Qualitative and Quantitative
In 1971 the UK changed its coinage system, from a system where twelve pennies make a shilling, and twenty shillings make a pound (I know very little about it, but they tell me also of tanners - not tenners - ha'pennies, half-crowns, farthings, thrupenny bit, and more), to a more sensible decimal system, like the US system, which has always been decimal (and of course the Euro). Just as one hundred cents make a dollar, one hundred pence make a pound, and the shilling was retired.
The people were not invariably pleased, I hear. Among other things, this has always struck me as symptomatic of a more general phenomenon of people disliking brute numbers as a means of thinking, especially when evaluating things. One prefers to have a remnant of barter, where your units were a pound of apples, a healthy cow at 2 years age, and so on. As if you don't really know how much you're getting until translated into things of real value--apples, cows, or indeed, somewhat ironically, gold or silver (and this is in a sense true). Not only does it seem colder to speak of 100 units rather than twelve or twenty etc., it's as if a pound just happened to be equivalent to twenty schillings, but it is not equal to twenty schillings, it's not the same thing; maybe tomorrow it will be worth twenty-one!
The same thing happened with the shift from the Imperial system of weights and measures--stones, pounds, inches, feet, miles--to the more orderly Metric System; fourteen pounds make a stone; twelve inches make a foot, 5280 feet make a mile, and things get very complicated when speaking of ounces, pints, quarts, gallons, etc., a complexity which is exacerbated with differences between US vs UK systems. Although for some purposes (such as the distances on road signs), people still use the old system (in any event I don't see that there is anything psychological going on here).
In music, the British speak of semibreves, minims, crotchets, quavers, and semi-quavers. In the US, it's a more rational, and easier to learn and memorize 'decimal' system, with whole notes, half-notes, quarter-notes, and eighth-notes (and sixteenth-notes and so on). Again, it's as if the crotchet has an intrinsic quality that is not to be compared with that of the quaver.
This is somehow similar to weather forecasting terminology in Britain as opposed to the US. In the US, the forecasts convey the predictions in a scientific style; they'll speak dryly of 'an 80% chance of precipitation', 'humidity over 90%', 'Low temperature overnight of 40 degrees' (although in the relatively folksy degrees Fahrenheit). In the UK it is more subjective and homespun in style: they'll say 'It's going to be wet out there! Galoshes all round! Rain, or even snow very likely!'; the 'Beast from the East!'; 'It will feel cold; a chilling wind lies in store for us!'; 'The sun is trying come out but I don't think it'll succeed!'; 'Bit and bobs of mist are still hanging round!' 'We're in for a stiff dose of the wet stuff!'. 'And that's your weather, Helen!'. (I could go on).
I also hear some echo of the difference, with respect to the qualitative-quantitative distinction, in the sale of medicines. In the US, names (and the character of the packaging) encourage you to think that you're trusting science, the latest hi-tech; in the UK, to think of your auntie, your tried and trusted home remedies. 'Corocidin', 'Nyquil' , 'Mucinex' vs 'Lemsip', 'Night Nurse' or 'Beecham's'. The difference is however lessening, I believe.
Hypotheses? I don't think it's that the people in the UK more likely to cling to primitive ways of thinking, or let alone that they're not mathematically as advanced as the Yanks. The 1950's and especially the 1960's made science -- the realm of mathematics -- very much the thing in the US. Americans got very puffed up about the atom bomb, B-52s and Doomsday, lasers, scanners, sonar, radar, going to the the Moon, transistors, computers. All, at least one was led to believe, American inventions. It was partly genuine American pride which survived from the end of Second World War until it began to fizzle out in say the 1980's, that perhaps explains the points about Medicines and the Weather. And the other points can perhaps be explained independently, perhaps just as accidents of history. But maybe one needs to remark the forest here, not just the trees. Taken together, maybe these do suggest a difference between the British and the American Character.
Prosecute/Persecute; Invidious
The difference between the verbs to prosecute and to persecute is showing signs of being lost. A recent story about none other than Donald Trump, speaking of the riots in Washington DC, 6th of January 2021:
Trump also complained that law enforcement was now “persecuting” the Capitol rioters, hundreds of whom have been arrested, while “nothing happens” to left-wing protesters.
I predict that the adjective 'invidious'--so very good in suitable spots, expressing a complicated meaning, of a distinction which will cause undue division -- will go the way of 'begging the question' or 'refute'. It will come to mean, when said of a person such as Trump, 'too individual' or 'unduly selfish'. Just you watch.
