The Prodigal Tongue

The Love-Hate Relationship Between American and British English

audio cd

Published April 10, 2018 by Tantor Audio.

ISBN:
9781977303356

View on OpenLibrary

4 stars (1 review)

2 editions

Review of 'Prodigal Tongue' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Anyone who’s remotely interested in the differences between US and UK English, how they diverged, and the extent of those differences, should absolutely read this book!

I learnt a lot. The differences go way beyond some simple spelling issues, or a few words and phrases that have different meanings on either side of the Atlantic.

It’s written by an American linguist who’s been living in the UK for the past twenty years, so she’s uniquely qualified to write about the subject. She also spent some time living in South Africa in the 1990s, so she knows our history too, and can draw comparisons between the divergence of US and UK English, and that of, say, Afrikaans and Dutch. Which was helpful, and very interesting.

The author busts plenty of myths about what’s “American” and what’s “British”, and she speaks from a point of view that’s often sympathetic to Americans and …