Separated by a common language?

Are you an Americanophile? Are you interested in the way language works? And are you prepared to have some ingrained prejudices challenged?

My guess is that, as a writer and a Christian, your answers will be yes to all three questions! As Christians we are not prone to harbour prejudices against other nations, and many of us welcome the spiritual leaders and movements that come to us from the United States. Plus we are readier than many unbelievers are for our ideas to be challenged. And, of course, language is the medium in which we work.

That’s why I’d like to recommend a new book on the relationship between British and American English: The Prodigal Tongue (now there’s a Biblical echo!) by Lynne Murphy (published by Oneworld). Unlike many commentators on the state of English and the role of America within it, Lynne knows what she’s talking about. She’s a professor of linguistics at the University of Sussex, and she’s done the empirical research to establish every statement she makes: there’s no wild theorizing or opinion-mongering in the book. She’s perfectly placed to write such a book, as an American with dual citizenship married to an Englishman with a daughter who (as she puts it in her dedication) ‘says tomato both ways’.

Publicity on the Web describes it thus:

The English language is a beautiful thing, but it suffers under relentless assault from Americans who want nothing more than to corrupt the mother tongue. Well, that’s what we’re told. But what’s the truth? And whose language is it anyway? Lynne Murphy, an American linguist living in England, dives into the war of words being waged over the Atlantic. In a laugh-out-loud report, she separates reality from myth in this special relationship and delves into the social and political forces that have seen British and American English part ways. From the origins of ‘the bee’s knees’ to why so many of Hollywood’s evil geniuses sound as though they were educated at Oxford, The Prodigal Tongue reveals how our language really works and tells us where it’s going.

I suppose one of the ideas that the book refutes is: ‘British English is being engulfed by a flood of Americanisms which are debasing our language’. It does this with factual evidence drawn from large databases of language use. But much more interestingly, it shows how aspects of American and British English reflect areas of the culture and customs of the two nations, whether in the realm of politeness, social structure, or food. The food-related parts of this book are especially fascinating and show the hand of a writer who’s at home in the kitchen as much as in the academic office.

Lynne has a particular forte of tracing very subtle nuances of difference between the two kinds of English, many of which have gone entirely unnoticed for decades. For example, did you know that frown has a second meaning for many Americans—a phenomenon affecting the mouth rather than the brow?

I hope I have whetted your appetite.