Thanks, Rachael. A very interesting article with which I find myself much in sympathy.
With regret, I agree with him that we must now concede on the 'film'/'movie' battle. I think however he is being a bit defeatist on 'goods train'/'freight train' and 'flat'/'apartment' (what a pretentious-sounding word!): I think it is worth continuing to fight on these. And I am glad he shares my concern (or 'outrage') about 'power outage' (Britannice 'power cut'), which I remember commenting about on in this forum a year or so ago.
He says:
Quote:
A hike is now a wage or price rise not a walk in the country
But 'hike' in the latter sense is American too, as the OED confirms. The British word is 'walk' ('hill walking') or (north of England?) 'ramble'.
He is interesting on divergences between British and American technology words. There are other examples, I think: 'text'/'SMS', 'mobile'/'cellphone'?
But I said I had resolved to stop posting on this topic. Please stop tempting me to backslide.