@fbf - Was that meant to be answering my question to RichT, of biscuits fame? If so, my point exactly: that's an adverb. If not, I'm not sure of your point. :)

@RichT - could you perhaps give us an example of either afterwards or afterward being used adjectivally, since, as far as I know, both are only ever adverbs - 'I'll see you afterwards'. In the UK, the version with S is standard, although my dictionary suggests that in North America, the version without is more common.

@Limey Pat - firstly, there's nothing wrong with a bit of redundancy in spoken language. Secondly, does 'get those things off of the table' involve any more redundancy then 'get those things out of the car'. You're used to the second, so no doubt don't think about it that way, but is that 'of' really necessary there either?

Just because Americans use constructions that you and I weren't brought up with doesn't make them grammatically wrong. Just as Americans shouldn't jump to the conclusion that constructions that Brits use are wrong simply because they are unfamiliar with them.

As for the idea that 'pled' resulted from Americans 'screwing around' with 'our' language, that is just nonsense, as the Oxford English Dictionary has an example of “pled” from Edmund Spenser in 1596. What's more, as has been pointed out, it is used mainly in a legal sense, not only in North America, but also in Scotland.

And as another English teacher, I beg to differ. From Swan's Practical English Usage - 'Note that many non-progressive verbs are occasionally used in progressive forms in order to emphasise the idea of change or development - "These days, more and more people are preferring to take early retirement" "The water's tasting better today."'

I think love is at least a borderline case. Yes, when we are talking about the emotion of love, we don't usually say 'I'm loving her so much' or 'I have been loving her ever since we first met', apart from in the meaning that eddy mentioned. But as someone has already mentioned, when we use 'love' to mean 'enjoy' (a dynamic verb), then I think we can sometimes use continuous forms to describe a temporary situation and not sound unnatural (the only criterion, as far as I'm concerned) - 'I'm really loving my job at the moment'. And from the web, 'He's loving his swimming lessons'.

I imagine that even the greatest Big Mac fans tend to enjoy the place rather than have deep emotions towards it. I think this is why McDonald's slogan, while being edgy enough to gain the attention of the traditionalists, didn't actually sound that unnatural to many of us, so we accepted it quite easily. They were playing with the language, sure, but we accepted it as possible .

In contrast, during the 2012 Euro championships, Warsaw put up banners saying (in English) - 'Feel Like At Home'. When it was pointed out that no native speaker would ever say such a thing, their publicity agency said they were simply following McDonald's example and playing with the language. But unlike the McDonald's slogan, this one was so unnatural that it was just met with mirth by expats here, and in the British press. As porsche said, McDonalds knew just what they were doing - different enough to get publicity, but not so different that the bulk of native speakers would find it particularly unnatural.

Even though, according to one commenter, the soda /pop thing doesn't belong on this thread, I thought this might regional variation map might be of interest - http://www4.ncsu.edu/~jakatz2/files/spcMap.png

You can find more US regional variation maps at -http://www.businessinsider.com/22-maps-that-show-the-deepest-linguistic-conflicts-in-america-2013-6

Except kilometrage doesn't seem to be in most dictionaries. Europcar, one of the biggest car rental companies serving European and international markets, uses mileage (71 references on their site). There is one for kilométrage, but it's in a French-language page.

On the other hand, there is a reference on the website of the government of Nova Scotia to "Kilometrage Rates, Monthly Allowances and Transportation Allowances Regulations", so maybe Canada is an exception.

http://www.gov.ns.ca/just/regulations/regs/cskilometrage.htm

Corrections:
It then got taken up by streetball players followed by more general use, its popularity no doubt increasing after its use in the 1995 film "Clueless".
And it's been used on this forum at least once, by a very experienced forum contributor, to me in fact.

It looks like it started in the seventies, probably first among basketball players, with a first mention in print 1986 in a basketball publication. It then got taken up by streetball player followed by more general use. Its popularity no doubt increasing after its use in the 1995 film "Clueless".

As for the grammar aspect, as goofy says, of course 'bad' can be a noun, and is listed in my dictionary as such. Other examples - 'The good, the bad and the ugly', 'You have to take the bad with the good', and the British idiom - 'After the sale they were £300 to the bad.' (worse off).

But in any case, this is an informal, if not slang expression, and we really don't need to look for any great grammatical justification for these. People obviously find it useful or they wouldn't use it. And it's been used on this forum by at least once by a very experienced forum contributor, to me in fact.

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/my-bad.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_bad

Just a thought on colours - going back to earlier comments. Compound colours like navy blue, royal blue, emerald green and pillar-box red are listed in the dictionary as adjectives in their own right. Perhaps the same could be said for colours preceded by dark, light, pale etc. And contrary to what monsterdog said, dark blue etc are not hyphenated, which also suggests to me that they are not adverbs as in - "a fast-moving car" etc.

What's more, as Verka has pointed out, we can precede light blue etc with very, which also suggests to me that these are adjectives.

Just this once, then, I disagree with JJMBallantyne. In fact, Oxford Dictionaries Online (and other dictionaries) list these as adjectives, specifically giving examples of them preceding colour and pattern adjectives:

light - adjective - 2. (of a colour) pale - "her eyes were light blue"

dark - adjective - 2. (of a colour or object) not reflecting much light; approaching black in shade - "dark green"

pale - adjective - 1. light in colour or shade; containing little colour or pigment - "choose pale floral patterns for walls"

bright - adjective - 1. giving out or reflecting much light; shining - (of colour) vivid and bold - "the bright green leaves"

@Shirley Young - except same doesn't mean similar - these are from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary:

same - exactly like the one or ones referred to or mentioned
similar - like somebody/something but not exactly the same

There's no discrepancy between exact and same, and when we say 'exactly the same', we are just using 'exactly' as an intensifier, that's all.