Murphy, Lynne (2018) The prodigal tongue: the love-hate relationship between British and American English. Oneworld Publications, London. ISBN 9781786072696

Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

Do you eat mashed potato or mashed potatoes? Are you frowning with your eyebrows or your mouth? Did you need to google mugwump when Boris Johnson laid into Jeremy Corbyn?

British and American English may seem similar, but their differences abound. Contentious cultural wars are waged daily, on both sides of the Atlantic. As an American linguist based in Britain, Lynne Murphy brings a wry fish-out-of-water wit and a keen eye to this great divide. Some Americans suffer from a verbal inferiority complex, while on this side of the pond Brits are gripped by a delusional paranoia that their English is under attack. Murphy puts the mythologies of British and American English to the test, sharing surprising revelations about how our language really works.

Item Type:	Book
Additional Information:	Primarily funded by a National Endowment for the Humanities (USA) Public Scholars Program grant.
Schools and Departments:	School of English > English
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > PE English > PE1700 Dialects. Provincialisms, etc.
Depositing User:	Lynne Murphy
Date Deposited:	13 Nov 2017 17:28
Last Modified:	30 Oct 2020 13:37
URI:	http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/71202

📧 Request an update