You Say 'Hoover,' I Say 'Vacuum': A Linguist's Journey Across The Trans-Atlantic English Divide
America and Britain share a common language. But you'd never know it after reading linguist Lynne Murphy's new book.
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.
