Separated by a Common Language

Ben Yagoda (Friend of SbaCL and Not One-Off Britishisms blogger), who had recently noticed a US journalist saying learnt instead of learned, asked whether I'd covered the ‑ed/‑t alternation. It's one of those things that I've been putting off for a long time because it would...

 I have a note above my desk that says "Next blog post: roast(ed)". It's been there for three years, since Melissa L wrote to say: Dear Lynne,I teach English in Germany and enjoy your blog.I am a native speaker of American English. Most of my teaching material uses British English. I spend a...

For part 1 of the 2019 Words of the Year, click here.  Now we're on to the US-to-UK WotY. Radzi Chinyanganya, WotY inspiration I had pretty much decided not to do a US-to-UK Word of the Year for 2019. The words nominated were generally ones that had made a big splash in English recently on...

This post is getting so out-of-hand long that I'm going to put in section headings. You can take the academic to the blog, but you can't make her brief. pronouncing shone I had an interesting Difference of the Day (what I do on Twitter) request, regarding the pronunciation of shone, the past tense...

James Henry wrote to say: I had a hard time believing that an utterance such as 'He was cited for drink-driving,' wasn't a typo, or some other error. Apparently it is standard usage, and I'm left wondering if there are 'drink tanks' in the UK. If there aren't (AmE) drunk tanks in the UK, I'd guess...

The American past participle of get, gotten, is one of those American things that the British often express real distaste for. I get the feeling that some Brits think it sounds ignorant. Better Half is now shouting from the other room that it sounds uneducated and hillbillyish. It's an example Americans...