Here's what the American Heritage Dictionary has to say about "momentarily":
Quote
Usage Note: Momentarily is widely used in speech to mean “in a moment,” as in The manager is on another line, but she'll be with you momentarily. This usage rarely leads to ambiguity since the intended sense can usually be determined on the basis of the tense of the verb and the context. Nonetheless, many critics hold that the adverb should be reserved for the senses “for a moment,” and the extended usage is unacceptable to 59 percent of the Usage Panel.
I can think of tons of vocabulary differences between US and UK English - as it happens, I'm busy doing a US-to-UK translation of a book right now - but the word order/inclusion things are harder to remember. I know adverbs are occasionally placed differently, for instance, but I can't think of an example. (I blame staying up till 4:30... not age, nope.)
British English also seems to be more scrupulous about hyphenating phrases which are used as adjectives. For example, "user-defined data" rather than "user defined data".
Cool topic, Lynn!
Mere
Edited to add (didn't notice the second page till now!): "get the better of" is perfectly good UK English. And Karen - "ay-ther"? I've never heard that. I say "eye-ther", and commonly hear "ee-ther".
A diabolically, fiendishly clever mind. Possibly someone evil enough to take over the world. CC Aiken, Can You Guess the Writer? challenge
I say "eye-ther", and commonly hear "ee-ther".
