ADB                    Two Nations divided by a single language

I can't remember who the wit was that called the USA and Britain "Two Nations divided by a common language".  "Two Nations", YES; but a "common language"? that is much more arguable.  It used to be a common language, but there are so many differences now that one wonders whether the words are still true.

A lot of people do not know why we two nations have a lot of words spelled differently; it's quite simple.  When the early settlers to the New World set sail from Plymouth, they took a language that was very unstructured.  Even that great scholar Dr Samuel Johnson in his 1755 dictionary spelled the same word in different ways in different parts of the book.  So if anyone is looking for someone to blame (a great British pastime), we can only point the finger at ourselves.

In due course, the Americans grew their scholars, people like Noah Webster; who decided to clean up the mess they had inherited.  And we Brits did a similar thing.  But as with modern governments, the two halves didn't talk to each other.  So we ended up with two reasonably rational spellings.  And as is so often the case, we neither did the job properly.

But not only spelling, there are quite a few other aspects of our respective civilisation that clash.  For example, we don't even have the same name for that lightweight metal that most aeroplanes (airplanes) are made of.  I don't know the history of why we use different but similar names.

There is a website that gives a list of British / USA words that I found quite informative: http://www.scit.wlv.ac.uk/~jphb/american.html

Now to get to my gripes.  The USA seems to love inventing new meanings for standard British English words.  There are three words that I know that have been allocated new meanings that are of questionable taste.  Having invented these new meanings the Yanks then were disgusted at themselves and quarantined the words from polite usage.  The American meanings for these words has crossed the Atlantic and the words are becoming  taboo in the UK.  Just in case anyone reading this essay does not know the true meanings of the words, read on:

Frigging about            handling a tool or other implement in a clumsy and awkward manner.  A similar meaning  to the Victorian expression:  like a cow with a musket

Pussy                            a pet name for a cat or a kitten.  The name was used by Queen Victoria as a pet name for one of her granddaughters

Nigger                        the name of the colour; a  rich dark brown.  Probably taken from the colour of the skin of the residents of the Niger Valley.  The origin of the word comes from Latin

The website I mentioned above lists most of our differences, but the ones that I found from actual experience are:

Passing                I was driving along a busy highway somewhere in New England and there was a large sign that instructed the traffic not to pass.  I think it said  Do not pass.  Everybody, including me, passed the sign and drove on.  It was only later that I discovered that it meant:  no overtaking.

Pavement            In Canada near Toronto the sign informed me that pavement ends.  The pavement didn't end; the road did, and the pavement continued.  In this case we Brits have to admit it is us who are a touch irrational.  A "pavement", of course, is a paved area.  The term "sidewalk" is very descriptive, although it too may be paved.  In fact most older sidewalks in Britain are laid with paving stones, and are hence "pavements"  It has crossed my mind that this terminological  difference could be dangerous.  Imagine an unruly American 7-year-old under the guidance of an English adult,  The Brit might well yell at the child "get on the pavement".

Meter & metre    I believe that in Britain we have the edge over the USA in our version of
Curb & kerb          the language.  I don't know how an American differentiates between
Programme &       the metric unit of length and a measuring instrument.  Similarly, the verb
program                 and the noun: "a kerb" and "to curb".  What about the difference
                                   between a theatre programme and a computer program?  We Brits can tell the difference.  It was Sony Electronics that first pointed this out to me in a handbook for a record player.  It takes a Japanese company to show a Brit what's what in our language

I was in New York being shown the sights by a Plessey Sales Manager.  We had reached the point when a coffee would be nice.  At the far end of this shopping mall I spotted a sign saying theater.  I read it as the eater in the manner often used in British advertisements to give emphasis to the word(s).  I told my host of it and immediately felt foolish in not understanding this foreign spelling of a playhouse

I don't try to make out that British English is better than USA English, per se, but the examples I have given show that in those instances, we have a clearer version of the language.

Now to get to the thing that really infuriates me.  From time to time we are given examples of US embassy English schools around the globe where the teachers are just pig-ignorant.  If you teach English overseas, surely it is not too much to expect the teacher to know that there are two main versions of the language.  I am fully on the side of the English airline pilot who got violent with a US English teacher who repeatedly marked down his English child for spelling words the British way.  I used the expression "pig-ignorant" and I meant it.

I am of the opinion that there is probably more British English in the world that US English.  It's true that the internet and computers are the preserve of US English, but British English is king in India and Pakistan, as well as the white Commonwealth countries (except poor old Canada who is between two stools),  and even there, there is a well established fund of UK English in hiding from Big Brother to the south.

It is said that language and culture are different aspects of the same thing.  American culture is certainly different to that in the UK.  On my second visit to Fort Wayne Indiana, my company allowed me to buy my own tickets and fly standby.  So I spent the first week in the ITT factory and then travelled diagonally across the country to go into Canada  near  Detroit.  My first wife and my youngest daughter were fascinated by what we saw.  Somewhere about half way through our journey we passed several roadside mini-cemeteries.  These graveyards were most beautiful in the care that had obviously been lavished upon them.  Not a speck of rubbish and every garden bed was immaculate.  That was a great surprise, but a totally different scene surprised me even more,

As we drove into a small town, the gable wall of a house showed that it was shop as well as a dwelling.  A large advertisement proclaimed "we sell dolls, wallpaper, guns".  I always try to look beyond the obvious and make secondary deductions from unusual sights.  Were the dolls for little Maude, and the wallpaper for father to repaper the lounge.  So the guns must be for little Tommy to take to school and shoot up the teacher who chastised him last week.

This deduction of mine is, I suggest, not too far from the truth.  We read of school shootings in the USA on a regular basis.  They are not common, but there seems to be a newspaper report every year or so.  What a society, give me the UK every time!  I don't know how to get hold of a gun here in Nottingham.  I suppose if I put my mind to it, I could find out, but I would expect to find a copper taking an interest in my researches before I had achieved success.  Most big towns have a licensed gun smith, but I doubt that I could persuade the shopkeeper to sell me a shooter.  And I don't frequent the sorts of pub where the low-life  hangs out.  I do, however,  know where to buy dolls and wallpaper., not that I have a lot of use for the former, these days.