The Prodigal Tongue by Lynne Murphy

Author:Lynne Murphy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2018-04-10T04:00:00+00:00

I encountered the mayor on the way to the ceremony (and perhaps we exchanged pleasantries).

I went to a place at a predetermined time in order to see the mayor.

The mayor and I sat down and had a meeting prior to the ceremony.

American English rebels against this ambiguity, and it does so with prepositions. The ‘encounter’ meaning (b) has mostly been replaced by run into. (That one has proved so useful that Brits are saying it too.) The ‘rendezvous’ meaning (c) gets an up: The mayor and I met up or I met up with the mayor. The ‘have a meeting’ sense (d) has been taken over by meet with. Now that all of those meanings have their own expressions, the default way for Americans to interpret I met the mayor is the (a) sense, ‘make the acquaintance of.’ For British English speakers who don’t use these prepositions, the listener (or reader) has to do more work (if they can be bothered) to determine which kind of meeting activity went on.

Other phrasal verbs add other nuances. Visit with involves sitting down with someone and having a conversation. That’s different from visiting. I could visit an unconscious person in (the) hospital, but I couldn’t visit with them. Add up (an adverbial particle, really, rather than a preposition) after a verb and the action becomes more active and complete. He could head the committee as a matter of ceremony, but if he heads it up, he’s invested in the process.

When British usage gurus aren’t complaining about added prepositions in American English, they find time to complain about missing ones. They say that protest is “incorrect for protest against” and that one should not (Americanly) appeal a verdict but instead should appeal against it. Here I have to note that not every preposition adds more meaning—some are just a matter of linguistic habit. We listen to music, but if we were to decide tomorrow to drop the to and listen music, we’d have little choice but to interpret it the same way. The same is arguably true of appeal against—if there’s no meaning difference between appeal against the verdict and appeal the verdict, then the preposition is a matter of tradition and window dressing, not meaning.

More British pedantic consternation is inspired by the American ability to say things like I wrote the company to complain, where Brits must write to the company (and Americans can as well). American English lets write follow the same pattern as read or tell, but British English makes write follow only the same pattern as read. (The bold one is normal in American English only.)

read pattern

tell pattern

write pattern

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.