10. Other usages

10. Other usages

Most of the differences we have mentioned are small and easily understandable in context, even if they sound amusing or quaint, as shan't and ought do in the US, or as gotten and in back of do in GB. Many usages, it is true, occur in only one variety of the language and are not generally understood in the other. To visit with, for example, is used in the US meaning to visit, but it has the additional meaning of being with another person virtually, so that it is possible to visit with someone by phone. This usage is unknown in Britain. (Many similar examples are discussed in the dictionary section of this book.) But the usages that give American and British English their peculiar characters belong to the first category. Only an American would say 'I sure could use a drink' or 'I need to use the bathroom'. A Briton would find some equivalent but subtly different linguistic formula, such as 'I'm dying of thirst' or 'I have to go to the loo'. If, as Shaw said, Britain and America are divided by a common language, perhaps the main element of division lies precisely in such subtle distinctions as these.