Grammar Girl Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing cover image

Why English is the best language for Wordle, with Lynne Murphy

Grammar Girl Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing

00:00

Separated by a Common Language

British people say um, and uh, just like American people do, but they just spell it differently. I discovered this when I watched a lot of subtitled television in the middle of the night because that's how you spell the pause sound in British English. The R there is not signaling er, it's signaling the quality of the vowel before. And related to that, I was doing some research on when you say, oh, these, right, that kind of exasperated please. Americans will spell it P U H. Lee's. Very often few other ways, but mostly P U H and the British writers were spelling it P U R with the same thing.

Transcript
Play full episode

The AI-powered Podcast Player

Save insights by tapping your headphones, chat with episodes, discover the best highlights - and more!
App store bannerPlay store banner
Get the app