Re: Indexes for British and American readers

Subject: Re: Indexes for British and American readers
From: "Hamilton, Beth" <ELHAM -at- WGPO -dot- DBSOFTWARE -dot- COM>
Date: Tue, 2 Apr 1996 09:01:00 PST

I posted a query on index-l looking for British/US English reference
sources. Here are the responses:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------
Have you checked "Copy Talk"? It's a Web site maintained by The Canadian
Press. They describe it as a "forum for all sorts of writing and editing
matters." Since Canadians use terms similar to the British, maybe they
have
a reference of equivalencies. Good luck.

www.xe.com/canpress/cpytlk.htm

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------

There's a good book called 'British English from A to Zed'---I think the
author's last name is Knorr. It is aimed at Americans wanting to
understand
British English, but it works well going the other way as there is a good
deal of cross-referencing and indexing. It's also a fun book just to
-read-,
if you're the kind of person who likes to read reference books.

--------------------------------------
[Another recommendation, it might be for the same book]

There is a great dictionary called _British English A to Zed_ by Norman
Schur
(published by Facts on File, 1987) available here in the states. It gives
American equivalents for Britishisms (& vice versa) of all sorts. It
also
has appendices that list equivalents in various technical areas including
automotive terminology. It should satisfy the needs of just about
anyone.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------

As a native British English speaker I still have problems after living in
the
US for 14 years. A fender is something that goes in front of my fireplace
and
I still refer to the "boot" of my car. Fortunately my children are quite
bi-lingual and indulge my fossilized use of the language.

I recall a book (from the same series as "Let's Speak Strine' - a
British-Australian dictionary) that translates American to Britsish
terms.
In lighter vein you might introduce your British colleagues to Chapter
12 of
Bill Bryson's "Mother Tongue: English and How it Got That Way" he
covers
most of the word and phrase differences as well as alerting the reader to
terms that should be avoided in every day speech depending on which side
of
the Atlantic you happen to be. I still forget to use eraser for ------,

constant source of embarassment to my off-spring!


Previous by Author: Re: Customer Feedback
Next by Author: FW: Reference works for UK-US English
Previous by Thread: Re: writing and liability
Next by Thread: Word & WordPerfect info


What this post helpful? Share it with friends and colleagues:


Sponsored Ads