Why gobstopper and jawbreaker are both still correct

Someone uses a different word from yours. And for a second, you wonder if yours has gone out of date.

Last week in Hamburg, I was talking to a young man from Britain about school. We got onto sweets. I said “gobstopper.” He said “jawbreaker.”*

For a moment, I wondered if my English had aged without me noticing.

It hadn’t.

Gobstopper is British. Jawbreaker is American. Both are still used. Neither of us was wrong.

This happens more often than you think. Someone uses a different word, and you quietly assume yours is the outdated one.

Often, it’s just from the other side of the Atlantic.

So keep your word.

Next time someone uses a different one, try: “Oh, we say X.”

You’re adding another way to say it. You’re not correcting yourself.

Ever dropped a word because someone else used a different one?

*A gobstopper/jawbreaker is a large, hard boiled sweet that you keep in your mouth and suck for ages. It gradually gets smaller as the layers dissolve, revealing different colours and sometimes different flavours.