Kyle Thetford from Oxford University’s Cherwell  reports on how a recent study found that British children are using more American English:

A recent Oxford University Press study suggests that the use of American English is becoming ever more prominent among young Britons.These findings came from the study of 74,000 short stories written by pupils, aged 7 to 13, for the BBC’s Radio 2 ‘500 Words’ competition.

Researchers also discovered the overuse of exclamation marks and frequent references to celebrities such as Simon Cowell and Lionel Messi.A total of 35,171 uses of an exclamation mark were recorded and a number of children were writing five in a row.The references throughout the short stories seem to indicate the increasingly dominant influence of celebrity culture, as well as Hollywood lingo. It is thought that popular US fiction and movie series, such as the Twilight saga, may go some way towards explaining the greater use of Americanisms.

Full story here.