British vs. American English: Resources

clara_swift posted this link, and I thought it was really useful: List of British words not widely used in the United States.

Some examples that were new to me:

bunk off: (informal) to play truant from school (US: play hooky)
loudhailer: megaphone (US: bullhorn)
marrow, vegetable marrow: a gourd-like fruit (treated as a vegetable) (US: squash)
pushchair: forward-facing baby carriage (US: stroller)
zebra crossing: (zebra rhymes with Deborah) pedestrian street crossing marked with broad white stripes (US: crosswalk)

There are also some links at the top of that page to interesting-looking related pages, like List of American words not widely used in the United Kingdom and List of words having different meanings in British and American English.

My LJ history

isiscolo has an interesting post here about how she's seen a change in the ways people use LJ to participate in fandom over the years. That made me think about how my own use of LJ has changed, and my comment got so long it was better to make it a separate post. ;-)

I got my LJ December 25, 2002, after getting an invitation from helens78, who assured me it was lots of fun to have an LJ. I posted a fic on January 9 2003, one I'd posted to a Star Wars archive a few months earlier and just wanted to post in another place. There weren't a lot of (active) places to post het SW fic in those days, and I think I didn't have it posted anywhere before that that was within my control. (My LJ predates my web page.)

( More here, if you're interested. )