American English is  truer to Shakespeare than the British would like

Lynne Murphy, a professor of linguistics at Sussex University, a dual British and US citizen, and has a British spouse, who grew up in New York state,  which makes her ideal person for Brits to complain to about Americans ruining the language.  In The Prodigal Tongue, she gives an account of two Anglophone tribes and culls some insults,  from British newspapers like mindless, ugly, pointless, infectious, destructive and virulent. Even Prince Charles said American English as “ very corrupting”.

Murphy explains that American management speak can be irritating but Brits dislike “360-degree thinking”, “Flag it Up”  “ Across the Piece” should know all these started in the UK. American English in both pronunciation and grammar often woke more closely to tradition than several British varieties do. The American sounding in the final “r” of the river is closer to old Shakespeare’s tradition than in much of England today, where the sounded “r” after a vowel has disappeared, although it still remains in Scottish speech. Americans, however, still use the past particle “ gotten” and more frequently use the subjective –“ I suggest he pulls up his socks” rather than the “pulls up” which is common in the UK. Archaisms like gotten started to sounding less bad to more people.

Murphy points out having fuelled US-UK rivalry,  she draws on her own dual nationality and explains that the two English versions do not actually differ that much.

 She had lived in England for 20 years and on the evidence of the book, has spent much of them simmering with irritation as she separates reality from myth and delves into the social and political forces that have seen British and American English part ways and explores the sibling rivalry. “ If Shakespeare were alive today, he’d sound like an American. English accents are the sexiest. Americans have ruined the English language. Technology means everyone will have to speak the same English.

The Prodigal Tongue: The Love-Hate Relationship Between British and American English by Lynne Murphy, One World £16:99/ Penguin $17, 368 pages.