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Comment by lebuffon | Hacker News Reader

One difference that I notice that no one has mentioned yet is that Americans like to "go ahead" and do something.

Example: "So now I'm gonna go ahead and put the cake in the oven"

I’ve noticed this in informal instructions too, in the UK I’d expect something like “combine the beaten egg with the flour”, but I’ve noticed Americans often tend more to something like “so what you’re going to do is you’re going to go ahead and combined the beaten egg with the flour”

Americans always use more words than necessary.

Except for my Arkansas relatives who are always “fixin’” to do something.

In my observation the primary difference between the two is that the statement of I'm fixin to do a thing rarely refers to immediately / now; whereas "I'm going to go ahead and put the cake in the oven" means essentially right now. Versus: "I'm fixin to put the cake in the oven" would be sometime in the next N minutes, when I get a free moment to do so.

I'm going to go ahead and do a thing - can be used for any time (eg as a confirmation, I'm going to go ahead and mow the lawn (referring to later today at 4pm, confirming intent)). I'm fixin to do a thing - is more often a delayed action set into the future (by at least several minutes) and can be used for any longer timeframe as well, and is often less definite of a statement (fixin usually means I'm going to attempt to, if I can get around to it; or I'm going to try to get to it).

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