Re: British vs. American spelling
 

Web browsers ignore double spaces when rendering the page. ;)

It could be, however, that BE was in the past converting these to a HTML non-breaking space, which when doubled would appear as two spaces.

Re: British vs. American spelling
 

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Well, as I pointed out in a couple of earlier posts, gantlet is an earlier spelling, and was considered archaic by the early nineteenth century. It is now only current in the US, not in British English.

New York Times and Washington Post both spell the word gantlet, for instance. The New Yorker spells it gauntlet.

Re: British vs. American spelling
 

I would say 'Off to University' but would never say 'I'm at hospital', that makes no sense to me. ' I'm going to hospital' or 'I'm in hospital' don't need the 'the' but 'I'm at hospital' most definitely does. :D

Re: British vs. American spelling
 

Texting is slowly changing the English language, goodness knows what it will look like 100 years from now.

I would say I am at the hospital if speaking over the phone or to someone, but if texting, its too much typing, so I'd shorten it to at hospital.

Re: British vs. American spelling
 

Ooh, that reminds me. "In work" vs "at work".

In the US it's always "at work". "In work" seems to be a UK thing.

Re: British vs. American spelling
 

I thought that in the UK, that was related to employment status; "in work" being currently employed, vs "out of work" meaning unemployed.

If one were to be "in work" one could also be "at work", or quite often "down (or up) the pub".

;)

Re: British vs. American spelling
 

"In work" is both - I think? :confused: As in "employed" and "at the place of work". Eg: "I can't wear stiletto heels and fishnet stockings when I'm in work". In the UK. Whereas in the US "in work" is only "employed".

I could be quite wrong though.

As for down and up the pub, only UK, but regional?

Re: British vs. American spelling
 

I think that up or down the pub may :confused: be a regional thing; however in the small village that I hail from, there was also some notion of relative altitude.

There were nine pubs in my village, so starting from home, I would only go "up the Pheasant" or "up the White Hart", every other pub I would go "down".

Once established in either of the aforementioned two, all the others were "down" to. There was no need to worry about moving from the Pheasant to the White Hart or vice versa, as it was far too far to walk, and there were plenty of better pubs on the way.

Changing pubs in the village centre itself introduced the concept of potentially "going over the road to".

I never got the hang of stilettos and fishnets in the workplace either. Or in the pub, I hasten to add.

Re: British vs. American spelling
 

And then there's the whole "up to London" thing, even if London is actually "down" or even sideways from wherever your starting point is. And then you go up to university, and can/could be sent down, even if being sent down meant going back up to London.


9 pubs? How did anyone ever get anything done? Also, going up the pheasant sounds uncomfortable.

Re: British vs. American spelling
 

"In work" doesn't really exist in the US at all. The opposite of "out of work" is just "have a job" or "be employed."

Re: British vs. American spelling
 

One thing I have always complained about is the phrase "talk with you" and "talk to you". I talk with people. Talking to people sounds like you are giving them directives and having a conversation.

Re: British vs. American spelling
 

Neither spelling is right or wrong - language is a moving beast. People get too hung up on spelling's and grammar. The reality is that it works when the message is received as delivered. Hence why you can write something in entirely garbled spelling and a reader still understand - it's all about giving the other brain the info you require it to undertsnad.

Re: British vs. American spelling
 

I don’t think many people get hung up on it. It’s just that it’s interesting! Look at all the blogs etc. about grammar, spelling & etymology. People love researching and writing about this stuff. Many people pretend to be outraged.

Re: British vs. American spelling
 

Exactly. It's interesting because language is fundamentally about meaning, communication, and what can be known and expressed. It's THE window into culture because of this. Wherever you go, you can't really understand a culture until you become fairly fluent in its language. Complaining about grammar is just a bit of fun.

Re: British vs. American spelling
 

Could have been worse - in one of the hamlets surrounding our village the pub was "The Bottle and Glass", I would think people avoided going up there :blink: