Separated by a Common Language

results of a Google search for "luggage"I'm reading Ingrid Paulsen's The emergence of American English as a discursive variety (it's open-access, so you can read it in PDF. But note: it is definitely an academic book). The book is essentially about when American English became "American English"....

While I've been very good at keeping up with my Differences of the Day on Twitter, the blog posts have got(ten) fewer and f{a/u}rther in between. I'm committing this month (and hopefully from now on) to do one a week, and the way I'm going to make that feel more do-able is to piggyback on the work...

My friend the Maverick received a news item about this bird through an evolutionary psychology e-mail forum: The video, from the BBC, refers to the Doritos that the seagull eats as (BrE) crisps, but the source that Maverick read refers to them using the AmE term chips, which, of course, is the BrE...

Steve Jones wrote to ask me a question--which was kind of confusing, as I know three Steve Joneses. Turns out he's none of them, but he still has a good point: From an off topic post on a practice US nationality test on one of the web's leading technology sites is this statement. -What condiment...

My now-retired colleague Max has time to read novels. He not only has time to read them, he has time to note the Americanisms in them and send them to me. I have more than 20 years until retirement. Do you think it's too early to start counting the days?Here's one of the passages he sent me from Anne...

JHM, American reader of the Financial Times (UK), sent this query in March. (Yes, I'm still on the March queries!)...the usage that has caught my eye today was the use of the word 'crock.' Americans, if they are anything like me (not meaning to offend) will be uncomfortable using an unmodified 'crock.'...

I'd told myself I was going to take a break from writing about food, but that decision seems to be in conflict with my determination to write about linguisticky things that come up in my day-to-day doings...and it seems like all I do is eat. Better Half is mad for (AmE=crazy about) gooseberries,...

I was saying to my Swedish teacher yesterday (på svenska, klart) that I like the word duk ('cloth') because I can guess a lot of duk words: näsduk ('nose cloth' = 'handkerchief'), halsduk ('neck cloth' = 'scarf'), bordduk ('tablecloth'), handduk ('hand cloth' = 'towel'). Thinking about duk got me thinking...