Take a shower/have a shower

[Michael Quinion]

> In the US we "take" a shower.
>
> In England, they "have" a shower."
>
> Why?

One of the great unanswerables of word history, I suspect (though it would
be good to learn otherwise). But I would contest your thesis. It may have
been true in earlier times, but today it's not at all uncommon to hear or
read "take a shower". There are, for example, dozens of recent examples in
the archive of the Guardian/Observer newspaper. Some of these are from
quoted speech by Americans, but by no means all. I suspect US television
is yet again affecting our native speech patterns.


--
Michael Quinion
Editor, World Wide Words
E-mail: wordseditor at worldwidewords.org
Web: http://www.worldwidewords.org

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