Category Archives: Yanks vs. Brits

You say pernickety, I say persnickety

Brits: “As ever the pernickety details of modern coppering are minutely observed: Mercurio knows precisely how the police fill out forms to take possession of a lethal weapon.” — The Telegraph in its review of TV’s police drama Line of Duty.

Yanks: “Instead, Carson has turned into an entitled, persnickety bore, grumbling about the corners on his bed and refusing to drink wine because “somehow it feels disloyal” to Lord Grantham.” — Los Angeles Times in its latest Downton Abbey recap.

Oxford English Dictionary‘s definition of pernickety: “Placing too much emphasis on trivial or minor details; fussy”

Merriam-Webster‘s definition of persnickety: “Giving a lot of attention to details that are minor or not important”

Online Etymology Dictionary‘s explanation of both:
Pernickety: “1808 (pernicktie, in Jamieson), “precise, fastidious,” extended form of Scottish pernicky, of uncertain origin, perhaps somehow from particular.”
Persnickety: “1889, alteration of pernickety.”

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To caucus, and caucusing

The first United Farmers of Alberta legislative caucus; from Wikimedia Commons

Unless you’re an American or a New Zealander, you might wonder what on earth caucus means. BBC News recently went out onto the streets of London and the Big Apple and asked Brits what they thought caucus meant, and then New Yorkers to explain its meaning to their friends across the pond. The results, shown in the video here, were less than impressive …

Is it a plant or an animal? A poll or a vote? And even if you are American and you know what the noun means, you might find yourself wondering what “to caucus” means and whether it’s legit — since we’re hearing it a lot these days. The verb seems to be a new thing: is it actually a 21st-century phenomenon? Continue reading →

The stressful life of noun-verb homonyms

By Alex E. Proimos, via Wikimedia Commons

It happens all the time, for better or for worse: nouns being hijacked for use as verbs, and vice versa. “To evidence something,”, “to critique his essay”, “to friend someone”, “to transition into a new role”, “to workshop the play”, “to pencil a date in”, “to text your mom”, “to seat someone in the theater” — even “to host a party”: these are all examples of verbing (which — yeah — is an example of its own definition), any of which might set your teeth on edge to varying degrees. Similarly, “his spend is excessive,” “let’s make the ask,” and “the magician’s reveal” are all forms of “nouning” — or nominalization, which can be just as grating on the ear, if not more so. Continue reading →

How do you pronounce Purcell?

Henry Purcell, who died 320 years ago today, was one of England’s greatest composers; most people agree on that fact. But how do you pronounce his name? There’s less consensus about that, and it continues to be discussed and debated more than three centuries after the master musician took his last breath. Should it sound like Persil, the detergent, or rhyme with Purell, the hand sanitizer? Continue reading →

Bad words masquerading as good ones (and terribly good intensifiers)

In a recent article about Justin Bieber’s new single and its producers, Skrillex and Blood, Inquisitr reported: “As it turned out, Blood (Mike Tucker) and Skrillex (Sonny Moore) collaborated for the first time on Justin’s new album, Purpose. “That’s sick,” says the Biebs, after this revelation.” [sic] Continue reading →

20 words that haven’t crossed the pond (actually 21)

Update 9/16/15: I’ve just come across another one: pantywaist. See below for definition and origin.

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We all know that Brits and Americans have different names for many different things — from diapers, erasers and elevators to flats, dummies and lorries. The web is bursting at the seams with trans-Atlantic dictionaries. But there’s another category of words that separate us from our English-speaking cousins: those that just don’t translate on the other side of the pond, and haven’t made the journey themselves. You’ll be hard-pressed to come up with close equivalents of these 20 words when you’re not in their native lands — and you might find yourself wondering why some of these quite useful pieces of vocabulary* haven’t been snapped up by your friends across the ocean, whether you’re American or British. And can you think of any others? Continue reading →

Homing in on home

“I’m coming home
I’m coming home
tell the world I’m coming home”

So the song goes, and it’s a familiar refrain. We all know the definition of that abstract four-letter word, whose actual meaning is unique to everyone who uses it. But here’s a funny question: when we talk about “coming home”, “going home”, “getting home” or “being home,” what role in the sentence does the generic place-name play: is it a noun, as most places tend to be, or, strangely, could it be an adverb? Continue reading →

Tan or tanned, brown or bronzed?

It’s tanning season again, and time for a talk about tan.

“’You’re so tan. Are you out of L.A.?’” asked the former Alaskan governor, Sarah Palin, of a New York Daily News reporter recently. “Palin then confessed that her golden glow came from a salon. ‘Mine’s fake,’ she quietly confided. ‘I mean, I’m Alaskan.'” Continue reading →

You say string bean, I say haricot vert …

Most of us know and agree on what “green beans” mean — i.e. what they look and generally taste like. (We also know that beans meanz Heinz — and that’s another story altogether.) But those grass-colored finger-shaped legumes have a lot of names — and not just because of the almost infinite varieties of bean, but also thanks to the inability of the Brits and Yanks to agree on what they should call them (even among their fellow citizens). Continue reading →

Forget Pharoah: what about the fascinating fascinator?

When American Pharoah won the Triple Crown, a lot of us reached for our dictionaries as well as our superlatives. Yes, yes, we know, we know: his name is spelt wrong (or wrongly?). But that’s another story, and not the only interest Glossophilia has in horse-racing. There’s something else that fascinates us about the races, and that’s what the spectators wear on their heads: the fascinator. Continue reading →