This week we’re going to look at two words which have some dissimilarities on both sides of the pond (The Atlantic Ocean). Lend and loan are semantically similar as they refer to borrowing something (often loan is used with money), but in America loan can be used as a verb whereas this is not so common in Britain, where loan is usually only used as a noun. However, there are numerous instances where both are now accepted in standard English.
For example,

Could you possibly lend me your umbrella?
Could you possibly loan me your umbrella?

One other difference between these two words is that only lend can be used in a metaphorical way. For example:

Can you lend me a hand?

We can NOT say “Can you loan me a hand?” But if you want to lend or loan me any money, then please feel free to do so

~Rob

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 16th, 2008 at 8:03 am and is filed under Confusing English Words, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.