The Difference Between… [Part 2]

In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we are looking at the difference between a number of things, kicking it off with the difference between BCE/CE and BC/AD systems of dating and the rather fascinating story of how those systems came to be.

We also have a brief message from a sponsor, Skillshare. Help support this show and learn a lot of interesting new skills, as well as TWO MONTHS FREE using the following link https://www.skillshare.com/brainfood

Up next we dive into a bunch of “difference betweens” American and British English and how the two main versions of English diverged in the first place, which it turns out mostly had to do with just one man and started basically immediately after the American Revolution. Various other things covered include why Americans say Math and the British say Maths, where the word soccer came from and why it’s the correct name for the sport ;-), and more!

On another note, if you could do us a huge favor and rate and review this show in whatever podcasting platform you’re using (including hopefully giving us some feedback related to the new format), we would be extremely grateful. Thanks!

(You can also discuss this episode and view references on The BrainFood Show forum here.)

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4 comments

  • If Simon wants to know what happens to oyster shells, here in Maryland we recycle them to grow new oysters to help clean up the Chesapeake Bay.

  • Just had to pop in to applaud Simon on his ultra fast reading of my ultra long comment, I laughed, I cried, beautiful XD If I had known he was going to have to read it aloud I might have forced myself to be less wordy haha

    Also, a tiny commentary on word differences, specifically you covered tennis shoes vs sneakers vs trainers, and that is actually a well documented regional dialect difference within the US. There are a few more words used in other regions besides just tennis shoes and sneakers, though I believe those two are the most widely used, certainly the two I hear most from americans.

    I always enjoy language topic stuff, great show as always.

  • Massive respect to you Daven.
    This is a question that has bothered me for years and oh my god, can you pleeeaasse help me? Every single person I have asked just shrugged their shoulders. Every. Single. One.

    The word ‘numbers’, why oh why is it abbreviated to ‘nos’ when there is no ‘o’ in the original word?

  • Richard Ellingworth

    It’s not always a UK/US thing. In the UK we use program to mean a computer program, but programme is still used for a TV programme. Disc is a confusing one. Disc for a record, disk for a floppy disk, but then compact disc, not compact disk. Bite to eat, but byte of memory. Even nibble and nybble. So sometimes it seems the difference is more because it is a technical term rather than a UK/US difference, although the technical terms tend to come from the US. All this is changing though, because nobody seems to care about spelling any more.