George Saunders: an American abroad

Hilarious article in the Guardian's Weekend magazine this week by an American writer on his first trip to Britain.

He says:
The traveller must, of course, always be cautious of the overly broad generalisation. But I am an American, and a paucity of data does not stop me from making sweeping, vague, conceptual statements and, if necessary, following these statements up with troops.

Spot the British spellings--undoubtedly the work of a Guardian sub-editor (BrE; AmE=copy editor). But the sentiment...well, that could be the motto of this blog.

2 comments

  1. > Spot the British spellings--undoubtedly the work of a Guardian sub-editor

    Well, there's a challenge, Lynne!

    These are the ones I spotted:

    aeroplane
    generalising, generalised, generalisation
    endeavouring
    unfavourably, favours
    realised
    humour

    Are there any I missed?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I wasn't expecting you to spot them in the whole article--just the quotation. Extra points for you! The other one in the quotation is traveller (discussed a few posts ago).

    Had a look at the article again (though not extremely thoroughly) and didn't see any there that you missed.

    ReplyDelete

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Abbr.

AmE = American English
BrE = British English
OED = Oxford English Dictionary (online)