It's Word of the Year season, and before the end of 2022—possibly before the end of the 11th month of 2022—every extant dictionary (and various professional associations and a few marketing companies etc. etc.) will have announced the words that they think sum up something about 2022. Here (BrE) at SbaCL Towers,* we (that is to say, I) wait until the year is at least almost properly finished before considering what 2022 was like for transatlantic English.
So, let's do the important business of opening nominations! As ever, the Separated by a Common Language Words of the Year categories are:
UK-to-US
US-to-UK
Some nomination guidance:
Good candidates for SbaCL WotY are expressions that have lived a good life on one side of the Atlantic but for some reason have made a splash on the other side of the Atlantic this year.
Words coined this year are not really in the running. If they moved from one place to another that quickly, then it's hard to say that they're really "Americanisms" or "Britishisms". They're probably just "internetisms". The one situation in which I could see a newly minted word working as a transatlantic WotY would be if the word/expression referenced something very American/British but was nevertheless taken on in the other country.
When I say word of the year, I more technically mean lexical item of the year, which is to say, there can be spaces in nominations. Past space-ful WotYs have included gap year, Black Friday, and go missing.
Please nominate WotYs in comments to this blog post, where it'll be easier for me to keep track of them than if they show up on different social platforms. To see more past winners, click here.
I have a few words in mind, so I'll be interested to see if you come up with the same or different ones.
Homer was protested in Wordle as an "Americanism" (95% of the dictionary look-ups of it came from outside North America). It is fairly familiar in AmE as an informal term for a baseball home run, but it has many other meanings around the world. That's what happens when you take an otherwise common word and put an -er on it. Cambridge Dictionary notes that it has a special meaning in Scotland:
Both of those meanings derive from the noun home plus the -er for something that happens at "home".
But homecan also be a verb meaning 'to go/return home', and if you add the -er suffix onto a verb, it means 'one who [does verb]'. So it gets more meanings that way, some of which are in other dictionaries. For instance, homer can mean 'a homing pigeon'. Apparently, it's often used in British crossword puzzles in this sense. Perhaps the crossworders had an advantage for the infamous HOMER Wordle.
The British cartoonist Stephen Collins holds a grudge
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Since 2009, I've been doing a AmE–BrE Difference of the Day (DotD) on Twitter, and spending a lot of my time on that platform. Because of the time that the DotD required, this blog has got(ten) less frequent.
I've never run out of differences to tweet about, but the time has come to re-think how I use my online time and how I communicate with people who are interested in my work (and, more importantly, my hobbies, of which this blog is one).
This blog will continue to be where I write about UK–US linguistic differences—sometimes in a lot of depth.
But my social media presence has been about a lot more than deep dives into particular words. It's been about sharing links to interesting linguistic and transatlantic cultural information and news. It's been about sharing things I've written elsewhere or news of events I'm doing. And it's been about those Differences of the Day—shorter info about linguistic differences, sometimes linked to new or old blog posts.
So, I'm going down the newsletter route. It feels like going back to my roots, since in (AmE) grad school I ran the departmental linguists newsletter (Colorless Green Newsletter it was called) and then when I moved to South Africa, I decided a newsletter was the best way to share with friends and family the things I was learning by living there—I sent that one out (at some snail-mail expense) every three weeks—and it got to its recipients about three weeks later.
Now we have email, so I can do a newsletter on the cheap and you can get it right after I send it.
Sign up here and you will get no-more-than weekly, no-less than monthly updates on what's going on in the Lynneguist world. There won't be Differences of the Day, but there will be lots of linguistic differences to learn about or reflect on, as well as other super-interesting stuff.
Footnote
* Here's a link to my Difference of the Day tweet about 'at X Towers', but since I don't know how long Twitter will be around, I'll post a screenshot too:
I'm seeing "faffing about" more as a UK --> US crossover. If you check Google NGram Viewer and restrict the corpus to AmE, you'll see that it was nonexistent in American English until about the year 2000, when it starts gaining a foothold.
SbaCL Towers: I recall that on their NPR show the Magliozzi brothers, aka Click and Clack, referred to their headquarters as Car Talk Plaza, which always made me think of a nondescript suburban strip mall.
(previous comment deleted because there is no edit function)
Continuing the sporting theme, the increase in coverage of women's sport has helped speed replacement of gendered terms, sometimes by hitherto American terms which (by accident or design) happen to be gender-neuter. One I've noticed is "batter" replacing "batsman" in cricket. To a lesser extend "MVP" instead of "man of the match". I haven't watched UK TV coverage of this year's cricket/rugby/soccer World Cups; those who have may refute or confirm these examples or others.
Still - I think - mainly sports-related, what about "storied" ? I know it has been around the US sports reportage for ages, but I am reasonably sure it is creeping into UK media ... just thinkin'
The storied topic [team, quarterback, artist, President ...] has a long history - that is, lots of stories have been told/written about it. I'd love to know if it is an American neologism or has been lurking around Brit English unused for many years.
Well, as a data point for you, I've been lurking around in Britain for nearly 60 years now, and I promise you I've not come across it before. (Any other Britons care to pitch in here?)
Well, personally I've been lurking around in Britain for nearly 60 years (mainly in the South, admittedly) and I've never come across this before. The word 'storied' makes me think only of multi-storied buildings, such as car parks. Any other Britons care to add their data-points here?
The word "homer" has been used in British soccer for many years to describe a referee who favours the home side. In the 1950s and 1960s (before the NASL) "soccer" was used all the time in Britain.
In the UK it's always been possible to use the word 'equity' in the general sense of 'fairness', but until recently it was very rarely used that way. The various legal and financial meanings (e.g. 'negative equity') and the name of the trade union for actors predominated. But something has changed recently and I'm now hearing it in its general sense all the time. I suspect (but cannot prove) some cross-pond influence!
I would say the use in the fairness sense is more frequent than it used to be in the U.S. too. Though it's very possible that more frequent use started over here in the U.S. and moved to the U.K.
Interesting that people should complain that homer was too much an American word. I've noticed that there are some words that use the AmE spelling but assumed that since it's owned by the New York Times, that's not surprising, and in over 300 attempts, failed on the word "howdy" and figured that if I had to lose my streak on something, it was no shame if it were that one
I’m not convinced about ‘homer’ as a US to UK migrant. I’ve never heard it before it appeared in this blog.
The word I’d propose is ‘veteran’ in the US sense of a former soldier. Some may dispute this as a word for this year as many of us have long been aware of it as an American expression, but since the summer of this year, I’ve increasingly heard it used on the BBC and elsewhere to meaning a former member of the UK armed services.
In the UK hitherto, it has just meant ‘old’, possibly slightly distinguished and used of cars etc.
The US abbreviation ‘vet’ causes confusion here as ‘vet’ means a doctor for animals, short for veterinary surgeon.
I am reminded of a panel at an SF convention in Helsinki a few years ago where the panellists were discussing their favourite mistranslations. One was "He was a Vietnam vet" being translated into another language as "He was a Vietnam veterinary surgeon."
Veteran was in use for many years in British rowing circles - no doubt borrowed from [veteran/vintage] cars ? - to signify anyone over about 30, for which group there were age categories into which crews would be allocated to enable fair racing. About 20-25 (?) years ago we fell into line with the US + rest of the world and changed it to "Masters".
We use vet to mean doctor for animals here in the U.S. too (though here it's short for veterinarian). Context makes clear what kind of vet we are talking about, a military veteran or a veterinarian.
Of course, if you aren't familiar with the military veteran meaning, context doesn't help, so I do understand the confusion it would cause for BrE speakers.
Lawfare was one of Collins' runner-ups and seems possibly like an Americanism (lawfare has been the name of a blog on this side of the pond for quite a while)
Has "fiddly" been suggested? As an American, I find myself using it more and more, just because it fills a space. Don't know if anyone else here has picked up on it. It's a fun word that conveys a certain measure of frustration when you find yourself trying, and failing, to do a task that needs more precision than you might be prepared to bestow.
Is it too late to nominate "grooming" for UK to US word (for the behaviour of paedophiles)? I'd only ever encountered it in UK context and it's showing up in the US now (nomination inspired by Fritinancy https://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/away_with_words/2022/12/word-of-the-week-grooming.html and her Wotw post)
I'm noticing a new use of the word 'pique' in the last year or so. Is it US -> UK? I had never used 'X piqued my attention' - always 'in a fit of pique' ( but perhaps that is a different part of speech). So the repeated use of pique as a verb sounds new.
Pique as a verb, meaning to arouse, stir, provoke, is in the latest edition of Chambers (from 2014) and not given as an Americanism. Certainly, I've long been familiar with it.
That's definitely not a new use of pique; it's a 17th-century borrowing from French, and the OED has ample British examples of the sense 'To stimulate or provoke (a person) to action, esp. by arousing jealousy, etc.; to arouse (a feeling, esp. curiosity or interest)', including authors such as:
1710 J. Addison Tatler No. 163. ⁋5 Every Verse hath something in it that piques. 1848 A. Brontë Tenant of Wildfell Hall I. vii. 126 It was still..her earnestness and keenness that piqued my fancy. 1920 D. H. Lawrence Women in Love i. 11 Then her interest was piqued. Here was something not quite so preconcluded.
The most common objects of "pique" in GloWbe are "pique (someone's) interest" and "pique (someone's) curiosity", both with similar rates in US and UK English. Piqueing somone's attention is less common, but I'd count it as the same use of the verb.
Collinsdictionary.com has entries for "pique the interest/curiosity" with quotations from the Sun and Sunday Times (I'm assuming they're not all from the last year!).
![GloWbE corpus shows plenty of instances of "here/we at [something] towers" in British English, none in American English are in](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjejOA3LXlR-A4szzgMNbegSCf9I9jkxajJpgVtnQ6NuChRcPZJwUkdQVsmXVETbCRrRVxe3q_EUzdduuzTiYuzk64x_aGKKl88G85ZDhWXzF_dK6Hj1ZYdJ9litLoDD0vNJPa8oL9sBwGYIWio9nFS-kojNelKXMReks6rY5KRsHoOGaH3TQ/s1174/Screen%20Shot%202022-11-20%20at%2011.29.35.png)
Posts
Comment-catching comment
ReplyDeleteI'm seeing "faffing about" more as a UK --> US crossover. If you check Google NGram Viewer and restrict the corpus to AmE, you'll see that it was nonexistent in American English until about the year 2000, when it starts gaining a foothold.
DeleteSbaCL Towers: I recall that on their NPR show the Magliozzi brothers, aka Click and Clack, referred to their headquarters as Car Talk Plaza, which always made me think of a nondescript suburban strip mall.
ReplyDelete(previous comment deleted because there is no edit function)
Ditto the Language Log blog, which occasionally refers to "Language Log Towers," eg
Deletehttps://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3
Looks like you mean Language Log Plaza.
DeleteTried 3 browsers and can’t get the button to work!
ReplyDelete(I've also changed the link in the post. You can try again here: https://mailchi.mp/30d0ffd3a48e/separated-by-a-common-newsletter (or email me)
ReplyDeleteThat worked! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI really do think homer should be the US->UK one, even though you mentioned it already.
ReplyDeleteI think I am hearing “fit” a lot more in the US.
ReplyDeleteIn what sense? It doesn't feel like at all new to me (American), but perhaps you are hearing it in a sense that would strike me as new.
Deletepretty sure (source: watching Doctor Who a decade ago) "fit" in BrE means attractive, maybe not as intensely as "hot" in AmE
DeleteThat is a sense I'm familiar with in the UK. The latest edition of Chamber (2014) gives "Highly attractive, sexually desirable (informal)".
DeleteBut I haven't been in the US for four years, so I don't know how common that usage is there.
Seems like it would be hard to tell if that meaning in the US is a UK to US transfer, or an extension of the "physically fit" meaning.
DeleteOED has it as British slang, first attested 1985. Possibly best known from the 2004 hit song Fit But You Know It.
DeleteContinuing the sporting theme, the increase in coverage of women's sport has helped speed replacement of gendered terms, sometimes by hitherto American terms which (by accident or design) happen to be gender-neuter. One I've noticed is "batter" replacing "batsman" in cricket. To a lesser extend "MVP" instead of "man of the match". I haven't watched UK TV coverage of this year's cricket/rugby/soccer World Cups; those who have may refute or confirm these examples or others.
ReplyDeleteStill - I think - mainly sports-related, what about "storied" ? I know it has been around the US sports reportage for ages, but I am reasonably sure it is creeping into UK media ... just thinkin'
DeleteStoried? I don't recall ever hearing that. What does it mean?
DeleteThe storied topic [team, quarterback, artist, President ...] has a long history - that is, lots of stories have been told/written about it. I'd love to know if it is an American neologism or has been lurking around Brit English unused for many years.
DeleteWell, as a data point for you, I've been lurking around in Britain for nearly 60 years now, and I promise you I've not come across it before. (Any other Britons care to pitch in here?)
DeleteWell, personally I've been lurking around in Britain for nearly 60 years (mainly in the South, admittedly) and I've never come across this before.
DeleteThe word 'storied' makes me think only of multi-storied buildings, such as car parks.
Any other Britons care to add their data-points here?
The word "homer" has been used in British soccer for many years to describe a referee who favours the home side. In the 1950s and 1960s (before the NASL) "soccer" was used all the time in Britain.
ReplyDeleteAlso in US; can also refer to a media commentator who does not maintain objectivity.
DeleteMy US→UK nomination is 'EQUITY'.
ReplyDeleteIn the UK it's always been possible to use the word 'equity' in the general sense of 'fairness', but until recently it was very rarely used that way.
The various legal and financial meanings (e.g. 'negative equity') and the name of the trade union for actors predominated.
But something has changed recently and I'm now hearing it in its general sense all the time.
I suspect (but cannot prove) some cross-pond influence!
I would say the use in the fairness sense is more frequent than it used to be in the U.S. too. Though it's very possible that more frequent use started over here in the U.S. and moved to the U.K.
DeleteInteresting that people should complain that homer was too much an American word. I've noticed that there are some words that use the AmE spelling but assumed that since it's owned by the New York Times, that's not surprising, and in over 300 attempts, failed on the word "howdy" and figured that if I had to lose my streak on something, it was no shame if it were that one
ReplyDeleteI’m not convinced about ‘homer’ as a US to UK migrant. I’ve never heard it before it appeared in this blog.
ReplyDeleteThe word I’d propose is ‘veteran’ in the US sense of a former soldier. Some may dispute this as a word for this year as many of us have long been aware of it as an American expression, but since the summer of this year, I’ve increasingly heard it used on the BBC and elsewhere to meaning a former member of the UK armed services.
In the UK hitherto, it has just meant ‘old’, possibly slightly distinguished and used of cars etc.
The US abbreviation ‘vet’ causes confusion here as ‘vet’ means a doctor for animals, short for veterinary surgeon.
I am reminded of a panel at an SF convention in Helsinki a few years ago where the panellists were discussing their favourite mistranslations. One was "He was a Vietnam vet" being translated into another language as "He was a Vietnam veterinary surgeon."
DeleteVeteran was in use for many years in British rowing circles - no doubt borrowed from [veteran/vintage] cars ? - to signify anyone over about 30, for which group there were age categories into which crews would be allocated to enable fair racing. About 20-25 (?) years ago we fell into line with the US + rest of the world and changed it to "Masters".
DeleteWe use vet to mean doctor for animals here in the U.S. too (though here it's short for veterinarian). Context makes clear what kind of vet we are talking about, a military veteran or a veterinarian.
DeleteOf course, if you aren't familiar with the military veteran meaning, context doesn't help, so I do understand the confusion it would cause for BrE speakers.
Lawfare was one of Collins' runner-ups and seems possibly like an Americanism (lawfare has been the name of a blog on this side of the pond for quite a while)
ReplyDeleteHas "fiddly" been suggested? As an American, I find myself using it more and more, just because it fills a space. Don't know if anyone else here has picked up on it. It's a fun word that conveys a certain measure of frustration when you find yourself trying, and failing, to do a task that needs more precision than you might be prepared to bestow.
ReplyDeleteIs it too late to nominate "grooming" for UK to US word (for the behaviour of paedophiles)? I'd only ever encountered it in UK context and it's showing up in the US now (nomination inspired by Fritinancy https://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/away_with_words/2022/12/word-of-the-week-grooming.html and her Wotw post)
ReplyDeleteThe first citation for that sense of the word is from Chicago, so I don't think we can count it as UK to US
DeleteI'm noticing a new use of the word 'pique' in the last year or so. Is it US -> UK?
ReplyDeleteI had never used 'X piqued my attention' - always 'in a fit of pique' ( but perhaps that is a different part of speech). So the repeated use of pique as a verb sounds new.
Pique as a verb, meaning to arouse, stir, provoke, is in the latest edition of Chambers (from 2014) and not given as an Americanism. Certainly, I've long been familiar with it.
DeleteThat's definitely not a new use of pique; it's a 17th-century borrowing from French, and the OED has ample British examples of the sense 'To stimulate or provoke (a person) to action, esp. by arousing jealousy, etc.; to arouse (a feeling, esp. curiosity or interest)', including authors such as:
Delete1710 J. Addison Tatler No. 163. ⁋5 Every Verse hath something in it that piques.
1848 A. Brontë Tenant of Wildfell Hall I. vii. 126 It was still..her earnestness and keenness that piqued my fancy.
1920 D. H. Lawrence Women in Love i. 11 Then her interest was piqued. Here was something not quite so preconcluded.
The most common objects of "pique" in GloWbe are "pique (someone's) interest" and "pique (someone's) curiosity", both with similar rates in US and UK English. Piqueing somone's attention is less common, but I'd count it as the same use of the verb.
Collinsdictionary.com has entries for "pique the interest/curiosity" with quotations from the Sun and Sunday Times (I'm assuming they're not all from the last year!).