Re: Words, Words, Words

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...

"Detective Sergeant Bill Hayne wore a light-grey suit over the
standard-issue white shirt. In his neck, a plain navy tie was pushed
too far up to be comfortable..."

"_In_ his neck"? That one is especially uncomfortable for me, because
the story has just been describing, before that, a body with a cut
throat. I'm not even sure what it means-- a too-tight tie might be
making a groove in his neck, and definitely not comfortable, but that
doesn't seem to work. An American might think "on" or "around", but not
"in".

And one for Leslie, a piece of horse equipment, like a feedbag, in an
early Eighteenth Century setting, of which I've never heard before.
This one isn't in the OED either, though specialized equipment might not
be. "His Shire mare, Ebryl, named after the Cornish for the month of
April in which she was born, was happily eating her reward from the
morral looped around her neck."


--

Sibyl Smirl
mailto:polycarpa3@ckt.net
Asperges me, Domine!