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Thomas West was responsible for last week's post topic, and here he is again, having tweeted: Here’s another great example of BrE and AmE. Lloyd says “at a loose end” but in the US we say “at loose ends.” I wonder how differences like that happened. @lynneguist — Thomas West (@IntermarkLS) April 18, 2020 Reading that, I first thought "I think that's a mark of my Britification—the singular is probably what I'd say now." I then wasted some time searching things I'd written (on Twitter, on this blog, on my hard drive) that used the expression, and found none. What else are lockdown Sunday mornings for? But then I thought more and thought "But do at a loose end and at loose ends always mean the same to me?" Loose ends, of course, need to be metaphorically tied. Both Englishes talk about, say, a project having loose ends, which need to be tied off or tied together to give us something finished—that won't unravel. Here I'm just interested in the...

Thomas West recently asked: AmE/BrE difference of the day: "on the up and up" means "above board, not underhanded" in AmE but appears to mean "rising, on the rise, moving upward" in BrE. Is that right? @lynneguist — Thomas West (@IntermarkLS) April 16, 2020 I hadn't really noticed this before, but it looks like it's probably a case of an American phrase coming to Britain and being re-interpreted (which happens now and again—I talk about a few other cases in The Prodigal Tongue and elsewhere on this blog). The expression originated in AmE in or before the 1860s. It is often hyphenated: on the up-and-up . The OED entry for it starts: a. Honest(ly), straightforward(ly), ‘on the level’. Originally and chiefly U.S. 1863   Humboldt Reg. ( Unionville, Nevada ) 4 July 2/1    Now that would be business, on the dead up-and-up . But then it continues with a second definition that it does not mark as U.S. :   b. Steadily rising, improving, or in...