U.K. vs. U.S. usage in Lee Child
From Bert Vaux:
I was just preparing a facebook post on the use of "luck out" when I came across your nice entry on the very same passage on the Language Log! ["Lucking out", 10/8/2011; "More lucking out", 10/11/2011]
Anyway, a propos of your (in my opinion correct) observation that Lee Child generally does American English quite well, I thought you might appreciate the following examples (also from The Affair) where I think he slips up:
"hosepipe" for "hose" (p. 230 in my edition)
"not by a long chalk" for "not by a long shot" (238)
"drinks well" with the infamous British regular-plural-inside-compound (245)
[I'm not sure what we call this in American English; I know that some parts of the country call cheap/generic drinks in a bar "well drinks", from which I'd infer that the thing in question is called a well, but I don't actually know.]
These come with the caveat that I haven't actually researched their American vs. British distribution; I'm just going by my personal exposure to the two varieties.
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