Passion, People and Principles

post # 122 — Friday, June 30, 2006 — a General post

Amerenglish trivia

This, via my brother-in-law, Tony Sacker.

Apparently, he heard a dinner speaker point out that Americans and Brits use the word "momentarily" to mean different things.

In Britain, it means "for a moment." In the US, it means "in a moment."

This led to some moments of fear for some Brits when an American airline pilot announced "We will be taking off momentarily."

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3 Comments

Michelle Golden said

www.goldenpractices.com

LOL, that WOULD be disconcerting…funny that we use “momentary” for the British meaning

posted on Friday, June 30, 2006

Eric Boehme said

http://beatyourowndrum.com/career/

That is great!

One wonders if Uk English and US English are two different languages.

Even though I am born and raised in the US, I consider that the Brits speak “real” English.

posted on Sunday, July 2, 2006

Shaula Evans said

I just came across Separated by a Common Language – http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/ – dedicated to observations on British and American English by an American linguist in the UK (via the Lord Celery blog – http://tinyurl.com/jtowt).

I’m enjoying it as a Canadian married to an American who spent his early childhood in England; I thought you and Kathy, and your readers, might get a kick out of it, too.

Quite the translation tool!

posted on Thursday, July 20, 2006

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url:	http://www.patrickjlamb.com/archives/-254-towar...
blog:	In Search of Perfect Client Service
title:	Toward The Goal Of Becoming A Trust Advisor
excerpt:	David Maister is well-known for his articulation of the concept of "the trusted advisor" and his book by the same title is an absolute must-read for anyone who wishes to develop the closest possible relationship with his or her client. ...

url:	http://timworstall.typepad.com/timworstall/2006...
blog:	Tim Worstall
title:	Britblog Roundup #72
excerpt:	Apologies if I don’t get too upset about the association result yesterday: the way the local Portugee was acting around here last night I’m rather glad I didn’t have to walk through a crowd of them if they’d lost. Still

url:	http://nataliesolent.blogspot.com/2006_07_02_na...
blog:	Natalie Solent
title:	This, that and benignancy.
excerpt:	Again via Tim Worstall, but this time from the Britblog roundup, comes this little post about how a difference between British and American English caused mass blanching on the part of plane passengers.

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