retirement/ retiral

[Lynne Murphy]

Jonathan Lighter asked:

>   Is "retiral" now the usual non-U.S. word for "retirement"?  Have the
> upstart Brits been messing about with our mother tongue again?

No, it's not the usual non-US word.  My university is pushing 'early
retirement' at the moment--nobody's saying 'retiral'.  In fact, I've never
noticed anyone saying 'retiral'.

If you UK-only google it, I notice, most of the top hits are from Scotland.
All of the post-1970 examples in the OED are Scottish too, so it's likely
that I've not only not noticed it, but not actually heard it here in the
sowff.

Lynne


Dr M Lynne Murphy
Senior Lecturer in Linguistics and English Language
Arts B133
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QN

phone: +44-(0)1273-678844
http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com

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