>Back in the early 90s I couldn't make myself understood in Boston bars if I said, "Could I have a beer, please?".
>
>Eventually I realised I'd have to say "Can I get a beerrrrrrrr?" in order to get served.
>
>Recently, since I've been going to a local sandwich shop near work, I've noticed more and more Brits saying, "Can I get ..." (of course, often without the "please" on the end). This is coupled with a recent survey I heard that fewer and fewer (or "less and less" as even the newsreaders are saying) British people are bothering to say "please" nowadays.
>
>BTW The dialogue of serving staff in the UK has changed over the last several years from the British, "Who's next please?" to the US "Can I help?".
>Generally I don't need any help in a shop - just need someone to serve me.
>
>OK USA - we surrender.
Next thing you will hear "sure" or "yeap" instead of "you are welcome". Yeap to American English {g}.
"The creative process is nothing but a series of crises." Isaac Bashevis Singer
"My experience is that as soon as people are old enough to know better, they don't know anything at all." Oscar Wilde
"If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too." W.Somerset Maugham
