I could care less David Mitchell! A rebuttal.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/video/2010/may/20/language-usa

My british girlfriend recently sent me this link which, in my current state of mind, was not a wise thing to do.  I do love David Mitchell and his comedy and I honestly found the video entertaining.  But if we want to look at this subjectively, I've got to say that he is dead wrong.

I don't even know where to start with you David, it's like shooting fish in a barrel.  How about the word "herbs"?  Yes, good for you islanders, you have managed to bastardize every single loan word in the English language.  You can't even pronounce our President's name for God's sake!  Have you ever heard a Briton try to say Barack Obama?  It comes out something like Bayrick Obammer.  Or Saddam?  But, of course, you don't find many names like that on your ballots, too many blue blooded public school kiddies to attend to.  And don't even get me started on Parmesan cheese.  Yes, it's the Americans putting on airs trying to pronounce everything the "European" way, isn't it?  Yes, we are the classists with dialects for every degree of social stratification.  Yes, that's why Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair both had to take elocution classes to sound like they actually represented their constituencies (which, by the way, makes me wonder how you can presume to speak as if British English were a single entity). 

Have I lost you, too much irony?  Because apparently irony doesn't factor into any British expressions.  Which is essentially the difference between saying "I couldn't care less" and "I could care less", isn't it?  First of all, who told you that every American says it one way or the other, David?  Second of all, your preferred expression is a case of flagrant hyperbole, because there certainly are things that you could care less about, no matter how little you care about whatever you're disdaining.  Either that, or you must use the expression once in your life, or I suppose you could just continually care less and less about everything until you die.  The alternative is using irony, saying that you could care less, as in you would have to search for a bit, but you might actually find something to care less about.  It doesn't take Samuel Johnson to tell you which rhetorical device is superior.

Hold down the fort vs. Hold the fort?  Who even says that anymore?  Well, I would assume you and about 5,000 other Oxbridge delinquents. 

Yes, I admit that there are certain terms and expressions that seem more accurate or logical, none of which were mentioned.  I will surrender "soccer" to "football", but you were the ones who came up with the former abbreviation in the first place, so I guess we just have you to blame for it anyway. 

Yes, I admit that saying Maths as an abbreviation of Mathematics makes more sense.  Congratulations, one of us can say the word, and one of us can actually do long division.  But I digress from the pitiful state of your language to the pitiful state of your educational systems.

In conclusion, while entertaining for ignorant Britons and ignorant Anglophiles (i.e. William F. Buckley and his mid-atlantic crypto-fascist ilk) your tirade was guilty of: straw man arguments, gross provincialism, a particularly inane strain of elitism, lack of rhetorical knowledge and repeated violation of the principle of contradiction.

I'll leave cilantro for another day.