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Pavement/sidewalk; football/soccer; bum bag/fanny pack: we know that the English language is different in the UK and the USA. But why? Linguist Lynne Murphy points out the geographical, cultural and social influences that separate the common language.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
- There is much fascinating stuff to read on Lynne's blog Separated By A Common Language and in her new book The Prodigal Tongue.
- Listen to the episode about Please, to make yourself second-guess your own attempts to be polite. It received more responses from perplexed than any other episode I've done, I think. Lynne and her co-researcher Rachele De Felice followed up on the topic in the Continental episode.
- About the term ‘Americanism’.
- About Britishisms.
- When is an Americanism actually a Britishism?
- How patriotic British anthem 'Land of Hope and Glory' became the soundtrack of American graduation ceremonies.
- The transcript of this episode is at theallusionist.org/transcripts/across-the-pond.
Come to see me perform live, on the Radiotopia East Coast USA tour in May, and in Australia in June: theallusionist.org/events. More gigs will be added to that page when tickets go on sale.
And if you want to wear an Allusionist T-shirt to the shows, I won't be offended.
THANKS TO TODAY'S SPONSORS:
1. SQUARESPACE want you to stop wishing and start website-building. Use the free trial at squarespace.com/allusion, then if you decide to sign up to their website-designing and hosting services, the offer code ALLUSION will score you a 10% discount off your first purchase of a website or domain.
2. BABBEL is the number 1 selling language app in the world. There are 14 languages you can learn via fun quick interactive tutorials, and they tailor the courses according to which languages you speak natively. To get 50% off your first 3 months of Babbel, use the code ALLUSION when you go to babbel.com/allusion.
YOUR RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
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CREDITS:
- Lynne Murphy is a professor at Sussex University. She writes the Separated by a Common Language blog, and you can buy her new book The Prodigal Tongue: The Love Hate Relationship between British and American English. Also known as The Prodigal Tongue: The Love Hate Relationship Between American and British English. Tweet her @lynneguist.
- This episode was produced by me and Martin Austwick, who also makes the music that you hear in every episode. He has a beautiful new album out - with lyrics as well as music! - at palebirdmusic.com.
- Find me at facebook.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/helenzaltzman and instagram.com/helenzaltzman.
