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May 3, 2017 · It is now more widely used as an idiom for someone who represents a cause of any sort, but the original meaning was the person who carried an army's standard or flag. From Oxford Dictionaries: A soldier who is responsible for carrying the distinctive flag of a unit, regiment, or army. 1.1 A leading figure in a cause or movement.
Dec 1, 2015 · According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, it comes from "fag", meaning a loose piece of cloth:. fag (n.1) Look up fag at Dictionary.com British slang for "cigarette" (originally, especially, the butt of a smoked cigarette), 1888, probably from fag "loose piece, last remnant of cloth" (late 14c., as in fag-end "extreme end, loose piece," 1610s), which perhaps is related to fag (v.), which ...
Dec 17, 2011 · Britain (and thus the adjective British) refers geographically to the whole of the island on which England, Wales, and Scotland lie. By extension, when the United Kingdom held onto the northern part of Ireland, they too were subjects of the British Empire. (It was a British empire, where the English were the dominant partners of the United ...
One more colorful slang term I gleaned from the British movie I recently watched is slag. In the movie, it was used in curses like, "Fuck-ing dogs! Slags." "Right slag, that one." Now I know via dictionaries that slag means "a loose, promiscuous woman." But there are multiple slang terms for such a woman in American English that have varying ...
Jul 31, 2012 · If you want to know the rules for capitalising in British newspapers, a good place to start is style guides of British newspapers. Here's the entry on capitalisation in the Guardian style guide, and a blog post by their style editor on the subject. Different newspapers have different styles, and the Guardian favours fewer capitals than others.
Nov 3, 2011 · Here's Eric Partridge from the Dict. of Slang and Unconv. English: sod. A sodomist: low coll.: Mid-C. 19-20; ob.-2.
Jul 11, 2011 · Flat is used in British English, and apartment is used in North American English. The exact meaning of the word apartment depends on where you live. In large parts of Canada and in or near New York City, it is used for a residence in a multi-unit building; this meaning is the one given by OALD, and is a synonym of the British word flat.
“Neither the Russians nor the Americans were ready to talk” is perfectly correct, but so is “Neither a British flag nor an American one flies above the pole.” The controversial case is disparate numbers where you actually have to check which part falls next to the verb, as in “Neither all the troops nor one general is ready” versus “Neither one general nor all the troops are ...
So, it is not exactly BE versus AE (though the division is broadly accurate). – Daniel Harbour. Sep 4, 2012 at 15:11. That isn't even slightly related, because BE came first. British spelling comes from wherever it came from, and 's'/'z' accordingly; American spelling changes many of those to the more phonetic 'z'. – OJFord.
Apr 8, 2017 · When the symbol % is used, there should be no space. When the "percent" word is used, there should be space. Examples from the Chicago Manual of Style Online: Fewer than 3 percent of the employees used public transportation. With 90–95 percent of the work complete, we can relax.
