26-07-2013, 08:45 AM
I've been doing a bit more looking through books. In a biography of Brunel the quotes from his diary show that he wrote dates either way around.
I've found that O S Nock in 'Historic Railway Disasters' uses the 'American' form. He was a public school educated Englishman (born 1905) and this is a British edition.
I recall hearing a linguist saying that it's British English which has changed over the years and sighted the example of Fall/Autumn saying that it wasn't that the Americans had at some point started calling Autumn Fall but that the British had started calling Fall Autumn.
Like David, I was taught in the early-80s that a billion was 1,000,000,000,000.
One thing which really get's my goat is job adverts quoting wages like "£K20" when, if anything, it should be "k£20."
- Joe
I've found that O S Nock in 'Historic Railway Disasters' uses the 'American' form. He was a public school educated Englishman (born 1905) and this is a British edition.
I recall hearing a linguist saying that it's British English which has changed over the years and sighted the example of Fall/Autumn saying that it wasn't that the Americans had at some point started calling Autumn Fall but that the British had started calling Fall Autumn.
Like David, I was taught in the early-80s that a billion was 1,000,000,000,000.
One thing which really get's my goat is job adverts quoting wages like "£K20" when, if anything, it should be "k£20."
- Joe
