'Only Fans Account billboards in London streets spark complaints'
See what I mean? Probably not what you are thinking either!
Only Fans, Not that one, each to their own and all that, change the parental settings on your router will sort any problems with that particular problem.
No, it is the word billboards that has got me rankled. It first reminds me of that great film 'Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. That also got me thinking, 'That's an American word.'
Off I went to check, and sure enough, billboard is an Americanism dating back to 1850 to 1855. In this country, we usually refer to them as advertising hoardings.
English is an ever-evolving language. We can see how it has evolved by following Suzi Dent, the famous lexicographer, on Twitter. The root of nearly all our words comes from such references as Latin, greek and, quite a few, Germanic.
It does annoy me when I see spellings such as color, favor and harbor turning up in writing that purports to have come from Britain.
I'm not against American spellings or American English as I have often heard it referred to; I have submitted pieces to American websites. It's a bit of a job to do that. After outlining the piece and getting the go-ahead to write it, I have to change the settings on my spell checker and run it through again. That's not so bad with a 500-word article, but I'd hate to do that for a 90-100k word novel.
I really like my U's in the correct place, and I am not a frequent user of Z'. It's maths (from mathematics), not math, and while we're at it, it's zed, not zee.
Links:
BBC Story - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-66097347
Dictionary - www.dictionary.com
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