I would like to think that my English remains as free of Americanisms as possible, sadly despite my best efforts even I am not as pure as I would wish.

I have an agreement with a friend of mine, she picks me up on my Americanisms and I apolagise and slip back into Home Counties English.

With America its not the pronounciation or grammar so much as the spelling. "Favour" is spelt that way for a reason. "our" represents something halfway between "er" and "ar." If Americans really wanted to pronounce it phonetically why do they spell it "favor" instead of "favar" or "faver?"

Still at least it allows the English, Canadians and Australians to make fun of you chaps.