Euro influence? - Was: different to and from

[Martin Votruba]

> U.K. speech - from 68.8%; than  3.9%
> U.S. speech - from 69.3%; than 30.1%

Thanks for the data, Alina.  I've sometimes wondered whether this and 
a few other differences between British and US usage may be a result 
of the influence of European "Continental" immigrant languages on US 
English.   Instances like _different *than*_, _meet *with* someone_, 
_*on* the street_, _write *to* someone_, and more, which are at least 
historically more typical of American than of British English, match 
the parallel structures in some of the European languages.

That is not to say that they (all) were necessarily generated by 
non-native European immigrants (e.g., _write to_ certainly has a 
structural reason to exist regardless and does occur in traditional 
British English).  But the immigrants would have opted (and still do) 
for existing marginal English structures that are closer to their 
native languages and reinforced their occurrence.


Martin

votruba "at" pitt "dot" edu

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