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Separated by a Common Language
Personal blog · separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.comwritingculture
Separated by a Common Language is a personal blog at separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com about writing and culture. Since 2010, 13 different Hacker News readers have linked it 16 times. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-11-01, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (12) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Lynne Murphy's blog on differences between British and American English, covering spelling, word meanings and usage. HN commenters link individual posts as references for threads on those differences.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 12 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- /2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-02-10
What Hacker News says?
You might enjoy this blog: https://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/
Comment linking /
on “Lamest Edit Wars”Submitted UK-to-US Word of the Year 2021: university as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSpeaking of the "disused" part: https://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2018/06/disu... (and yes, I am that Paul)
Comment linking /2018/06/disused.html
on “Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)”Submitted If I'm honest, to be honest, honestly as a story · 2 points
HN discussionWhether frequent use of "please" comes across as condescending or polite seems to be a difference between BrE and AmE: https://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2012/08/sayi...
Comment linking /2012/08/saying-please-in-restaurants.html
on “Tips for reviewing code you don’t like”Submitted Curb / Kerb as a story · 1 points
HN discussionNo, you don't deserve it. In its non-horticultural sense, "graft" is a particularly tricky word, because it's familiar to most native English speakers, but can mean almost opposing things in England and America. So people often think they understand what is being said, while actually misunderstanding each other. Here's an article on the topic: https://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2012/01/graf... . On the…
Comment linking /2012/01/graft.html
on “Intel Prepares to Graft Google’s Bfloat16 onto Processors”Submitted The c-word and gendering mansplaining as a story · 1 points
HN discussionJust looking around and this seems like it's a US-UK english difference: https://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2015/08/nood... And the reason I figured this would be weird is that long pasta is easy to eat with a fork. Probably not worth dwelling on this though as it's offtopic so people are downvoting :D
Comment linking /2015/08/noodles.html
on “MIT mathematicians solve age-old spaghetti mystery”For folks who are genuinely interested in the relationship between British and American English, it's worth checking out https://theprodigaltongue.com/ The author has a blog that is no longer as active as it once was: https://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/
Comment linking /
on “When did Americans lose their British accents?”The linked piece and video are very amateurish attempts to explain what has been well-studied by reputable linguists. We can do better. American linguist Lynne Murphy, married to a Brit and working as a linguistics academic in the UK for many years (and with a stint in South Africa) has a fantastic blog and book on the subject. Very easy to read and nobody has covered the subject better. https://separatedbyacommonla…
Comment linking /
on “What’s the Difference Between American English and British English?”https://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2008/09/stem...
Comment linking /2008/09/stemware-and-other-wares.html
on “Updating Herd Immunity Models for the US: Implications for the Covid-19 Response”- nl · 2010-11-08
People have always used fillers (aka filled pauses) in speech. There is no evidence to suggest they have become any more or any less common. For example, http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2008/05/uh-er... cites a play by Agatha Christie (who dies in 1976) which is full of um 's (using the British spelling of erm ).
Comment linking /2008/05/uh-er-um-erm.html
on “Half of Milgram’s subjects told him to take a hike” Singular "dice" is common in UK English. This article discusses it, and refers to a 2006 article, coincidentally about this book, also in The Guardian: https://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2006/09/die-...
Comment linking /2006/09/die-and-dice.html
on “Who is the real Dice Man? The elusive writer behind a cult novel”This article details both the different regional definitions of graft, as well as the reasons it's spelled as it is: https://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2012/01/graf... Spoilers: US usage is always negative, Australian usage mostly matches US, British is mostly positive, India is both. Someone asks the same spelling question, and gets the answer that it is because the word was only written down in either…
Comment linking /2012/01/graft.html
on “Elite Soccer’s Culture of Graft”Diary in UK English can mean “Planner” or “Datebook”, and the article is from the BBC. https://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2007/04/diar...
Comment linking /2007/04/diaries-and-datebooks.html
on “Microsoft: 'ever present' AI assistants are coming”
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