Overview

Americans and Britons are exposed to unedited texts, scripts, and speech from one another's dialects at an unprecedented and accelerating rate. Most people have no trouble understanding the general meaning of language in the other dialect, but readers and listeners very often fail to understand or misunderstand critical words, references, and allusions for lack of familiarity of the social and cultural contexts that underlie various usages. This book remedies this gap in understanding by cataloguing the differences that language users on either side of the Atlantic are likely to encounter in their dealings with the other dialect. By taking a culturally neutral stance it addresses the needs of both British and American readers and listeners. The thematic organization of the book allows the user to access language differences in various subject areas, where words likely to be needed at the same time can all be found together. Chapters include; Politics, Law, and Government; Business and Money; Medicine and Healthcare; Education; Food, Clothing, and Shelter; Transportation; Sports; and Profanity and Obscenity, in addition to basic information on orthography, weights and measures, etc. The appendices and extensive index provide a ready point of entry for quick look-ups, and there will be an extra chapter on Canadian, Australian, and Asian English.

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9780195157048

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Reviews

A well-organized guide to the differences between American and British English....A very readable book that is as entertaining as it is informative. --Library Journal A scholarly but highly readable dissection of the differences between British and American English. --Copyeditor

a useful reference book and a fun reference for word lovers r

If whilst consuming American films, music, novels and TV programmes you have ever wondered what on earth bangs are, how to play blackjack, what an APB really is, why suspenders and pants in the UK mean lingerie and in the US mean fashion in the style of Laurel and Hardy, then this is the reference book for you! Orin Hargraves presents a veritable cornucopia of lexicographical and cultural information. With an introduction to the historical divergence of British English and American English, notes on terminology and grammatical differences in the use of English, it is much more than a simple dictionary. Arranged by subject (Business, Education, Health, Leisure and so on), it can be used to discover the vocabulary, phrases and cultural niceties of both America and the United Kingdom and is therefore, a truly transatlantic reference tool. Particularly fascinating are the tables of equivalent phrases and idioms in British English and American English, the exhaustive descriptions of matters as diverse as cricket terminology, American post office abbreviations, a who's who of US and UK TV icons and a special section on swearing and insults, charmingly entitled 'Qualities of the Person'. Even the differences in punctuation and the Appendices are interesting - did you know that Irish Gaelic has no word for yes or no, hence the Irish English tendency to answer a yes/no question with a sentence rather than a word ('Does he live here? He does.') Any reader with an interest and a curiosity about language and how it is used will find much here to amuse and inform. (Kirkus UK)

A well-organized guide to the differences between American and British English....A very readable book that is as entertaining as it is informative. --Library Journal A scholarly but highly readable dissection of the differences between British and American English. --Copyeditor<br>

Author Information

Orin Hargraves is a longtime freelance lexicographer with much experience in both US and UK writing.

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