l Untitled By cheezburger.com Published On :: Tue, 12 Jan 2010 06:00:49 -0800 Full Article cardboard mp3 player recycling-is-good-right use what you have
l When You Can't Stand Up, You Should Probably Quit Drinking By cheezburger.com Published On :: Sat, 03 Dec 2011 06:00:00 -0800 Or at least switch to 12oz cans to delay the inevitable. ~NSHA Full Article beer beer cans construction home improvement
l They Tried Digging Up, Decided Building a Ladder Was Better By cheezburger.com Published On :: Thu, 15 Dec 2011 10:00:00 -0800 Full Article DIY ladder Professional At Work
l Donegal captain on comeback trail By www.bbc.co.uk Published On :: Mon, 09 Apr 2012 20:49:50 GMT Donegal captain Michael Murphy hopes he will be fit to play in next month's Ulster championship preliminary round tie against Cavan. Full Article Northern Ireland
l Down suffer double injury blow By www.bbc.co.uk Published On :: Tue, 10 Apr 2012 13:54:26 GMT Down will be without injured pair Danny Hughes and Dan Gordon for Sunday's National Football League semi-final against Cork. Full Article Northern Ireland
l Cavan hold on to Ulster U21 title By www.bbc.co.uk Published On :: Wed, 11 Apr 2012 21:36:11 GMT Cavan retain the Ulster Under-21 Football title as they edge out Tyrone 1-10 to 0-10 in Wednesday's final at Brewster Park. Full Article Northern Ireland
l McDonnell ends his Armagh career By www.bbc.co.uk Published On :: Fri, 13 Apr 2012 13:23:53 GMT Armagh football suffers another blow as Steven McDonnell announces his retirement from the intercounty game. Full Article Northern Ireland
l Down fall to Cork in semi-final By www.bbc.co.uk Published On :: Sun, 15 Apr 2012 17:47:13 GMT Defending champions Cork beat Down 2-17 to 1-12 in the National League Division One semi-final at Croke Park. Full Article Northern Ireland
l Quigley stars in Fermanagh win By www.bbc.co.uk Published On :: Sun, 15 Apr 2012 15:20:26 GMT Fermanagh trounce Leitrim in their National Football League Division Four game at Brewster Park. Full Article Northern Ireland
l Cavan name Hyland as new manager By www.bbc.co.uk Published On :: Tue, 17 Apr 2012 08:03:00 GMT Terry Hyland and assistant Anthony Forde take over at Cavan after the resignation of Val Andrews. Full Article Northern Ireland
l Tyrone hit by Coney injury blow By www.bbc.co.uk Published On :: Thu, 19 Apr 2012 08:51:41 GMT Tyrone forward Kyle Coney looks certain to be ruled out for the rest of this season after sustaining a groin injury. Full Article Northern Ireland
l Cavan hand debuts to five players By www.bbc.co.uk Published On :: Tue, 15 May 2012 22:00:59 GMT Cavan have handed debuts to five players for Sunday's Ulster senior football championship tie against Donegal. Full Article Northern Ireland
l USC football placed on 1 year of probation, fined for coaching staff violations By www.foxsports.com Published On :: Tue, 12 Nov 2024 16:38:10 -0500 Southern California’s football program has been fined $50,000 and placed on probation for one year by the NCAA because of multiple violations of coaching staff rules over two seasons Full Article college-football
l Tropicana Field can be fixed by 2026, but Rays must play elsewhere in 2025 By www.foxsports.com Published On :: Tue, 12 Nov 2024 16:42:09 -0500 A detailed assessment of the hurricane damage to Tropicana Field concludes that the home of the Rays is structurally sound and can be repaired in time for the 2026 season, but not by 2025 Opening Day. Full Article mlb
l Christian Pulisic & Tim Weah headline USMNT November roster drop | SOTU By www.foxsports.com Published On :: Tue, 12 Nov 2024 22:25:44 +0000 Alexi Lalas and David Mosse reacted to the second United States Men's National Team roster release of the Mauricio Pochettino era, with Christian Pulisic, Tim Weah, and Weston McKennie headlining the squad. Full Article soccer
l Lakers' Anthony Davis says his eye is fine, declines to wear goggles By www.foxsports.com Published On :: Tue, 12 Nov 2024 17:27:18 -0500 Los Angeles Lakers star Anthony Davis says he has recovered from being poked in the left eye by Toronto’s Jakob Poeltl, and his latest eye injury still hasn’t persuaded him to wear protective goggles Full Article nba
l Bev Priestman fired as Canada women's soccer coach after Olympic drone scandal By www.foxsports.com Published On :: Tue, 12 Nov 2024 17:55:11 -0500 Canada women's soccer coach Bev Priestman has been fired after an independent review of a drone surveillance scandal at the Paris Olympics Full Article soccer
l Bears fire OC Shane Waldron, how much of it is on Caleb Williams? | First Things First By www.foxsports.com Published On :: Tue, 12 Nov 2024 23:00:57 +0000 Nick Wright reacts to the Chicago Bears firing OC Shane Waldron, then discusses how much Caleb Williams is to blame for the team's poor season. Full Article nfl
l Joey Logano 1-on-1: Winning Cup Series championship is 'electric' By www.foxsports.com Published On :: Tue, 12 Nov 2024 18:01:05 -0500 Joey Logano sat down with FOX Sports to discuss the wild pace-car wreck, the playoff format and the feeling of winning the title at Phoenix. Full Article nascar
l Opportunity knocks for USMNT's Ricardo Pepi: 'I'm feeling ready to be the man' By www.foxsports.com Published On :: Tue, 12 Nov 2024 18:29:11 -0500 With several U.S. men's national team strikers out with injuries, 21-year-old Ricardo Pepi has a golden opportunity to prove why he deserves to be Mauricio Pochettino top choice up top. Full Article soccer
l Kyler Murray, Brock Purdy move up, Caleb Williams on bottom of Mahomes Mountain | First Things First By www.foxsports.com Published On :: Tue, 12 Nov 2024 23:59:55 +0000 Nick Wright reveals who climbs up and down his Week 11 QB Tiers, including Kyler Murray and Brock Purdy, who will face each other in the final game of the regular season with playoffs on the line. Watch as Nick explains why Caleb Williams is not off Mahomes Mountain yet despite a change in the Chicago Bears coaching staff. Full Article nfl
l Alabama's Ryan Williams on Travis Hunter winning Biletnikoff: 'I can't let him do that' By www.foxsports.com Published On :: Tue, 12 Nov 2024 19:11:36 -0500 In an interview on FOX Sports' "All Facts, No Brakes," Alabama stars Ryan Williams and Jaylen Mbakwe shared why they stayed after Nick Saban's retirement and their thoughts on Travis Hunter. Full Article college-football
l C.J. Stroud tops the list of best-selling NFL jerseys midway through 2024 season By www.foxsports.com Published On :: Tue, 12 Nov 2024 19:29:22 -0500 Three quarterbacks lead the way in top NFL jerseys sales so far this season. Full Article nfl
l Providence's Oswin Erhunmwunse throws down a POWERFUL two-hand dunk vs. Hampton By www.foxsports.com Published On :: Wed, 13 Nov 2024 00:41:26 +0000 Providence Friars' Oswin Erhunmwunse threw down a powerful two-handed dunk against the Hampton Pirates. Full Article college-basketball
l 49ers agree to 5-year, $92 million extension with CB Deommodore Lenoir By www.foxsports.com Published On :: Tue, 12 Nov 2024 19:51:46 -0500 San Francisco 49ers cornerback Deommodore Lenoir has agreed to a five-year, $92 million extension to stay with the team instead of testing the free agent market next offseason Full Article nfl
l Deion Sanders talks Shedeur Sanders’ growth from last year to this season | Speak By www.foxsports.com Published On :: Wed, 13 Nov 2024 01:00:28 +0000 Deion Sanders discusses the impressive growth of Shedeur Sanders from last season to this year, highlighting his development as Colorado’s QB and the strides he’s made on the field. Full Article college-football
l Matthew Nicholson throws down a two-handed slam to help Northwestern lead over UIC going into the half By www.foxsports.com Published On :: Wed, 13 Nov 2024 01:03:13 +0000 Matthew Nicholson threw down a two-handed slam to help the Northwestern Wildcats lead over the the UIC Flames going into the half. Full Article college-basketball
l Deion Sanders compares Shedeur and Travis’ chemistry to Michael Irvin and Troy Aikman | Speak By www.foxsports.com Published On :: Wed, 13 Nov 2024 01:06:37 +0000 Deion Sanders talks about the strong chemistry between Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter, comparing it to the connection Michael Irvin had with Troy Aikman during their playing days. Full Article college-football
l Mavs' Klay Thompson cheered by 400 Warriors employees in return to Golden State By www.foxsports.com Published On :: Tue, 12 Nov 2024 20:18:09 -0500 Klay Thompson was greeted by some 400 cheering Warriors employees showing their love and appreciation for the former Golden State star and lined up along his path to the Dallas locker room Full Article nba
l Bensley Joseph finds Corey Floyd Jr. for a TOUGH ALLEY-OOP dunk as Providence leads 47-43 vs. Hampton By www.foxsports.com Published On :: Wed, 13 Nov 2024 01:21:41 +0000 Providence Friars' Bensley Joseph found Corey Floyd Jr. for a tough alley-oop dunk against the Hampton Pirates. Full Article college-basketball
l Michael Irvin asked Deion Sanders about coaching the Cowboys | Speak By www.foxsports.com Published On :: Wed, 13 Nov 2024 01:34:13 +0000 Michael Irvin asks Deion Sanders about the possibility of coaching the Dallas Cowboys, sparking a funny moment and laughter. Full Article college-football
l College Football Playoff Rankings: Oregon, Ohio State on top; Alabama enters top 10 By www.foxsports.com Published On :: Tue, 12 Nov 2024 20:59:04 -0500 The second set of College Football Playoff Predictions were released Tuesday night, with Oregon, Ohio State and Texas listed in the top three spots. See the complete rankings! Full Article college-football
l Tom Brady’s 3 Stars of Week 10: Lamar Jackson, Ja'Marr Chase, Leo Chenal | DIGITAL EXCLUSIVE By www.foxsports.com Published On :: Wed, 13 Nov 2024 02:09:54 +0000 Tom Brady gave his 3 stars of Week 10 which included Baltimore Ravens QB Lamar Jackson, Cincinnati Bengals WR Ja'Marr Chase and Kansas City Chiefs LB Leo Chenal. Full Article nfl
l Tom Brady's 3 Stars of Week 10, including Ravens' Lamar Jackson By www.foxsports.com Published On :: Tue, 12 Nov 2024 21:20:50 -0500 Week 10 of the 2024 NFL season had a few memorable and exciting finishes as several stars showed out! Check out FOX Sports lead NFL analyst Tom Brady to name his latest 3 Stars of The Week. Full Article nfl
l John Hugley IV records a NASTY block to help Xavier hold on to 40-25 lead at halftime vs. Jackson State By www.foxsports.com Published On :: Wed, 13 Nov 2024 02:32:10 +0000 John Hugley IV recodrded a NASTY block to help Xavier hold on to 40-25 lead at halftime vs. Jackson State Full Article college-basketball
l Deion Sanders says he’ll intervene if ‘wrong' NFL team tries to draft son Shedeur By www.foxsports.com Published On :: Tue, 12 Nov 2024 21:39:43 -0500 Coach Prime tells the "Speak" crew how he plans to handle the NFL draft process with quarterback son, Shedeur, and two-way star Travis Hunter. Full Article college-football
l 2024 Fantasy football: Top performers in Week 10 By www.foxsports.com Published On :: Tue, 12 Nov 2024 22:06:45 -0500 Check out which players had the top performances in Week 10 of the fantasy football season. Full Article nfl
l Dailyn Swain takes it coast-to-coast for an UNREAL jam to extend Xavier's lead over Jackson State By www.foxsports.com Published On :: Wed, 13 Nov 2024 03:22:30 +0000 Dailyn Swain took it coast-to-coast for an UNREAL jam to extend the Xavier Musketeers' lead over Jackson State. Full Article college-basketball
l College Football Playoff rankings takeaways: Colorado's path, Indiana undervalued By www.foxsports.com Published On :: Tue, 12 Nov 2024 22:49:34 -0500 FOX Sports' RJ Young offers up three takeaways from the second set of College Football Playoff rankings, including Colorado's path to the CFP ... and the national title game. Full Article college-football
l 2024-25 NBA championship odds: Celtics, Thunder favored; Cavs rising By www.foxsports.com Published On :: Tue, 12 Nov 2024 23:47:40 -0500 A number of contenders are chasing the defending champion Celtics on the oddsboard. Check out where things stand, with insight from Jason McIntyre. Full Article nba
l Champions Classic: Hunter Dickinson leads Kansas past MSU; Kentucky rallies past Duke By www.foxsports.com Published On :: Wed, 13 Nov 2024 00:46:50 -0500 Hunter Dickson led No. 1 Kansas to an impressive win over Michigan State, while Mark Pope aced his first big test as Kentucky's head coach. Full Article college-basketball
l Цены в Сепоне (Xepon, Laos) в 2024 году: гестхаусы и еда By za7gorami.ru Published On :: Mon, 09 Sep 2024 09:22:38 +0000 Я позавчера оббегал гесты в Сепоне, и, вот, решил поделиться. читать далее Full Article Лаос
l Британская модель Николь Нил (Nicole Neal) By tettie.net Published On :: Британская модель Николь Нил (Nicole Neal) уже в двадцать лет стала звездой таких мужских изданий, как FHM, Nuts, Front, Loaded, The Sun и многие другие. “В Британии ощущается недостаток горячих блондинок”, – утверждает Николь Нил. – “Если вы посмотрите вокруг, то увидите много брюнеток, нескольких рыженьких девушек и практически ни одной блондинки. Думаю, данный факт [...] Full Article
l Newsletter archive By separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com Published On :: Wed, 28 Dec 2022 17:43:00 +0000 If you'd like to subscribe to the newsletter, follow this link. You'll get around one newsletter per month. The newsletters have something about British–American linguistic relations (often linking to blog posts here), a bit about what I've been up to in my Lynneguist life (as well as things in the works), and links to things I've found interesting. Click here for the newsletter archive. Full Article newsletter
l what 'polite' means: Culpeper, O'Driscoll & Hardaker (2019) By separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com Published On :: Mon, 13 Mar 2023 15:20:00 +0000 I've studied the word please off and on for a few years now.* Currently, I'm trying to finish up a study that I started an embarrassing number of years ago. Now that I've returned to it, I have the pleasure of reading all the works that have been published on related topics in the meantime. They couldn't inform my study design, but they must now inform the paper I hope to publish. One of these is a chapter by Jonathan Culpeper, Jim O'Driscoll and Claire Hardaker: "Notions of Politeness in Britain and North America," published in the book in From Speech Acts to Lay Understandings of Politeness, edited by Eva Ogiermann and Pilar Garcés-Conejos Blitvich (Cambridge UP, 2019). Their question, what does polite mean in the UK and US, was a research project on my to-do list. When I was a younger scholar, I'd have been (a) royally annoyed with those authors for getting to it first, (b) sad, sad, sad that I didn't get to do a fun piece of research, and (c) consumed with self-loathing for not being quick enough to do the project myself. It is both the blessing and curse of middle age that I now look at anything anyone else has done with gratitude. Good! Now I don't have to do it! Let's start with why it's interesting to ask about "notions of politeness" in the two countries. Here's a clue from an earlier post about use of please when ordering at restaurants. I asked:So, how can it be that Americans think of themselves as polite when they fail to extend this common courtesy word?I argued that Americans (subconsciously) find the lack of please in these contexts "more polite." In the comments section for that post, some people—mostly British people—could just not accept that a food order without a please could be described as polite. To them, to be polite includes saying please. If you're not using the word please, it's just not polite. Now, part of the reason for that disagreement is that I was using the word polite in linguistic-theory-laden ways. The distinction between how the word politeness is used in linguistic discussions and how it's used in everyday life has become such a problem for us linguists that we now talk about polite1 and polite2 to distinguish commonplace understandings of polite (1) from our theoretical uses (2). The failures of communication in my previous blogpost probably stemmed from having three understandings of politeness at play: the linguist's polite2, American polite1, and British polite1. Postcard from the How to be British series Culpeper et al. set out to contrast British and American polite1. They point out that academic research on the topic of British/American politeness is "full of stereotypes that have largely gone unexamined." These stereotypes hold that British culture favo(u)rs maintaining social distance by using indirectness and avoidance in interaction, while Americans are more interested in creating interactional intimacy by being informal and open. The authors asked: how do AmE and BrE speakers use the word polite? If differences exist, then do they conform to the stereotypes, or do they tell us something new? To investigate this, the authors used two sets of data.Part 1: clustering 'polite' words in the OECFirst, they searched the Oxford English Corpus, where they found thousands of instances of polite. In AmE, it occurs 6.8 times and in BrE 8.8 times per million words. They then used corpus-linguistic tools to determine which words polite was most likely to co-occur with in the two countries' data. They then used statistical tools to group these collocates into clusters that reflect how they behave linguistically. (I'll skip over the detail of the statistical methods they use, but it suffices to say: they know what they're doing.) For example in the British data, words like courteous, considerate, and respectful form a courteous cluster, while words like cheery, optimistic, and upbeat are in the cheerful cluster. The British and American datasets were similar in that polite co-occurred at similar rates with words that formed cheerful and friendly clusters. This seems to go with the common stereotype of American politeness as outgoing and inclusive, but contradicts the British stereotype of reserved behavio(u)r. The most notable difference was that British polite collocated with words in a sensible cluster, including: sensible, straightforward, reasonable, and fair. This cluster didn't figure in the American data. The British data also had a calm cluster (calm, quiet, generous, modest, etc.), which had little overlap with American collocates. British polite, then, seems to be associated with "calm rationality, rather than, say, spontaneous emotion." Other clusters seemed more complex. Courteous and charming came up as British clusters, while American had respectful, gracious, and thoughtful clusters. However, many of the words in those clusters were the same. For example, almost all the words in the British courteous cluster were in the American gracious cluster. That is, in American courteous and attentive were more closely associated with 'gracious' words like open-minded and appreciative, while British courteous and attentive didn't intersect with more 'gracious' words. Respectful is a particularly interesting case: it shows up in the courteous cluster for the British data, but has its own respectful cluster in American (with words like compassionate and humane). Looking at these clusters of patterns gives us a sense of the connotations of the words—that is to say, the associations those words bring up for us. Words live in webs of cultural assumptions. Pluck one word in one web, and others will reverberate. But it won't be the same words that would have reverberated if you'd plucked the same word in the other web. It's not that compassionate wasn't in the British data, for example—it's that its patterns did not land it in a cluster with respectful. In American, respectful seems to have "a warmer flavour" with collocates relating to kindness and positive attitudes toward(s) others, while in the British data respectful has "older historic echoes of courtly, refined, well-mannered behaviour." Part 2: 'politeness' and sincerity on TwitterTheir second investigation involved analy{s/z}ing use of polite and its synonyms in a particular 36-hour period on Twitter. The data overall seemed to go against the stereotypes that American politeness is "friendly" and British is "formal", but once they looked at the data in more detail, they discovered why: US and UK words differed in (in)sincerity. In the British data, respectful seemed to "be used as a vehicle for irony, sarcasm and humour", while in the American data friendly "appears to have acquired a negative connotation" about 17% of the time, in which "friendly" people were accused of being untrustworthy or otherwise undesirable. This also underscores the idea that American respectful has a "warmer flavour" than British respectful. It's intriguing that each culture seems to be using words stereotypically associated with them (American–friendly; British–respectful) in ironic ways, while taking the less "typical of them" words more seriously. Yay for this study! I'm grateful to Culpeper, O'Driscoll and Hardaker for this very interesting paper, which demonstrates why it's difficult to have cross-cultural discussions of what's "polite" or "respectful" behavio(u)r. The more we're aware of these trends in how words are interpreted differently in different places, the better we can take care in our discussions of what's polite, acceptable, or rude. *If you're interested in the fruits of my please labo(u)rs so far, have a look at:Routine Politeness in American & British Requests (Murphy & De Felice 2019)Defining your P's & Q's: Describing and Prescribing Politeness in Dictionaries (Murphy 2019) Blog posts with the 'politeness' label Full Article politeness stereotypes
l puh-lease/pur-lease By separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com Published On :: Sun, 02 Apr 2023 23:53:00 +0000 My obsession with the word please keeps leading me to new discoveries. This time: a spelling difference!One particular use of please is to be dismissive of something someone else has said or done, as in: Please! You don't really imagine we want to read about please again, do you?But when people say that please, they often elongate the pronunciation, including putting a bit of vocal 'space' between the P and the L, creating a two-syllable please. And because people pronounce it with two syllables, they sometimes spell it with something syllable-indicating between the P and the L.So I went looking for such spellings in the Corpus of Global Web-based English. Since I didn't know the exact spellings I was looking for, I put in various key letters/punctuation and asterisks after them, like pu*lea* and p-le*: the asterisks are wildcards that stand for any number of characters. So, pu*lea* gave me relevant results like puhlease and puuuleazz and irrelevant ones like purpleleaf. Sorting through the results (thanks to Becky Hunt for doing the table for me), we've got: Examples US UK puh puh-leaze, puhleese, puhleez 168 39 pul puleeze, pulease, puleasssse 30 8 puu puulease, puuulleeeeezzz 7 0 pu- pu-lease, pu-leeze 6 0 p-l p-lease, p-leeease 0 3 pur purlease, purleese, purleeze 0 25 The US column has a lot more of these spellings. That's to be expected—that 'dismissal' usage is more common in AmE and so the re-spelling of it will be too. But what's super-interesting is the contrast between the preferred AmE use of puh or pu to represent the first syllable versus the BrE-only use of pur. Echoes of a previous post! The one where I had discovered that when Americans say "uh" on British television, it gets close-captioned as "er" because an r after a vowel in English-English spelling does not signal the /r/ sound, but rather a kind of vowel quality. Purlease in BrE spelling does not indicate a different pronunciation from puhlease: it represents one way that a non-rhotic (non-/r/-pronouncing) speaker can represent the schwa sound that's been inserted in the elongated word. Not what I thought I'd discover when I started looking for please spellings, so a fun little extra for me! (And now you too!) Full Article politeness pronunciation spelling
l NYT Spelling Bee: an archive of disallowed BrE words By separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com Published On :: Tue, 11 Apr 2023 00:34:00 +0000 Twitter has been my main internet stomping ground since 2009, but I've been withdrawing my labo(u)r from it since October, when it became much more volatile for some reason. The New York Times Spelling Bee has been my morning-coffee activity for some of those years, and since November 2020 I've been jokingly tweeting the BrE words that it hasn't accepted. These go in a thread of posts that always start: Perfectly Common BrE Words the @NYTimesGames Spelling Bee Has Denied Me: An Occasional SeriesTwitter has really degraded this week, which is making me feel a bit sad that perhaps that thread will have to die. (I'm also sad that the thread has frayed along the way—it's very difficult to read it all the way to the beginning because it splits here and there.) So as a clearly procrastinatory measure, I'm putting the list of "perfectly common BrE words" here, with a little more explanation than they tended to get on Twitter.For those who don't know the Bee: it's an anagram game where one must use the middle letter. The twist—and what makes it a superior anagram game—is that you can use any of the letters as many times as you like. Here's what it looked like on the 5th of April when I hadn't yet got to Genius level. (My goal every day is 'make it to Genius before breakfast'. It's nice to be called 'Genius' before you've started work.) The game, of course, has its own word list, which is suitably American for its New York Times home. Still, some not-usually-AmE words are playable, like FLATMATE, LORRY and PRAM. But many words that are part of my everyday vocabulary in England are not playable. And non-AmE spellings are generally not playable. There's been a lot of attention to AmE words that (orig. AmE) stump non-American players in Wordle. (Here's Cambridge Dictionary's 2022 Word of the Year post, which covers some—and includes a video in which I talk about why HOMER was a great choice for Word of the Year.) Not as much attention has been paid to the Spelling Bee, which you need to subscribe to. I'm sure British players have their own (mental) lists of American words they've had to learn in order to get "Queen Bee" status (finding all the day's words) in the game. If you're one of them, do use the comments to tell us about those weird words.So, after all that preamble, here are the "Perfectly Common BrE Words the @NYTimesGames Spelling Bee Has Denied Me" words in alphabetical order, with translations or links to other blog posts. But first, a bit more preamble. The disclaimers! Words in the puzzle must be at least four letters long, so some of these are suffixed forms for which the three-letter base word was unplayable. If there's an -ED form but not an -ING form (etc.), that'll be because the other one's letters weren't in the puzzle. Some of these would not have been allowable—regardless of their dialectal provenance—on the basis that they are "naughty" words. I include them anyway. I have checked questionable cases against the GloWbE corpus to ensure that the word really is more common in BrE than AmE.Some are Irish or Australian by origin, but they are still more common in BrE than in AmE.Sometimes my spelling is a bit liberal here. If I could find one British dictionary that allowed me the word with the given spelling, I included it. Also the phrase "perfectly common" is not meant to be taken too seriously!These words were not playable at the time when I tried to play them. The word list may have changed and some of them may be playable now. Red ones are ones that have been unsuccessfully played/tweeted about since I first started this blog list. Green ones have been added to the blog since the original post, but were tweeted-about earlier than that—I just missed them in the tangled Twitter threads when I was writing the blog post. ABATTOIR AmE slaughterhouseAGGRO aggression, aggressive behavio[u]rAITCH the letter. Less need to spell it as a word in AmE. See this old post.ANAEMIA / ANAEMIC AmE anemia/anemicANNEXE minority spelling in BrE; usually, as in AmE, it's annexAPNOEA AmE apneaAPPAL AmE appall; old post on double LsARDOUR old post on -or/-ourARGYBARGY this is a bit of a joke entry because it's usually spelled/spelt ARGY-BARGY (a loud argument), but the Squeeze album has no hyphen. ARMOUR -or/-ourBALLACHE something annoying or tedious (usually hyphenated, but some dictionaries include the closed-up version)BIBBED I don't know why this shows up more in BrE data, but it does, just meaning 'wearing a bib'BINMAN / BINMEN AmE garbage man (among other terms); old post on binBINT derogatory term for a womanBITTY having lots of unconnected parts, often leaving one feeling unsatisfied; for example, this blog post is a bit bittyBLAG covered in this old postBLUB / BLUBBING to sob (= general English blubbering)BOAK retch, vomit, throw up a bit in the mouth. That was gross. Sorry.BOBBLY having bobbles BOBBY I think this one might be playable now. Informal term for police officer. In AmE, found in bobby pins. BODGE / BODGED make or fix something badlyBOFFIN see this old postBOLLOCK / BOLLOCKED reprimand severelyBOLLOX This one's more common in Irish English than BrE. To screw something up.BOKE see BOAK BONCE the head (informal)BOYO a boy/man (Welsh informal)BRILL short for brilliant, meaning 'excellent'; also a kind of European flatfishBROLLY umbrella (informal)BUNG / BUNGING to put (something) (somewhere) quickly/carelessly. People cooking on television are always bunging things in the oven. BUTTY see this old postCAFF a café, but typically used of the kind that is analogous to an AmE diner (that is to say a café is not as fancy in BrE as it would be in AmE)CAWL a soupy Welsh dish (recipe); also a kind of basketCEILIDH a Scottish social dance (event)CHANNELLED post on double LsCHAPPIE a chap (man)CHAV / CHAVVY see this old post and/or this oneCHICANE a road arrangement meant to slow drivers down; see this old postCHILLI see this old postCHIMENEA / CHIMINEA the 'e' spelling is considered etymologically "correct" but the 'i' spelling seems to be more common in UK; I think these kinds of outdoor fireplaces are just more trendy in UK than in US?CHIPPIE alternative spelling of chippy, informal for a (fish and) chip shop"cholla" at a UK online supermarketCHOC chocolate (informal, countable)CHOLLA a spelling of challah (the bread) CLAG mud; more common is claggy for 'having a mud-like consistency'COLOUR -or/-ourCONNEXION this is a very outdated spelling of connection. Not actually used in UK these days, but wouldn't it be nice to be able to play it?COOTCH a hiding place, a shed or similar (from Welsh cwtch)COUNCILLOR post on double LsCRAIC it's really an Irish one (a 'good time'), but it qualifies here because it's used more in BrE than AmE (and understood pretty universally in UK)CRIM criminalCUTTY short (in some UK dialects)DADO as in dado rail, what's often called a chair rail in AmE (here's a picture)DEFENCE AmE defenseDEMOB /DEMOBBED de-mobilize(d); that is, released from the (BrE) armed forces / (AmE) militaryDENE a valley (esp. a narrow, wooded one) or a low sand dune near the sea (regional)DEVILLED post on double LsDIALLING post on double LsDIDDY small (dialectal); see this old postDOBBED / DOBBING actually Australian, dob = to inform on someone; see this old post on the BrE equivalent grass (someone) upDODDLE it's a doddle = (orig. AmE) it's a piece of cake (very easy)DOOLALLY out of one's mindEQUALLED post on double LsFAFF / FAFFING one of the most useful BrE words. See this old post. FARL a kind of (AmE) quick bread, usually cut into triangles; can be made of various things, but here's a recipe for a common kind, the potato farlFAVOUR -or/-ourFILMIC cinematic, relating to filmFITMENT = AmE fixture, i.e. a furnishing that is fit(ted) in placeFLANNELETTE = AmE flannel old post on flannelsFLAVOUR -or/-ourFLAVOURFUL -or/-ourFOETAL AmE (and BrE medical) fetalFOOTMAN a servant or (formerly soldier (of a particular rank)FUELLED post on double LsFULFIL post on double LsGADGIE / GADGE guy, man, boy (regional)GAMMON this post covers the meat meaning, but lately it's also used as an insult for Brexiteers and their political similarsGAMMY (of a body part) not working well; e.g., I have a gammy kneeGANNET a type of sea bird, but also BrE slang for a greedy personGAOL now less common spelling for jailGIBBET gallows; to hang (a person) [not really in current use]GIGGED / GIGGING to perform at a gig [playable as of May 2023]GILET covered at this clothing post and also at this pronunciation postGIPPING form of gip, a synonym of BOAK (see above)GITE French, but used in English for a type of holiday/vacation cottageGOBBED / GOBBING form of gob, which as a noun means 'mouth', but as a verb means 'spit'GOBBIN waste material from a mineGOBBY mouthyGOOLY (more often GOOLIE, GOOLEY) a testicle (informal, see GDoS)getting gunged/slimedGUNGE any unpleasant soft or slimy substance; also used as a verb for having such stuff poured over one's head on a children's show (= AmE slime)GURN / GURNING see this old postHAITCH = AITCH, but pronounced differently See this old post.HALLO old-fashioned hello HENCH strong, fit (like a weightlifter)HOLDALL a duffel bag or similar heavy-duty bag; often spelled with a hyphen (hold-all), but at least some places don't. HOOPOE a kind of bird (mostly African), which sometimes makes it to EnglandHOGMANAY it is a proper noun, but I wanted to include it anywayHOICK / HOIK to lift/pull abruptlyHOTCHPOTCH AmE hodgepodgeINNIT invariant tag question: isn't it? INVIGILATING AmE proctoring; old postJAMMY lucky; old post KIRK church (Scotland)KIPPING form of kip, to take a napLAIRY (esp. of a person) unpleasantly loud, garish LAMBING form of to lamb, give birth to lambs. Often heard in lambing time or lambing seasonLAMPED form of to lamp, to hit a person very hardLARKING form of to lark, 'to behave in a silly way for fun'LAYBY AmE turnout (and other synonyms/regional terms); a place where a car can move out of the flow of traffic (usually has a hyphen lay-by, but I found one dictionary that doesn't require it)LIDO an outdoor public swimming pool; there's some debate about how to pronounce it LILO a blow-up mattress for floating on in a poolLINO short for linoleumLOLLY lollipop or (AmE) popsicle (especially in ice lolly)LOVAGE a(n) herb that Americans don't see very often [has been added! Played successfully on 3 May 2023]LUPIN AmE lupine, a flowerLURGI / LURGY see this old postMEDIAEVAL the less common spelling of medievalMILLIARD (no longer really used) a thousand million, i.e. a billion MILORD address term for a noblemanMINGE a woman's pubic hair/area (not flattering) MINGING foul, bad smelling, ugly (rhymes with singing!)MODELLED post on double LsMOGGY a cat (informal)MOOB man boobMOULT AmE molt (related to -or/-our)MOZZIE mosquitoMUPPET in its lower-case BrE sense: 'idiot; incompetent person'NAFF this has come up in posts about 'untranslatables' and about a study that identified common BrE words Americans don't knowNAPPY AmE diaperNAVVY a manual labo(u)rer (old-fashioned)NEEP Scottish English for what the English call a swede and what Americans call a rutabaga (old post on the latter two)NELLY in the BrE phrase not on your nelly (= AmE not on your life)NIFFY unpleasant-smellingNOBBLE to unfairly influence an outcome; steal NOBBLY alternative spelling of knobbly (which is more common in both AmE & BrE)NONCY adjective related to nonce (sex offender, p[a]edophile) NOWT nothing (dialectal)ODOUR -or/-ourOFFENCE AmE offenseOFFIE short for BrE off-licence; AmE liquor store (discussed a little in this old post) ORACY the speaking version of literacy; in US education, it's called oralityPACY having a good or exciting pace (e.g. a pacy whodunnit)PAEDO short for pa(e)dophilePANTO see this postPAPPED / PAPPING from pap, to take paparazzi picturesPARLOUR -or/-ourPARP a honking noisePEDALLED post on double LsPELMET another one from the study that identified common BrE words Americans don't knowPENG slang for 'excellent' PIEMAN / PIEMEN this one is usually two words (pie man), but I was able to find a dictionary that allowed it as a single word, so I added it to the listPIPPED / PIPPING pip = to defeat by a small amount; often heard in to be pipped at the post PITTA another spelling for pita, more in line with the BrE pronunciation of the wordPLAICE another one from the study that identified common BrE words Americans don't knowPLUMMY see this postPODGY chubbyPOMMY another Australian one, but English people know it because it's an insult directed at them, often in the phrase pommy bastardPONCE / PONCY see this postPONGING horrible-smellingPOOED / POOING see this post for the poo versus poop storyPOOTLE to travel along at a leisurely speedPOPPADOM / POPPADUM anything to do with Indian food is going to be found more in UK than USPORRIDGY like porridge, which in AmE is oatmealPUFFA full form: puffa jacket; a kind of quilted jacket; it is a trademark, but used broadly; I did find it in one dictionary with a lower-case pPUNNET see this old postRAILCARD you buy one and it gives you discounts on train ticketsRANCOUR -or/-ourRUMOUR -or/-ourTANNOY AmE loudspeaker, public address system (originally a trademark, but now used generically)TARTY dressed (etc.) in a provocative mannerTELLY (orig.) AmE tvTENCH a Eurasian fishTHALI another Indian menu word THICKO stupid personTIDDY small (dialectal) TIFFIN usually referring to chocolate tiffin (recipe)TINNING AmE canningTITBIT see this postTITCH a small person TIZZ = tizzy (to be in a tizz[y])TOFF an upper-class person (not a compliment)TOMBOLA see this postTOTTED / TOTTING see this post TOTTY an objectifying term for (usually) a womanTRUG a kind of basket; these days, often a handled rubber container TUPPENCE two penceTWIGGED, TWIGGING form of twig 'to catch on, understand'UNEQUALLED post on double LsUNVETTED related to my 2008 Word of the Year VALOUR -or/-ourVIVA an oral exam (short for viva voce)WANK / WANKING my original Word of the Year (2006!)WEEING AmE peeingWELLIE / WELLY a (BrE) wellington boot / (AmE) rubber bootWHIN a plant (=furze, gorse)WHINGE AmE whine (complain)WILLIE / WILLY penisWOAD a plant used to make blue dyeWOLD a clear, upland area (mostly in place names now)WOOLLEN post on double LsYOBBO / YOBBY hooligan / hooliganishYODELLED post on double Ls Full Article games spelling
l baggage and luggage By separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com Published On :: Mon, 01 May 2023 23:00:00 +0000 results of a Google search for "luggage"I'm reading Ingrid Paulsen's The emergence of American English as a discursive variety (it's open-access, so you can read it in PDF. But note: it is definitely an academic book). The book is essentially about when American English became "American English". If you subscribe to my newsletter (plug, plug), you'll probably read more about the book at some point in future. Today, I'm just mentioning it because it's inspired me to think more about baggage and luggage. Paulsen searched for this pair of words (among other things!) in 19th-century newspapers in order to find cases of people writing about American versus British English. I wondered if people still perceive a transatlantic difference here. These words got a boost in the 1800s thanks to the invention of rail travel and the need for a place to put one's stuff on them. Hence the invention, and the naming, of the (AmE) baggage car or (BrE) luggage van, which is one of the contexts Paulsen discusses. It's also been one of my Twitter Differences of the Day:I can't remember the last time I checked my bags on a train journey, so I haven't run into people calling anything a baggage car or luggage van lately. I have to believe that they were more common in the US (where one could go greater distances by rail/train), since baggage car shows up whole a lot more in American books than either term shows up in British books:click to embiggenBut what about the words baggage and luggage themselves? How did they get to be a "difference" and are they still a "difference"? Let's start with the history. This appears to be one of those differences that came about because English had two words that drifted in different ways in the two places—with more drifting in the UK. The Oxford English Dictionary hasn't fully updated its entries for these words since the dictionary was first published, but we can assume that they got the past fairly correct. Here are the first senses the OED gives for each word:baggage The collection of property in packages that one takes along with him on a journey; portable property; luggage. (Now rarely used in Great Britain for ordinary ‘luggage’ carried in the hand or taken with one by public conveyance; but the regular term in U.S.) [1885]luggage In early use: What has to be lugged about; inconveniently heavy baggage (obsolete). Also, the baggage of an army. Now, in Great Britain, the ordinary word for: The baggage belonging to a traveller or passenger, esp. by a public conveyance. [1903]I'd say that the original senses feel "right" for me as an AmE speaker—that luggage is big/heavy enough to be "lugged", but baggage can be more varied. But I am even more likely to use luggage for empty suitcases. I buy new luggage for a trip. A 1997 draft addition to the OED luggage entry says this 'suitcases' meaning dates to the early 20th century.It only becomes baggage when I fill it up with stuff and give it to someone else to put onto a train or plane. If I handle it myself, I wouldn't call it baggage. I'd call it 'my bags' or 'my suitcases' or 'my stuff'.I've just asked my English spouse how he'd differentiate the two words:Him: Baggage sounds old-fashioned, I probably wouldn't use it.Me: But there's [BrE] baggage reclaim [=AmE baggage claim] at the airport.Him: That's true...A backpack or a box can be baggage, but it can't be luggage. Luggage has to be cases. Other than his claim about old-fashionedness, we're pretty much on the same page. And when I look for these things in the GloWbE corpus, they don't show a clear British-versus-American profile: There is more British usage of both terms in that corpus. Maybe this can be attributed to the fact that British people get a lot more (BrE) holiday / (AmE) vacation time than Americans get, so their websites have more discussion of buying/packing/losing luggage or baggage?In books, it looks like AmE & BrE are getting to be more similar in how they use luggage:So, it doesn't look like the words themselves are good markers of Americanness/Britishness these days. But expressions containing these words can be. We've already seen baggage car/luggage van and baggage (re)claim. There are others.In BrE, hand luggage is essentially the same as AmE carry-on (bag). Or at least it was. I think the import of carry-on might be influencing its meaning. Spouse says he makes a distinction: you put hand luggage under the seat in front of you, carry-ons in the overhead bin. But, his intuition notwithstanding, shop for hand luggage and you'll be shown carry-ons. Baggage carousel is marked by the OED (2003) as 'originally and chiefly North American', but it's well used in BrE, as is luggage carousel. Luggage locker is BrE for the kinds of lockers that one might find in a train station (or also BrE rail[way] station) or (AmE) bus/(BrE) coach station. I think in AmE, we'd just call them lockers.Left luggage is BrE for the kind of place where you pay someone to keep your bags for you for a while. AmE would call that luggage storage, and you find that expression in BrE too. Hold luggage (or hold baggage) is BrE for AmE checked bags on a plane. (But checked baggage is found in both.)Plenty of other luggage/baggage collocations are the same. We all use luggage racks and baggage handlers, and baggage allowance, among other things.As for metaphorical baggage—emotional baggage and the like, this usage is common to both countries. The OED added a draft definition for it in 2007: figurative. Beliefs, knowledge, experiences, or habits conceived of as something one carries around; (in later use) esp. characteristics of this type which are considered undesirable or inappropriate in a new situation. Frequently with modifying word, as cultural baggage, emotional baggage, intellectual baggage, etc. Their first citation for it comes from 1886 in the (London) Times in the phrase intellectual baggage (followed by a US citation in 1922). Cultural baggage shows up in 1967 in Canada, and emotional baggage in 1997 from a UK author. Their first citation for just plain (metaphorical) baggage is from an American author in 1986 (though the OED notes their source as the UK edition of the book). P.S. If this post interested you, you might also like the post on purses and bagsP.P.S. [22 Sept 2023] Greg [no relation] Murphy sent me this photo, showing Amtrak [AmE] covering all the bases. Full Article containers transport(ation)
l sir, miss (at school) By separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com Published On :: Sat, 19 Aug 2023 23:14:00 +0000 In my last newsletter, I reacted to this news story:The article is about addressing teachers as sir or miss, which happens in American schools too (I'm sure there's a lot of variation in that across schools and regions). But in the newsletter I mentioned BrE referential use of the words when talking about the teacher (rather than talking to the teacher). I said: "I’m often taken aback when my child (like any ordinary English child) refers to her teachers as Sir and Miss"—which she often does.My former colleague David replied to say that he found this odd, since as "a moderately ordinary English child in the north of England in the 1960s," he addressed his (all male) teachers as Sir, but would refer to them by name or description (e.g., our English teacher). He concluded that "referring to teachers as Sir and Miss may be either more recent or more southern."While the usage may have been new in the 1960s, it definitely existed then, apparently even in the north.The OED's first citation for that use of Sir is from 1955 in a novel by Edward Blishen, who hailed from London: "‘The cane,’ said Sims vaguely. ‘Sir can't,’ said Pottell...’" A few other quotations can be seen in the OED snippet below (note their nice new layout!) On to Miss. The first referring-to-(not addressing)-a-teacher citation for Miss is from 1968 in a book by an author from Salford (in the northwest). (You'll spot another Miss example from that book in the Sir examples above. I've reported the error.)Did Miss really only appear a decade after referential Sir? I doubt it. We have to rely on written records, usually published ones, and there aren't a lot of written records in the voice of schoolchildren. Fiction helps, but it has its biases and gaps. And then, of course, there was the 1967 British film To Sir, with Love, in which Sir is used as if it is the name of the teacher played by Sidney Poitier. Is it a term of address there, or referential? Well, the title always seemed weird to me—certainly not a way I'd address a package. This Sir seems halfway between address and reference. We could label packages with the second-person pronouns that we usually used to address people, i.e., "To you", but we tend to use the third person: "To David". Rather than addressing the recipient, it seems to be announcing the recipient. This past academic year, for the first time, I was addressed as Miss a fair amount (no name, just Miss). This came from a new student who apparently was carrying over school habits to university, and so my colleagues were all Miss as well. I thought often about saying something about it to the student, but I also thought: I know what they mean, so why bother? I get to correct people enough in my job, I don't have to take every opportunity to do so and certainly don't need to make a big deal out of what I'm called. (Just don't call me late for dinner.) One picks one's pedantic battles. It's not a million miles from how I feel about my students calling a lecture or seminar a lesson, which I've written about back here.If you're interested, here's more I've written on:titles and address terms in higher educationthe structure of school education Full Article education names politeness
l mobility By separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com Published On :: Sun, 26 Nov 2023 01:57:00 +0000 Smylers got in touch recently with this observation:I found myself being surprised by the word “mobility”, and was wondering if there's a BrE/AmE difference? Enterprise Rent-a-Car emailed to say they're introducing a new brand: Enterprise Mobility. That made me think of vehicles adapted for wheelchair users, or those who otherwise have limited personal mobility. But apparently it's the overall brand for various transport services; “mobility” is being used to mean “travelling in a vehicle”, rather than “travelling on foot”.There's no reason why the unqualified word should have one or the other meaning. But to my British brain, “mobility” makes me think of “mobility scooters” or “mobility aids” — such as those provided by Mobility People, whom you linked to in 2008:It's an interesting one. The word mobility seems a bit more common in BrE in the the News on the Web corpus: you find about 11 mobility per million words in the US, versus about 13 per million in the UK. Those British uses tend to relate to a couple of domains: physical (dis)ability and social class.It's not that Americans don't use mobility in that way. You can definitely find phrases like mobility scooter (as can be seen at this US electric wheelchair retailer) in AmE. (Though when I asked my brother what those things are called, he didn't use the word mobility, just scooter.) Nevertheless, this (dis)ability-related use of mobility used a lot more in BrE:The (dis)ability-related uses of mobility really take off in this corpus after 2021. For instance, mobility issues (which could refer to different kinds of mobility, but mostly doesn't) had only 0.30 per million (across countries) in 2019, but 0.85 per million in 2022. Both AmE and BrE use mobility for metaphorical movement, as in social mobility. Why so much more talk of social mobility in the UK? Because the Tory government had appointed a "Social Mobility Tsar" during the period that this corpus was collected. (The hits for tsar in BrE are similarly out-of-whack.) If instead of asking the corpus for particular phrases like these and instead ask it to tell us which combinations with mobility are statistically "most American" and "most British", the results are interesting. On the left are the "most American" ones*—the greener, the more not-British they are. And vice versa on the right. *This doesn't mean that these are the most common phrases with mobility in either country. And it doesn't mean that the other country doesn't use these phrases. It means that one country uses them surprisingly more than the other.mobility + nounNoun + mobilityAdjective + mobilityThe thing to notice here is how much longer the green lists are on the American side of the second two charts, where mobility is modified by another word. AmE writers seem to have more kinds of mobility than BrE writers do. Where you see something like this, it's reasonable to suspect that more phrases = more meanings, or at least more domains in which the word is used. Sure enough, the BrE side is almost entirely characterized by phrases used in talking about physical (dis)ability and social mobility. (Green Mobility there refers to an electric car [BrE] hire /[AmE] rental company in continental Europe.) But the AmE side has other themes coming through: family mobility is about the Massachusetts Work and Family Mobility Act, which is about what kind of paperwork you need to get a (AmE) driver's/(BrE) driving licen{c/s}e. Electrophoretic mobility refers to a chemistry thing that I'm not going to try to understand. Mobility wing mostly refers to sections (Air Mobility Wings) of the US Air Force Reserve. And so forth.Some of the uses, for example, commercial mobility, refer to means of transport(ation), and that's the use that Enterprise is picking up on in their branding. So there we go! It does look like branding that would work better in the US than the UK. Thanks, Smylers! Full Article bureaucracy disability transport(ation)