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leadership. There are plenty of us who would much rather follow, preferably a long way behind.
    If I have included “America” in the list of words more common in the United States than Britain, it is not for the obvious reason that Americans, like anyone else, are bound to mention their country quite a lot. It is rather that they use the word America (as in “Good Morning, America!”, “a very fine American,” “my fellow Americans,” “The American people,” “proudly serving America’s families since 1953” and so on) a lot more than the Swiss talk about Switzerland or the Greeks about Greece. I once saw a television programme about Peru in which an army officer exhorted his soldiers: “Men, always remember that you are Peruvians.” This sounds funny, rather like saying: “Always remember that you are hairdressers,” or “Never forget that you are shoplifters,” since the word “Peruvian” does not carry any especially exalted implications, at least for non-Peruvians.
    The phrase “a very fine American” is revealing in this respect. It is not quite the same as speaking of a very fine Sri Lankan. “America” is a term of approbation, not just a description. It is a moral word as much as a geographical one. The very word “America” implies certain cherished values, so that phrases like “American values” or “a very fine American” are almost tautologies. “A very fine American” is a distinguished example of a noble species, whereas a very fine Sri Lankan is an outstanding individual who happens to come from Sri Lanka. It is suitable that the national symbol of the United States is the eagle. In Wales, it is the leek.
    Accents
    Americans often speak of the British accent, which is in fact as mythical as the mermaid. There are English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish forms of speech, but no British one. Strictly speaking, even an English accent is something of a misnomer. It generally refers to so-called Standard English, which only a small minority of the English actually speak and so is scarcely much of a standard. Truly genteel people have their own strangulated idiom of Standard English, which sounds as though they are speaking with a hot potato in their mouths. In this kind of speech, “I’m rarely tarred” means not that you are infrequently coated with a sticky black substance, but that you are really tired. Prince Charles speaks in this style, while the BBC speaks regular Standard English (though even this is on the wane). Outside the middle and upper classes, the British tend to speak with the accent of their region. In fact, Standard English was once a regional accent itself.
    As far as detecting accents goes, a good many Britons would be able to distinguish between a Texan and a New Yorker, but not many Americans could tell the difference between a Geordie (from north-east England) and a Brummie (from Birmingham). They might also be unaware that a Londoner can find someone from Glasgow almost as unintelligible as he would find a Bulgarian. A Dane and a Norwegian, each speaking his or her own language, might understand each other better.
    However indifferently Americans may sometimes speak English, the British can always go one better. “Fortuitously” in Britain has come to mean “fortunately,” “refute” is used for “rebut,” and to beg a question is to raise one. The British now use the word “literally” when they don’t mean it literally at all, as in “I literally fell through the floor with amazement.” Anything that is about to happen must be marked by a “potentially,” as in “She may potentially be charged with an offence.” Things are not done every day, but “on a daily basis.”
    Abuse
    Americans, however, are more concerned than the British by another kind of speech, namely, abusive language. Hawthorne’s scarlet letter no longer stands for adultery. What used to be argumentative is now abusive or insensitive. It is insensitive to raise