Separated (and confused and misled) by a common language

Lynne Murphy's 2018 book The Prodigal Tongue is subtitled The love-hate relationship between American and British English, and, as the title suggests it explores the uneasy relationship between our shared but often contradictory language.

Ms. Murphy is American-born, but married an Englishman and has lived in Britain for 20-odd years. And she is a linguist, who has lectured at universities on both sides of the pond, and who authors a blog called Separated by a Common Language, so she is well-qualified to comment on the two countries' usage (and abusage) of the language.

Mr. Murphy writes with an engaging style and wit, even if she is a little judgy and condescending at times. She tries to unpick and unpack some of the transatlantic language myths that abound, and to set the record straight where possible. To that end, she delights in ridiculing some of the attitudes, prejudices and stereotypes displayed by the more popular press, as well as by some so-called experts who should know better. Usually, this is done with a modicum of grace, although occasionally it comes across as merely irritating or pedantic.

She examines, among many others, the idea that British Engish is often perceived as more correct or authoritative, as well as less prudish, than American English, and that Americans are somehow wholly responsible for dumbing down and bastardizing the language. In the process, she points out many interesting little historical and linguistic quirks and ironies, like the revelation that the word toilet was actually imported into Britain fron America in the early 20th century (despite the fact that Americans now tend to prefer bathroom or restroom), and that the eminently British-sounding poppycock also originally came to Britain from North America, as did shambles and skive. The American use of ladybug, instead of ladybird, on the other hand, actually started in Britain, as did the adjective regular (to mean ordinary, or not large) and, even more surprisingly, "American" business verbs like incentivize and action. In fact, it turns out that the British verb at least as many nouns (and noun as many verbs) as the Americans, and a surprising number of verbifications date from long before America was even a place.

In some respects, America can be said to have preserved the language more than has Britain, which has seen several (more or less random) spelling and pronunciation changes over the centuries. The American pronunciation of a hard West Country r at the end of words, and the flat unrounded o and flat a, are often mentioned in this regard. But American English also retains many antique (Elizabethan and Jacobean) words fhat have become lost to British English, like closet and faucet. Likewise, it was Britain that started using the punctuation word period before changing to full stop some time later, while America retained the more traditional period. In the case of quotation marks, Britain changed to using inverted commas for a good century and a half, before re-importing or reviving quotation marks back from America in recent years.

We all know that English is a notoriously illogical, confusing and inconsistent language, especially orthographically, but Ms. Murphy does a particularly good job of exemplifying just HOW confusing and how apparently random it is. And, although the Americans made some attempt in the 19th century, under Noah Webster, to fix some of the worst of it, they didn't really do a very good job. Take the -our/-or dichotomy as just one example. British English of course, uses colour, candour, tumour, etc (based on the Norman French spellings), but somehow retained u-less liquor, author, tremor and others. They have honour and honourable, but honorary and honorific, vapour but vaporize, etc, etc. America changed most of these to -or, both for simplicity and to adhere more closely to the earlier Latin roots, but for some reason they decided to retained the English u in glamour. There are similar inconsistencies and confusion, within both British and American spelling, in the -ise/-ize words, -re/-er words, etc. What a mess!

She points out many things that everyone knows, but has never really thought about. For example, why do we (Americans and Brits alike) say pasta in the singular, but noodles in the plural, even though they are essentially the same thing? How about a side dish of peas (plural) and a side dish of just as much corn (singular)? Weird! Then there is the whole math/maths conundrum: outraged Brits bluster that if mathematics is plural, then the contraction should be too; defensive Yanks counter that mathematics is clearly not plural because we say maths is hard not maths are hard, and that most linguistic clippings just clip from the beginning of the word (like lab, pub, etc). And who knew that words like gosh and golly were developed as Puritanical American euphemisms to avoid blasphemously saying the word God, just as the British were doing much the same thing in straight-laced Victorian times with cor blimey (God blind me), goodness me (God bless me), crikey (Christ), etc.

Finally, just in case you might still be convinced that the Brits use the language in a superior fashion, my own favourite linguistic anecdote quoted by Ms. Murphy is an actual dialogue caught on a British train:

Manboy 1: So what's the difference between whom and who?

Manboy 2: Whom is more correct.

Manboy 1: So I should say whom is that?
Manboy 2: No, it's only for plurals like whomever.
Manboy 1: Oh right, and like, whom's is that?
Manboy 2: Exact.

Anyway, I'm a bit of a word and language geek myself - hell, I did a whole website on The History of English a few years ago, as well as a Canadian, British and American Dictionary website - so this book was right up my street. Ms. Murphy spends much of the book justifying and legitimizing American English, usually at the expense of British English and British linguists, which, given my English background (and my Canadian foreground) sometimes rankles. Indeed, some of it seems unthinkingly pro-American, and unnecessarily dismissive and derogatory about the English way of doing things, and includes all sorts of sweeping generalizations on both sides, many of which seem unjustifiable. But its true that the Brits do tend to blame America for pretty much anything they don't like about our ever-evolving language, and it's often misplaced blame, which is precisely what Ms. Murphy takes issue with.
Either way, her love and respect for words and language always comes through. She dives into the history, vocabulary, pronunciation, spelling and grammar of the two variants in some detail. And, trust me, some of this stuff is undeniably fascinating and often downright bizarre.