Linguistics

[resonant]

I'm compiling an American-to-British phrasebook (because reasons Sherlock). You can find decent dictionaries online (nappy, lorry, etc., etc.) but I'm not so much finding speech patterns -- word choices, syntax, where an American says 'on' and a Brit says 'in,' that kind of thing.

Oddly enough, most of what I've got here (that didn't come from Arctic Monkeys songs) came to my attention because I'd be reading a story in a fandom with an American canon, and I'd hit a phrase that made me go, "This author must be British." (The drawback of this is that some of it might be Australian or something.)

Anybody want to offer input? Here's what I've got (American on the left, British on the right).

Brits use a lot of 'got,' but I can't quite formulate a rule.

to see if you had my number -----> to see if you'd got my number

(also Americans say 'gotten')

Brits don't like to let helping verbs hang out alone.

"You'd eat a horse." "I have." ---> "You'd eat a horse." "I have done."

"That joke gets old." "It must." ---> "That joke gets old." "It must do."

The two dialects handle prepositions differently.

"in the hospital" ---> "in hospital"

"lives on Baker Street" ---> "lives in Baker Street"

Different vocabulary.

"we went to college together" ---> "we went to uni together"

"toss it" or "throw it away" ---> "bin it"

There are a number of things that Brits treat as plural that Americans treat as singular.

"the band wasn't very good" ---> "the band weren't very good"

"I'm no good at math" ---> "I'm rubbish at maths"

"the jury wasn't paying attention" ---> "the jury weren't paying attention"

Comments

[jamjar]

There's also a tendency to add an s on things when shortening them in informal English. Becky is Bex, Amy is Ames, Otto is Ots, See you later is Laters*, etc. It's not hard and fast, but, for example, "Sherls" would be as likely as "Sherl" as a short form of Sherlock. (If he wouldn't, you know, throw an utter strop at anyone daring to shorten his name).

I think this is one of those things that started as an SE England thing, but has spread up north due to TV).

*Well, "La'ers", I suppose, since I've never heard it with the T pronounced, only ever a glottal stop.

[resonant]

The picture of Sherlock's face when someone calls him Sherls is priceless.

Wonder how Mycroft would get shortened? If a guy named Mycroft had gone to my American high school, he almost certainly would have been renamed Mike on day 1.