I thought this was interesting. Our Brit trolls, er, I mean. friends can
confirm the accuracy.
http://www.playpork.com/mix_british_vs_american_english.html
In alt.home.repair, on Wed, 15 Feb 2017 16:53:44 -0500, Meanie
It's close.
Americans also say dungarees, taxi, handbag, mad**, public
toilet,.sweets, tap***. timetable****. trousers,
We say garden if has flowers or, I think, specially chosen plants, or
?vegetables, I think? but not just for grass and trees.
We say pavement but it's broader than the sidewalk.
They have some pubs here but I guess they are pretending to be British.
A British guy I worked with went to some bar downtown that had darts,
but I don't remember if it was called a bar, a pub, ot even a saloon
Queue may eventually catch on since it's used in computer-talk, but the
page is right, it hasn't yet.
We say rubbish once in a while but not for something specific like the
Brits do.
We definitely say wardrobe and it means what the drawing shows, a closet
on legs or wheels. An actualy closet doesn't even have a bottom, other
than the floor.
And we dont' say flat for apartment, despite what the page syas.
**Note: Diary of a mad housewife.
***HOME REPAIR!!
****Maybe not so much anymore but we certainly used to.
I put a u in a few words where other Americans only use 'or". I don't
know why I do it.
IIRC, it was Noah Webster who popularized the removal of the u when he
published his dictionary and he promoted other changes too,
simplifications, that caught on. Maybe I should call them choices
instead of changes because spelling was not standardized, even in the
19th century.
I think he also changed centre to center. The successor to his
dictionary is the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Despite lawsuits, they
were not able to stop the use of Webster as a name for loads of other
publications.
The New York Daily News and the Chicago Tribune also tried to make
changes but I don't think they had many successes.
I listen to a lot of Brit documentaries. I love listening
to brits struggle with pronouncing "Glacier" and "Controversy",
especially Stevie (Steven Fry) and Simon Whistler. Same
word, sound way, way different.
Funny, our two resident Brit troll, ooops, friends (now
you have me doing it) have not chimed in.
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