In a former life, when I had much more free time, I was a language nerd. I’ve given up a fair amount of that these days, but do still enjoy the odd book about language.
This one is by a linguistics professor who also writes a blog (Separated By a Common Language) that I’ve been following for years. The blog tends to dive into really specific entries about words or phrases that do or do not compute between British and American English – this book instead gives more of a historical overview of those differences.
It’s fascinating. I think the biggest eye opener to me was something I had been aware of peripherally, but had never put together, and that is that Americans study the English language. We tend to believe that we can get better at using it with work (and we have – the book uses the example of Abraham Lincoln – self taught on the frontier), where the English (and this is really the English in this case, not everyone in Great Britain) tends to believe that you’ll pick up good mechanics as long as you’re reading good examples.
Other than that, this is a fun romp through the prejudices of both Brits and Americans, and a ton of fun if you’re into that kind of thing.
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