American and British English differences

Status
Not open for further replies.

davilan

Member
Joined
Mar 16, 2011
Member Type
Other
Native Language
English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
Russian Federation
Just a scratch on the surface:




List of words having different meanings in British and American English


  • Asterisked (*) meanings, though found chiefly in the specified region, also have some currency in the other dialect; other definitions may be recognised by the other as Briticisms or Americanisms respectively. Additional usage notes are provided when useful.
A

Word
British English meanings
Meanings common to British and American English
American English meanings
A&E
the accident and emergency (casualty) department of a hospital (US: emergency room, ER)

Arts & Entertainment (name of a television network)
accumulator
rechargeable battery (archaic)
a type of bet (US: parlay)
one that accumulates, as a type of computer processor register or a hydraulic accumulator

ace
good, excellent (1980s slang)
a one in a suit of playing cards
someone who is very good at something. A term in tennis for a point won for the server without the opponent returning his or her serve.
fighter pilot who has shot down at least 5 enemy aircraft
(v.) to perform outstandingly *; esp., to achieve an A (on a school exam)
the best starting pitcher in a rotation on a baseball team
advocate (n.)
Scottish also the Isle of Man, Channel Islands and South African lawyer who appears in higher courts (rest of UK: barrister)
someone who supports or speaks for a particular position
generic term for a lawyer
(v.) to recommend or support

air marshal
a senior air force officer (equivalent to a USAF Lt. General)
an undercover law enforcement officer on board a commercial aircraft, also known as a sky marshal

à la mode

fashionable
with ice cream (ex. Apple pie à la mode)
alternate

(adj.) done or occurring by turns; every second, every other ("on alternate weeks")
(n.) one that alternates with another
(adj.) constituting an alternative, offering a choice (UK usu. & US also alternative) ("use alternate routes")
"alternative", unconventional ("alternate lifestyles")
(n.) an alternative *; a substitute
amber
traffic light of this colour (US: yellow light)
orange-yellow colour
fossilised resin; a material used in the construction of some tobacco pipes' stems, female given name; (sealed in amber) state of being oblivious to changing circumstances

anæsthetist (UK), anesthetist (US)
physician trained to administer anaesthesia (US: anesthesiologist)

a critical care experienced graduate level educated Registered Nurse who is nationally certified to administer anaesthesia
anchor

(1) a position in a tug of war team
(2) device for mooring ships by providing a firm fix to the seabed (3)(anchorman/anchorwoman) the last member of a relay team to compete
a type of radio or TV presenter ("a news anchor"). See news presenter for a description of the different roles of a newscaster, an American news anchor, and a British newsreader.
anorak
a parka
(slang) a socially awkward person obsessively interested in something (syn. US: geek, nerd; dweeb; etc.)
hooded, rainproof outerwear that lacks a full-length zipper in the front (UK: cagoule)

apartment
suite of rooms set aside for a particular person (rare),
usu. rented housing unit in a larger building implying luxury (In other words a narrower definition than the US.)

usu. rented housing unit in a larger building (usu. flat in UK)– cf. s.v. condominium
appropriate (v.), appropriation (n.)
to take (money) to oneself, to filch or misappropriate
to take and assign (money) (there is considerable overlap but difference of emphasis)
to dispense (money), to budget
Asian
originating from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka (South Asian)
originating from the continent of Asia
originating from East Asia or continental Southeast Asia
ass

donkey
slow-witted or stupid person, often in combination (dumb-ass)
(often vulgar) buttocks (UK: arse); also, by synecdoche, the person ("your ass is dead"); also (vulgar) anus (short for asshole)
(vulgar) sex ("get some ass") (note: the American usage of ass is becoming more common in British English)
(adv.) a postpositive intensive (i.e., to add emphasis to an adjective) ("He drove a big-ass truck")
kick-ass: to beat up or beat, e.g. "I am going to kick his ass" or, more positively, something that beat (did better than) everything else, e.g. "The opening band was kick-ass."
(vulgar) someone acting inappropriately or offensively ("That guy was an ass!")
athletics
Sport comprising the events in track and field, cross country running, road running and racewalking

Athletic sports in general, (e.g. College athletics)
attorney

an agent or representative authorised to act on someone else's behalf ("attorney-in-fact", "power of attorney")
(Attorney General) main legal advisor to the government
(or attorney-at-law) a lawyer (UK: barrister (England, Northern Ireland, Wales)/advocate (Scotland) or solicitor, depending on the actual profession)
(District attorney, prosecuting attorney) local public official who represents the government in the prosecution of criminals (archaic in Br. Eng. for lawyer)


sorry I can not get this to format correctly
 

davilan

Member
Joined
Mar 16, 2011
Member Type
Other
Native Language
English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
Russian Federation
Grammar

Nouns

Formal and notional agreement

In BrE, collective nouns can take either singular (formal agreement) or plural (notional agreement) verb forms, according to whether the emphasis is on the body as a whole or on the individual members respectively; compare a committee was appointed with the committee were unable to agree.[10][11] The term the Government always takes a plural verb in British civil service convention, perhaps to emphasise the principle of collective responsibility.[12] Compare also the following lines of Elvis Costello's song "Oliver's Army": Oliver's Army are on their way / Oliver's Army is here to stay. Some of these nouns, for example staff,[13] actually combine with plural verbs most of the time.
In AmE collective nouns are usually singular in construction: the committee was unable to agree. AmE may use plural pronouns, however, in agreement with collective nouns: the team take their seats, rather than the team takes its seats. The rule of thumb is that a group acting as a unit is considered singular and a group of "individuals acting separately" is considered plural.[14] However such a sentence would most likely be recast as the team members take their seats. Despite exceptions such as usage in the New York Times, the names of sports teams are usually treated as plurals even if the form of the name is singular.[15]
The difference occurs for all nouns of multitude, both general terms such as team and company and proper nouns (for example where a place name is used to refer to a sports team). For instance,
BrE: The Clash are a well-known band; AmE: The Clash is a well-known band.
BrE: Spain are the champions; AmE: Spain is the champion.
Proper nouns that are plural in form take a plural verb in both AmE and BrE; for example, The Beatles are a well-known band; The Saints are the champions.
Verbs

Verb morphology

See also: English irregular verbs

  • The past tense and past participle of the verbs learn, spoil, spell, burn, dream, smell, spill, leap, and others, can be either irregular (learnt, spoilt, etc.) or regular (learned, spoiled, etc.). In BrE, both irregular and regular forms are current, but for some words (such as smelt and leapt) there is a strong tendency towards the irregular forms, especially by users of Received Pronunciation. For other words (such as dreamed, leaned, and learned[16]) the regular forms are somewhat more common. In AmE the irregular forms are never or rarely used (except for burnt and leapt).[17]
    The t endings may be encountered frequently in older American texts. Usage may vary when the past participles are used as adjectives, as in burnt toast. (The two-syllable form learnèd /ˈl[FONT=&quot]ɜ[/FONT]rn[FONT=&quot]ɪ[/FONT]d/, usually written without the grave, is used as an adjective to mean "educated" or to refer to academic institutions in both BrE and AmE.) Finally, the past tense and past participle of dwell and kneel are more commonly dwelt and knelt in both standards, with dwelled and kneeled as common variants in the US but not in the UK.
  • Lit as the past tense of light is more common than lighted in the UK; the regular form is used more in the US but is nonetheless less common than lit.[18] Conversely, fit as the past tense of fit is more widely used in AmE than BrE, which generally favours fitted.[19]
  • The past tense of spit "expectorate" is spat in BrE, spit or spat in AmE.[20] AmE typically has spat in figurative contexts, e.g. "He spat out the name with a sneer", or in the context of expectoration of an object that is not saliva, e.g. "He spat out the foul-tasting fish" but spit for "expectorated" when it refers only to the expulsion of saliva.
  • The past participle of saw is normally sawn in BrE and sawed in AmE (as in sawn-off/sawed-off shotgun).[21]
  • The past participle gotten is never used in modern BrE, which generally uses got, except in old expressions such as ill-gotten gains. According to the Compact Oxford English Dictionary, "The form gotten is not used in British English but is very common in North American English, though even there it is often regarded as non-standard." In AmE gotten emphasizes the action of acquiring and got tends to indicate simple possession (for example, Have you gotten it? versus Have you got it?). Gotten is also typically used in AmE as the past participle for phrasal verbs using get, such as get off, get on, get into, get up, and get around: If you hadn't gotten up so late, you might not have gotten into this mess. Interestingly, AmE, but not BrE, has forgot as a less common alternative to forgotten for the past participle of forget.
  • In BrE, the past participle proved is strongly preferred to proven; in AmE, proven is now about as common as proved.[22] (Both dialects use proven as an adjective, and in formulas such as not proven).[23]
  • AmE further allows other irregular verbs, such as dive (dove) or sneak (snuck), and often mixes the preterit and past participle forms (springsprang, US also sprungsprung), sometimes forcing verbs such as shrink (shrankshrunk) to have a further form, thus shrunkshrunken. These uses are often considered nonstandard; the AP Stylebook in AmE treats some irregular verbs as colloquialisms, insisting on the regular forms for the past tense of dive, plead and sneak. Dove and snuck are usually considered nonstandard in Britain, although dove exists in some British dialects and snuck is occasionally found in British speech.
  • By extension of the irregular verb pattern, verbs with irregular preterits in some variants of colloquial AmE also have a separate past participle, for example, "to buy": past tense bought spawns boughten. Such formations are highly irregular from speaker to speaker, or even within idiolects. This phenomenon is found chiefly in the northern US and other areas where immigrants of German descent are predominant and may have developed as a result of German influence.[24] Even in areas where the feature predominates, however, it has not gained widespread acceptance as standard usage.
 

davilan

Member
Joined
Mar 16, 2011
Member Type
Other
Native Language
English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
Russian Federation
Hi

A couple of people have PMed me asking for copies of the book I assembled on American vs British English. If you PM your email address I will be happy to send you a copy
 

5jj

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Oct 14, 2010
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
Czech Republic
Current Location
Czech Republic
davilan, if you are trying, in your last two posts to prove that "American and British are two different languages with the same roots", you are failing as far as I am concerned. Educated speakers of British/American/ Australian/ Canadian/etc English dialects understand each other.

They may occasionally find a word they do not know, a word used with a different meaning, a tense usage that sounds strange; they may very occasionally completely misunderstand each other. That, however, is true of speakers from Scotland and England, from Edinburgh and Glasgow - sometimes even from different parts of town. When speakers from two different areas understand each other 99% of the time, then it seems very odd to claim that they are speaking different languages. I, a speaker of BrE, find Indian English very different from my dialect, but I have no doubt that it is English.

I could write articles as long as your two posts on the differences between the 'languages' spoken in relaxed situations when I get together with friends from my youth and when my son and his friends get together. This would show only that, as well as geography and nationality, age, gender, social class, education, profession, religion, politics, sexual orientation (yes!), military service and many other factors play affect the syntax/lexis/pronunciation/intonation/etc of idiolects and dialects,

It is true that a learner taught entirely by a speaker of RP who used no recorded materials of any other dialect might well understand very little of what the first American he met said - but he wouldn't understand what was said informally by many British people, even people from southern England.
 

davilan

Member
Joined
Mar 16, 2011
Member Type
Other
Native Language
English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
Russian Federation
My ex wife is fluent in Spanish. She never studied a word of Italian. When we were in Italy she had no problem at all with conversing or reading Italian. When trying to be understood or in understanding anyone in Italy-her Spanish worked fine. No one would argue that Italian and Spanish are indeed 2 separate languages with the same roots.

So are British English and the American language-two languages with the same roots. Italian and Spanish developed in different directions when Rome fell. American, started in its own direction from the moment English, French and German speakers arrived-not to mention those already there.

They are NOT dialects. They are VERY different languages.

I had a very good friend from London that I spent time with in New York. He lived in the states for a dozen years before I met him. We constantly has misunderstandings because of the language differences. We are both highly educated. Just like the ex in Italy with her Spanish, we had no problem communicating in general. There was no doubt we spoke different languages.
 

5jj

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Oct 14, 2010
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
Czech Republic
Current Location
Czech Republic
No one would argue that Italian and Spanish are indeed 2 separate languages with the same roots.
Most philologists/linguists for the the past couple of centuries have done precisely that.
 

bhaisahab

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Apr 12, 2008
Member Type
Retired English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
England
Current Location
Ireland
My wife is French and also speaks English and Spanish, while she is able to understand some Italian (normal for any speaker of French or Spanish, even I can understand a little). She is not able to converse in Italian. Italian, Spanish and French are indeed different languages.
 

5jj

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Oct 14, 2010
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
Czech Republic
Current Location
Czech Republic
There will never be complete agreement on precisely when two dialects become two languages. Sometimes political and nationalistic considerations have as much influence as linguistic (see some examples in my second paragraph). You are, of course, davilan, entitled to your opinion that AmE and BrE are two different languages, but you’ll have to accept that most linguists disagree.

Macedonian, the language of Macedonia, is considered by most Bulgarians to be a dialect of Bulgarian.
Many linguists consider Czech and Slovak to be two dialects of one language. Many native speakers disagree
Although Serbian and Croatian are written in different alphabets, most linguists consider them to be dialects. Many Serbs and Croatians disagree.
Lëtzebuergeschis considered by linguists to be a dialect of German. In Luxembourg it is considered to be a language – in fact it is the official language of the country; German is recognised as one of the other recognised administrative languages.
 

davilan

Member
Joined
Mar 16, 2011
Member Type
Other
Native Language
English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
Russian Federation
So Spanish and Italian are dialects of what language?

If you look at early modern English, It developed at the same time as the Europeaning of the Americas. The Americas and Europe also developed in different directions during that time. It was not just because of cultural differences that the much harsher frontier life forced numerous cultures to develop a way to communicate with each other-now known as American English. It was also such things as survival required relying on neighbors, regardless of their backgrounds forcing them to throw all the languages into a single pot-the so called "melting pot". While Europe's warring with each other, kept cultures further apart. Language developed nearly in a separate vacuum in the Americas.

Dialects develop from locals making a regional adjustment.

Early Modern British English developed at the same time that American English was created and developed. It is actually impossible for them to be dialects. British English would have to have come first. It didn't. They developed in parallel and then went in very different directions directly related to the development of the prospective countries.
 

birdeen's call

VIP Member
Joined
Jul 15, 2010
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Polish
Home Country
Poland
Current Location
Poland
Spanish and Italian are similar languages which someone with enough contrariness could call dialects of Vulgar Latin. An Italian can understand what a Spanish person is talking about, but no, they can't understand 100% of what the other is saying. There are more such pairs in Europe, especially in the Slavic world. Polish and Czech are nearly mutually intelligible as they both are West Slavic languages. Ukrainian is also comprehensible to a Pole, even though it's an East Slavic language -- the two languages have a long history of coexistence in one state. Czech and Slovak are probably one the best examples of languages that could be called dialects of one language as they are (at least their standard forms) perfectly mutually intelligible. But they are not called that usually, at least to my knowledge.

As I said before, the terms "language" and "dialect" are not defined well enough to say that something is definitely a dialect or definitely another language. Which causes problems. Many Silesians would like what they speak to be a language, not only because it the word sounds prestigious, but also because it has some legal implications. Kashubian is another example from my country.
 

Tdol

No Longer With Us (RIP)
Staff member
Joined
Nov 13, 2002
Native Language
British English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
Japan
When quoting texts, could you please give the source and URL? And please don't quote texts at such length; give a sample and a link.Thank you.
 

5jj

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Oct 14, 2010
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
Czech Republic
Current Location
Czech Republic
So Spanish and Italian are dialects of what language?
They are not. They are different languages.
Dialects develop from locals making a regional adjustment.
Early Modern British English developed at the same time that American English was created American English was not 'created' (though some American spellings were introduced by Webster) and developed. It is actually impossible for them to be dialects. That, frankly, is nonsense. British English would have to have come first. It didn't. Well, actually the English of the 16th and early 17th centuries did 'come first'. They developed in parallel and then went in very different directions directly related to the development of the prospective countries.
I don't agree with your 'very' in the last sentence.

The argument that BrE would have had to have 'come first' for BrE and AmE to be considered dialects is nonsense.

Today I cannot understand Swedish. Modern English and Swedish are two different languages.
Some centuries ago, my ancestors would have understood the dialect of the ancestors of modern Swedes. Early forms of English and of Swedish were different dialects of the same language.
The ancestors of these people would have understood the language of the ancestors of the modern-day speakers of French, and so it goes on.

Had it not been for radio, film, television, the internet etc, AmE and BrE might well have developed into two mutually unintelligible languages. But that is not what happened.
 
Last edited:

riquecohen

VIP Member
Joined
Aug 24, 2010
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
American English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
Brazil
"This is not a generally accepted statement. It has its supporters, but many people consider AmE and BrE dialects of the same language"

by the way-are any of those people on the American side of the pond?
This American and others of his acquaintance agree that we speak the same language as our British, Australian, Indian, Jamaican, South African friends. Sorry I haven't included the other 50 or so other countries where this same language is spoken.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top