The English language was introduced to the Americas by the arrival of the British, beginning in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The language also spread to numerous other parts of the world as a result of British trade and settlement and the spread of the former British Empire, which, by 1921, included 470–570 million people, about a quarter of the world's population. In England, Wales, Ireland and especially parts of Scotland there are differing varieties of the English language, so the term 'British English' is an oversimplification. Likewise, spoken American English varies widely across the country. Written forms of British and American English as found in newspapers and textbooks vary little in their essential features, with only occasional noticeable differences.
Rhyming slang is a form of slang word construction in the English language. It is especially prevalent among Cockneys in England, and was first used in the early 19th century in the East End of London; hence its alternative name, Cockney rhyming slang. In the US, especially the criminal underworld of the West Coast between 1880 and 1920, rhyming slang has sometimes been known as Australian slang.
A thesaurus, sometimes called a synonym dictionary or dictionary of synonyms, is a reference work which arranges words by their meanings, sometimes as a hierarchy of broader and narrower terms, sometimes simply as lists of synonyms and antonyms. They are often used by writers to help find the best word to express an idea:
...to find the word, or words, by which [an] idea may be most fitly and aptly expressed
"The whole nine yards" or "the full nine yards" is a colloquial American English phrase meaning "everything, the whole lot" or, when used as an adjective, "all the way". Its first usage was the punch line of an 1855 Indiana comedic short story titled "The Judge's Big Shirt".
Literal and figurative language is a distinction that exists in all natural languages; it is studied within certain areas of language analysis, in particular stylistics, rhetoric, and semantics.
Alma mater is an allegorical Latin phrase used to proclaim a school that a person has attended or, more usually, from which one has graduated. Alma mater is also a honorific title for various mother goddesses, especially Ceres or Cybele. Later, in Catholicism, it became a title of Mary, mother of Jesus.
The Concise Oxford English Dictionary is one of the best-known of the 'smaller' Oxford dictionaries. The latest edition contains over 240,000 entries and 1,728 pages. Its 12th edition, published in 2011, is used by both the United Nations (UN) and NATO as the current authority for spellings in documents in English for international use. It is available as an e-book for a variety of handheld device platforms. In addition to providing information for general use, it documents local variations such as United States and United Kingdom usage.
Bollocks is a word of Middle English origin meaning "testicles". The word is often used in British English and Irish English in a multitude of negative ways; it most commonly appears as a noun meaning "rubbish" or "nonsense", an expletive following a minor accident or misfortune, or an adjective to describe something that is of poor quality or useless. It is also used in common phrases like "bollocks to this", which is said when quitting a task or job that is too difficult or negative, and "that's a load of old bollocks", which generally indicates contempt for a certain subject or opinion. Conversely, the word also appears in positive phrases such as "the dog's bollocks" or more simply "the bollocks", which will refer to something which is admired or well-respected.
The Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (OALD) was the first advanced learner's dictionary of English. It was first published in 1948. It is the largest English-language dictionary from Oxford University Press aimed at a non-native audience. Users with a more linguistic interest, requiring etymologies or copious references, usually prefer the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, or indeed the comprehensive Oxford English Dictionary, or other dictionaries aimed at speakers of English with native-level competence.
An acronym is an abbreviation of a phrase that usually consists of the initial letter of each word in all caps with no punctuation.
Despite the various English dialects spoken from country to country and within different regions of the same country, there are only slight regional variations in English orthography, the two most notable variations being British and American spelling. Many of the differences between American and British/English in the Commonwealth of Nations date back to a time before spelling standards were developed. For instance, some spellings seen as "American" today were once commonly used in Britain, and some spellings seen as "British" were once commonly used in the United States.
Burton is a British online clothing retailer, former high street retailer and clothing manufacturer, specialising in men's clothing and footwear. The company was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index, but became a trading name of Arcadia Group Brands Ltd, part of the Arcadia Group. Sir Philip Green acquired the Arcadia Group in 2002, and it became the sole owner of Burton. In 2021, Boohoo.com acquired the brand after Arcadia went into administration.
A full breakfast is a substantial cooked breakfast meal, often served in Great Britain and Ireland. The typical ingredients are bacon, sausages, eggs, black pudding, baked beans, tomatoes, mushrooms and fried bread with toast and a beverage such as coffee or tea served on the side. Hash browns are a common contemporary but non-traditional inclusion. Ingredients may extend beyond these or include regional variants, which may often be referred to by different names depending on the area. While it is colloquially known as a "fry-up" in most areas of the United Kingdom and Ireland, it is usually referred to as a "full English", a "full Irish", "full Scottish", "full Welsh", and "Ulster fry", in England, the Republic of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, respectively.
Garner's Modern English Usage (GMEU), written by Bryan A. Garner and published by Oxford University Press, is a usage dictionary and style guide for contemporary Modern English. It was first published in 1998 as A Dictionary of Modern American Usage, with a focus on American English, which it retained for the next two editions as Garner's Modern American Usage (GMAU). It was expanded to cover English more broadly in the 2016 fourth edition, under the present title. The work covers issues of usage, pronunciation, and style, from distinctions among commonly confused words and phrases to notes on how to prevent verbosity and obscurity. In addition, it contains essays about the English language. An abridged version of the first edition was also published as The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style in 2000 and a similar version was published in The Chicago Manual of Style 16th edition in 2017. The latter includes three sections titled "Grammar", "Syntax" and "Word Usage", each with several subcategories.
No worries is an expression seen in English meaning "do not worry about that", "that's all right", "forget about it" or "sure thing". It is similar to the American English "no problem". The phrase is widely used in Australian and New Zealand speech and represents a feeling of friendliness, good humour, optimism and "mateship" in Australian culture. The phrase has been referred to as the national motto of Australia.
A false, coined, fake, bogus or pseudo-title, also called a Time-style adjective and an anarthrous nominal premodifier, is a kind of preposed appositive phrase before a noun predominantly found in journalistic writing. It formally resembles a title, in that it does not start with an article, but is a common noun phrase, not a title. An example is the phrase convicted bomber in "convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh", rather than "the convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh".
The full stop, period, or full point. is a punctuation mark used for several purposes, most often to mark the end of a declarative sentence.
The Oxford Dictionary of English (ODE) is a single-volume English dictionary published by Oxford University Press, first published in 1998 as The New Oxford Dictionary of English (NODE). The word "new" was dropped from the title with the Second Edition in 2003. The dictionary is not based on the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) – it is a separate dictionary which strives to represent faithfully the current usage of English words. The Revised Second Edition contains 355,000 words, phrases, and definitions, including biographical references and thousands of encyclopaedic entries. The Third Edition was published in August 2010, with some new words, including "vuvuzela".
A demob suit was a suit of civilian clothes given to a man on his demobilisation from the British armed forces at the end of the Second World War. Although the suits were of good quality, the need to clothe millions of demobilising servicemen led to supply problems that caused some men to receive suits that were not of the correct size. As a result, the demob suit became a common subject in British comedy in the post-war years.
