Re: Words, Words, Words

On 11/07/2012 15:54, Sibyl Smirl wrote:
> On British English:
>
> My proofreader's eye always jolts on British spellings and usages,
> even though I _know_ they're perfect normal and usual for the writer.
> The first time that I noticed the differences was over sixty years
> ago, in "Black Beauty".
>
> I'm reading a British mystery novel right now, on my Kindle, "In the
> Blood", a genealogical mystery, by Steve Robinson. The viewpoint
> character is (supposed to be) American, though most of the action
> takes place in Cornwall. Quite a few of those strictly British items
> caught my eye, but several have been new to me, like "juddering",
> which is in the Oxford English Dictionary. Two, though, were in
> descriptions of people, which is especially jarring since they occur
> in the mind's eye of the American character. I'd like to know whether
> they are usual usages in the UK, or unique to the writer.
>
> "...He was a stocky man, barely five feet, eight inches tall,
> clean-shaven with a thick crop of short silver-grey hair that to his
> constant irritation would never sit down, spoiling an otherwise
> pristine appearance."
>
> Jarring for me, because to me, hair that will behave would be _lying_
> down, while hair that might be called "sitting down" would evoke a
> vertical appearance, like "standing up", that is, _not_ behaving, but
> straight out from the root, or, in the case of "sitting", out from the
> root, then a bent section, then out again...
>

I'd normally say "lie down" or "sit straight" for hair. "My hair just
won't sit straight today - it never lies down.".



--
Jette Goldie
jette.goldie@gmail.com