Separated by a Common Language

Having let the year run its course, I'm now am ready to declare the Separated by a Common Language Words of the Year for 2022. As ever, there are two categories: US-to-UK and UK-to-US.  To be a SbaCL WoTY, the word just needs to have been noticeable in some way that year in the other country. For...

It's that time of year again. The time when everyone's too busy doing fun things in real life to read blogs. Yet I persevere in announcing my Words of the Year here at the butt-end of the year because I don't want to be unfair to December. (And, of course, I'm doing too much teaching to even think...

Today I got to hear myself on BBC Radio 4's Word of Mouth talking with host Michael Rosen and anti-Americanism-ist Matthew Engel. This is just a picture. Click HERE for the program(me)! Biggest regret: that I completely blanked on the fact that sidewalk is originally a British word. Had to go...

As we've already established, this was an indecisive year for me, and I've already announced two Words of the Year, both adjectives:  US-to-UK awesome and UK-to-US dodgy. Of course, many words go back and forth between the two countries each year, and these have been building up usage in their...

I'm reading the Guardian Weekend magazine, as I often do on a Saturday afternoon, and within the first paragraph of Simon Hattenstone's interview with Piers Morgan, I'm so distracted that I need to blog. This is what happens when I read UK articles about things in America. So very often things are...

I don't usually review other websites here, and I don't really want to start now. But I'd be interested to read what you think of Ben Yagoda's site Not One-Off Britishisms. Yagoda is a journalism professor at the University of Delaware and author of many things. I first became aware of his worries...

Last week I had two emails from fans of the recent British-made television versions of Miss Marple mysteries, which are apparently playing in North America at the moment.  As is often the case with British costume dramas and mysteries (those things that a certain class of American anglophiles...

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...

This post is inspired by the following quotation from darling, two-year-old daughter Grover: "Bastard.  (BrE) Mummy said it!"  Before she (orig. AmE) outs me as a (orig. AmE) potty mouth at her (AmE) daycare/(BrE) crèche (or nursery), I'll have to take the matter into hand and save my sparkling...

While Grover takes/has her nap, a little reflection on her bi-dialectal language acquisition. She's six weeks short of being two, and (orig. AmE) talking up a storm. I'd wondered whether she'd get any Americanisms from me, but (a) I tend to use BrE words when in the UK and (b) I'm just her mother....

I'm embarrassed by how much television I've been watching lately. On further reflection, perhaps that's not true--maybe I'm just embarrassed by how much television I've found myself admitting to watching. But it does raise lots of bloggable issues, so here I go again with the admitting.Better Half...