Separated by a Common Language

Zhoen thought she knew BrE pretty well, but then...Just came across a new Br/E expression I'd never heard used before, touting. Which in Am/E is scalping, buying tickets, then selling them right before the event for a very high price.She included the following contrastive examples in her e-mail:Glastonbury...

I wasn't going to do a whole post tonight. Really, I wasn't. I was going to be a productive member of academia and get some real work done--having spent all of my day in meetings. But in a clever moment of self-sabotage, I brought the wrong version of my document home, so there's no point in working...

I know I promised another posting on determiners, but here are just a couple of items that I want to slip in between posts: 1. Benjamin Zimmer points out the linguistic issues that are allegedly related to the Prince William-Kate Middleton break-up over on Language Log today. The post and the links...

My friend (and fellow datebook-sayer) the Recyclist arrived in the UK this weekend, and was surprised by the springiness of the spring here. (This week, it's worth coming to Southern England for the weather.) As we were walking around Notting Hill on Sunday, she marvel(l)ed at the wisteria in bloom,...

Amanda wrote to ask if her Irish English experience crosses over to BrE:I am from California, but I was recently given the opportunity to spent two months in Ireland. I heard people there use the word diary to describe what I would call a planner or personal calendar. It was so funny to me to hear...

It's been claimed that coincidences are the product of heightened attention to a particular thing or experience, and heightened attention is probably to blame for most word-coincidences. For instance, one day when I was (BrE) at university/(AmE) in college, I received a letter from my Irish (AmE)...

It's still a holiday in the UK, but not in the US. So, in order to bring some fun and games into the American workday (even though, with my timing, it's almost over), here's a little puzzle for the Americans out there.A few weeks ago, I read the following in an article about Sienna Miller in the...

Better Half and I spent the first part of the long Easter weekend (two bank holidays, woo-hoo!) in the picturesque village of Rye, East Sussex. The first day, we made the mistake of having a big lunch, which left us uninterested in dinner until too late to do anything about it, so the next day we...

After the recent discussion of signs you wouldn't see in America, Amy in San Francisco e-mailed to say: I recently obtained a few stick-on signs when last in the UK that I prize (for our hazard-ridden basement): "Mind the step" and "Mind your head." It occasioned some talk around here---the very...

We have American houseguests at the moment, so not a lot of time to blog, but lots of time to sit around and listen to other Americans' impressions of BrE. So far, we've discussed pudding/dessert, Jell-o/jelly (both mentioned back here) and something else that we discussed for at least a few minutes...