You Say 'Hoover,' I Say 'Vacuum': A Linguist's Journey Across The Trans-Atlantic English Divide
Linguist Lynne Murphy explores the differences between British and American English in her new book “The Prodigal Tongue: The Love-Hate Relationship Between American and British English.”
Those differences — and the love-hate relationship they’ve helped form — have been fodder for comedians, especially on television.
Murphy (@lynneguist) joins Here & Now‘s Robin Young to talk about the book.
Book Excerpt: ‘The Prodigal Tongue’
by Lynne Murphy
In 2012 a British learning-disability charity quizzed over two thousand adults on their spelling and found that about a third could not spell . The headlines that followed proclaimed that the population had become too dependent on spell-checkers, which had ruined our ability to spell. Those headlines with one . Technology can teach.
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