Ben Yagoda's Books
- "About Town: The New Yorker and the World It Made"
- "How to Not Write Bad: The Most Common Writing Problems and the Best Ways to Avoid Them"
- "Memoir: A History"
- "The Art of Fact: A Historical Anthology of Literary Journalism"
- "The Sound on the Page: Style and Voice in Writing"
- "When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It: The Parts of Speech, for Better and/or Worse"
- "Will Rogers: A Biography"
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- RT @Fritinancy: The BBC interviewed @lynneguist and @byagoda on #britishisms in AmE. Listen here: …atedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com.es/2013/05/ben-ya… 7 hours ago
- RT @NYTOnIt: And The Times is ON IT. RT @nytimes: Some people really do eat lotions and body washes that smell good enough to eat: http://t… 8 hours ago
- Thanks for a great interview on KCUI about "How to Not Write Bad" @BDeMarcoBarrett 13 hours ago
- A Not-One-Off #Britishisms appearance by @carr2n, with an intriguing use of "fit" britishisms.wordpress.com/2013/05/22/fit/ 15 hours ago
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This word is pronounced “on-oor.” Tricky, because it looks as though it should be “on-our,” as in “on our honor.” But no. It rhymes with mon-soor, which is French for “our septic system.”
I’ve never heard AmE and BrE speakers pronounce ‘honour’ and ‘honor’ differently; if people pronounce their ‘h’ differently they still say the two words the same way. Assuming the screen grab is from the US, it looks like an attempt to sound ‘posh’. Not sure what the AmE equivalent is for ‘posh’ is but it’s probably very WASP and country club. Perhaps another NOOB.
Check out their wall…it says: “The The Honour Society Photo Contest is BACK!”
Really Really.
My reaction was similar to mwra’s. If it was American, I thought it must be for private (in the U.S. sense) college preparatory schools. So I checked, and found instead that it’s for American universities, many state-founded and/or -supported. .
I will never be sarky again on this site.
I often do the same thing, Steve. It’s a case of giving your audience too much credit for a sense of humor (humour) and/or not telegraphing your intent. When I’m feeling testy, I often preface such remarks with: “Now,this is a joke.”