To Aldus,

Although most cheaper dictionaries take the simple path of defining things like Fall and Zee as American usages, they all show up as regional usage at earlier times in Britain. There is a vast body of English outside the "received" version of Oxford/London/Cambridge and there was even more before the levelling effects of mass media (starting with books).

On a totally different tack, since this thread is "American Cultural Oddities" I notice, as an outsider one especially American Oddity in the discussion of words like serviette/napkin and period/stop. Over the years I have seen this same phenomenon in many American letters columns - a word is taken in only one of its several meanings and a process of reductio ad absurdum / non sequitur is used to make a nonsense of its other, legitimate meanings.

This nevers seem to bother those of British background who are used to a language that made up the rules at it went along. Seriously, this malleability is the glory of the English language, which can squeeze infinite new subtleties from old words. Without this ability, we would all have far less to sing.

Regards,

Bob Bolton