The Prodigal Tongue
The Prodigal Tongue: The Love-Hate Relationship between British and American English
by Lynne Murphy
A fun, fast-paced and informed discussion of the differences between British and American English, including plenty of myth-busting
The Prodigal Tongue was my holiday reading treat last year (yes, I even read linguistics books on holiday). And it really was a treat.
It’s written by Lynne Murphy, a dual British/American citizen who is a professor in Linguistics at the University of Sussex, and is therefore perfectly equipped to take an analytical approach the relationship between British and American English. The tone is light-hearted throughout, but informed by research, statistics, and the experience of being an American who has lived in Britain for nearly 20 years.
Lynne Murphy begins with the pervasive myth that Americans are ruining the English language, and goes on to examine the evidence as to whether British English really is succumbing to ‘creeping Americanisms’.
The chief joy of the book was discovering things I didn’t know about American English, and things that I hadn’t realised were specific to British English. (It’s worth saying that the author points out the inadequacy of the terms ‘British English’ and ‘American English’, as each encompasses a range of accents and dialects.)
For example, Americans and British typically use please in different ways. In Britain, there is an expectation that any request, however minor, will be accompanied by please, while Americans “find it odd to use please in situations where the request will necessarily be fulfilled, such as ordering in a restaurant” (p. 210). As such, a ‘British please’ can be interpreted as indicating bossiness or desperation by an American, while an American’s failure to say please can be seen as impoliteness by a Brit.
Lynne Murphy also points out that many words that we consider to be Americanisms actually originated in Britain, including fall (autumn) and zee (for zed).
Interestingly, many of the most well-known spelling differences between British and American English actually come from the British tendency to stick with French spellings. For example, colour, humour and rumour are from Norman French (contrast with American color, humor and rumor); while centre and theatre are borrowed from Latin via French (contrast with American center, theater). As the author comments:
“The way I see it, we might as well blame the French for all the irregularities of our spelling system. Sure, words like Bhutan and quinoa didn’t come to us from French, but French messed up English spelling so much that English speakers were left feeling blasé about introducing more inconsistencies into the system.” (p. 134)
My only minor gripe is that, in my edition (Oneworld, 2019), some phonetic symbols mistakenly appear as an X. That aside, I’d recommend it to anyone with an interest in the oddities of English who is looking for an informative but fun holiday read!