Separated by a Common Language

Thomas West was responsible for last week's post topic, and here he is again, having tweeted: Here’s another great example of BrE and AmE. Lloyd says “at a loose end” but in the US we say “at loose ends.” I wonder how differences like that happened. @lynneguist — Thomas West (@IntermarkLS) April...

This keeps coming up on Twitter and in the comments at other posts, so let's talk about (BrE) pigs in blankets/(more common in AmE) pigs in a blanket (singular for both: pig in a blanket). Recipe at BBC Good Food British pigs in blankets are small sausages wrapped in bacon (and cooked!). They...

Last month Linguist Laura wrote a blog post congratulating the students who were graduating from her program(me). She discusses graduate, then moves on to alumni, excerpted below. I've highlighting the bit that was news to me. When the graduands morph into graduates, they also become alumni, another...

I am supposed to be giving the 'How America Saved the English Language' talk in Ashford at the moment, but it had to be cancel(l)ed because the organi{s/z}er isn't well. I hope it will be rescheduled--but not on a day like today when the Brighton-Ashford train journey/trip would have involved replacement...

Continuing on my backlog of old requests: a colleague who's involved in a Catalan-English dictionary project forwarded (back in March) part of a conversation arising from an unfamiliar translation in the project. The Catalan phrase in question was apparently (no) trobar ni caps ni peus, and the lexicographer...

Postscript  Since writing this post, I was a part of a Numberphile video, which gives a quicker reply to the math or maths question. So, you might want to watch that, then if you want more on the linguistics of it, continue to the post below the video. As promised in the comments of my...

Was out with my friend the Blinder tonight, talking about my plan to re-establish a gym routine and improve my diet. (Let's see how long that lasts.) I need to make my plan as numbers-driven as possible, and need to involve Better Half in the process in order to discourage his practice of showing...

While I read every newspaper that comes into my house from cover to cover (with the exception of the sport(s) section, which I hie to the recycling while wrinkling my nose), I'm not particularly careful about reading them when they are actually news. So I was just reading the 'Comment' section of...