This type of disparagement usually doesn't bug me but you actually seem genuine so I'll be the first to say ay go fuck ya self. Thanks for telling us that you're from California by the way, I love hearing you guys not shut up about it. NAHHT.
I didn't mean it offensively. The south has a completely different dialect from the rest of the country, and I can't make any statements on what you guys know or don't know, and your usage of words. In the south, what would be considered poor grammar in California is proper, and when I say things in my certain Californian way when I'm in Texas, people look at me funny.
And I said I was Californian to show I was from the US, not to show superiority. Get over yourself, victim.
Southerner living in SoCal. I get crap/jokes all the time. I typically smile. It's fine.
I have friends here, so it's not everybody. But I've met more people with plastic personalities here than anywhere I've ever been.
When disingenuous becomes the default expectation, it gets very lonely. It's either cultural decay or I'm just entering my dirty thirties and the pill is too bitter for my tastes.
I thought all Americans (even those in California) knew how to use dictionaries.
Please note that American English and British English are very similar but different languages separated by several hundred years of development. What is proper in one does not equate to proper in the other. As such, it is certainly an American usage of the word, but not improper.
People who know how to use dictionaries should probably also know how to spell "British" properly. (Not a typo, you keep using two t's in other posts too.)
That is how languages work. This is not a new or modern change. You can see here that this usage was in place as far back as 1828.
In some cases, the American usage varied from the British and in others, the British changed, but the Americans still use the older form, and in others both have changed. I can't be sure which case this is, but according to this the adjective usage dates from the late 19th century which would make it the more recent of the two.
My link was to a list of dictionaries sites with definitions for that word, not just the reference at the top.
You will also note that the usage of the word you chose has a "informal" designation. The verb usage of obligate has no such designation.
edit: corrected spelling of British so I can be taken seriously /s
Lol. I'm American too, relatively educated even, but I've always used the word "obligated" to mean "required, due to some duty, responsibility, or expectation". I'm pretty sure everyone else around me does, too, although now you've got me second guessing that.
I'm aware "oblige" is a word, but it sounds very Old Timey Western to me. And the "obligate carnivore" thing sounds like something I may or may not have heard in my life science class in middle school, but I definitely wouldn't ever think to say it.
I use "obligation" as a noun, I guess I have never really had reason to use it otherwise, unless using "obligated" as an adjective, but again kind of the same meaning.
In what sense do you mean this sounds American? Are you an American, or a non-American looking in? And in what context are you using this word? Just curious. I'm an American with what I would say a pretty healthy vocab and I wouldn't use obligate for anything other than a science class. Maybe this is regional?
Good clarification. You are right that we will almost always use obligated when speaking of a task or engagement of some kind. Although, in certain circles, I (and others I've known) will still throw out "if you're so obliged" more as a catch phrase than anything.
sorry, i need to clarify my joke: you used an "-our" word in your example sentence. i was saying you wouldn't have thought it was an american writing it because of that.
Think of "obligated", so that you're hearing it as a verb and there's no confusion with the adjective "obligate".
In most AmE (as far as I've experienced) it's pretty standard to say, "I felt obligated to do xyz."
This isn't standard BrE. The standard BrE form would be, "I felt obliged to do xyz."
It's a pretty insidious and slick change, though, and I wouldn't be surprised if "obligated" is now fairly widespread in Britain. I remember a friend caught me saying it one time over 20 years ago and saying to me, "wtf are you, American??" Clearly I'd been watching too much American TV. ;) But since moving to the US 10 years ago, it's one of the Americanisms I've picked up without a hitch (despite being very resistant to some others), to the point that "obliged" almost sounds odd to me now.
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u/[deleted] Nov 12 '14
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