Anglo-American communications studies

[Ken Brown]

Tim May wrote:
> 
 
> I'm now 49, and "car" has been much more common in these United
> States than "automobile"  has been, in my lifetime.
> 
> Further, I often hear Britishisms which are far longer and more
> labored than the American equivalents. For example:
> 
> "articulated lorry" vs. "semi"
> 
> "redundant" vs. "laid-off"
> 
> "Mackintosh" vs. "raincoat"

"redundant" which has a technical legal meaning that is different from
"laid-off" (which we also use).
"artic" & "mac" are both normal (though the second now old-fashioned -
who wears raincoats any more anyway?)

 
> "Pantechnicon" = "moving van"
> 
> (I only learned this last one on a site devoted to Britishisms vs.
> Americanisms.)

Don't believe all you read on the web :-)  I wouldn't have known
"pantechnicon" was a van if you'd asked me. And  we used to think you
didn't have the word "van"  - we thought you always said "truck" or
"pick-up". (Though when I went to Texas my colleagues seemed to use the
word "van" to include passenger vehicles - the large car/small bus sort
of thing that gets sold as a "people mover" over here. For us a "van" is
for carrying things more than people, though plenty of drivers use them
as cars)

Anyway - I heard Americans on the TV last week talking about "railway"
instead of "railroad". And "station" instead of "depot" (though Grand
Central Station is I suppose quite old, so you must have had that one
for a while)

As you said:

> Fact is, both dialects of English have longer versions of the same 
> basic word than other dialects have.
> Which is preferable is a matter of taste and familiarity.

and there are very few opportunities for real misunderstanding. We know
"Randy" is a name in the US, even if we snigger when we hear it, and any
American spending more than 5 minutes in Britain UK would find out that
a "fag" is a cigarette, so no harm done.

If there is any chance of confusion it is in the connotations of speech
rather than the denotations. "Homely" has the same literal meaning
(home-like, reminiscent of home) on both sides of the Atlantic but in
Britain it is emotionally slightly positive (Tolkien's "Last Homely
House") & in the US very negative,  mostly used as a euphemism for
"ugly". The same applies ot tone of voice.    Brits (& Australians) seem
mostly less sensitive to insult than Americans but more to sarcasm &
irony. So we can sometimes be rude to you & you don't notice - and we
can be friendly and you think we are being rude. And presumably it works
the other way round as well. The society that invented the breakfast
meeting must have developed many exquisite verbal tortures that us
plainspeaking Brits miss out on.

Ken