Customer Reviews

British American Language Dictionary

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Norman Moss's book makes a good attempt at comparing British and American English. I think some of the words and expressions are a litte dated, but on the whole he's made a fair attempt at this difficult task. Where he slips up is when a word such as firefly is known in both countries. He indicates that lightning bug is American, and firefly is British; however firefly is also well known in America. It would be nice to see a table comparing words which have very different meanings in the other country. e.g. cordial, homely and loft. I recently purchased "Divided by a Common Language" which has more accuracy and includes pronunciation and spelling differences.

This book was fun to read, informative, and accurate time and time again. It seems that the American slang is a bit dated, but the British slang is quite good. The other translations (nappy-diaper, panties-pants, etc.) seem to be good and far more stable than the ever slipping slang of each time. This book is fun, funny, and interesting.

I was disappointed in this book. I was looking for help in writing a story set in England in 1860. This was not too much help. A language dictionary usually has an equivilant of the same word in the other language. I expected to look up an American word and find the British word. All I got was a definition of the American word without the British equivilent. I can look up definitions of Amereican words in most any dictionary I already have. He did somewhat better in converting British words to American. I think there is room for someone to write a British/ American dictionary like the French/English and Spanish/ English dictionaries I now own. Sorry, Mister Moss. Maybe I'll find the difference between pantalettes, drawers, bloomers, undies and knickers somewhere, but not in your book.

After 24 years in Britain, followed by 11 in the US, I suppose I don't really need this book any more. I bought it not that long after I moved to Texas, and it was a welcome companion--it was nice to read in print what I'd just found out the hard way in conversation, and even nicer to be forewarned.

Moss has included most, but not all, of the words that frequently baffle one side or the other. On the plus side, there are some wonderful anecdotes in here--such as one in the "Yankee" entry, about a Brit who mentioned to his Tennessee hosts that he'd seen a lot of Yankee money and enterprise down in Mexico, to be greeted by a cool silence and finally the resentful retort: "Well, I bet there's some rebel money and rebel enterprise down there too." If you don't understand what the problem was, you need this book.

On the other side of the ledger, however, the book is incomplete. Naturally it is missing some very recent slang, such as the very new British use of "pants" as a synonym for "naff" (which he *does* define); but it is also missing some words and phrases I'd have fully expected to find here: fortnight, counterpane, and "Bob's your uncle" on the British side; cobbler and punt on the American side, just as examples.

There are also some entries which, though sometimes entertaining, are not well attributed or are out of date. The use of "scrump" for pilfering fruit from fruit trees is one I never heard in the UK; it is almost certainly local to the West Country, where scrumpy (apple cider) is the local moonshine; similarly, "taproom" is a word I knew from literature but never ran into in real life. On the American side, there are occasional oddities that are perhaps regional: "locate" meaning to find a job doesn't square with what I've heard here in Texas, nor does "frog", for the crossing plate on a railway, seem like an entry that deserved its place.

Still, with these flaws, it's a fun reference book to have. Perhaps (and it's not really a criticism) it's really more entertaining than it is useful.

I love America. I love the technology. I am so thrilled of how easy can I get the best books ... . British American Language Dictionary was so informative and rich. Divided by common Language is the best of its kind. Get both of them and have fun.