Sunday Rest: faucet. Word Not To Use Today.

American English is a bold and vigorous thing, and mostly I'm happy to welcome its many innovations into my own British version of the language. If anyone decided to standardise the spelling of the two dialects it wouldn't bother me much at all (though I would be a little sad if I had to write standardize)*.

It would be useful to have a word to describe a person of British heritage, too. (Brit hasn't really caught on, here.)

So on the whole I don't mind if people want to alphabetize something instead of putting it into alphabetical order; I don't mind if people want to do Math instead of Maths.

But...

That word faucet. Force-it.

It's not as pretty as our English word tap, is it?


The Big Tap in Cowes, Victoria, Australia. Photo by Bilby

Word Not To Use Today: faucet. This word comes from the Old French fausset, from the Provençal falcet, from falsar, to bore.

*Even though it's recommended in the Oxford English style book already.