of

All Souls Night (Part 27 of 31)

.




 

 

CONTINUED TOMORROW. (For those who came in late: The first sentence was posted here on October 1 and a new sentence was posted every day thereafter.)

 

Above: Every Autumn, I write a Halloween story, write it out on leaves (one word per leaf), photograph the leaves, and then leave them where.I found them. The story is then serialized, starting on October 1 and concluding on the 31st--All Souls Day.

 

*

 

 




of

All Souls Night (Part 28 of 31)

.


 




 

 

CONTINUED TOMORROW. (For those who came in late: The first sentence was posted here on October 1 and a new sentence was posted every day thereafter.)

 

Above: Every Autumn, I write a Halloween story, write it out on leaves (one word per leaf), photograph the leaves, and then leave them where.I found them. The story is then serialized, starting on October 1 and concluding on the 31st--All Souls Day.

 

*

 




of

All Souls Night (Part 29 of 31)

.






 

 

 

CONTINUED TOMORROW. (For those who came in late: The first sentence was posted here on October 1 and a new sentence was posted every day thereafter.)

 

Above: Every Autumn, I write a Halloween story, write it out on leaves (one word per leaf), photograph the leaves, and then leave them where.I found them. The story is then serialized, starting on October 1 and concluding on the 31st--All Souls Day.

 

*

 




of

All Souls Night (Part 30 of 31)

.

 




 


 

CONTINUED TOMORROW. (For those who came in late: The first sentence was posted here on October 1 and a new sentence was posted every day thereafter, to make a complete story.)

 

Above: Every Autumn, I write a Halloween story, write it out on leaves (one word per leaf), photograph the leaves, and then leave them where.I found them. The story is then serialized, starting on October 1 and concluding on the 31st--All Souls Day.

 

*

 

 




of

One-Day E-Book Sale of Vacuum Flowers

 .



Once again, one of my e-books will briefly be on sale! Vacuum Flowers will be available in the US for only $1.99. Here's the news from Open Road Media:

Hello,

We are pleased to let you know that the following ebook(s) will be featured in price promotions soon.

ISBN13TitleAuthorPromo TypeCountryStart DateEnd DatePromo Price
9781504036504Vacuum FlowersSwanwick, MichaelORM - Portalist NLUS2024-11-132024-11-13$1.99



Open Road will promote the feature via social media. We hope you can share the deal with your network as well. You can subscribe to the newsletters at the links below so that you will get the direct link to the deal on the day that it appears.

NewsletterLink
  Early Bird Books    Subscribe Now  
The LineupSubscribe Now
The PortalistSubscribe Now
Murder & MayhemSubscribe Now
A Love So TrueSubscribe Now
The ArchiveSubscribe Now
The ReaderSubscribe Now



Please let us know if you have any questions. We are thrilled to be part of this promotion; hope you are too!

Best,
The Open Road Editorial Team


And because you've probably wondered . . .

I've been asked this many times, but the answer is no: I don't have a nude drawing of Gardner Dozois hanging in my living room. It's in the upstairs hallway. Anyway, he's wearing a sheet, so much of him is covered.

Robert Walters posed Gardner as the evil genius Jonaman for one of the illos (back when SF magazines had illustrations) that went with the serialization of Vacuum Flowers in Asimov's, way back when.

It's not the sightliest picture. But it is treasured.


*











of

what kind of vision

Today on Married To The Sea: what kind of vision


This RSS feed is brought to you by Drew and Natalie's podcast Garbage Brain University. Our new series Everything Is Real explores the world of cryptids, aliens, quantum physics, the occult, and more. If you use this RSS feed, please consider supporting us by becoming a patron. Patronage includes membership to our private Discord server and other bonus material non-patrons never see!








of

This Plan is Full of Hot Air




of

It Only Has Some of The Bells and Whistles

Along with the pink helmet and white basket, the bike gang had serious questions about granting him membership.

~NSHA




of

USC football placed on 1 year of probation, fined for coaching staff violations

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




of

Bears fire OC Shane Waldron, how much of it is on Caleb Williams? | First Things First

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.




of

Kyler Murray, Brock Purdy move up, Caleb Williams on bottom of Mahomes Mountain | First Things First

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.




of

Alabama's Ryan Williams on Travis Hunter winning Biletnikoff: 'I can't let him do that'

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.




of

C.J. Stroud tops the list of best-selling NFL jerseys midway through 2024 season

Three quarterbacks lead the way in top NFL jerseys sales so far this season.




of

College Football Playoff Rankings: Oregon, Ohio State on top; Alabama enters top 10

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!




of

Tom Brady’s 3 Stars of Week 10: Lamar Jackson, Ja'Marr Chase, Leo Chenal | DIGITAL EXCLUSIVE

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.




of

Tom Brady's 3 Stars of Week 10, including Ravens' Lamar Jackson

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.




of

College Football Playoff rankings takeaways: Colorado's path, Indiana undervalued

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.




of

UK-to-US Word of the Year 2022: fit

Having let the year run its course, I'm now am ready to declare the Separated by a Common Language Words of the Year for 2022. As ever, there are two categories: US-to-UK and UK-to-US.  To be a SbaCL WoTY, the word just needs to have been noticeable in some way that year in the other country. 

For past WotYs, see here. And now...

The 2022 UK-to-US Word of the Year is: fit

Now, of course the word fit is general English when we use it in contexts like The shoes fit or I'm going to get fit this year. But those fits are not my UK-to-US Word of the Year. The fit I'm talking about is the informal British usage that means 'attractive, sexy'. A close (orig.) AmE synonym is hot

Ben Yagoda, on his Not One-Off Britishisms blog, first noticed this sense of fit in an American context back in 2013, but it seems to have taken hold in the US in the past couple of years. I assume this is due to the international popularity of the British television (BrE) programme/(AmE) show Love Island

Here's a clear example of this sense of fit from another UK reality series, Made in Chelsea.*


I like that video just because it's clearly fit meaning 'hot' rather than 'healthy and/or muscular', but if you'd like to hear it said on Love Island, then you can hear it here at 1:38 (though the YouTube automatic subtitling mishears it as fair).

 

This use of the word is new enough to the US that it's included in glossaries for American Love Island fans, like this one and this one. The Oxford English Dictionary added it in 2001:

  British slang. Sexually attractive, good-looking.

1985   Observer 28 Apr. 45/1   ‘Better 'en that bird you blagged last night.’ ‘F—— off! She was fit.’
1993   V. Headley Excess iv. 21   ‘So wait; dat fit brown girl who live by de church ah nuh your t'ing?!’ he asked eyebrows raised.
1999   FHM June (Best of Bar Room Jokes & True Stories Suppl.) 21/1   My first night there, I got arseholed, hit the jackpot and retired with my fit flatmate to her room.
2000   Gloucester Citizen (Nexis) 14 Feb. 11   I would choose Gillian Anderson from the X-Files, because she's dead fit.

Green's Dictionary of Slang has one 19th-century example, but notes that "(later 20C+ use is chiefly UK black)." 

I can't give statistics on how often this fit is use in the US because (a) the word has many other common meanings, making it very difficult to search for in corpora, and (b) this particular meaning is not likely to make it into print all that often. (Slang is like that.) Ben Yagoda considers fit "still an outlier" in AmE. But Ben's probably not in the right demographic for hearing it. 

An anonymous blog reader nominated it, and it struck me as apt for 2022—the popularity of "Love Island UK" (as it's called in the US) was hard to miss on my visit to the US this summer. I got to hear my brother (whose [AmE] college-student daughter loves the show) imitating the contestants, throwing in words like fit. I can easily find young US people using and discussing 'sexy' fit on social media (though I won't share their examples here because those young people didn't ask for the attention). And it made it onto Saturday Night Live, in a sketch about Love Island. You can hear proper fit at 1:11:




So Happy New Year to you! I wrote this post after watching the fireworks (on tv) at midnight. Now I'm (BrE humorous) off to Bedfordshire, so I'll leave the other WotY for tomorrow. Stay tuned for the US-to-UK WotY! 


*Update: I'm told that the Made in Chelsea video does not play in the US. Here's a quick transcript of the relevant bit:

Scene: Two male cast members on a sofa, commenting on this video shot of a female cast member:

M1: God, she's fit. 

M2: She is so hot.

M1:  So fit.

 




of

2022 US-to-UK Word of the Year: homer

Yesterday, I declared the UK-to-US SbaCL Word of the Year. You can read about it here

The US-to-UK one may be as controversial as it was the first time (a)round (in May). But here goes: 

2022's US-to-UK Word of the Year is: homer


Why? 
  • Because it is possibly the most talked-about Americanism in British social media this year.
  • Because if I chose the other finalist,* I'd get too many "that's not a word!" complaints.
  • Because it alludes a huge, wordy phenomenon of 2022.
That phenomenon is Wordle, the word game invented by a Welsh engineer in the US, an added transatlantic bonus. 

Homer was the Wordle solution on the 5th of May, setting off a lot of grumpiness on social media. The cartoonist Stephen Collins provides a good illustration of the depth of feeling on the matter on the part of many committed UK Wordlers:




So, this isn't a Word of the Year because British people have taken on the word to refer to baseball home runs. There is very little need to talk about baseball in Britain. It's US-to-UK Word of the Year because it was an Americanism talking point in Britain, demonstrating how separate our vocabularies can be.

But is it an Americanism? The thing is, British people do say homer for lots of other reasons. In various BrE dialects or jargons, it can be a homing pigeon, a (BrE) match played on the home (BrE) pitch in some sports, or "a job that a skilled worker, such as a house painter or a hairdresser[..], does for a private customer in the customer's home, especially when they do this in addition to their main job and without telling their employer or the tax authorities" (Cambridge Dictionary). It's also the name of an ancient Hebrew measurement. But none of these uses are as common in BrE as homer meaning 'home run' is in AmE, and so the word was definitely perceived as an Americanism by British Wordle players. 

Now, this choice isn't exactly original on my part. Cambridge Dictionary made homer their Word of the Year back in November. It's also been noted as one of the most Googled words of the year. But that's another reason why it feels right as the US-to-UK Word of the Year. It not only spiked high in their look-up statistics on the day, it continued to be looked up in their online dictionary for months after—perhaps because BrE speakers just can't stop talking/tweeting about it. Homer was again showing up in tweets about losing one's Wordle streak on 27 December, when the answer was the tricky HAVOC. (And I imagine it was showing up in the less searchable social media as well.)  It'll be interesting to see if it's still being put to these purposes next year, or if it'll have been forgotten. The chances that it'll be forgiven seem thin.

I do encourage you to have a look at Cambridge's Word of the Year site for more on this word, British–American linguistic relations and how Wordle's been affecting dictionary usage. 




*My other "finalist" was them's the breaks, as spoken by Boris Johnson in his resignation speech outside 10 Downing Street. I was sure in July that that would be my "Word" of the Year, but, two Prime Ministers later, this well and truly feels like ancient news now.




of

NYT Spelling Bee: an archive of disallowed BrE words

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 Series

Twitter 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 FLATMATELORRY 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 slaughterhouse

AGGRO aggression, aggressive behavio[u]r

AITCH  the letter. Less need to spell it as a word in AmE. See this old post.

ANAEMIA / ANAEMIC  AmE anemia/anemic

ANNEXE  minority spelling in BrE; usually, as in AmE, it's annex

APNOEA  AmE apnea

APPAL   AmE appall; old post on double Ls

ARDOUR   old post on -or/-our

ARGYBARGY 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/-our

BALLACHE   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 bin

BINT  derogatory term for a woman

BITTY having lots of unconnected parts, often leaving one feeling unsatisfied; for example, this blog post is a bit bitty

BLAG covered in this old post

BLUB / 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 badly

BOFFIN  see this old post

BOLLOCK / BOLLOCKED  reprimand severely

BOLLOX  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 flatfish

BROLLY  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 post

CAFF  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 basket

CEILIDH  a Scottish social dance (event)

CHANNELLED   post on double Ls

CHAPPIE  a chap (man)

CHAV / CHAVVY  see this old post and/or this one

CHICANE  a road arrangement meant to slow drivers down; see this old post

CHILLI  see this old post

CHIMENEA / 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 supermarket
CHOC chocolate (informal, countable)

CHOLLA  a spelling of challah (the bread) 

CLAG  mud; more common is claggy for 'having a mud-like consistency'

COLOUR    -or/-our

CONNEXION 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 Ls

CRAIC 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  criminal

CUTTY  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 defense

DEMOB /DEMOBBED  de-mobilize(d); that is, released from the (BrE) armed forces / (AmE) military

DENE  a valley (esp. a narrow, wooded one) or a low sand dune near the sea (regional)

DEVILLED  post on double Ls

DIALLING  post on double Ls

DIDDY    small (dialectal); see this old post

DOBBED / DOBBING  actually Australian, dob = to inform on someone; see this old post on the BrE equivalent grass (someone) up

DODDLE  it's a doddle  = (orig. AmE) it's a piece of cake (very easy)

DOOLALLY  out of one's mind

EQUALLED   post on double Ls

FAFF / 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 farl

FAVOUR   -or/-our

FILMIC cinematic, relating to film

FITMENT = AmE fixture, i.e. a furnishing that is fit(ted) in place

FLANNELETTE = AmE flannel  old post on flannels

FLAVOUR   -or/-our

FLAVOURFUL   -or/-our

FOETAL AmE (and BrE medical) fetal

FOOTMAN a servant or (formerly soldier (of a particular rank)

FUELLED  post on double Ls

FULFIL   post on double Ls

GADGIE / 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 similars

GAMMY  (of a body part) not working well; e.g., I have a gammy knee

GANNET a type of sea bird, but also BrE slang for a greedy person

GAOL  now less common spelling for jail

GIBBET  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 post

GIPPING form of gip, a synonym of BOAK (see above)

GITE French, but used in English for a type of holiday/vacation cottage

GOBBED / GOBBING  form of gob, which as a noun means 'mouth', but as a verb means 'spit'

GOBBIN waste material from a mine

GOBBY mouthy

GOOLY (more often GOOLIE, GOOLEY) a testicle (informal, see GDoS)

getting gunged/slimed
GUNGE  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 post

HAITCH  = 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 England

HOGMANAY it is a proper noun, but I wanted to include it anyway

HOICK / HOIK  to lift/pull abruptly

HOTCHPOTCH  AmE hodgepodge

INNIT invariant tag question: isn't it

INVIGILATING AmE proctoring; old post

JAMMY  lucky; old post 

KIRK  church (Scotland)

KIPPING  form of kip, to take a nap

LAIRY  (esp. of a person) unpleasantly loud, garish 

LAMBING  form of to lamb, give birth to lambs. Often heard in lambing time or lambing season

LAMPED  form of to lamp, to hit a person very hard

LARKING  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 pool

LINO  short for linoleum

LOLLY  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 flower

LURGI / LURGY  see this old post

MEDIAEVAL  the less common spelling of medieval

MILLIARD  (no longer really used) a thousand million, i.e. a billion 

MILORD address term for a nobleman

MINGE  a woman's pubic hair/area (not flattering) 

MINGING  foul, bad smelling, ugly (rhymes with singing!)

MODELLED  post on double Ls

MOGGY  a cat (informal)

MOOB  man boob

MOULT    AmE molt (related to  -or/-our)

MOZZIE  mosquito

MUPPET 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 know

NAPPY AmE diaper

NAVVY  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-smelling

NOBBLE  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/-our

OFFENCE  AmE offense

OFFIE  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 orality

PACY  having a good or exciting pace (e.g. a pacy whodunnit)

PAEDO  short for pa(e)dophile

PANTO see this post

PAPPED / PAPPING  from pap, to take paparazzi pictures

PARLOUR    -or/-our

PARP  a honking noise

PEDALLED   post on double Ls

PELMET  another one from the study that identified common BrE words Americans don't know

PENG  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 list

PIPPED / 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 word

PLAICE another one from the study that identified common BrE words Americans don't know

PLUMMY  see this post

PODGY  chubby

POMMY another Australian one, but English people know it because it's an insult directed at them, often in the phrase pommy bastard

PONCE / PONCY  see this post

PONGING horrible-smelling

POOED / POOING  see this post for the poo versus poop story

POOTLE to travel along at a leisurely speed

POPPADOM / POPPADUM anything to do with Indian food is going to be found more in UK than US

PORRIDGY  like porridge, which in AmE is oatmeal

PUFFA 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 p

PUNNET  see this old post

RAILCARD  you buy one and it gives you discounts on train tickets

RANCOUR    -or/-our

RUMOUR     -or/-our

TANNOY  AmE loudspeaker, public address system  (originally a trademark, but now used generically)

TARTY dressed (etc.) in a provocative manner

TELLY  (orig.) AmE tv

TENCH a Eurasian fish

THALI  another Indian menu word 

THICKO  stupid person

TIDDY  small (dialectal) 

TIFFIN  usually referring to chocolate tiffin (recipe)

TINNING  AmE canning

TITBIT see this post

TITCH  a small person 

TIZZ = tizzy (to be in a tizz[y])

TOFF  an upper-class person (not a compliment)

TOMBOLA  see this post

TOTTED / TOTTING  see this post 

TOTTY  an objectifying term for (usually) a woman

TRUG  a kind of basket; these days, often a handled rubber container  

TUPPENCE  two pence

TWIGGED, TWIGGING  form of twig 'to catch on, understand'

UNEQUALLED   post on double Ls

UNVETTED related to my 2008 Word of the Year 

VALOUR   -or/-our

VIVA  an oral exam (short for viva voce)

WANK / WANKING  my original Word of the Year (2006!)

WEEING  AmE peeing

WELLIE  / WELLY  a (BrE) wellington boot / (AmE) rubber boot

WHIN a plant (=furze, gorse)

WHINGE  AmE whine (complain)

WILLIE / WILLY  penis

WOAD a plant used to make blue dye

WOLD a clear, upland area (mostly in place names now)

WOOLLEN   post on double Ls

YOBBO / YOBBY  hooligan / hooliganish

YODELLED   post on double Ls





of

UK-to-US Word of the Year 2023: if I'm honest

Each year since 2006, this blog has designated Transatlantic Words of the Year (WotY). The twist is that I choose the most 'of the year' borrowings from US-to-UK and from UK-to-US.  The question this year raises is: does 2023 deserve SbaCL Words of the Year?

The eligibility criteria remain:

  • Good candidates for SbaCL WotY are expressions that have lived a good life on one side of the Atlantic but for some reason have made a splash on the other side of the Atlantic this year. 
  • Words coined this year are not really in the running. If they moved from one place to another that quickly, then it's hard to say that they're really "Americanisms" or "Britishisms". They're probably just "internetisms". The one situation in which I could see a newly minted word working as a transatlantic WotY would be if the word/expression referenced something very American/British but was nevertheless taken on in the other country.
  • When I say word of the year, I more technically mean lexical item of the year, which is to say, there can be spaces in nominations. Past space-ful WotYs have included gap year, Black Friday, and go missing. I've also been known to declare a pronunciation the Word of the Year.

The UK > US WotY was nominated by Nancy Friedman and endorsed by Ben Yagoda. It is most definitely a phrase:

if I'm honest

In Ben's post the phrase is associated with Great British Bake-Off (AmE: Great British Baking Show) judge Paul Hollywood. When I looked for it on YouGlish, there were a whole slew of examples from the British (BrE) motoring show Top Gear, on which they review cars. In both program(me)s, the phrase is useful in softening criticisms (which both shows have a lot of) by framing them as a truths expressed with some reservation. If I'm honest marks something as an admission of some sort. It's similar to to be honest, which has long been said in the US (and the UK) for much the same reason. (And then there's honestly, which I'll come back to.)

Here are some recent American uses of the phrase:
  • Ryan Gosling, on being cast as Ken in Barbie:  "I just decided I was going to Ken as hard as I can. I Kenned in the morning; I Kenned at night. If I’m honest, I’m Kenning a little right now.”
  • A Real Housewife of Potomac, on getting divorced: "I've just been a little bit complacent about it, if I'm honest, because there are benefits to being married."
  • A Manhattanite writing about an experiment in sustainable living: "If I’m honest, part of me hoped to find the challenge untenable so I could say the cure was worse than the disease and give up."
  • A Chicago police officer commenting on the city's mayoral race: “If I’m honest, I think Catanzara may have some blame here”

These kinds of phrases are discourse markers. They do not add factual meaning to the sentence they're in, but rather make a comment on the speaker's attitude, or stance, toward(s) what they're saying. 

Is it a British phrase? Yes. Here is if I *m honest (i.e., if I'm honest or if I am honest) in the 2012 data of the Corpus of Global Web-Based English, where it occurs 7.6 times more often in BrE than in AmE. (Click on the images to embiggen them.)


And here it is in British sources in the News on the Web Corpus: 


In the 2012 data, the phrase occurs at a much higher rate in GloWbE than in NOW—the NOW number only reaches GloWbE's rate (1.8 per million words) in 2023—because the types of texts in the two corpora are different—there's more variety and informal language on GloWbE. That's something worth keeping in mind when we look at the US numbers. Speaking of which, here they are:


A few things to notice here:
  • Yes, the phrase is going up in AmE news, from 0.08 per million words to 0.19 over the past 13 years. 
  • But it's still below the 2012 GloWbe number (0.24 pmw). One would imagine that if we had current data that was collected in the same way as GloWbE, we'd see a lot more there. 
  • And it's wayyyyyy below the British numbers.
  • A country music album had the title If I'm Honest in 2016, which helps (to) account for the higher number then.

Here's a view of the Google Books numbers, comparing If I'm honest with To be honest (though keep in mind that to be honest here is not necessarily the discourse marker. It could be in any number of sentences about honesty.)

And a comparison of it with the equivalent if I'm being honest, which is less common, but making a move in AmE.



The pictures (and numbers) tell the story of a British expression that's become more and more common in BrE, and that has raised American exposure to (and use of) it. But note that it's rising far faster in BrE than in AmE. So, does it meet the first of my eligibility criteria? Maybe not. But it's what I've got for this year!


P.S.  Honestly

Honestly, used as a discourse marker in a sentence seems to be more common in AmE. But as a stand-alone expression of exasperation, it seems more common in BrE (Honestly!). It's definitely more common from the BrE speakers in my house than from me, but maybe I'm just more exasperating to live with than they are. Here are searches with punctuation from GloWbE:







Will there be a US-to-UK WotY?  To be honest, it's unclear at this point! 




of

US-to-UK Word of the Year: OK

See here for the UK-to-US WotY post.

Time for the 2023 US-to-UK Word of the Year. Before people complain that this word has been in British English too long for it to count as a word of 2023, let me remind you of the criteria for SbaCL WotYs: 

  • Good candidates for SbaCL WotY are expressions that have lived a good life on one side of the Atlantic but for some reason have made a splash on the other side of the Atlantic this year. 
  • Words coined this year are not really in the running. If they moved from one place to another that quickly, then it's hard to say that they're really "Americanisms" or "Britishisms". They're probably just "internetisms". The one situation in which I could see a newly minted word working as a transatlantic WotY would be if the word/expression referenced something very American/British but was nevertheless taken on in the other country.
  • When I say word of the year, I more technically mean lexical item of the year, which is to say, there can be spaces in nominations. 
This word did make something of a splash in the British news this year. Here's a tweet from the Daily Mail:



And what was that American word?  *fanfare* The 2023 US-to-UK Word of the Year is 


OK!

(Also spelled okay, but we'll get to that!)

Though it has appeared in BrE since at least the late 19th century (originating in AmE earlier in that century), OK took a while to make its way into everyday speech in the UK. (Click on images to enlarge them.) Here's its trajectory in books (via Google Books Ngram Viewer). 


OK is underrepresented in earlier years in this graph because it was spelled/spelt O.K. with (BrE) full stops/(AmE) periods until and into the 20th century. As far as I know, there's no way to search for a word with that punctuation in it in Google Ngram Viewer, so I'm a bit stuck in showing more of the historical picture. 

One of American English's great observers/collectors/analysts, Allan Walker Read put significant effort into the study of OK, tracing its origins to a humorous spelling of all correct. Then people forgot about the joke and it went on to become "the English language's most successful export" according to this Merriam-Webster post, about a book by another late, great American English linguist, Allan Metcalf, relating Read's research. 

Getting back to the UK news in 2023, here's the headline of the Daily Mail's story:

Dailymail.co.uk headline.
Not linking to them because they don't need the traffic

That headline came from a particular interpretation of work by Galina B. Bolden, Alexa Hepburn, and Jenny Mandelbaum published in the Journal of Pragmatics on differences in US and UK usage of right, about which they conclude:

[I]n American English, right conveys the speaker's knowing stance and, in certain environments, the speaker's claim of primary knowledge. In contrast, in British English, right registers provided information as previously unknown, informative, and relevant to the current speaker's ongoing project. 

        [...] 

[S]ome UK usages of right—such as registering of potentially consequential information and projecting a transition—are quite similar to US okay in comparable positions [...]. This suggests a possibility that, in US English, okay took over some of the right usages and/or, in UK English, right took over some of the okay usages."

Their research was inspired by this interaction between BrE-speaking "AB" and AmE speaker "GA":


So, essentially, the British use of right in that context leads GA to think that AB is confirming (rather than acknowledging receipt of) the information. If AB had said OK, then GA would have understood it as acknowledgement rather than confirmation.

Even though the researchers note differences in usage between BrE and AmE okay (though keep in mind that their research is about right), it seems like a fitting US-to-UK WotY because (in whichever usages), it's used more than ever in the UK. Here it is in the British section of the News on the Web corpus, where it shows OK and okay climbing in the last couple of years.




Something to notice about the spelling is that in the news corpus, the OK spelling outnumbers the okay spelling, but in the books okay outnumbers OK. I think this tells us something about spelling style in different kinds of publications. I checked whether it also told us something about adjective (an okay/OK word) versus interjection use (OK! Okay!), but did not find a great difference between the spellings in the different uses.

Since this was a year of warning Britons against it, OK is the 2023 Separated by a Common Language US-to-UK Word of the Year! 














of

one-off and one-of-a-kind

Congratulations to Ben Yagoda on his new book Gobsmacked: The British Invasion of American English! If you like this blog, you are going to like that book. I was both gobsmacked and chuffed to see that I was among the dedicatees of the book (and in wonderful company). It even has an appendix of my UK-to-US Words of the Year! (And on that note—feel free to start nominating 2024's Transatlantic Words of the Year.)



Ben has been observing the transit of British English words, pronunciations and grammar for 13 years now at his blog Not One-Off Britishisms. So, to celebrate his book, let's look at one-off, the Britishism in his blog title.  One-off can be used as a noun or an adjective to refer to something happens once and won't happen again.

Ben's blog evaluates previously British-only expressions that seem to be catching on in American English, and one-off was one he first covered in 2011. In the book, he gives more historical context for both the British and American usage. Google Books charts (nicely redrawn by Eric Hansen in the book) provide a handy view of the trajectory of British words in American publications over time.

In the case of one-off, the first known occurrence of it is in 1930s Britain. It seems to take off in Britain in the 1960s, then shows up in the US in the 1990s, picking up speed as it goes along.  Here's the the relevant bit of the book:


 
He also categori{s/z}es each expression as to how entrenched it has become in AmE. In the case of one-off, it's "taking hold."  

While Yagoda keeps track of the migration of Britishisms, my (self-appointed) job on this blog is to give American English translations. One-of-a-kind seems a good candidate But is one-of-a-kind American English or General English? And is one-off displacing it at all?

My first stop is the Corpus of Global Web-Based English, whose data comes from 2012:
 

Now, we don't always hyphenate one of a kind (it depends on how it's being used in a sentence), but this chart at least gives a sense that one-of-a-kind is used proportionally less in BrE, since it has one-off to use instead. In the same corpus, unhyphenated one of a kind is still "more North American," but more gently so: 490 US hits to 320 GB ones. 

All of the Oxford English Dictionary quotations for one-of-a-kind are North American too—the first one from 1954 by American art critic Arthur C. Danto. (The first unhyphenated one is from 1977.) The OED does not, however, mark it as an American expression. 

Now, one-off and one-of-a-kind aren't exactly the same thing. One-off has a more temporal connotation: it's happened once (and won't again). That said, you could say, for example, that a person is a one-off or one of a kind meaning that they're a unique kind of person.

So is the existence of one-off hurting one-of-a-kind? It happens to be easier to look at the unhyphenated version in Google Ngrams and the hyphenated one in the Corpus of Historical American English, so let's look at both.

First, we can see that one of a kind has been increasing fairly steadily in both AmE and BrE, but it's definitely more American. One-off's appearance on the American scene has not caused one of a kind to become less frequent. 

And here's the hyphenated one-of-a-kind in comparison with one-off in American English since the 1940s. American use of one-off has taken off in the 21st century. One-of-a-kind is still used more, but the gap is closing:



How are both of these expressions doing so well?  Well, it seems to be because everything in the world has got(ten) more unique. Here's the Google Ngram for unique, going up-up-up in English generally since World War II. 




And just for the pedants, here's the chart for more unique:



(I wonder what proportion of the hits for more unique are just people complaining or warning against more unique.)

Anyhow, congratulations to Ben Yagoda on the success of his blog and the publication of his book! 
And so many thanks for this kind dedication:






of

Trump Posts a Photo of Himself Working on His Inaugural Address and it Gives Spark to a New Meme

Yesterday Trump tweeted a photo of himself hard at work on his inauguration speech and the internet has been having a field day with it. 

It started on twitter with people guessing at what The Donald might be drawing. Shortly thereafter it got a small photoshop battle. 

'What's Donald Drawing' definitely has the potential to catch on.

Get More Trump Memes that are simply tremendous, people tell me how amazing these memes are all the time.





of

Internet Had a Dangerous Amount of Fun Trolling Pic of Trump, Melania And Ivanka With The Pope

Just when we thought we'd never get anything better than Donald Trump grasping that orb, we get this dark-humored, delightfully awkward pic that just oozes cringe. Naturally, people were ready to flood Twitter with some entertaining captions. 




of

The Untouched Picture of Kim Jong-Un Started a Supreme Photoshop Battle

North Korea released a smiling picture of Kim Jong-Un and were VERY specific about pointing out the fact that the image was untouched. Obviously the first thing the internet did when they got a hold of the image was to touch it up a bit. The results were glorious.




of

The Queen of England Wore a Bright Green Outfit So, Naturally, the Internet Treated It Like a Green Screen

Queen Elizabeth wore a neon green outfit to her 90th birthday party. What could go wrong? Oh right, the internet...




of

Roundup Of Democratic Debate Memes That Roast Last Night's Total Freak Show

Last night's democratic debate in Nevada got pretty damn spicy to say the least. So much so that many are calling it the most entertaining debate of the election cycle so far. Pete spoke Spanish, Warren (and every other candidate, for that matter) came out swinging against Bloomberg, and many, many other things that warranted a monumental cringe fest. 

So please enjoy the following roast-y memes from the night and you can watch a more in-depth recap of it here!





of

15 Of The Most Tremendous Donald Trump Memes

One does not simply become president, without generating some Trump memes.

15 Trump memes mixed in with about a dozen or so Trump GIFs -so as to cushion the impact some of these may have on our more sensitive readers. Whether you love him or hate him, you've gotta admit that Donald Trump is incredibly meme material.

"We'll build a Trump meme, and make the Memeians pay for it"

Need more Trump memes? There's an abundance of Trump memes available at your disposal, such as Trump's Space Force memes or Hilarious Trump Space force memes which was related to announcing that America will be militarizing space, or the awkward memes of Trump staring at a solar eclipse or  Memes of Awkward Obama/Trump Interactions. Or wax nostalgic with photoshop memes of Trump's Executive Orders which were changed to look like a variety of hilarious scenarios that Trump has just signed. And for a simpler, more sophisticated laugh, try the Trump and Kim memes that really have a nice subtle nuance to their humor.

Donald Trump seems to be a magnet for being the subject of memes, and it really is not slowing down. Not much anyone can do to stop it so might as well sit back and laugh, regardless of where you stand politically




of

Bengal - Game of Gods

Exclusive offer from Giveaway of the Day and ToomkyGames! No third-party advertising and browser add-ons! Travel across the Indian continent with a tiger in this exciting puzzle adventure. The friendly large cat will throw the balls wherever you point, so aim carefully. Group together three or more balls of the same color to make them disappear from the chain. Creative powerups will help you navigate each of the levels, which get more challenging as you progress.

  • Original powerups;
  • Unlimited play;
  • Clever game mechanics.




of

Are women really no better off in the workplace after #MeToo?

The #MeToo movement seemed poised to help us create more equitable workplaces — where women thrive as much as men. Unfortunately, we have yet to see this come to fruition in any significant way. And, in some cases, the backlash has made it even more difficult for women to get ahead. The hashtag #MeToo was […]

The post Are women really no better off in the workplace after #MeToo? appeared first on DiversityJobs.com.




of

NFPA offers free 1st Responder Connection App

The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) has released a free 1st Responder Connection App offering firefighters, EMS, command staff, public educators, wildland fire personnel, and authorities having jurisdiction (AHJs) convenient, digital access to best practices, safety tips, and emergency response content.




of

NFPA President Jim Pauley addresses Grenfell Tower fire as evidence of shortfalls in addressing today’s global fire problem

In the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire in London, where 79 people died or are presumed dead and many more were injured, serious concerns and questions around flammability of exterior cladding, the lack of fire sprinklers and the notion of “shelter in place,” among other subjects, have been brought to the forefront by the news media and the public at large. Jim Pauley, president and CEO of the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), addressed these troubling fire safety issues in the upcoming edition of NFPA Journal, the association’s membership publication, which will be officially released next month.




of

Leave fireworks to the professionals

Independence Day and fireworks go hand in hand, but fireworks shouldn’t go in consumers’ hands. That’s the message the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) is reinforcing this Fourth of July. Fireworks annually cause devastating burns, injuries, fires, and even death, making them too dangerous to be used safely by consumers.




of

NFPA and The Center for Campus Fire Safety raise student awareness of fire hazards in on- and off-campus housing during September and October

September is Campus Fire Safety Month and this year the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and The Center for Campus Fire Safety (The Center) are working together to promote their national Campus Fire Safety for Students campaign. The campaign raises awareness about the dangers of fires among college-aged students who live in on- and off-campus college housing.




of

Fire chiefs share lessons learned from recent high profile emergencies including hurricanes, hi-rise fires and hostile shooting incidents at the Urban Fire Forum

Fire chiefs from France, the United Kingdom, and the United States gathered in Quincy, Massachusetts at the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Urban Fire Forum (UFF) to listen to first-hand accounts of some of the biggest emergency response incidents over the past 15 months, including hurricane response in Texas and Florida, the Grenfell Tower fire in London, and the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando.