If we can trust Google hits then it's George Bernard Shaw. Skimming some sites that pop up when searching for Oscar Wilde and Winston Churchill I recognized that all those pages do have one in common: They either conclude "No, they didn't" or "Whoever it said". The first source discussing differences between British and American English and how the division evolved states George Bernard Shaw as origin.
And here again George Bernard Shaw is stated as origin but the other names are also mentioned. It adds spice to my conversation.
Well, about the second part of your question. I don't think so. I live in Germany and with Austria and Switzerland there are two countries which do speak the same or just a similar language.
But I've never heard that sentence in relation to these countries. Besides the mentioned example I can't, off the top of my head, think of any other countries where it could be likely to be used as well, thus I conclude: Yes, it's the only usage in the context of Britain and America.
It was Shaw, according to quote number 31 on Page , the fourth edition Oxford Dictionary of Quotations states:. Attributed in this and other forms, but not found in Shaw's published writings. The phrase's popularity may be spreading to other languages. In Dutch literar scholar Ton Anbeek used it though without providing a source to point to the difference between the variants of Dutch spoken in the northern part of Belgium Flanders and the Netherlands in an article in Dutch published in the Flemish literary journal Dietsche Warande en Belfort.
I briefly refer to Anbeek's use of the phrase in my discussion of literature by authors of African descent in Flanders: Bekers, Elisabeth. In the movie "Patton", George C.
Shaw by name as the source in a speech during wartime England. I'm willing to bet the screenwriters were probably old enough to have heard or read about it first hand to make it work in the script.
Suitably chastised, I began pondering and started a discussion on the Expat Child Facebook page which ended up being fascinating, educational, funny and surprising. And sometimes shocking!
This famous quote commonly attributed to George Bernard Shaw highlights the problems you can face when you relocate to a country where the language is the same or similar! Vocabulary is the main stumbling block and most variances are well known as shown in the picture above. Other examples were explained by my Facebook community :.
Carol : My mum went into a pharmacist in the US to buy a plaster for her cut finger. Heather : My mum and I spent ages in a hardware store in the US, asking for drawing pins. Chickering Hall. The Kelly Sketch. Quixote of the Queer. Wilde Meets Whitman. Letter to Whitman. Beerbohm Caricature. Wilde in Niagara. Wilde Sees The Falls. Some Things Never Change. Chicago Water Tower. Cincinnati Music Hall. The Keats Letter. Patti in Cincinnati. St Patrick's Day Cowboys and Indians. Something To Live Up To.
Matters and Things. American English is fine when living in America, but please stick to British English when writing for a British readership. Some go further. One reader referred to "the default Americanism required by the infamous [sic] Guardian stylebook" while another suggested we had changed "got" to "gotten" in a reader's letter, "to fit your style policy", adding: "This is far from the first example I have noted, not only regarding 'gotten' but several other Americanisms you deploy.
Other words to incur the anger of some readers include first lady for the prime minister's wife , kindergarten for nursery , lawmakers, upcoming, people being raised rather than brought up, authorities "I regard the use of the term 'authorities' as an dreadfully ugly American import from the land without style" , scuzzy, a slew of, happenstance, and "the increasing use of vacation for holiday, quite apart from the ghastly staycation".
There is nothing new about such complaints. The Manchester Guardian stylebook gravely listed "Americanisms" to avoid, including "aim to do" instead of "aim of doing" , "balding", "to call" rather than "to telephone" , "to contact", "to date" rather than "so far" , "to help him finish the job" instead of "to help him to finish the job" , "high-ranking officer", "to pinpoint", "teen-ager" and many similar outrages that no doubt exercised letter writers of the time. While you think about what we should call teenagers had the Manchester Guardian succeeded in banning the word, I will make two points.
However, we do employ British English.
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