Separated by a Common Language

Congratulations to Ben Yagoda on his new book Gobsmacked: The British Invasion of American English! If you like this blog, you are going to like that book. I was both gobsmacked and chuffed to see that I was among the dedicatees of the book (and in wonderful company). It even has an appendix of...

 So I tweeted this recently... Difference of the Day: I seriously cannot believe that I've never done BrE 'fit for purpose'. Thanks for suggesting it @MHanson62. What to give for an AmE equivalent? Nothing so well used... #DotD pic.twitter.com/u2flTPlXZt— Lynne Murphy (@lynneguist) July 13, 2022...

Thomas West recently asked: AmE/BrE difference of the day: "on the up and up" means "above board, not underhanded" in AmE but appears to mean "rising, on the rise, moving upward" in BrE. Is that right? @lynneguist — Thomas West (@IntermarkLS) April 16, 2020 I hadn't really noticed this before,...

...or Britishisms in AmE, if you prefer. The past few weeks have seen a lot of interest in the movement of words from the UK to the US. It all started with a BBC Magazine (web) article 'Britishisms and the Britishisation of American English'. Of course, we've been looking at that trend for a few...

I don't usually review other websites here, and I don't really want to start now. But I'd be interested to read what you think of Ben Yagoda's site Not One-Off Britishisms. Yagoda is a journalism professor at the University of Delaware and author of many things. I first became aware of his worries...