British English v American English

choi

Terry Eagleton, Sorry, but Do You Speak English?  The bottom line about our linguistic divide may be scary, but let's not, like, get blown away by it. Wall Street Journal, June 22, 2013.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... 55282637361190.html

Note:
(a) Terry Eagleton
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Eagleton
(Terence Francis Eagleton;  1943- ; widely regarded as the United Kingdom's most influential living literary critic)

(b) "Not long ago, an American friend was driving rather too vigorously in the west of Ireland when he was pulled over by a Gard (police officer). "What would happen if you were to run into Mr. Fog?" the Gard inquired gruffly in his thick Irish brogue."
(i) Who are the gard in Ireland?  Wiki Answers, undated
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_are_the_gard_in_Ireland
([A:] "They are the Garda Síochána na hÉireann ([Gaelic:] The guardians of the peace of Ireland). They are the Irish police / cops")
(ii) One checks a dictionary, and there is only one definition for "brogue"--a kind of Irish shoes. But Wiki 's first choice is "an Irish accent."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brogue
(iii) brogue shoes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brogue_shoe
(Modern brogues trace their roots to a rudimentary shoe originating in Scotland and Ireland that was constructed using untanned hide with perforations, allowing water to drain when crossing wet terrain such as a bog)
(iv) I can not find any image of a pair of ancient brogue shoes, but modern Highlander's shoes give you the idea.

Footwear. Scottish Tartans Authority, (name of a store), undated
http://www.tartansauthority.com/highland-dress/modern/shoes/
(photo 2 and its caption: "As an aside, you may have read elsewhere on our website that modern brogues - known the world over - have evolved from the Highland brogan. Those were the primitive deerskin footwear worn by Highlanders in which they punched holes to let the water OUT. Those laces on the ghillie brogues are also a hangover from those days when the deerskin brogan were secured by long laces extending up the calf")

(c) "British people who live in flats do not set up home in burst tires. The word 'bum' in British English means buttocks as well as vagrant."

flat (n):
"5 chiefly British : an apartment on one floor
6: a deflated tire "
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/flat

(d) "People in Britain do not * * * refer to the bottom line or get blown away."
(i) net income
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_income
(Net income is informally called the bottom line because it is typically found on the last line of a company's income statement (a related term is top line, meaning revenue, which forms the first line of the account statement)
(ii) blow away
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/blow%20away

(e) "The word 'scary,' as opposed to 'frightening' or 'alarming,' sounds childish to British ears, rather like talking about your buttocks as your bottie."

I can not find "bottie" in the Web. I wonder the author misspells and it should be "booty."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booty
(American slang for buttocks)

(f) "The phrase 'to feel comfortable with' is quintessentially American. The British would not usually say 'we feel comfortable with using this taxi firm,' any more than they would feel comfortable with being scourged until the blood ran down their thighs."

scourge (vt): "FLOG, WHIP"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/scourge