George Bernard Shaw was spot on when he declared that the US and England are two countries separated by a common language. But so too was Henry Higgins. In My Fair Lady, commenting on their accent, he said: “In America, they haven’t spoken it for years”.

A recent essay by David Robson on the BBC website to mark the sestercentennial anniversary of American independence explains how American English was born. It’s a fascinating story.

Did the founding fathers of the US insist on a new way of speaking? It seems Thomas Jefferson did. In August 1813, he wrote: “So great growing a population, spread over such an extent of country, with such a variety of climates, of productions, of arts, must enlarge their language, to make it answer its purpose of embracing all ideas, the new as well as the old. The new circumstances under which we are placed call for new words, new phrases, and for the transfer of old words to new objects”.

By this time, however, the British were complaining about American........

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