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Originally Posted by mrbanana
I'm British. I remember teaching English in Spain 20 years ago and having to get my American girlfriend at the time to explain "twenty of six" to me, which was in all the teaching books we were using.
On a side note one expression I find odd in American English is 'off of' as in 'get off of me' instead of 'get off me' which Jim Butcher uses a lot in The Dresden Files. I assume it's colloquial.
Also something I first spotted in Janet Evanovich's books, and I'm now seeing everywhere is: 'a couple million dollars' or 'a couple bullets' instead 'a couple of million dollars' or 'a couple of bullets'. That seems a bit odd to me.
Bill Bryson has a lot to say about the differences between British and American English in the book Mother Tongue, and from what I can remember, his conclusion was that when these differences show up a lot of the time it's because American English tends to use old fashioned words or expressions or grammar forms that have fallen out of favour in British English.
And yes, I spelt favour right, and the irregular past tense of spell come to that, whatever Noah Webster's committee had to say on the matter.  |
Being from New Jersey myself, I would say "a couple million dollars" in casual conversation, although it comes it more as an elision "cuplah" off the printed page. To actually say "They dug a couple bullets outta (da) wall" is more New York City to me ("Brooklynese"). Similarly, in spoken American, it's really "Get offa me!" On the other hand, back when I was addicted to Eastenders, I found the expression "moving house" horribly redundant.
I hadn't realized that "gotten" was the older past participle of "get" until recently. I suppose the phrase "ill-gotten gains" is still used there though?
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Originally Posted by pthwaite
For a formal time, such as a dental appoint,net etc, we would use the 24hr clock time as it is a definitive time. The same for meetings, ie 15:45 or 09:20.
However when speaking it would generally be quarter to four in the afternoon and either nine twenty or twenty past nine, in the morning in the above examples.
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Interestingly, I could see replying "Try back around quarter of/to four" to a question "When do you think she'll be back?" rather than necessarily 3:45. The of/to is pretty much interchangeable, though pronounced "quarter-ah" and "quarter-duh" in New Jersey.