american English
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Posted by Vicki Hollett on July 17, 2010
As part of American English month, we return to Philadephia, where blogger and EFL teacher & author Vicki Hollett discusses the hazards of a Brit speaking ‘merican. Thank you to Vicki for another great guest post! _________ The US is a hazardous place for Brits. Since moving to Philadelphia, I’ve inadvertently commented on my hostess’s [...]
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Posted by Kieran McGovern on July 15, 2010
Did you understand the words and phrases at the end of yesterday’s post? They are a little tricky because they need a little cultural background: Blogosphere refers to all blogs and their interconnections. The idea is that all blogs form a social network. Maven comes from the Yiddish word meaning ‘expert’ or ‘someone knowledgeable in [...]
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Posted by Kieran McGovern on July 14, 2010
New technical terms are a source of great irritation to the casual reader. They are a way of creating an exclusive club of those ‘in the know’, what George Bernard Shaw called a ‘conspiracy against the public’. Nonetheless, new processes and ideas create the need for a new vocabulary to describe them. Most online linguistic [...]
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Posted by Erin Brenner on July 13, 2010
We have discussed collective nouns on this blog on a couple of occasions (see here and here). This time the emphasis is on differences between how British and American English speakers use them. This guest posts comes from Erin Brenner, author of The Writing Resource, a blog offering quick lessons in writing. _________ A collective [...]
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Posted by Mariana Ashley on July 08, 2010
After contributions from Philadelphia, Boston and San Francisco, we’re moving on again in the US. This guest post is contributed by Mariana Ashley, who writes on the topics of online colleges. Mariana welcomes your comments to this post either below or at her email address. ___________ Although often dismissed as backwards and isolated, the Rio [...]
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Posted by Stephen Handorf on July 07, 2010
After a brief visit to Philly and Boston, American English month continues with a guest blog from Stephen Handorf, editor and lexicographer in San Francisco. Stephen has a B.A. in linguistics and French from Cornell University and an M.A. in English as a Second Language from the University of Hawaii. ___________ Last month, the Texas [...]
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Posted by Karen Stern on July 03, 2010
We started our grand tour of American English in Philadelphia. Our next destination is: Boston. Karen Stern, freelance lexicographer and editor, sent us this guest blog about her local American English. _________ It’s 4th of July weekend here in the US, so it seemed only natural to dip into the version of American English spoken [...]
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Posted by Vicki Hollett on July 01, 2010
Our first guest post for American English month comes from Vicki Hollett, English teacher and coursebook writer. Vicki writes a fantastic blog called Learning to speak ’merican. _________________ I’d better confess right away that I’m not a native American English speaker. If you could hear my accent, you’d spot in a jiffy that my native [...]
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Posted by Laine Redpath Cole on June 30, 2010
Over here! Right over here in the red, white and blue … eyes off the ball for a minute! It’s American-English month, yeeha! We suggest that for the month of July you set your, of course, bookmarked/tabbed/favourited macmillandictionary.com to ‘American English‘ and practise pronouncing words in Am rather than Br … obviously, unless you do [...]
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