Friday, April 29, 2005

Words: US/British Compromises

If, as George Bernard Shaw said, "England and America are two countries divided by a common language", it's time for someone with uncommon language skills to step forward and unite the nations. That would be me. I dishumbly submit the following compromise words to replace the existing divisive terms.

  • "Garden" v. "Yard" - "Yarden"
  • "Pavement"/"Footpath" v. "Sidewalk" - "Pathwalk"
  • "Mobile phone" v. "Cellphone" - "Mophone"
  • "Got" v. "Gotten" - "Gott'n"
  • "Rubber" v. "Eraser" - "Trojan"
  • "Football" v. "Soccer" - that's easy - "Futbol" (you thought I was going to say "Foccer")
  • "Fag" v. "Cigarette" - "Fagarette"
  • And the pronunciation problem of "Shedule" v. "Skedule" will be a thing of the past with "Spedule", which has the added benefit of implying how a timetable can speed things up.

No comments: