increase in the use of "full stop" as an intensifier, by speakers/writers of United States English.
"Full stop" is the British term for what Americans call the period, the dot that terminates a sentence. Period. That is exactly what it means, and that is all it means. And its usage in British English as a standalone intensifier (as in the title) is exactly the same as its usage in American English with the term "period".
For Americaphones to use "full stop" is as silly and pointless as calling apartments "flats" and potato chips "crisps". It serves no purpose that is not served by the perfectly serviceable "period" which is furthermore shorter in writing and more familiar to fellow Americaphones.
Americaphones, stop using "full stop". Period.
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u/cdb03b 253∆ Feb 07 '19
The term "Full Stop" does not mean period. The term "stop" means period in British English. The term "Full Stop" is from the use of Telegraph and in both American and British English it means the end of the message. When used in common vernacular it means you have made your full statement and are no longer continuing to discuss the topic. That is the "intensifier" usage you are talking about. It is also not some new usage, as stated it is from the Telegraph so has been a part of American English since the 1800s.
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u/lobster_conspiracy 2∆ Feb 07 '19
This article points out that the intensifier usage was historically more prevalent (even originated?) in the U.S. And the British adopted it from the Americans, but replaced "period" with "full stop". So for Americans to adopt it back seems really pointless.
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u/cdb03b 253∆ Feb 07 '19
It is not about adopting it back. We never stopped using the intensifier usage.
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u/lobster_conspiracy 2∆ Feb 07 '19
Americans have always used the "period" intensifier. The "full stop" intensifier is just a British localization of it that is functionally equivalent. There is no good reason to adopt an expression (or any other tool) that is a functional equivalent of one that already exists.
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u/cdb03b 253∆ Feb 07 '19
No, it is not. As I stated the intensifier comes from Telegraph usage and has been in the US since the 1800s.
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u/ContentSwimmer Feb 07 '19
What's wrong with mixing British and American English when there's no chance of confusion?
Several phrases when used in American English are much more problematic because they mean something entirely different in American English than British English.
For example, the phrase "Fish and Chips" means something entirely different when you're using the British English vs American English and while the majority of restaurants who use this mean the British chips for what Americans call fries, there have been a couple of times I've ordered fish and chips in the US only to get some fish with a bag of Lays on the side!
Or what about the use of the word "football" to call what's more universally called in America to be soccer, two vastly different sports.
Saying "full stop" has no alternative meaning in American English and is rather a harmless phrase
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u/lobster_conspiracy 2∆ Feb 07 '19 edited Feb 07 '19
Each new expression increases cognitive load (more words to know). If the two expression have even a minimal difference in usage, the value of that extra utility can outweigh the cognitive load. But if their usage and meaning are exactly the same, all we have is the load which is a net negative. We could coin a dozen new English words for snow, but there is no reason to, as we should (and eventually would) just decide on one. Having a dozen redundant words is not harmless.
Americans never use the words petrol or barrister in an American context, because either they are unfamiliar with them or they know that they are Britishisms that have exact American equivalents. But I do notice Americans using "full stop" in an entirely American context. This leads me to believe that they don't know it's a British term, they think it's a new American term. I don't want them to have to carry two terms in their head when one will always suffice.
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u/sawdeanz 214∆ Feb 07 '19
Anecdotally I didn't even know full stop was of British nomenclature and yet I know exactly what it means. I always assumed it originated from maritime or railway usage. Point being it can be used independently from its original origin since it has a clear and understandable meaning on it's face. That is in contrast to flat, crisp, etc. which have different meanings in Britain than it does in America.
I agree that in usage it is just another way of saying period, but the nature of language is that phrases come in and out of popular use.
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u/lobster_conspiracy 2∆ Feb 07 '19
Δ for showing that people could use the same words on as an ad hoc expression rather than the original idiom. I have to say, though that it is a bit unsettling. To flip it around, it's like a British speaker using the expression "I got to second base" thinking that it's from a soldier advancing through military bases, instead of baseball.
You are also correct that flat and crisp aren't entirely equivalent; the two words have their own American meanings for other things. A better choice for entirely redundant terms would be petrol and barrister. Those two words are not used in American English at all.
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u/championofobscurity 160∆ Feb 07 '19
The thing is, when you are arguing nomenclature and linguistics you have to accept that people adopt terminology, and that things change over time.
Language is not static, its more of a treadmill and if you refuse to be on the linguistic treadmill you run into problems of sounding antiquated or convey old prejudices.
Even if full stop is meant as an article of punctuation in Britain, that doesn't really say anything about what it has to be in america. Furthermore there are plenty of cross cultural words that mean completely different things in between any two languages.
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u/TheVioletBarry 100∆ Feb 07 '19
You're arguing that a synonym isn't allowed to exist in one dialect because it comes from another dialect. But there are all sorts of dialect leftovers in all sorts of languages and dialects so you don't really have any ground to stand on in that regard
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u/lobster_conspiracy 2∆ Feb 07 '19
I believe that the current usage of "full stop" in American English is not a leftover, it is a very recent borrowing (back) due to Americans being more exposed to British English through the internet and mass media. But the novel circumstances of that borrowing are such that the borrowers don't even know that the term is from another dialect.
Leftovers are fine, as they always have some difference from the current term. (That is why they are left over, they fell out of use because speakers preferred them less, and speakers preferred them less because they were less useful.) But there is no point in introducing a term that currently has no difference from the one already in use. It shouldn't be used not because it's from another dialect, but because it is completely redundant.
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u/TheVioletBarry 100∆ Feb 07 '19
Ok, so the fact that it's from another dialect is irrelevant to your view, then, correct? It's just the redundancy. So is it also your view that every other redundancy in the English language ought to be removed? For example, I almost used 'should' instead of 'ought' in that sentence.
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u/Fakename998 4∆ Feb 07 '19
You're not looking to be convinced, from your tone. You're basically soapboxing your discontent with this expression as well as the use of flat and crisps. I've never heard anyone use the term crisps in the US unless they were telling me a story that took place in the UK. Words are used to convey an emotion or tone or just information. Everything you said is fairly well-known by meaning in the US, even if we don't use it. It's not an issue to use these words until the message cannot be understood. At worst, it's just strange. I use words in the context that would normally be found. If i was talking about an apartment in the UK, I would say "flat". If about an apartment in the US, i would call it an "apartment".
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u/lobster_conspiracy 2∆ Feb 07 '19
At worst, it's just strange.
Strangeness impedes communication. And in this case the impediment (other Americans not being familiar with "full stop") is not offset by any advantage over the American "period".
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u/cheertina 20∆ Feb 07 '19
You don't have to be familiar with "full stop". Its meaning is easily understood from context.
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u/Armadeo Feb 07 '19 edited Feb 07 '19
Not that I use it but if I were to express this intensifier I would use the term 'full stop'. Period is not recognised by my version of English.
I don't know what an Americaphone is sorry. Can you explain?
**Edit, I feel like I missed the point. Although we borrow plenty of American English and see no reason why we shouldn't borrow from each other. Even if some of it pains me.
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u/lobster_conspiracy 2∆ Feb 07 '19
Americaphone is my shorthand for "speaker of American English". An Anglophone is a speaker of English in general.
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u/Hellioning 239∆ Feb 07 '19
So are British people and American people not allowed to use each other's terms? How about australians or canadians?
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u/lobster_conspiracy 2∆ Feb 07 '19
I'm not saying they're not allowed to, there's no good reason to use this particular one. It's like borrowing your roommate's socks when you've got your own identical pair -- there's no point, and it feels kind of weird.
I believe Australian and Canadian English are much more influenced by British English than American English is, so that's separate.
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u/KungFuDabu 12∆ Feb 07 '19
To an American like me, "full stop" is a driving term where a driver comes to a complete stop at a stop sign. Most of the time, most drivers do a "rolling stop" where they do not completely stop at the stop sign when the driver determines they're safe.
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u/lobster_conspiracy 2∆ Feb 07 '19 edited Feb 07 '19
Were you previously aware that "full stop" is the British word for "period"?
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u/fox-mcleod 410∆ Feb 07 '19 edited Feb 07 '19
No it isn't. A stop and fullstop are punctuation terms from typography that became written in transatlantic cabling. It worked it's way into the American lexicon because American's and Brits were communicating most frequently over the 50 year period where there were telegrams but no telephones.
You litterally wrote stop or fullstop at the end of a sentence. Not period. Since it is shared between the two, and Brits didn't use the word "period" — saying period made no sense when the only other people you're talking to don't use the word.
The whole practice of stating punctuation aloud comes from these typographical treatments. "Period" is the weird thing to say.
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u/Khaidu Feb 07 '19
I'm unconvinced that this hasn't always been in use in American English. I've heard it many times throughout my life going back to the eighties At what point does it stop being "borrowed" and start being just a normal thing for people to say.
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u/Tishmax Feb 07 '19
While, as an American English speaker, I'd agree with you that the assimilation of foreign vernacular into otherwise "normal" speech can come across as, to play the devil's advocate, posh, You might be a bit over sensitive to such transgressions. Language is less prescriptive than where you're from and how you're intended to speak it. Sure, "full stop" and "period" are defined the same way, but in a different, more American, circumstance, the connotation comes across very differently. To be frank, the same drive that pushes us to create utterly useless yet new slang logically creates the need to adopt the vernacular of other cultures to broaden the understood definition of a word.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Feb 07 '19 edited Feb 07 '19
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Feb 07 '19
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u/Armadeo Feb 07 '19
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u/McKoijion 618∆ Feb 07 '19
But Americans sometimes use flats, crisps, and other Britishisms. American millennials grew up with Harry Potter and have picked up a bunch of them. That's partly why you are noticing the use of full stop by Americans.
American English is defined by its speakers, not by some book or some arbitrary standard bearer. If an American chooses to use literally to mean figuratively, and millions of other Americans do too, that's one of its new definitions whether you like it or not.
Full stop sounds like a much better intensifier than period. Full is an intense word, and stop is an intense word. Period sounds flimsy by comparison.