Separated by a Common Language

This was the fourth year that I declared October Untranslatables Month on my Twitter feed. (Here's 2011 , 2012, and 2013.) Instead of offering a 'Difference of the Day', I offered an 'Untranslatable of the Day' every weekday.  Last year, I swore that I wasn't going to do it again. In part...

I'm pleased to welcome my former student, Solo, for her second guestblogging service here on SbaCL.  Take it away, Solo: The Oxford Dictionary of English informs me that sick is an adjective meaning “affected by physical or mental illness,” suggesting that illness is the dominant term. Furthermore,...

I've avoided doing a post on how BrE pudding is used to mean (AmE) dessert because it's one of those AmE/BrE differences that is known by most people with any interest in the two countries. (And way back in the beginning, I said that this blog wasn't about those things that are well-covered in lists...

Reader Carolyn in Washington, DC wrote in September to ask about social classes: I grew up in England, but have lived in the US for the past 12 years. I have a question for you that I wonder if you might ponder. I've noticed that in the US "middle class" is used very differently than in the UK....

My reasons for not posting in more than a week form a list that is even more boring than long. My need to say that, in the egotistical hope that someone cares, is even more pathetic than it is banal.But one of those reasons is that my parents are visiting, having come to meet their newest granddaughter,...

I was tracking back to sites where visitors to this site have come from (as you do, if you're a nosy procrastinator like me), and was taken to the blog of an American surgeon, Orac, and his[?] post on linguistics differences, particularly in signs that he noticed on a recent trip to London. Those...

Howard wrote recently to ask:What about the word Toilet? From correspondence and discussions with American friends, I am given to understand that this is very much a no-no word in AmE.In AmE, toilet is used to refer to the porcelain receptacle for human waste, but not usually to the room in which...