row

[John Dunn]

According to the sources I happen to have at my fingertips, the use of 'row' in the sense of squabble, din etc. is recorded only from the mid or late eighteenth century; throughout the nineteenth century it seems to have been regarded as a slang term, and it entered standard [British] English only about 100 years ago.  This history might, I suppose, account for this usage being, if not a Britishism, then a less widespread feature of American than of British English.

John Dunn.




John Dunn
Honorary Research Fellow, SMLC (Slavonic Studies)
University of Glasgow, Scotland

Address:
Via Carolina Coronedi Berti 6
40137 Bologna
Italy
Tel.: +39 051/1889 8661
e-mail: J.Dunn at slavonic.arts.gla.ac.uk
johnanthony.dunn at fastwebnet.it

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