Watching Wimbledon makes me wonder why British English refers to “sport” versus American English’s “sports,” but the UK studies “maths” rather than “math.” Technically, there are multiple maths, but also multiple sports; on the other hand, “sport” and “math” both work as categories. It’s just curious that British English and American English evolved to have one of each.
I was in a yoga class the other day and the teacher had a very interesting way of speaking–as far as I could tell she was a native English speaker, but some of her phrasing was unusual. She said, “Now release the leg down to your floor,” when I would have said “Release your leg down to the floor,” (but I do like the idea of everyone having one communal leg and individual patches of floor…), and instead of saying, “Do one more on each leg,” she said, “Do one more on either leg,” though she did mean do the right leg one more time and the left one more time, not to choose your favorite leg and do one more on it.
One of the first words I learned in Russian was “apple,” яблоко, approximately pronounced “yabloko.” Last night as I was reading a (nonfiction) book taking place in part in Russia, I came across a scientist named Mr. Yablokov, which made me happy.
