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This is the illusionist in which I, Helen Zoltzman say potato and language says potato.

Coming up in today's show, Britain, the USA, united by a common language, driven apart

by minor linguistic differences. We can't even agree on whether pants are the garments

you wear under or over your pants. How did it come to this, listeners? That is the question

we're addressing today.

On with the show.

We mostly speak the same language, and that's obvious in the fact that we are having this

conversation now that we don't need subtitles.

Lynn Murphy is a professor of English language in linguistics at Sussex University in Southern

England. She writes the blog separated by a common language, and she is a student of

and she has a new book out, the Prodigal Tongue, all about how Brits and Americans use

English differently. I'm from upstate New York and was educated in the US, but I've lived

...