2024-04-21 15:57
Inspired by Anatoly Liberman's Take My Word for It: A Dictionary of English Idioms (which I've reviewed for the International Journal of Lexicography), here's a quick dip into some ways… Read More
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Separated By A Common Language Blog
separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com
Observations on British and American English
by an American linguist in the UKEngland and America are two countries separated by a common language. --George Bernard Shaw
BrE = British EnglishAmE = American EnglishOED=Oxford English Dictionary (2nd edn. [1989], unless otherwise noted)
2024-03-29 15:30
In 2009, my parents came over from the US and we took a trip to Italy: Florence, Pisa, and Rome. The food, of course, was gorgeous, but often clashed with what my mother thought of as "Itali… Read More
2024-02-18 22:03
Image from hereAt the Bavard Bar in St Leonard's a few months ago, a Bavardier asked me if I'd noticed the difference between the US and UK meanings of second-guess. I hadn't! She felt… Read More
2024-01-04 02:27
See here for the UK-to-US WotY post. Time for the 2023 US-to-UK Word of the Year. Before people complain that this word has been in British English too long for it to count as a word of 2023… Read More
2024-01-01 04:10
Each year since 2006, this blog has designated Transatlantic Words of the Year (WotY). The twist is that I choose the most 'of the year' borrowings from US-to-UK and from UK-to-US. &nbs&hell…Read More
2023-11-26 01:57
Smylers got in touch recently with this observation:I found myself being surprised by the word “mobility”, and was wondering if there's a BrE/AmE difference? Enterprise Rent-a-Ca… Read More
2023-10-01 15:41
Having spent so many years on Twitter doing "Differences of the Day", I have a lot of (forgive me the jargon) content that could be moved over here, to the blog. Today, I'm moving over… Read More
2023-08-28 00:06
Long ago, I was asked about so fun versus such fun. Martin Ball, this one's for you! So, fun started out in English (1600s) as a verb meaning to 'trick, cheat, deceive'. You c… Read More
2023-08-19 23:14
In my last newsletter, I reacted to this news story:The article is about addressing teachers as sir or miss, which happens in American schools too (I'm sure there's a lot of variation i… Read More
2023-06-12 00:19
Reader Sam* recently wrote to me with the following: A usage that surprises me every time I hear it is “meant” in the sense of “supposed” or “should be&rdq&hell…Read More
2023-05-01 23:06
results of a Google search for "luggage"I'm reading Ingrid Paulsen's The emergence of American English as a discursive variety (it's open-access, so you can read it in PDF. But note: it… Read More
2023-04-11 00:44
Twitter has been my main internet stomping ground since 2009, but I've been withdrawing my labo(u)r from it since October, when it became much more volatile for some reason. The New Yor… Read More
2023-04-03 00:12
My obsession with the word please keeps leading me to new discoveries. This time: a spelling difference!One particular use of please is to be dismissive of something someone else h… Read More
2023-03-13 15:46
I've studied the word please off and on for a few years now.* Currently, I'm trying to finish up a study that I started an embarrassing number of years ago. Now that I've returned… Read More
2023-02-19 18:53
More than once, I think, veteran or (the noun vet) has been nominated for US>UK Word of the Year. Dru, who nominated it for 2022, felt that it was appearing more… Read More
2023-01-02 01:32
Yesterday, I declared the UK-to-US SbaCL Word of the Year. You can read about it here. The US-to-UK one may be as controversial as it was the first time (a)round (in May). But here… Read More
2023-01-01 02:41
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… Read More
2022-12-28 17:43
My plan is to add links to my newsletter as I go along here, so that there's a way for non-subscribers to access old ones. If you'd like to subscribe to the newsletter, follow thi… Read More
2022-12-19 23:00
Jim recently (ish) wrote to ask me about this line he read in Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz:At the time, I hadn’t completed a deal with the BBC and the whole thing could have gone… Read More
2022-11-27 16:25
It's FIFA World Cup Time, a fact that is hard to avoid in this part of the world. I am not the kind of person who’s interested in watching it, regardless of who’s playing or wher… Read More
2022-11-20 12:39
Nominate transatlantic words of the year!It's Word of the Year season, and before the end of 2022—possibly before the end of the 11th month of 2022—every extant dictionary (and v… Read More
2022-10-16 21:53
The less I say here about the current state of British politics, the better for all of us, but I've had some requests to write about the question: Can Liz Truss outlast a lettuce?Truss is, a… Read More
2022-09-25 08:00
For years, Ellen Jovin has carted a table, chair and reference books—first around New York City and later all across the United States—to volunteer herself as “The Grammar… Read More
2022-08-14 17:08
So I tweeted this recently... Difference of the Day: I seriously cannot believe that I've never done BrE 'fit for purpose'. Thanks for suggesting it @MHanson62. What to give for an AmE… Read More
2022-07-17 17:02
Reader Sam Fox wrote in with the question:I am an American, a Midwesterner all my life, though I have traveled quite a bit.. On a recent visit to London I was surprised to h… Read More
2022-07-10 19:54
I got this by email from a reader named Robbie:A while ago I watched several episodes of the US children's show "Bubble Guppies" and found myself getting more and more annoyed with them. As… Read More
2022-04-10 14:04
I've mentioned making and taking decisions before (15 years ago!), in the context of writing about light verbs. That was back in the days of shorter blog posts. The post began… Read More
2022-03-06 23:03
At some point in my American education, I learned that judgment was an American spelling and judgement was the preferred British spelling. Ditto acknowledgment and acknowledgement… Read More
2022-01-31 00:11
I cannot believe I've never written a post about the word flapjack. So here it is. In AmE, flapjack is a synonym for pancake, as is hotcake. Hey, it's a big country. We're allowed to ha… Read More
2022-01-11 23:47
Click here for the preamble to the 2021 Words of the Year and the UK-to-US word.As I discuss in the post at that link, 2021 was a dry year for US-to-UK borrowings. Some might say that'… Read More
2022-01-11 22:59
The annual preamble (you can make that rhyme if you try hard enough)Each year since 2006, this blog has designated Transatlantic Words of the Year (WotY). The twist is that I choose th… Read More
2021-12-31 06:03
I am an inveterate life-logger. At the end of a calendar year, I like to review what I've done, what I've liked, what I've been grateful for, etc. This includes reviewing the books I've read… Read More
2021-12-26 22:31
Baking and baked goods are a perennial source of US/UK miscommunication—in large part because most of our current baking/eating habits were only invented after the split between Amer… Read More
2021-06-06 21:24
We're four months into a major renovation project and the walls (at least) are finished, so we're getting our brains around painting them. So far, one wall is painted so that the radiator ca… Read More
2021-05-25 23:24
credit: twistynoodleFifteen years! That's how long this blog has been going. Happy anniversary to me! And thank you all coming along with me on this. I've just decided, since I really s… Read More
2021-04-18 17:44
Sorry, it's been a while. I was back to teaching, which meant my Sunday blogging time went out the window because when teaching is in session, there is no spare time. I wasn't too sorry to g… Read More
2021-01-18 00:51
I have left my leave. In the spring of 2020 I was on university-funded leave. Then I took unpaid leave to go be an NEH Public Scholar for six months. Now I'm returning to my university job s… Read More
2021-01-10 19:15
In The Prodigal Tongue I wrote quite a bit about how differences in prototype structures for word meanings can lead to miscommunication between BrE and AmE speakers, and I've written about s… Read More
2020-12-29 17:47
For part 1 of 2020 Words of the Year, click here. In recent years, I've had a good slate of candidates for UK-to-US Words of the Year, but something seemed to happen to transatlantic word tr… Read More
2020-12-29 11:12
Each year since 2006, I've designated Transatlantic Words of the Year (WotY). This year is a little different in that I declared the US-to-UK WotY at an online event earlier this month. Thos… Read More
2020-12-02 23:09
Since 2006, I've proclaimed UK>US and US>UK Words of the Year and if I have anything to do with it, I will do so for 2020 too. You have to be careful about making plans in 2020, but at… Read More
2020-11-29 16:10
Having seen an article about the UK's new "domestic abuse tsar", I tweeted "Domestic abuse tsar" just doesn't sound like a title for someone who wants to do good things. https://t.co/U… Read More
2020-11-19 17:28
I’ve written about off of on this blog before, in reaction to British complaints about it as a horrid Americanism. In my day job, I’m writing about it again from different angles… Read More
2020-11-09 12:54
On occasion, I invite people whose insights I trust to contribute guest posts for the blog. On rare occasions, they deliver the goods! I hope you enjoy this one on terminology in the game of… Read More
2020-10-31 17:07
I love epigraphs, so I use them as often as possible in books I write. The Prodigal Tongue has one for each of its subsections. I do think I chose very good ones for in the book (buy/b… Read More
2020-10-26 00:00
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 bl… Read More
2020-10-18 18:44
It's not often that I review a book in the same week that it comes into my house, but I'm happy to go directly to recommending this one. It's The Language Lover's Puzzle Book by Alex Bellos… Read More
2020-10-04 22:25
This is part 2 of an examination of the words that were very country-specific in Brysbaert et al. (2019)'s study of vocabulary prevalence. For more detail on the study, please see part 1, on… Read More
2020-09-28 07:59
Some years ago a survey went (a)round from the University of Ghent on English vocabulary knowledge. I recall doing the survey and I believe I shared it on social media. Perhaps you did it to… Read More
2020-09-16 15:32
I hope you will indulge me in an off-SbaCL-topic post. More than that, I hope you will keep me and this post in mind as you go through your days. Here's the deal. I'm writing another ge… Read More
2020-09-06 16:52
John Wells recently asked me if he was right in thinking "that BrE consistently uses transfer and AmE decal for the same thing". That's the kind of question that is perhaps best answered wit… Read More
2020-08-16 16:05
Hello from my dad's house in New York State. Not only did I survive my hotel quarantine, I (more BrE in this position) quite enjoyed it. In the three days that I've been out, I've done… Read More
2020-08-09 19:29
Recently I was asked to write a piece for an organi{s/z}ation about whether publications should be in "Global English". You'd think "Global English" would be relevant during a global pandemi… Read More
2020-07-05 16:38
Knickerbocker in English starts out in the US, where it was used to refer to descendants of the early Dutch colonists in Manhattan, formerly New Amsterdam. Knickerbocker (in various spelling… Read More
2020-06-28 16:14
We went for a walk with the neighbo(u)rs, and we saw this sign. The sign reads "Permissive Footpath avoiding Golf Course", and all the adults in our group (2 English, 1 Spanish, 1 American)… Read More
2020-06-14 15:39
In the hope of having a weekend, I wasn't going to write a long blot post this week. This really has taken over my Sundays the last few weeks. But then I started writing another monster post… Read More
2020-06-07 17:49
As promised last time, here's more about birds. See the previous post for more about garden birds and some other bird-related things and for information about Cecil Brown's categories of BrE… Read More
2020-05-31 14:09
This was going to be a post where I tried to cover the many different bird names between US and UK that I've covered on Twitter, but I now reali{s/z}e that I don't have enough blogging hours… Read More
2020-05-24 20:26
I've had requests from Andy J and (long ago) Doug Sundseth to cover this one. Here's an excerpt from Andy's recent email on the topic:I watch a lot of Youtube videos which feature people who… Read More
2020-05-17 20:18
pic from marshalls.co.uk(AmE) What's up with the spelling kerb? This is one of those topics that I *thought* I had blogged about. But no!BrE has kerb for the edging alongside a road or path… Read More
2020-05-11 00:01
One of the things I've found most useful during lockdown is to have routines that distinguish the days. The routines have become most distinct on weekends: Saturday is Cleaning Day and No-La… Read More
2020-05-04 00:35
A retired colleague contacted me with this query:Has a dialect difference emerged between US novel coronavirus/new coronavirus and UK COVID-19, do you think? Novel coronavirus/new coronavi… Read More
2020-04-26 16:52
[This is one of those blog posts where I take you through all of my thinking processes—which is to say it's longer than it needs to be. But I'm saving my editing energies for book-writ… Read More
2020-04-18 18:13
Thomas West recently asked:AmE/BrE difference of the day: "on the up and up" means "above board, not underhanded" in AmE but appears to mean "rising, on the rise, moving upward" in BrE. Is t… Read More
2020-03-29 21:58
[I had said I'd be blogging weekly, but that didn't happen when I had to travel for family reasons. I have got(ten) back to it, not that you'll always notice. I've decided that my goal is to… Read More
2020-03-02 13:37
As with many of my discoveries about English, this one happened during a Scrabble game. I had played GEEZ and my opponent challenged it, stating that she thought I needed a J rather than a G… Read More
2020-02-23 20:19
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).Re… Read More
2020-02-14 17:36
Previously on this blog, I've discussed whether BrE and AmE are different in their singular for dice. Have a look at that blog post if that's what you're interested in.This one is about the… Read More
2020-02-06 12:17
While I've been very good at keeping up with my Differences of the Day on Twitter, the blog posts have got(ten) fewer and f{a/u}rther in between. I'm committing this month (and hopefully fro… Read More
2020-01-02 00:48
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 inspirationI had pretty much decided not to do a US-to-UK Word of the Y… Read More
2019-12-31 20:32
It's the end of the year, and time to declare the Separated by a Common Language Words of the Year. As ever, I've got two categories: US-to-UK and UK-to-US. In other words: I'm interested in… Read More
2019-12-02 12:38
Welcome to the final review post of Book Week 2019. In the intro to Book Week 2019, I explain what I'm doing. The 'week' has turned out to be eight days. If you're perturbed about that, I'm… Read More
2019-11-29 00:07
Welcome to the third review post of Book Week 2019. In the intro to Book Week 2019, I explain what I'm doing this week. In the end, there will be four posts. I thought there would be five, b… Read More
2019-11-26 18:20
Welcome to the second review post of Book Week 2019. See the intro to Book Week 2019 to understand more about what I'm doing this week. Next up we have:Language unlimitedthe science behind o… Read More
2019-11-25 18:03
Welcome to the first review post of Book Week 2019. See the intro to Book Week 2019 to understand more about what I'm doing this week. I'm starting with the most recent book in the ol' pile… Read More
2019-11-24 22:34
My new year's resolution for 2019 was: Finish the books I start. Now, it must be said, I don't read enough books. I do a lot of reading for research, which does not usually involve rea… Read More
2019-08-10 08:46
This is not a post about American versus British English. I hope you’ll indulge me. It's come out of some Twitter conversations this afternoon. It started when I read this sentence in… Read More
2019-06-26 22:45
It's National Writing Day (for another 48 minutes) and I've reali{s/z}ed that I haven't written anything but emails and tweets today. So a blog post is needed. But a short one. Luckily, I ha… Read More
2019-05-15 00:07
I now do not remember where I took this photo of a museum label. Some museum I've been to in the UK in the last couple of years. It's been sitting on my computer desktop to remind me t… Read More
2019-02-13 23:21
Those of us who've relocated from our "home English" acquire many new turns of phrase, and we get used to even more. But for most of us, some phrasings just never sit right. We cringe at the… Read More
2018-12-30 16:45
Yesterday I announced the US-to-UK Word of the Year (click for details!), and so today is the turn of the UK-to-US WotY. The 2018 US-to-UK WotY has been moving to the US for quite a while&md&hell…Read More
2018-12-30 05:21
It was a tough year for deciding on Separated by a Common Language Words of the Year, and so I am very grateful to those who nominated US-to-UK and UK-to-US borrowings that seemed 'very 2018… Read More
2018-12-09 13:45
I've had a few emails inquiring about the health of this blog. It's the same story as in some past years: the Autumn terms at the University are the worst for me—my heaviest teaching w… Read More
2018-09-24 14:08
Soon after the Brexit vote, I started writing a blog post about the different usage of the term racial in AmE and BrE. This followed an incident that the UK press had label(l)ed 'racial abus… Read More
2018-07-19 22:35
Hello from the Fifth Conference of the International Society for the Linguistics of English, or #ISLE5, as all the cool kids are tweeting it. We have an afternoon for touristic activit… Read More
2018-06-11 21:13
It's been months! Contrary to what's perceptible, I am still a blogger! It's just that in the aftermath of the BOOK, I've had a lot of other writing and public-engaging to do. Much of it is… Read More
2018-03-08 23:16
I've been quieter than I'd like to be on this blog, but things have been a bit crazy-hectic-mad getting ready for the release of The Prodigal Tongue: The love-hate relationship between Ameri… Read More
2018-01-07 21:00
This item ran as a Twitter Difference of the Day back in September, and I've been meaning since then to explore it a bit more. My thanks to Colin Fine, who pointed out a Canadian tale of 'th… Read More
2017-12-21 01:21
This is the second of my 2017 Word of the Year posts. For the US>UK winner, see yesterday's post.A Pinterest page credits this photo to Josef GelernterAs I said then, there's always a cho… Read More
2017-12-20 01:38
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 ye… Read More
2017-12-15 10:10
Better late than never (I hope) here is the summary of the SEVENTH 'Untranslatable October'—my annual tweeting of an 'British–American untranslatable' (that is, item lexicalized… Read More
2017-09-12 14:00
I was tweet-talking with Lane Greene this morning about whether Americans' love for/Britons' indifference to optional commas can be quantified. And so I did a little experiment. And so I'm g… Read More
2017-09-03 13:54
It's the last morning of my (BrE) holiday/(AmE) vacation—off to the airport in less than two hours. But Will W just pre-wrote for me most of a blog post, so I'm going to take advantage… Read More
2017-09-01 16:31
Will Fitzgerald has asked me more than once to cover British use of the adjective sorted. It has made an appearance on the blog before, as part of an Untranslatable October. But that short b… Read More
2017-07-29 21:26
Last week at Corpus Linguistics 2017, Rachele De Felice and I presented our research on thanking in US and UK corporate emails. We'll be writing that up for publication in the coming months… Read More
2017-07-13 23:50
from the GuardianToday the Guardian reported on a new study by Bruno Gonçalves, Lucía Loureiro-Porto, José J. Ramasco, David Sánchez (you can get the pdf here) en… Read More
2017-07-12 10:37
Today's post, I'm happy to say, is a guest post by Maddy Argy, an A-level student who's doing (BrE) work experience with me at the University of Sussex. I've asked her to find American-Briti… Read More
2017-07-08 07:54
Those who follow the blog may remember that in February I was on BBC Radio 4's Word of Mouth, where fellow guest Matthew Engel and I debated the effect of American English on British English… Read More
2017-06-18 22:03
The scene behind the KFC near my Barbadian hotelis rather unlike the scene behind the KFC near my Brighton homeAs I mentioned in the last post, and as I have been wont to mention at any oppo… Read More
2017-06-15 00:11
I'm just back from a FABULOUS time at the Dictionary Society of North America conference. Fabulous not just because it was hosted by the University of the West Indies in Barbados (wheeeeee!)… Read More
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