In the UK they call USB keys / thumb drives – pen drives…I was referring to the USB key sticking out of the DVD player thinking that’s what he needed….um he was looking for an actual pen :)
Does this mean I spend too much time in front of a computer?
Gave him a visitmiddlesbrough.com pen from my desk.
It is too easy to spend money. Grabbing lunch at Boots and picking up cute, cheap jewelry is the latest way to piss away money £5 at a time.
So far, two rings and a pair of earrings….
The spelling is jewellery in the UK. There’s a nice wikipedia article on American and British English spelling differences.
When I was a kid growing up in Brooklyn I liked the British u added to colour and labour. I found it aesthetically pleasing or something. I wrote colour on a spelling test which was marked wrong. Being a nerd I brought in a dictionary and pointed out to my teacher that it was an acceptable alternate spelling.
Random thoughts on language: Things take longer in Hartlepool. In NYC I would say “at the moment” as an expression of current time; here they say “at the minute.”
It’s not a British vs. American difference according to google.
“+at +the +moment” = 88,700,000 entries generally; 2,490,000 on sites from the UK
“at +the +minute” = 566,000 entries generally; 196,000 on sites from the UK
A large proportion of the total “+at +the +minute”s are coming from the UK. I wonder if it’s a city vs. town divide with people from [small] towns in the UK being online more than their American counterparts.
We still say “Up to the minute” [for breaking news], and “up to the moment” doesn’t sound right…I think I use “at the moment” for personal thoughts and individual actions, minutes for something external that requires some time.
Interesting Language Blogs:
