I've noticed more and more of my fellow soccer loving americans calling soccer cleats "boots" and soccer uniforms "kits". They also call the field "the pitch", and fast players have "pace", etc... These are all fine terms... in Britain. Perhaps this wouldn't bother me so much if the people that I notice doing it were not people who, prior to following the EPL (which I love), used the typical American terms for these things.

But none of the above is as grating as hearing Americans copy the brittish penchant for botching subject-verb agreement: "Germany are strong", "San Franciso win the pennant". Germany and San Francisco are singular nouns and the verbs in the above phrases should be conjugated accordingly, at least in the U.S. of A.

I understand that our language comes from britain and in some sense "English" is, by definition, whatever the English speak. But we paid a heavy price to win our freedom to say things like cleats, field, uniforms, and to properly conjugate verbs according to their subjects.