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One of those words is not a word in British English. (Why do I mention that? Firstly, perhaps it's a fun puzzle for non-native speakers of American English to
by bloak 7y ago
One of those words is not a word in British English.
(Why do I mention that? Firstly, perhaps it's a fun puzzle for non-native speakers of American English to identify the word. Secondly, it's surprising that a difference between British and US English is apparent in such a short list of such basic words, considering that sometimes it's possible to write whole paragraphs of English without it being apparent which variety of English is being used.)
- spicerguy 7y agoBritish English speaker here - I'm having difficulty identifying the word you're referring to here. Or are you referring more to definition and statistical presence in common usage?
- mcbits 7y agoSince "gotten" isn't in the list, I'm going with "someplace". It even seems unusual to me as an American, as I would write either "some place" or "somewhere". If the phrase is also unusual in British English, that's definitely something I had never noticed.
- bmn__ 7y agohttps://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/someplace https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/englis...
- spicerguy 7y agoThank you. Appreciated.
- quietbritishjim 7y agoIs "gotten" the only word that exists in American English but not British English (apart from "someplace")? Your comment strikes me as trying to bring up a pet hate in an unrelated conversation.
- mcbits 7y agoI'm sure it's not the only one, but it's the one that immediately came to mind. I thought it might be in the list because it's close to a foundational word in American English. Sorry that you chose to read my comment as hatred. Yeah, that's not a real apology.
- pbhjpbhj 7y agoI know the word you mean (no spoiler tag, so I won't say it, just 'it could almost be German' {to use a linguistic stereotype}) but I wouldn't recognise it as _not_ en-gb, just unusual. I'm en-gb native.
- mrob 7y agoThat word is informal even in American English. It's less common in British English, but it's growing in popularity in both versions, and I wouldn't call it "not a word" even in British English. But I disagree with its inclusion in a first lesson, because its main use over the more common standard alternative (rot13: "fbzrjurer") is signaling casual speech. Google Ngram Viewer lets you compare popularity of words in British vs. American English, so it's useful for investigating this. https://books.google.com/ngrams https://books.google.com/ngrams
- vivekf 7y agoI would say 'much of'. I haven't seen it until I visited Americas.