Separated by a Common Language

Still buried deep beneath teaching. For your amusement, here are the 'untranslatables of the day' posted on Twitter last month, as promised in my last post. Where there's only a link, it's an expression that I've already written about in some detail. Please click through to see (or take part in)...

I have now lived in the UK (Brighton, England, precisely) for one quarter of my life. This came home to me today in a lexical way. You might want to shield your eyes now, people in the northeastern/midwestern/western US. We've been having days like this here (photos from my employer, Sussex University): The...

Still active on the Twitter feed, but having a hard time re-introducing myself to the world of blogging.  I am starting to think that the internet, with its 140-character limits, 60-second games, and instant 'friend'ship, has robbed me of my attention span. But since I keep writing books (have...

My thanks to everyone who has engaged in the nominations and debate on Words of the Year for 2009. Here's a reminder of the rules (I'm a Libran with Virgo rising/ascendant, I've gotta have rules): We have (at least) two Words of the Year here at SbaCL, and nominations are open for both categories...

While it's still seasonal, I should mention a couple of differences that have come up in Grover's first summer of proper playing on the beach.First there are these things: [photo and instructions for building it from about.com]In my AmE dialect, this is called a pinwheel, but...

It's been a while since I've had a simple 'they call it this/we call it that' post. Some of you can think of this as a reward for sitting through all the grammar and html tables. It's an old request, but a seasonal one. Mrs Redboots wrote months ago to ask: From http://www.ruthdoanmacdougall.com/more/doan-sisters.html "She...

Apologies to those of you who wrote to me during my recent confinement, as I wasn't able to respond to e-mail at that time, and the thought of responding to all of those messages now is a bit overwhelming. So, if you're requested coverage of something on this blog, then rest assured that I've marked...

On to April's queries--with the goal of getting through them before the term starts. On a visit to Colorado, Chris was puzzled: Lining the roads were expanses of trees, and every so often I'd see a sign nailed to a tree that said "Posted." Nothing else. We have signs like this in my native New...

(December 2010 updates in red) Once upon a time, Grant Barrett forwarded to me the following item from issue 343 (29 March 2007) of Popbitch: Confessions of an 80s pop fan ishouldhaveknownbetter writes: "I met Simon Le Bon at a house party. Everyone was playing it really cool so when he came to...

Getting back to Kelley of Delaware's queries (which I started answering here):Every weekend this time of year there are dozens of yard/garage sales in my town. Do such things exist in the rest of the English-speaking world, and, if so, what are they called?I can't speak for the rest of the English-speaking...

It was probably Better Half's and my visit to the Strong National Museum of Play that inspired me to think and write about board games a couple posts ago. Then I promised a follow-up on children's games, but come to think of it, a lot of the games I've blogged about so far are games I played as a...