"I look forward to your letter complaining about this quiz and article."

April 10, 2018 6:02 PM

Lynne Murphy (previously), blogger and print author, has a new book, The Prodigal Tongue: The Love-Hate Relationship Between American and British English. Amanda Holpuch reviews it for the Guardian and offers a brief quiz: These words came into English after 1776. Do you know whether they are American, British or neither?
posted by Johnny Wallflower (36 comments total)

As part of my job, I sometimes edit long documents according to the standards of British English. I enjoy it, and I am good at it, but I am such an American Southerner that it makes me feel like I am wearing a huge fake mustache and bowler hat.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:17 PM on April 10, 2018 [15 favorites]

I had no idea that my dream job existed and that Countess Elena had it. (I'm also really good translating British English into American English.)
posted by elsietheeel at 6:38 PM on April 10, 2018 [2 favorites]

Nice article, thanks for posting. I got 3/6 on the quiz, so get off my lawn.

I once had endured a coworker who took great offence to my use of "Mexican wave". She said it was racist. Maybe she thought it was only me who said this, or only these weird people from England who can't speak proper English. So no research, no querying, just "it's racist". Well, I think I totted up all the speakers of English in all the countries using "Mexican wave" - doing a bit of newspaper searching and wotnot - and it came to some colossal number, far greater than her country's population. Maybe I added India, because, you know, quite a few people there, and I'm not one to underexaggerate when it counts.

She still insisted it was was racist. Maybe you can guess her nationality, but it's immaterial. Anyway - my point is that taking the time to learn the differences between English and English in South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, India etc. can win you friends.
posted by Juso No Thankyou at 6:52 PM on April 10, 2018 [1 favorite]

As part of my job, I translate American English and British English into Canadian English, which, in stereotypical fashion, is an attempt at a compromise between the two. All the authors hate me, and I hate myself.
posted by Beardman at 7:14 PM on April 10, 2018 [24 favorites]

Huh...never heard of the term “Mexican Wave” so just looked it up.

TIL: it’s what I (a USian) just call “the wave”. It evidently didn’t originate in Mexico, but at U.S. sporting events in the ‘70s. It was broadcast internationally from Pasadena, California being done at the Rose Bowl football game in 1984. Two years later, it was broadcast internationally from the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, reaching a truly global audience. This was the first time most of the world saw it, hence, the “Mexican” Wave.
posted by darkstar at 7:46 PM on April 10, 2018 [6 favorites]

But more to the point, it’s definitely not racist. Just an erroneous attribution of origin. Like naming the bird “turkey” or the breakfast “French toast”.

Actually, if we also allow things to be credited to the regions that most popularized them, then it’s not even erroneous to credit Mexico.
posted by darkstar at 7:56 PM on April 10, 2018 [4 favorites]

But more to the point, it’s definitely not racist. Just an erroneous attribution of origin. Like naming the bird “turkey”

I like that most of the Europeans think the turkey came from “somewhere thataway”. A lot of Continental Europe reckons India — poulet d’Inde (Chicken of India), later elided to dinde in French, kalkuttisch Huhn (Calcuttan chicken) in German*, some variation of kalkun/kalkon in all the Scandinavian languages (but kalkúnn in Icelandic and kalkoen in Dutch). Spanish is pavo which I guess is bafflingly from the Latin pavus, “peacock” but I am not really sure why, although good on them for not slapping some name of some mysterious land of the east on it. Also, my shaky Spanish tells me a peacock is a pavo real or royal turkey, which is charming and strange.

*I just went to confirm this, as my last German lesson was in a different millennium, and my resource tells me it is Truthahn. I may have been lied to about the German term for a large domesticated fowl. Huh (or indeed Huhn).
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:28 PM on April 10, 2018 [1 favorite]

The differences between various versions of English are endlessly fascinating to me. While that looks like a great book I suspect I would read it wanting to write in the margins about other regional variations. I especially love words for which AmE, UKE, AuE (possibly known as OzE) and NZE all have different variations, or 3 of 4 are different and the fourth is the same as one of the others - not necessarily what you would expect. For example: gumboots / wellies (aka wellingtons) / rubber boots (or even galoshes) / gumboots OR wellies. Or jandals / flip-flops / thongs / flip-flops. (To add a degree of capriciousness, I have not put the culturally used-terms in the same cultural order, if that makes sense.)
posted by Athanassiel at 9:18 PM on April 10, 2018

what I love is when a language is seemingly proper and sensible and fairly uniform across its dialects, until you get to a really important concept like what to call the inside of an apple
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 9:48 PM on April 10, 2018 [4 favorites]

How the hell did I as an Australian get 5/6 on that quiz? Was that dumb luck or is it more obvious from the outside which words are American and which are British?
posted by saltbush and olive at 9:51 PM on April 10, 2018

I mostly don't care about spelling variants and there are words (grey, judgement, traveler) that I struggle to remember the 'proper' American spelling of.

The one where I'm an American partisan is around aluminum / aluminium. I'm a chemist so I have a special interest in it. The person with the best claim to be its discoverer, Humphry Davy, spelled it aluminum. A few years later a literary magazine decided it needed that extra "i" to be a real element (being I suppose unfamiliar with elements molybenum, let alone plumbum or aurum.)

Our version seems to really bother some British people. I've seen exasperated rants like "look it up!" (which will reveal the two spellings are recorded both in the dictionary and accepted by scientific organizations) and "I don't get why Americans felt they had to change it from the original!" (we didn't, you did) more than once.
posted by mark k at 10:05 PM on April 10, 2018 [12 favorites]

It used to drive me crazy when I heard the British "He went to University" or "He went to hospital". Where is the "The"? I was going by the lazy theory that if it sounds awkward to me then it must be wrong.

Then I realized that although we say "He went to the University", we also say "He went to College" and "He went to High School." So we both drop the "the", just at slightly different places.

Of course I have to put this in perspective. The one brief time I was in England a guy came up to me to talk and I didn't understand a single word he was saying.
posted by eye of newt at 11:11 PM on April 10, 2018 [4 favorites]

"As part of my job, I translate American English and British English into Canadian English, which, in stereotypical fashion, is an attempt at a compromise between the two. All the authors hate me, and I hate myself."

Yeah, if someone suggested I do a job like that, I'd table that idea.
posted by el io at 1:14 AM on April 11, 2018 [5 favorites]

Oh yeah, I got a 1 on the quiz. A random number generator would have scored higher than me.
posted by el io at 1:18 AM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

The one brief time I was in England a guy came up to me to talk and I didn't understand a single word he was saying.

I've been living in England for over ten years. This still happens.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 1:44 AM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

(I spent my first two years here in Devon, and got my head around the West Country accent pretty well. Then I spent several years in London, where the whole mix of Cockney/Estuary/RP/what have you was pretty easy to pick up, because it's what you generally hear on TV. Then last year I moved to Yorkshire, and all bets were off. All the vowels were the wrong shape for the audio processing part of my brain.)
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 1:47 AM on April 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

Spanish is pavo which I guess is bafflingly from the Latin pavus, “peacock” but I am not really sure why, although good on them for not slapping some name of some mysterious land of the east on it.

Though, on the other hand, peacocks are vaguely oriental in association (i.e., the “Peacock Throne” of Iran).
posted by acb at 3:15 AM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

But more to the point, it’s definitely not racist. Just an erroneous attribution of origin. Like naming the bird “turkey”

If it sounds plausibly racist to someone who doesn't know the etymology, it's probably a good idea to avoid it; it's never good to be the person trotting out the etymology to argue that your intentions were pure. (See also: “niggardly”, a perfectly non-racist word for miserly or mean, which it is nonetheless a bad idea to use for obvious reasons.)
posted by acb at 3:18 AM on April 11, 2018 [3 favorites]

If it sounds plausibly racist to someone who doesn't know the etymology, it's probably a good idea to avoid it; it's never good to be the person trotting out the etymology to argue that your intentions were pure. (See also: “niggardly”, a perfectly non-racist word for miserly or mean, which it is nonetheless a bad idea to use for obvious reasons.)

I'm going to agree to disagree on this example, mostly on the grounds that (a) person in question would argue that their lunch was racist, if having a bad day and (b) newspeak is spreading fast enough without my help, thanks very much. Diversity rules. I'm not going to go out of my way to avoid perfectly non-offensive language just because someone has never exposed themselves to other cultures. Their loss. That said, in other situations with other words, (I imagine children to be the audience, not so-called adults with tertiary so-called education under their belts) I accept your point as very valid. Just as long as everyone remembers it whenever they feel the need to mention fanny packs in polite company.
posted by Juso No Thankyou at 3:46 AM on April 11, 2018 [4 favorites]

Then I realized that although we say "He went to the University", we also say "He went to College" and "He went to High School."

“He went to the University” implies a specific university (the one in one's city, or perhaps, you know, the University that those of a certain level of accomplishment are assumed to have gone to.) “He went to university” doesn't.
posted by acb at 3:47 AM on April 11, 2018

> ricochet biscuit:
"Spanish is pavo which I guess is bafflingly from the Latin pavus, “peacock” but I am not really sure why, although good on them for not slapping some name of some mysterious land of the east on it."

In Portuguese, a turkey is bafflingly ... "peru."

Which is east, if you go the long way round.

Also, TIL there's a wikipedia page with a list of names for turkeys
posted by chavenet at 4:20 AM on April 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

Yeah not everything associated with Mexico is bad and Americans trying to appear non-racist buying into that idea to push back on someone saying 'Mexican wave' seems gross to me.
posted by Space Coyote at 4:52 AM on April 11, 2018 [3 favorites]

> chavenet:
"Also, TIL there's a wikipedia page with a list of names for turkeys"

I'll see your turkey and raise you a butterfly.
posted by signal at 5:01 AM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

It is kind of tasteless to name a kind of slightly goofy thing after a country that you exoticise or don't take seriously. Like Chinese burn/Indian burn is a pretty tasteless thing to call what the Hungarians call a policeman's glove.
posted by ambrosen at 5:02 AM on April 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

I'll see your turkey and raise you a butterfly.

Yes, but it doesn't quite roll off your tongue like brinjal does.
posted by Juso No Thankyou at 5:05 AM on April 11, 2018

It is kind of tasteless to name a kind of slightly goofy thing after a country that you exoticise or don't take seriously.

As opposed to naming venereal diseases after the country just over the border (i.e., the “French pox” in England, and such).
posted by acb at 5:09 AM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

As opposed to naming venereal diseases

It could be worse. Custard must have a bad rep if it has to be called la crème anglaise. The shame of it!
posted by Juso No Thankyou at 6:01 AM on April 11, 2018

In Portuguese, a turkey is bafflingly ... "peru."

You are right, of course: I knew that but I totally overlooked that when I mentioned these.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:12 AM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

3 out of 6 for me, btw. Very slightly better than random chance. How mortifying (especially as being Canadian, I flatter myself that I stand outside both cultures looking on).
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:16 AM on April 11, 2018

la crème anglaise

New quiz: Food or venereal disease?
posted by Dip Flash at 6:22 AM on April 11, 2018 [3 favorites]

Mr. Bad Example: "The one brief time I was in England a guy came up to me to talk and I didn't understand a single word he was saying.

I've been living in England for over ten years. This still happens."

Hell, I've lived in Pittsburgh for 30 years and that still still happens to me occasionally.
posted by octothorpe at 6:27 AM on April 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

The one where I'm an American partisan is around aluminum / aluminium.

I grew up in the US, but my research group is now largely composed of people who grew up in the UK, India, or Canada, and we spend rather a lot of time talking about Al. The conversations can become very silly, "Wait, this part is aluminum?" "Yup, it's aluminium." "But this part isn't aluminum?" "That's right, the aluminium ends here." "So, how large is the contact area with the aluminum?" "The aluminium sheet extends all the way to bend." Etc.

I feel silly giving in to the strong temptation to just pronounce it aluminium, 'cause my entire childhood was a lesson that pretending to be British never ends well. But I feel even sillier refusing to do so when everyone else in the room is saying it the same way except for me. We seem to be sliding toward a universal "ali" as a compromise that makes the conversation sound far less silly. And, I suppose, it also saves time.
posted by eotvos at 12:44 PM on April 11, 2018 [3 favorites]

my favourite will always be how trifle in italian is "english soup"
posted by poffin boffin at 7:45 AM on April 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

“He went to the University” implies a specific university (the one in one's city, or perhaps, you know, the University that those of a certain level of accomplishment are assumed to have gone to.) “He went to university” doesn't.--acb

The same concept applies with 'College' in American English. But not with the word University. We never say "He went University" under any circumstances. It just sounds awkward and wrong, except I'm getting used to it, now that I've thought about it.
posted by eye of newt at 9:11 AM on April 12, 2018

The whole naming random food after foreign countries thing is fun. In Chile, we have 'salsa americana' (pickles chopped into small bits), 'completo italiano' which is a hot-dog with mayo, tomato and avocado (because of the colors of the italian flag). In Ecuador, I once had 'bolitas chilenas' which were deep fried pumpkin balls which were delicious and similar to Chilean sopaipillas but not a thing you can get in Chile, and in Uruguay I had a 'chivito chileno' which is a variation of Uruguay's signature sandwich with corn in it, because, reasons?
posted by signal at 1:09 PM on April 12, 2018

From All Things Linguistic: I tweeted my way through The Prodigal Tongue.
posted by Lexica at 5:14 PM on April 12, 2018 [2 favorites]