Everybody knows about differences between American and British English like truck vs. lorry or elevator vs. lift. On her blog Separated by a Common Language, Lynne Murphy (an American linguist teaching in the UK) takes on subtler distinctions like proctor vs. invigilate or day care vs. crèche.

"Circumstances almost compel us to learn English, and this lucky accident has given us the opportunity of access into the richest of all poetical literatures of the world." It sounds like an idea that could be expressed today, but it was in fact written almost 75 years ago by a great artist who is our guest this month in the Poetry Corner.  Continue reading...

Which British television actors are best at pulling off American accents? Readers of BBC's Radio Times give cheers to Hugh Laurie of "House" and jeers to Michelle Ryan of "Bionic Woman."

In part one of our interview with Joshua Kendall, we explored how his new book The Man Who Made Lists: Love, Death, Madness, and the Creation of Roget's Thesaurus illuminates the mental world of Peter Mark Roget, a man who escaped the disorder of his personal life by creating a very orderly thesaurus. In the second and final installment, Josh discusses the publication of the first edition of Roget's Thesaurus in 1852 and the lasting legacy of his monumental reference work, both for good and for ill.  Continue reading...

Joshua Kendall, who we interview this week about his book The Man Who Made Lists, is captivated by the divine madness that drives lexicographers. He's following up his current biography of Peter Roget with a study of the similarly obsessive Noah Webster. We asked him for further reading on the fiery minds behind the masterpieces of word reference.  Continue reading...

Without Peter Mark Roget, there would be no Visual Thesaurus — or any modern thesaurus for that matter. We now take it for granted, but it took a special type of mind to come up with a system for organizing and classifying words and their meanings, in a way that also organizes human knowledge itself. Roget, a nineteenth-century polymath who wrote treatises on everything from physiology to slide rules, certainly had the mind for it. But he also had a deeply troubled personal life, surrounded by mental illness and heartbreaking tragedy. Joshua Kendall has written a fitting tribute to this fascinating figure in his new biography, The Man Who Made Lists: Love, Death, Madness, and the Creation of Roget's Thesaurus. We got to talk to Josh about the making of the book, and learned how his previous writing about psychology turned out to be an excellent preparation for exploring Roget's intricate mental world. Here is part one of our interview.  Continue reading...