Key insights from
The Prodigal Tongue: The Love-Hate Relationship Between American and British English
By Lynne Murphy
Audio available
12 minute read
Published Apr 10, 2018
What you'll learn
What happens when an American teaches linguistics at a British university? Controversy—that’s what. “It’s ‘lift’—not ‘elevator.’” “It’s ‘mashed potato’—not ‘mashed potatoes.’” “‘Colour’ is spelled with an ‘ou’—not just an ‘o.’” “It’s ‘the government are’—not ‘the government is.’” Britons will joke that England and America are separated by a common language. Linguist Lynne Murphy endeavo(u)rs to separate fact from fiction and debunk some stubborn stereotypes and assumptions about our common language.
Key insights
- 1 British newspapers and magazines often hold America responsible for the decline of the English language.
- 2 Many Britons suffer from amerilexicophobia—the pathological fear of American English.
- 3 Fear of American English has led to hypersensitivity and irrationality among the Brits.
- 4 Americans have a verbal inferiority complex to match Britain’s verbal superiority complex.
- 5 The British no more invented the English language than sports fans win football matches.
- 6 British accents don’t signal the intelligence or sex appeal that they used to.
- 7 In a globalized world, quibbling over “proper English” is pretty absurd.
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