1042. Today, Ben Yagoda and Mignon talk about the words "twee," "vet," the two spellings of "gray," the surprising origins of "football" and "soccer," and more.
1042. Today, I have the bonus segment from my interview with Ben Yagoda back in September. Ben is the author of the book "Gobsmacked: The British Invasion of American English," and we talked about the words "twee," "vet," the two spellings of "gray," the surprising origins of "football" and "soccer," and more. Grammarpaloozians who support the show get these segments right when they come out, and in today's really tough podcasting environment, they help us keep going and produce these bonus segments. Many thanks to all of our wonderful Grammarpaloozians!
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Mignon: Grammar Girl here, I'm Mignon Fogarty, and today I have a bonus segment from my interview with Ben Yagoda back in September. Ben is the author of the book "Gobsmacked: The British Invasion of American English," and we talked about the words "twee," "vet," the two different spellings of "gray," the surprising origins of “soccer” and "football," and more. Grammarpaloozians who support the show get these segments right when they come out, and, you know, in today's really tough podcasting environment, they help us keep going and produce these bonus segments. So many thanks to all you wonderful Grammarpaloozians.
Mignon: Thanks. Well, let's continue the discussion. One of the words that really, I thought this was wonderful. So "twee" is another word that sounds really pretentious to me when people say it, but the origin of "twee" absolutely surprised me.
Ben: If I remember correctly, it's an approximation of a little toddler trying to say "sweet." Yeah. And it shows up in novels of the 1920s and '30s and then got established. And so, I was going to say almost always, but always used in a negative context that something's too sweet, too saccharine, too precious.
And if you Google it, probably 75 percent of the references are for the Scottish band Belle and Sebastian, who are, I have to admit, I've never listened to, but they are considered the height of twee pop.
Mignon: Twee pop. Who knew there was such a thing? Um, another one, "gray." So there's, you have the two spellings of "gray," "gray" with A is typically the American spelling and E is typically the British spelling. I've noticed that people tell me they think they're two different colors. People argue with me that they are not just different spellings, they're different colors.
And I thought that was new, but in your book you say it goes way back, people assigning different colors.
Ben: Essentially, you as the conduit, are still getting that. Yeah, so, right. American spelling from Noah Webster days when he differentiated, tried to differentiate American spelling from the British was G-R-A-Y. G-R-E-Y was always more common in Britain. In the age of Not-One-off Britishisms, the G-R-E-Y has become popular, possibly thanks in part to Grey's Anatomy, which is spelled that way, and Grey Poupon mustard.
But, yeah, I found a 1925 book called "Popular Superstitions" that says there's been an attempt to make a difference between "grey" with an E and "gray" with an A. Many artists claim that the old spelling should only be used for mixtures of black and white, while G-R-A-Y for those tones where some other color has been introduced.
So, you know, I think anyone can sort of make anything they want.
Mignon: Yeah, that is so specific.
Ben: Yeah, exactly.
Mignon: Well, when people come to me today and say that I've not detected any pattern. Some people will say they think "gray" with an A is a warmer color. Some people will say they think it's a cooler color. Like there's no pattern. People just seem, like, in their own mind to assign them.
Ben: Yeah, that rings true to me. They want to, they want there to be a difference, and they just come up with the best answer. Yeah.
Mignon: Yeah. It's amazing. Another one. Oh, why don't you talk about soccer? Soccer versus football.
Ben: Yeah, it's a fascinating story. And British people, so as most of your listeners, as you know, and most of your listeners probably know, in the game that Americans call soccer, in Britain now is commonly referred to as football. And American football, with the guys in the helmets and shoulder pads.
They make sure to call that American football, and the very pretentious Lisa Simpson on "The Simpsons" calls it American football because she's such a, so much so what she is. But the interesting thing is that "soccer" was originally a British term. When the game was invented in the late 1800s, there were two forms of football. One was played at the rugby school, and that was termed "rugger," later "rugby." And that's that game. And the other game is what came to be known as soccer or football, and it was known as "association football," that there was this league called the Association. And then the word "associate," the Brits love to make abbreviations and slangy words. So "association" became "soccer." And in those early days, it was called soccer, um, quite frequently. And even up to 1970s and '80s, there were, you know, football heroes who would write their autobiography that's called something like "My Life in Soccer," and it didn't raise an eyebrow. Both terms were used. Then, because of the association with the United States, "soccer" fell off there, and "football" became the exclusive word in Britain, but "soccer" for a long time was quite acceptable there.
Mignon: Amazing. And it's, it's an abbreviation for "association"?
Ben: Yeah, "association football" becomes "soccer."
Mignon: Wild. Wild. And that's great. And "vet." Another one. I mean, that's been in the news a lot lately because people are vetting people for other positions, and I was surprised to find that it comes from veterinary science, like veterinary, going to the veterinarian.
Ben: Yeah, so, you know "veterinarian" is an old, old word for the kind of doctor, and by 1862, it was abbreviated to "vet," like we use today. Only in the 1890s was it used as a verb, but only used about going to the animal doctor. An animal could be vetted, go into the vet and examined.
Then it took on this additional figurative meaning of examining and going through their past, like Kamala Harris just did for her vice presidential candidate. And again, it's one of those words that people are surprised to learn that A. it's British origin. And B. that it hasn't always been used.
Mignon: Yeah. That surprised me a lot. Another one was "over the top." I was surprised to read that that has a military origin. In the British military.
Ben: Yeah, it started in WWI, and it was a term used for literally climbing over the top of a trench and going into battle and took off in America. There was no fewer than six popular songs in WWI era called "Over the Top," including one that was called "Over the Top Goes Sammy." And again, over the 20th century, it became a term common in British for excessive.
The initial meaning was kind of enthusiastic and more positive. Then it took on this negative meaning, became popular in Britain. And then in the last 30 or 40 years, came over to America, just a familiar pattern. Word pops up, gets established, and then comes over here, starts slowly, and then you can chart this out with Ngram Viewer, and then, um, goes up dramatically, and "over the top" is one of those for sure.
Mignon: Yeah. Yeah. And it seems like in, you know, we've got Ginger Spice, and there are other cases where pop culture seems to have played a role in that transition, especially years ago when there wasn't the internet, where you were just seeing people writing stuff online and all sorts of American English, British English, you know, "amongst" is one that jumped out at me. Like, I know you and I both have encountered our students — when I used to be a professor — our students using "amongst" far more than we or our compatriots ever did. And you said that maybe "Saturday Night Live" and Jon Stewart had a hand in popularizing it.
Ben: Maybe ahead. I think maybe they more, I mean, Jon Stewart loves it, uses it all the time. And then the "Saturday Night Live" was the Mike Myers, “Coffee Talk" or "talk amongst yourselves." It was his catchphrase. But again, that's one of those words where there is literally no difference in meaning between "among," the traditional one, and "amongst," and "amongst" is a true Britishism.
It's not a faux Britishism like "divisive." But yeah, teaching. I started teaching in the early nineties, and maybe 10 years after that, in the early 2000s, it just popped up and got more and more and more popular, "amidst" as well. Yeah, "whilst," I was going to say, I think I had, you know, like a birdwatcher, I was very proud to get, I think, two "whilsts" in my career.
And that's just so unusual, and you know, I don't know why. I don't know why it became so popular. My students weren't trying to sound like British people. Maybe they were trying to sound more intellectual or, um, because often they would use bigger words instead of a smaller word so a longer word instead of a shorter one that means the same thing might be attractive, but I honestly don't know what the reason is.
Mignon: Mm-hmm. I wanna finish up; I have a couple, two more things. First I want to hear about "bumbershoot" because I absolutely thought that was British, and I grew up in Seattle where they have the Bumbershoot festival. Yeah. But you tell me it's not.
Ben: It's kind of, probably my favorite section in the book. And it came from, my education on it came from I wrote early on, when I was doing this blog, I wrote an article for "Slate" about the phenomenon. And I said, I was making the point that there were all these British terms that were pervasive over there.
And as I said to you earlier, unlike our image of these very few things that the stage Englishman says, like "the telly" and "the lift" and "bumbershoot." And then I got this wave of responses that said British people don't say "bumbershoot." What are you talking about? We don't say that. From British people. And I looked into it, and sure enough, even though you and I and kind of every American I asked about it thought that it was a Britishism, it really wasn't and isn't. Um, and, you know, it's kind of a long tangled tale of how it came to be known as that. And in this case, I'll say, read the book if you want to find out, because it's rather complicated. Yes, exactly. Thank you. Yeah, it's, but it is not a Britishism.
Mignon: Wild. And then to finish off, this isn't — it's funny because this isn't a word thing necessarily — but the British versus American date format, you have that in your book. And once I saw it, I was like, yeah, what is … up with that?
Ben: Right, when we abbreviate, what's today, August 15th in America, when you write it in digits, you would say, 8/15/2024. And the Brits, and pretty much the rest of the world, do it 24/15/2024. Excuse me, what they do 15/8/24 — day, month, year, which makes a certain amount of sense because it's going from the smaller to the middle to the big, but we do it the other way.
We're starting to move a little bit. If you look at your passport and other State Department documents, you find the British date format coming up more and more often. I will say that people around the world really are mad at Americans for doing it this way. They think it's really stupid and wrong.
And at this point, that post that I did about that on the blog has gotten the most views of any other by far. It's like 70,000 or something like that. People are very, very into that.
Mignon: Yeah. And what is the answer? Why are they different?
Ben: You know, as I recall, it was sort of a little bit of an arbitrary decision that started Americans that way, the way the postmark was designed, and it just sort of got established, and then once something gets established, it's hard to change; people get used to it.
Mignon: Yeah. Especially if it's on the postmark; that's—it's a very official sort of legal language that can last longer than big legalisms. Wonderful. Thanks so much, Ben.
Ben: Well, thank you. It’s always so fun.
Mignon: Well, we are here; we're finishing up with Ben Yagoda, author of "Gobsmacked! The British Invasion of American English." Tell people again where they can find you and about your new podcast.
Ben: Yeah. BenYagoda.com is my website. And if you want to find out more— a lot more— about Britishisms, the blog is NotOneOffBritishisms.com. And the podcast is called "The Lives They're Living" and on all the podcast platforms.
Mignon: Wonderful. Thank you.
Ben: Thank you very much.
Mignon: If you enjoyed that segment and you missed the original full episode, go back and listen. It was wonderful. That's episode 1017 from September 12. And if you'd like to be a Grammarpaloozian and help us keep doing these extra segments (and all the other work we do), you can sign up right on the Grammar Girl listing on Apple Podcasts if that's where you listen, or you can sign up other ways and even get text messages from me through Subtext. You can learn more about that at QuickAndDirtyTips.com/bonus. Thanks again to all the great current Grammarpaloozians for supporting the show. That's all.