THE United States and Britain are two countries "divided by a common language", George Bernard Shaw allegedly quipped.
This statement, amusingly paradoxical on the face of it, might be more accurate than it seems. On "War of words: The language paradox explained", evolutionary biologist Mark Pagel argues that languages proliferate to differentiate competing groups.
If so, a shared tongue is not what the transatlantic rivals would have wanted. Sure enough, they quickly diverged; some of the differences between US and British spellings seem to have arisen as part of a knowing attempt to widen the gulf.
So perhaps it was Shaw's fellow wit Oscar Wilde who got closer to the mark when he observed in his 1887 story The Canterville Ghost that "we have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language".
If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.
All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.
If you are having a technical problem posting a comment, please contact technical support.
A deliberate language barrier
This article
A deliberate language barrier
can be opened in url
http://newspromising.blogspot.com/2012/12/a-deliberate-language-barrier.html
A deliberate language barrier
