KVHAA Konferenser 36:145-158. Stockholm 1996

American and British wordsJohn Algeo

American and British English are clearly one language. But also just asclearly, they are distinct varieties of that language. The distinction befweenthe varieties is least obvious in grammar. It is most salient in pronunciation,and particularly intonation. But it is greatest in vocabulary: the forms and usesof words.

This paper examines some ways British is distinct from American for threesemantic fields in words beginning with the letter e. A few comments aboutthese qualifications limiting the scope of the paper are in order.

First, the corpus for this paper is limited to words with the initial letter e,including all such words in the combined files of Allen Walker Read and Johnand Adele Algeo. Allen Walker Read collected about 100,000 citations of Brit-ish uses from the eighteenth century to the 1960s. Read's citations includenotably comments by English visitors to America and American visitors toEngland, concerning the odd uses of the foreign land in which they foundthemselves.

My wife and I have been collecting contemporary citations of Briticismssince the 1960s and now have more than 50,000. In these combined corpuses,there are more than a thousand Briticisms beginning with e, which is a largeenough number to serve as the basis for some conclusions, but not so large asto be daunting for the present purpose. It is also a corpus currently beinginvestigated by my student, Susan Wright Sigalas, for her doctoral dissertationat the University of Georgia.

Second, the corpus consists of Briticisms and so the focus of this paper is onhow British differs fromAmerican, not the reverse. British andAmerican Eng-lish define each other: what is British is what is notAmerican, and vice versa.The usual approach in British-American studies is to assume British English asa norn and to look at the ways American departs from it. This approach,generally unacknowledged, has been practically universal in scholarly studies.Only a few popular works have taken the opposite or a more balanced stand.

For example, the Oxford English Dictionary, undeniably the greatest ofscholarly works on the history of the English vocabulary labels American-isms, Australianisms, Canadianisms, Indianisms, New Zealandisms, Scotti-cisms, South Africanisms, West Indianisms, and so on. However, it has no

146 JohnAlgeo

labels for Briticisms, the usage of England. The unspoken assumption in the

OED is that anything used in England is English pure and simple, and that

anything used only outside England is something else, a variation of core

English. Such an assumption is pardonable in a dictionary intended only for

domestic use within England, but is unacceptable in a work that pretends to

general international relevance.

A language is not located in a landscape or in a political entity such as a

nation. It is located in the brains and on the tongues of its speakers. English is

thus to be found wherever English-speakers are. And English-speakers are

found all over the world. Since a majority of native speakers of English are'

however, now in the United States, it is not completely unreasonable to regard

the American variety as the norm of the language and to study minority varie-

ties with reference to it.Such a view may not appeal to His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, for

whom architectural and linguistic rectitude appear to be matters of greater

concern than some other norms of behavior. Nor will it appeal to those forwhom the export of British English is a significant industry or those who have

invested heavily in it. However, the approach taken here is to see how British

differs from the norm of American.Third, the terms "British" and "Briticism" hele refer to the standard use of

English in England. They are not ideal terms for that purpose but are used forlack of better ones. The polysemy of the wotd Englisft refening on the one

hand to the English language in all of its pied beauty and on the other hand to

the geographical area of England encourages confusion.

What counts here as a Briticism is any usage associated specifically withEngland by label or definition in dictionaries or any usage identified as a

British varietal distinction by Britons or Americans. Some of the words so

counted may not be Briticisms by some other criteria, but the definition used

here is a purely operational one.

Fourth, the semantic fields into which the Briticisms were classified are

a-posteriori ones, derived from an inspection of the corpus. Initially 73 such

fields were used to classify the corpus of Briticisms; they were of considerable

variation in size, ranging from a single word to about 60 in a field. Those

semantic fields included law, crime, politics, social classes, royalty, deroga-

tion, entertainment, sports, communication, animals, plants, occupations, and

so on. Other fields and other assignments of words to fields would be easily

possible, any such classification being to some extent arbitrary'

Because of time and space limitations, I have here restricted attention to

three of the more populous semantic fields: education, food, and transporta-

tion. The appendix lists nearly 150 Briticisms beginning with the letter e in

these three semantic fields. Following are brief comments on the fields and

selected items in them.

American and British words 1,47

One of the largest areas of semantic differentiation is education. That is notsurprising. The older British systems of elementary preparatory, and univer-sity education were not carried over intact to America, where new systemswere instead developed to meet the social and geographical needs of the newland. Postgraduate education, when it developed in America, followed a Ger-man rather than a British model. And so there was from the beginning a sharphiatus between educational practice in the New World and that in Britain, a

hiatus intensified by the recent independent development in Britain andAmer-ica of universal education on all levels. There is today, to be sure, a great dealof mutual influence, but the historical divergence has produced many differ-ences in practice and thus in the vocabulary for talking about that practice.

Much of the terminological difference befween British andAmerican educa-tional matters therefore reflects differences in the things named. Names for thedivisions of the academic year in Britain reflect the ecclesiastical origins ofBritish education: terms such as Christmas, Easter Michaelmas, HiIary (com-memorating an otherwise obscure French saint), Lent, and Trinity. Americanacademic terms are distinctly duller, more prosaic, and more secularfall, win-te4 spring, summer. The use of seasonal names (which are not unknown inBritain but compete with the more churchy alternatives) is a reminder that theAmerican academic calendar was created to allow children to be out of schoolwhen they were most needed for farm chores, an anomaly today.

The system of English external examinations, by which faculty at one uni-versity write and grade tests for students at another university, is foreign toAmerican education. The American analog is the national examination pro-vided by a private testing company, but it is a distant analog. Even the term forthe basic artifact of the examination is different: British examination paper isnot used in America, where the term is simply examination, exam) or test, otfor its reciprocal aspects: questions and answers.

Food is another area of extensive lexical differentiation between Americanand British use. Although earthnut has been an English word since Anglo-Saxon times, the plant is not native to America, so the first colonists did notneed the name for it, and the term dropped out of use on the western side of theAtlantic. When the peanut spread to Britain, the term earthnut was sometimesextended to it there, but America had enough native terms for that food, in-chtding peanut itself and the geographically more limited Africanisms goober(pea) and pinder. Thus an ancient English term, earthnut, has become a two-fold Briticism, fust by being lost from American English through lack of itsoriginal referent and second by being innovatively applied in British Englishto a new referent for whichAmerican already had other terms.

Endive is a particularly complex example. Also known as escarole, it comesin several varieties with leaves of variable width and curliness, used as a saladingredient. The related plant chicory, also called succory or, to add to the

L48 JohnAlgeo

confusion, Belgian endive, is cultivated by blanching its crown leaves for use

also as a salad ingredient, when it is sometimes called witloof ot French en'

dive.To sort out the use of the names for these plants, both Britons andAmer-

icans have often been advised that the terms endive and chicory are used in

opposite ways in their two countries, so they should simply reverse what they

"utt ttt" things when they are traveling in partibus infidelibus. That advice is

too simple. Americans, however, do tend to reserve chicory for the ground root

ofthe piant as a coffee substitute and use endive generally for the salad ingre-

dient, whatever its botanical identity.

Other differences in food terms are due to British innovation. Egg mayon-

naise,happily unknown inAmerica as either a term or a food, suggests a French

culinary dtju:te,neri:/ or anglicb /'krlinerif model. Neither it nor itsAmerican

anutog, "gg

r alad, are listed in general dictionaries; yet neither is semantically

transparent, and thus both neglected terms need lexicographical treatment.

E[g cup is another Briticism. This article of crockery was generally un-

known in nineteenth-century America. lnstead, when Americans ate softboiled

eggs, they broke them into an ordinary cup or a wine glass, added seasoning,

and stirred up the mixture'In L833, u gritirh traveler in America made an observation about this (to

him) peculiar American custom that many of his fellow countrymen echoed:,,Wine-glasses are placed on the breakfast table in lieu of egg-cups. On en-

quiry, we learned from the waiter, that this is the universal custom, and that the

Americans never eat an egg direct from the shell, but pour the contents into a

wine-glass, in which they mix it up with salt before tasting it'"

A generation later, an American traveling in England and staying at a Lon-

don hotel in 1867 made a complementary observation: "The eggs were

brought in [for breakfast] ... in egg-cups, with the shells unbroken, not broken

into a glass as was the invariable practice in America' I was astonished to see

the egg thus eaten out of the eggshell." The term e88 cup, which is still rare in

America, as is its referent, is a Briticism.

Some terms change their status, and do so quite rapidly. Espresso,both term

and thing, was new to English in the 1940s. It seems to have entered British

English first andAmerican afterwards, whether directly from Italian or by way

of British is not clear. It is general English today. But in the 1940s it appears to

have been a Briticism.It is not surprising that transportation terms should vary, since the normal

modes of transportation have changed radically since the political and cul-

tural separation of America and Britain. The two areas of greatest contrast are

automoiive and railroading terms. Automotive terms, for cars, trucks, busses,

and the road, are doubtless the most salient of contrasting transportation

words.Some automotive differences are obvious and so well known as to be

American and British words 1,49

shibboleths of British-American difference: British estate car for Americanstation wagon is a case in point. Others are subtler. The use of engage incollocation with gear is a Briticism; Americans do not usually "engage a

gear"; instead they "put it in gear" or "put it in fust, second, third, high, re-

verse, etc." or they "shift gears."

Engage (of a gear) is understandable to an American, but belongs to the

wrong register for most car-talk. A passage like the following, from an An-thony Price thriller, would be impossible in American detective fiction: "'I'llbe off then.'He engaged the gear and released the defective hand-brake to suithis words." An American analog might go something like this: "'I'm outtahere.' He put the car in gear and took off the bum parking brake, to show he

wasn't just flapping his gums." (Engage is generally more popular and less

formal in British than inAmerican. [n addition to gears, British telephones and

public toilets are often engaged, uses that are faintly comic to an Americansensibility, which prefers busy and occupied, respectively.)

Railroading language is obsolescent for mostAmericans, with the demise ofthe national rail system, replaced by passenger cars and trucks on interstatehighways and by air travel especially for longer distances. American railroad-ing terms are consequently nearly as foreign to most Americans as are theirBritish equivalents, so the contrast is rapidly becoming one between Britishterminology and no terms at all.

Even before the dismantling of the American train system, some of the

traditional differences had ceased to be valid. In the heyday of the railroads, an

often cited contrast was between British engine and American locomotive,butby the first third of this century the British alternative had been naturalized inAmerican English.

There are fewer differences in aviation, doubtless because it is highly inter-national by nature. There is also a good deal of fluctuation in both British and

American aviation terminology, for example, the terms for various classes ofservice (first class versus economy, tourist, excursion, or simply an unnamed

"all others"). The airlines strive to find a set of terms that will distinguish first-class seats from "all others" without making those who are the "all others" feellike what they are-second-class travelers.

For all semantic categories, an interesting factor is the extent to which Brit-icisms, as operationally defined here, are recorded in the OED. As alreadyobserved, the OED does not label Briticisms, but in addition, it does not even

enter a goodly number. About 39 percent of the Briticisms examined here have

entries, main or subordinate, inthe OED. Another 9 percent are exemplifiedsomewhere in the text of the OED, in quotations or definitions for other en-

tries, but have no entries of their own. Thus 52 percent of these Briticisms are

not in the OED at all and 61 percent have no entry in that work.The reasons for the omission from the OED of over half the Briticisms

150 JohnAlgeo

examined here are fairly clear. Many such terms would have been consideredby the OED editors to be free combinations or contextualized semantic vari-ants rather than independent lexicalized forms. Although Munay and his col-leagues were generous in including what they regarded as free combinationsand finely distinguished semantic categories, the number of candidates forsuch inclusion is very large. It is impossible in practice to include all in anydictionary, so the lexicographer has to rely on the competence of the nativespeaker to identify more or less predictable uses.

However, what seems to a native speaker of British English to be a pre-dictable use may not seem so to the speaker of another variety, such as Amer-ican. Early tea (which does not have an OED entry) may seem to a Britishspeaker to be obvious and therefore not needing a definition, but no Ameri-can uninitiated into the mysteries of British mealtimes would have any notionof what it is. Similarly, egg soldier is transparent to someone who knowsabout the soldiers that are strips of bread and what they are used for, but notto ignorant Americans. A single word that falls into the same category is ex-

cess for what Americans would call "overtime" or "violation" on a parkingmeter, as in excess charge and excess flag. Such extended use of excess mayseem to be obvious to British speakers, but it is a pruzlement to others. Thatuse is probably recent, however, and so suggests another reason for its lackof entry.

Some items are probably missing from the OED because they are too new,even for Robert Burchfield's Supplement, or the lightly expanded content ofthe merged "second edition." An instance is Eurotunnel. Others are perhapstoo rare to have been picked up by the OED edilors or, if collected, too infre-quent in use to have passed editorial scrutiny of what to include. Examplesmay be esquire bedell and Eve's pudding.

The OED also avoids proper names, although in fact a good many get in-cluded. Indeed, the grounds on which the OED has admitted or excludedproper names are not clear. Examination Schools as the name of a building at

Oxford where examinations are held is, in fact, defined inthe OED, but has nocitation or date, and seems to have been entered as an after-thought. Exonian isdefined as a native or resident of the town of Exeter, but not as a student oralumnus of Exeter College.

Some items may have been excluded because they were judged too dialec-tal. Easter-ledge pudding is, according to the unappetizing definition in theCollins Dictionary, a pudding made from the leaves of the bistort plant. Theterm is not attested in the OED, but then it is a Northern delicacy and so is itsname. Northern things have been given short shrift in Southern England eversince Chaucer's "Miller's Tale."

On the other hand, the OED does have an entry for emmet in the sense of atourist in Cornwall . Emmet's primary meaning is 'ant'. Tourists in Cornwall

American and British words 151

are so called because at certain seasons of the year they swarm like ants. The

term would seem to be just as regionally limited as Easter-ledge pudding, and

to be a joke word in addition. Perhaps it is mere happenstance that emmet

'tourist'is included inthe OED whereas Easter-ledge pudding is not.

Some items are probably missing because they were judged not to be lexicalmatters on principle. An instance is the phrase eggs and bacon for what inAmerican use would be bacon and eggs. In this case one of the OED citations

contains some misinformation. The dictionary's entry for the tetm co-text in-cludes the following citation commenting on the collocation of the words eggs

and bacon:

1965 B. M. H. Strang Metaphors & Models 4 Bacon and eggs is reversible, asfish , ndchips is not, ... by reason of linguistic information about position and about the items inthe co-text (the words bacon, eggs, fish, chips).

Barbara Strang's observation about the reversible order of bacon and eggs

appears to be supported by Ihe OED evidence, for the body of the dictionaryincludes 14 instances of bacon and egg(s) (12 with the plural eggs and 2 withthe singular egg) and L3 instances of egg(s) and bacon (10 with the plural eggs

and 3 with the singular egg). According to the dictionary's evidence, the two

orders are practically equal in frequency, and thus the words are reversible in

the expression.However, the text of the OED is overwhelmingly British. I have asked a fair

sampling of Americans which order they think is more natural, and their re-

sponse is overwhelmingly, indeed so far universally, in favor of bacon and

eggs.The word order eggs and bacon is not impossible, but it is not normal forAmericans. The phrase as a term for a typical breakfast menu is not fullyreversible inAmerican use. Such a difference between British andAmerican in

the preferred ordering of the parts of a set expression needs to be recorded in

dictionaries as lexical information.Only a few terms have been discussed here; others are listed in the appen-

dix. They are limited to Briticisms beginning with the letter e in the semantic

areas of education, food, and transportation. But they are fairly representative

of the much larger range of British-American word differences. From even thisbrief discussion, two conclusions should be apparent. One is that British and

American words differ extensively. The other is that dictionaries, including or

even especially that Queen of dictionaries, the OED, do a poor job of record-

ing such differences.In particular, the distinctive lexical features of British English have been

unconscionably neglected. An attempt to redress that neglect will be made by

the dictionary of Briticisms for which my wife and I have been gathering

additional evidence for the past few years whileAllen Walker Read's extensive

file of citations has been computerized. Like all works of human hands, it will

1,52 John Algeo

be incomplete and flawed, but it will make an effort to do on a large scale whatso far has been done mainly by enthusiasts on relatively small scales: to iden-tify the range of distinctive words in British English.

AppendixBriticisms in Education, Food, andTransportation Beginning with the Letter E

KEY <earliest date in the OED entry or, if no OED record, dictionary inwhich the term is entered>; lno OED entry, earliest date for the term occurringin a citation under another entry, followed by that entry form]; {no OEDrecord, earliest date in the Read orAlgeo files)

Educationearly school Schooling between 7:30 and 8:30 {1949}Easter term The term between Easter and mid-summer <1603>Edinburgh UniversityA university founded in 1583education(al)ist 1: Educational theorist <1,857;1827> 2z Educator <W3>Educational Welfare Offrcer formerly: school attendance ffice4 truancy of-

ficer One who investigates the out-of-school life of pupils for interferencewith their attendance or achievement <Collins>

education authority grant Financial support provided for college students

{1e87}Education Committee School board [1911 counci|education inspectorAn educational supervisor of home schooling {1993}ekker Exercise (Oxford slang) <1891>Electoral RollA body at Cambridge University {1898}elementary (child/education/schooVteacher) Pertaining to a state school for

pupils between 5 and 13 or 14; primary school <- education 1870, - school1841> {- child 1942, - teacher 1939} (The category was abolished by theEducation Act ot 1944)

eleven plus l,: The age, between 11 and 12, when pupils leave primary school<1937> 2: An examination formerly taken by children at age 10-12 to de-termine the type of secondary education they would receive: academic(grammar school), nonacademic (secondary modern school), or technical(technical school) <1957>

emigrant One who changes colleges within a university {1356}Emma, Emmanuel CollegeA Cambridge college founded in 1584Encaenia, Encenia with sg. or pl. verb An annual university ceremony at

Oxford; Commencement or Honors Day <169L>endowed school A private preparatory school with an endowment <1846>

American and British words 153

entrance paper Entrance examination {1979)entry Group or class who begin together {1991}equipollence The grouping of colleges so that each group is equally attractive

to potential students - equipollent {1957}ESN Educationally sub-normal < 1955>esquire bedell One of three mace-bearers who accompany the vice-chancellor

at Cambridge on ceremonial occasions [1873 beadleship)ET Employment Training {1990}Eton boyA student at Eton <L842>Eton (College) A public school founded in 1440 and now socially influential

and associated with upper-class prejudiceEtonian (A student or alumnus) of Eton College <1770>Euclid Geometry, as a school subject {1869}evangelical college Denominational college { 1884}evening classes/school Night school <- school 1822, - classes (L579) [1929

junior]>Examination Board The authority that organized the GCSE and A-level ex-

aminations {1988}examination funk Motivation to work because of fear {1840-5} (ct OED

examination fev e r L884)exam(ination) paper 1: The printed questions for an examination 2: A candi-

date's written answers to the questions of an examination<examination - 1837>

Examination Schools 1: Curricula at Oxford with formal examinations<1868> 2: A building in Oxford where examinations are held {1916}

exeat [Latin 'let him depart'] A leave of absence for a student <1725-51.>

- Exeat Day {1965} - Exeat Sunday {1965}exercise Any of four preliminary examinations for a Cambridge degree (two

o'acIs" and two "opponencies") {1888}exercise book Composition book; blue book <1813>ex-ex-seventh Formerly, a council school class beyond the ex-seventh {1921.}exhibition An award for study, usually for high performance on an entrance

examination, distinguished from a scholarship <L631->exhibitionerA student granted an EXHTBTTToN <1679>Exonian 1: A native or resident of Exeter <1871> 2: A member of Exeter

College, Oxford {1926}ex-seventh Formerly, an advanced class in council schools beyond the seventh

standard (age 12) {I92I}extern A nonresident student <1848>external (conference / course / degrce / exam(ination) / examiner / ex-

amining) 1: Extension; home-study; administered by another university<- examination 1912, - examiner 1888> 2: External examination {1989}

1,54 John Algeo

externally By nxreRxar EXAMINERS {1958}extramural (Of courses, classes) Extension {1945},

FOOD

E- prefix See E NurrlnBn

e and b, e&b Eggs and bacon {1988}Earl Grey [Charles, 2dEarl Grey, d. 1845]A black tea, China or China-Indian

blend, scented with bergamot oil <1958 Indian>early (morning) tea Tea with bread and butter delivered to a bedroom before

breakfast learly tea L862 pikelet; early morning tea I9ll Russianl

earthnut also called pignut 1: A European plant, Conopodium maius, withedible tubers <875> 2: A peanut <Collins>

EasterJedge pudding northern dial. Apudding made from the bistort (Easter

ledge) plant <Collins>eaterAn eating apple <L906>eating-house A modest restaurant <1440>eating ironmilitary Eating utensils {1982}eating-parlour Dining room <1823>eating room Dining room, domestic or commercial <L630>

eating-shop Snack shop {1933}Eccles cake [Eccles, Greater Manchester] A small round cake of flaky pastry

filled with raisins and candied fruit <L872>eddo(es) Taro <1-685>

Eden Vale milk Packaged milk for coffee or tea {1986}Edinburgh rock [after Castle Rock in Edinburgh]A rock-candy bar flavored

with peppermint and cinnamon 11949 tartanleel and pie shop A food store selling eels and meat pies {1987}eel pieA potpie made with eelsll828 bushlegg and bacon pieA Northern dish {1938}egg and chips n. sing. Eggs and french fries {1985}egg and meat boat Toast, scrambled egg, and sausage arranged to resemble a

boat {1986}egg cosy A cloth cover to keep a boiled egg warm <1894>

egg cup A small handleless cup for holding a boiled egg to be eaten from itsshell <1773>

eggcupful A cooking measurement <L837>egg mayonnaise Sliced hard-boiled egg with mayonnaise; cf. Am. egg salad

fL9I4lobster)egg powder Powdered eggs <1862>eggs and bacon Bacon and eggs (phrasal order) 11749 whatl

American and British words 155

egg slice A spatula for removing eggs from a frying pan 4796>egg soldier A strip of toast for dipping in egg yolk [1966 soldierf

egg spoon A small spoon for eating soft-boiled eggs <1886>

eggspoonful A cooking measurement {1944}egg wedgerA device for cutting a hard-boiled egg into wedges <Moore>

egg *rriir< 1: An egg beater <1868> 2z slang An autogiro, helicopter-like

airplane {1943}Egon Ronay A restaurant guide 11975 privatel

elbow Elbow pasta {L987}elevenses, elevens, eleven's with sg. or pl. verb 1: A morning snack time

about LL a.m.; cf. Am. morning coffee bteak <elevens L849, elevenses

1887> 2z Specif., the food and drink at that snack 4927>elevenses-counter (Morning) snack bar {1946}Elvira new potatoes {1987}endive A lettuce-like plant (Cichorium endivia) of the daisy family with bitter

leaves used in salads; in Am., the young crown of the chicory or Belgian

endive (Cichorium intibus)blanched by growth in darkness for use in salads

<1.440>

Engtish breakfast A breakfast including cooked foods such as eggs' bacon,

and porridge, contrasted with Continental brealcfasr <1807>

entrecdte Boned rib steak <L84L>

entrde A course between fish and meat; in Am. and non-U Brit., a main dish

<1759; no entry for theAm. sense>

E number [European] In lists of ingredients on food packages, a number

prefixed with the letter E, denoting a particular additive in an EEC identifi-

cation system <1977>

Epping butter A kind of butter { 1960}

escarole Endive (British sense) <1897>

espresso Coffee made by forcing steam through finely ground beans <1945>

"ri.rr"" Extract, as in vanilla essence [used in the definition of vanille ice],

coffee essence 11897 coffee'1, almond essence {1986}Essex duck Sheep's head (as a food) {1954}Essex (hog/pig)Abreed developed in Essex for bacon rather than lard <1838>

Everton toffee 1: A kind of candy named for the Liverpool suburb 4861> 2z

riming slang Coffee <1857>

Eve's PuddingA kind of nursery food {1987}

TRANSPOKTAIION

Ecopave A type of ecologically sound road paving {1993}Ecosivephoron obsoleteA large van {1.961, said to have been current "in early

Victorian times")

'J,56 John Algeo

Elder Brother p/. Elder Brethren One of thirteen senior members of TrinityHouse, an institution responsible for navigation around the British coast, cf.Am. Coast Guard 11696 brother)

electric Electric train {L991}electric adjustment Of a car seat, movability by electricity {1989}electricarA bus used in a mine {1954}electric road Electric trolley {1904}electrobus An electrically propelled bus <1906>electrolyte Battery fluid <1834 general sense; L968 reference to batteries>

{re43}electronic tagAn electronic monitoring device attached, for example, to a car

to keep track of its whereabouts {1989}electronic toll A highway toll collected electronically {1993}elevator plane An airplane elevator to make it ascend or descend {1956}embus To board a bus <19L5>emergency hammer A hammer to break train windows in an emergency

{1e8e}emmetA tourist (in Cornwall) <1975>engage (a gear) Shift into; put in {1980}engine Train locomotive <1838>engine bay Part of an automobile {1986}engine driver Train engineer f1.846 junctionfengine seizure An automotive breakdown {1991}engine shed Roundhouse [1971 runningferect 1: Make up/down (a Pullman sleeper bed) {I9a2} 2zPfi up (a converti-

ble top) {1986}E registeredA type ofcar registration {1990}escape lane/road An exit from a highway for a vehicle in difficulty <Schur,

- road, Collins>estate (car/wagon) Station wagon <- car 1950, - wagon 1959> {estate 1985}Eurocity Eurocity Express, a British airline {1987}Eurohub A center of European transportation { 1989}Euro-lorry A large European truck {1986}Eurotunnel 1: The Anglo-French company building a rail tunnel under the

English channel {1986} 2: The Channel tunnel <Collins>Euston Station A train station in north-central London serving the western

Midlands and Scotland; the nearby underground stationexcept for access A road sign forbidding vehicles (of a certain size or weight)

entrance to a road unless their destination is on that road <Schur>excess charge Overtime parking fee on a meter <Moore>excessed A label put on luggage on a train to indicate that overweight charges

have been paid <1888 (of railway tickets)> {1895}

American and British words '1,57

excess flagA yellow overtime indicator on a parking meter {1990}excursion class Economy class (on airlines) {L987}excursion ticketA reduced-fare round-trip train ticket {1354}excursion trainA special train run for vacationers <L850>executive class Business class (on airlines) {1957}exhaust box Muffler <1903>express-carrier Special delivery ofpurchased goods by a store {1901}express coachA long-distance bus {1952}express omnibus A fast l,ondon bus operating at rush hours {1869}express train A train run for a special occasion, stopping only at particular

stations <1841>

Selected bibliographyAlgeo, John. 1986a. "National Standards in an International Dictionary.,, Euralex

Bulletin, 3.2 (Dec.): 1.

- 1986b. "The Two Streams: British and American English." Journal of EnglishLin guis tic s 19 :269-84.

- 1987.'A Dictionary of Briticisms." Dictionaries 9:L64-18.

- 1988a. 'A Computer Corpus for a Dictionary of Briticisms." In: Corpus Linguis-tics, Hard and Sort: Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on EnglishInnguage Research on Computerized Corpora, ed. Merja Kytci, Ossi Ihalainen &Matti Rissanen, 45-59. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

- 1988b. "The Year British English Began." SECOL Review 12:176-85.

- 1989a. "Americanisms, Briticisms, and the Standard: An Essay at Definition.,, In:Standardizing English: Essays in the History of Language Change in Honor ofJohn Hurt Fisher, ed. Joseph B. Trahern, Jr., 139-57. Knoxville: University ofTennessee Press.

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