Cumberland, Maryland. 305 miles.

Confession time
It could only be a matter of time before a blog by Phil got round to matters linguistic, and so it has come to pass.

As I venture deeper into the wilderness, so my civilised suburban standards have begun ebbing away. My tattered shorts are held up by a piece of equally frayed string, I wear the same t-shirt two days running to save on laundry, and my socks - well, let's not go there.

But I'm also turning a blind eye to the Americans' constant, ubiquitous manipulation of my beloved English language. The night before last, I stayed at a motel that was part of a chain called Americas Best Value Inn.

I could just picture the shiny-suited executive standing up at a board meeting: "We can save $50 million a year on our printing costs just by leaving out the apostrophe. No one will notice except that Brit guy - whats his name, Phil Goddard? - and he's just a pedant."

I left out the apostrophe in whats as a joke, by the way.

Two nights before that, I visited a Kampgrounds of America kampground. Since you ask, I stayed in kamping kabin no. 17. To me, replacing Cs with Ks suggests wacky eccentricity - hardly the kind of image a kampground would want to kultivate.

But this practice is responsible for two of America's finest contributions to international culture, so maybe we should grin and bear it. The world would be a less colourful place without Krispy Kreme donuts and Krusty the Klown.

While we're on the subject of words, in the past couple of days I've been through two places with mildly embarrassing names, both in Maryland: Hancock and Pratt. But the real granddaddy of them all was the little town in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, where I spent the night a while back.



It used to mean "crossroads", apparently.