American and British English differences
Encyclopedia
This is one of a series of articles about the differences between British English
and American English
, which, for the purposes of these articles, are defined as follows:
Written forms of British and American English as found in newspapers and textbooks vary little in their essential features, with only occasional noticeable differences in comparable media (comparing American newspapers with British newspapers, for example). This kind of formal English, particularly written English, is often called "standard English".
The spoken forms of British English vary considerably, reflecting a long history of dialect development amid isolated populations. Dialects and accents vary not only among the countries of the United Kingdom, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland
and Wales
, but also within these individual countries.
There are also differences in the English spoken by different groups of people in any particular region. Received Pronunciation
(RP) has traditionally been regarded as proper English; this is also referred to as "BBC English" or "the Queen's English". The BBC and other broadcasters
now intentionally use a mix of presenters with a variety of British accents and dialects, and the concept of "proper English" is now far less prevalent.
An unofficial standard for spoken American English has also developed, as a result of mass media and geographic and social mobility
, and broadly describes the English typically heard from network newscasters, commonly referred to as non-regional diction
, although local newscasters tend toward more parochial
forms of speech. Despite this unofficial standard, regional variations of American English have not only persisted but have actually intensified, according to linguist William Labov
.
Regional dialects in the United States typically reflect the elements of the language of the main immigrant groups in any particular region of the country, especially in terms of pronunciation and vernacular
vocabulary. Scholars have mapped at least four major regional variations of spoken American English: Northern, Southern
, Midland
, and Western. After the American Civil War
, the settlement of the western territories by migrants from the east led to dialect mixing and levelling, so that regional dialects are most strongly differentiated in the eastern parts of the country that were settled earlier. Localized dialects also exist with quite distinct variations, such as in Southern Appalachia and New York.
British and American English are the reference norms for English as spoken, written, and taught in the rest of the world. For instance the English-speaking members of the Commonwealth
often closely follow British English forms while many new American English forms quickly become familiar outside of the United States. Although most dialects of English used in the former British Empire
outside of North America are, to various extents, based on British English, most of the countries concerned have developed their own unique dialects, particularly with respect to pronunciation, idioms and vocabulary. Chief among other English dialects are Canadian English
, based on the English of United Empire Loyalists who left the 13 Colonies, and Australian English
, which rank third and fourth in number of native speakers.
was first introduced to the Americas
by British colonization, beginning in 1607 in Jamestown, Virginia
. Similarly, the language spread to numerous other parts of the world as a result of British trade and colonization elsewhere and the spread of the former British Empire
, which, by 1921, held sway over a population of 470–570 million people, approximately a quarter of the world's population at that time.
Over the past 400 years the form of the language used in the Americas
—especially in the United States
—and that used in the United Kingdom have diverged in a few minor ways, leading to the dialect
s now occasionally referred to as American English and British English. Differences between the two include pronunciation
, grammar
, vocabulary (lexis)
, spelling
, punctuation
, idiom
s, formatting of date
s and number
s, although the differences in written and most spoken grammar structure tend to be much less than those of other aspects of the language in terms of mutual intelligibility. A small number of words have completely different meanings in the two dialects or are even unknown or not used in one of the dialects. One particular contribution towards formalizing these differences came from Noah Webster
, who wrote the first American dictionary
(published 1828) with the intention of showing that people in the United States spoke a different dialect from Britain, much like a regional accent.
This divergence between American English and British English once caused George Bernard Shaw
to say that the United States and United Kingdom are "two countries divided by a common language"; a similar comment is ascribed to Winston Churchill
. Likewise, Oscar Wilde
wrote, "We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, the language" (The Canterville Ghost
, 1888). Henry Sweet incorrectly predicted in 1877 that within a century American English, Australian English and British English would be mutually unintelligible. It may be the case that increased worldwide communication through radio, television, the Internet and globalization
has reduced the tendency to regional variation. This can result either in some variations becoming extinct (for instance, the wireless, superseded by the radio) or in the acceptance of wide variations as "perfectly good English" everywhere. Often at the core of the dialect though, the idiosyncrasies remain.
Nevertheless it remains the case that, although spoken American and British English are generally mutually intelligible, there are enough differences to cause occasional misunderstandings or at times embarrassment—for example some words that are quite innocent in one dialect may be considered vulgar in the other.
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. The term the Government always takes a plural verb in British civil service convention, perhaps to emphasise the principle of cabinet collective responsibility
. 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, actually combine with plural verbs most of the time.
In AmE, collective nouns are almost always singular in construction: the committee was unable to agree. However, when a speaker wishes to emphasize that the individuals are acting separately, a plural pronoun may be employed with a singular or plural verb: the team takes their seats or the team take their seats, rather than the team takes its seats. 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.
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, with one major exception: largely for historical reasons, in American English, the United States is is almost universal.
It is not a straightforward matter to classify differences of vocabulary. David Crystal identifies some of the problems of classification on the facing page to his list of American English/British English lexical variation and states "this should be enough to suggest caution when working through an apparently simple list of equivalents".
Though the influence of cross-culture media has done much to familiarize BrE and AmE speakers with each other's regional words and terms, many words are still recognized as part of a single form of English. Though the use of a British word would be acceptable in AmE (and vice versa), most listeners would recognize the word as coming from the other form of English and treat it much the same as a word borrowed from any other language. For instance a British speaker using the word chap or mate to refer to a friend would be heard in much the same way as an American using the Spanish word amigo.
Words such as bill (AmE "paper money," BrE and AmE "invoice") and biscuit (AmE: BrE's "scone", BrE: AmE's "cookie") are used regularly in both AmE and BrE but mean different things in each form. As chronicled by Winston Churchill
, the opposite meanings of the verb to table created a misunderstanding during a meeting of the Allied forces; in BrE to table an item on an agenda means to open it up for discussion whereas in AmE, it means to remove it from discussion, or at times, to suspend or delay discussion.
The word "football" in BrE refers to Association football, also known as soccer. In AmE, "football" means American football
(although "soccer", a contraction of "association (football)", the standard AmE term, is also of British origin, derived from the formalization of different codes of football in the 19th century, and was a fairly unremarkable usage (possibly marked for class) in BrE until relatively recently; it has latterly become falsely perceived as an intrusive Americanism).
Similarly the word "hockey" in BrE refers to field hockey
; in AmE "hockey" means ice hockey
.
Words with completely different meanings are relatively few; most of the time there are either (1) words with one or more shared meanings and one or more meanings unique to one variety (for example, bathroom and toilet) or (2) words the meanings of which are actually common to both BrE and AmE but that show differences in frequency, connotation or denotation (for example, smart, clever, mad).
Some differences in usage and/or meaning can cause confusion or embarrassment. For example the word fanny is a slang word for vulva
in BrE but means buttocks
in AmE—the AmE phrase fanny pack
is bum bag in BrE. In AmE the word fag (short for faggot) is a highly offensive term for a gay male but in BrE it is a normal and well-used term for a cigarette, for hard work, or for a chore, while a faggot
itself is a sort of meatball
. In AmE the word pissed means being annoyed whereas in BrE it is a coarse word for being drunk (in both varieties, pissed off means irritated).
Similarly, in AmE the word pants is the common word for the BrE trousers, while the majority of BrE speakers would understand pants to mean underwear. Many dialects in the North of England agree with the AmE usage and use pants to refer to trousers; this is often incorrectly considered an Americanism by people from elsewhere in Britain. The word pants is a shortening of the archaic pantaloons, which shares the same source as the French
for trousers, pantalon.
Sometimes the confusion is more subtle. In AmE the word quite used as a qualifier is generally a reinforcement: for example, "I'm quite hungry" means "I'm very hungry". In BrE quite (which is much more common in conversation) may have this meaning, as in "quite right" or "quite mad", but it more commonly means "somewhat", so that in BrE "I'm quite hungry" can mean "I'm somewhat hungry". This divergence of use can lead to misunderstanding.
In the UK the US equivalent of a high school is often referred to as a secondary school regardless of whether it is state funded or private. Secondary education in the United States also includes middle school or junior high school, a two- or three-year transitional school between elementary school and high school. "Middle school" is sometimes used in the UK as a synonym for the younger junior school, covering the second half of the primary curriculum—current years 4 to 6 in some areas.
A public school has opposite meanings in the two countries. In the US this is a government-owned institution supported by taxpayers. In England and Wales the term strictly refers to an ill-defined group of prestigious private independent school
s funded by students' fees, although it is often more loosely used to refer to any independent school. Independent schools are also known as private schools, and the latter is the correct term in Scotland and Northern Ireland
for all such fee-funded schools. Strictly, the term public school is not used in Scotland and Northern Ireland in the same sense as in England, but nevertheless Gordonstoun
, the Scottish private school which Charles, Prince of Wales
attended, is sometimes referred to as a public school. Government-funded schools in Scotland and Northern Ireland are properly referred to as state schools—but are sometimes confusingly referred to as public schools (with the same meaning as in the US); whereas in the US, where most public schools are administered by local governments, a state school is typically a college or university
run by one of the states
. The UK use of the term "public" school is in contrast with "private" education, i.e. to be educated privately with a tutor.
Speakers in both the United States and the United Kingdom use several additional terms for specific types of secondary school. A US prep school or preparatory school
is an independent school funded by tuition fees; the same term is used in the UK for a private school for pupils under thirteen
, designed to prepare them for fee-paying public schools. An American parochial school
covers costs through tuition and has affiliation with a religious institution, most often a Catholic church or diocese. (Interestingly, the term "parochial" is almost never used to describe schools run by fundamentalist Protestant
groups.) In England, where the state-funded education system
grew from parish schools organized by the local established church, the Church of England
(C. of E., or C.E.), and many schools, especially primary schools
(up to age 11) retain a church connection and are known as church schools, C.E. Schools or C.E. (Aided) Schools. There are also faith schools associated with the Roman Catholic Church and other major faiths, with a mixture of funding arrangements.
In the US, a magnet school
receives government funding and has special admission requirements: pupils gain admission through superior performance on admission tests. The UK has city academies
, which are independent privately sponsored schools run with public funding and which can select up to 10% of pupils by aptitude
. Moreover in the UK 36 Local Education Authorities retain selection by ability at 11. They maintain Grammar Schools (State funded secondary schools), which admit pupils according to performance in an examination (known as the 11+) and Comprehensive schools that take pupils of all abilities. Grammar Schools cream from 10% to 23% of those who sit the exam. However, nationally only 6% of pupils attend Grammar Schools. Private schools can also call themselves Grammar Schools.
In the UK a university student is said to study, to read or informally simply to do a subject. In the recent past the expression 'to read a subject' was more common at the older universities such as Oxford and Cambridge. In the US a student studies or majors in a subject (although concentration or emphasis is also used in some US colleges or universities to refer to the major subject of study). To major in something refers to the student's principal course of study; to study may refer to any class being taken.
BrE:
AmE:
At university level in BrE, each module is taught by a lecturer
or tutor; professor is the job-title of a senior academic. In AmE each class is generally taught by a professor (although some US tertiary educational institutions follow the BrE usage), while the position of lecturer is occasionally given to individuals hired on a temporary basis to teach one or more classes and who may or not have a doctoral degree.
The word course in American use typically refers to the study of a restricted topic (for example, a course in Early Medieval England, a course in Integral Calculus) over a limited period of time (such as a semester or term) and is equivalent to a module at a British university. In the UK a course of study is likely to refer to a whole programme of study, which may extend over several years and be made up of any number of modules.
In both the US and the UK, a student takes an exam, but in BrE a student can also be said to sit an exam. The expression he sits for an exam also arises in BrE but only rarely in AmE; American lawyers-to-be sit for their bar exams and American master's and doctoral students may sit for their comprehensive exams, but in nearly all other instances, Americans take their exams.
When preparing for an exam students revise (BrE)/review (AmE) what they have studied; the BrE idiom to revise for has the equivalent to review for in AmE.
Examinations are supervised by invigilators in the UK and proctors (or (exam) supervisors) in the US (a proctor in the UK is an official responsible for student discipline at the University of Oxford or Cambridge). In the UK a teacher sets an exam while in the US, a teacher writes (prepares) and then gives (administers) an exam.
BrE:
AmE:
Another source of confusion is the different usage of the word college. (See a full international discussion of the various meanings at college
.) In the US this refers to a post-high school institution that grants either associate's or bachelor's degrees while in the UK it refers to any post-secondary institution that is not a university (including Sixth Form College after the name in secondary education for Years 12 and 13, the 6th form) where intermediary courses such as A Levels or NVQs can be taken and GCSE courses can be retaken. College may sometimes be used in the UK or in Commonwealth countries as part of the name of a secondary or high school (for example, Dubai College
). In the case of Oxford, Cambridge, Aberdeen
, London
, Lancaster
, Durham
, Kent
and York
universities, all members are also members of a college which is part of the university, for example, one is a member of Clare College, Cambridge
and hence the University.
In both the US and UK college can refer to some division within a university such as the "college of business and economics" though in the UK "faculty" is more often used. Institutions in the US that offer two to four years of post-high school education often have the word college as part of their name, while those offering more advanced degrees are called a university. (There are exceptions of course: Boston College
, Dartmouth College
and The College of William & Mary are examples of colleges that offer advanced degrees, while Vincennes University
is an unusual example of a "university" that offers only associate degrees in the vast majority of its academic programs.) American students who pursue a bachelor's degree (four years of higher education) or an associate degree (two years of higher education) are college students regardless of whether they attend a college or a university and refer to their educational institutions informally as colleges. A student who pursues a master's degree or a doctorate degree in the arts and sciences is in AmE a graduate student; in BrE a postgraduate student although graduate student is also sometimes used. Students of advanced professional programmes are known by their field (business student, law student, medical student). Some universities also have a residential college
system, the details of which may vary but generally involve common living and dining spaces as well as college-organized activities.
"Professor" has different meanings in BrE and AmE. In BrE it is the highest academic rank
, followed by Reader, Senior Lecturer and Lecturer. In AmE "Professor" refers to academic staff of all ranks, with (Full) Professor (largely equivalent to the UK meaning) followed by Associate Professor and Assistant Professor.
"Tuition" has traditionally had separate meaning in each variation. In BrE it is the educational content transferred from teacher to student at a university. In AmE it is the money (the fees) paid to receive that education (BrE: Tuition fees).
There is additionally a difference between American and British usage in the word school. In British usage "school" by itself refers only to primary (elementary) and secondary (high) schools and to sixth forms attached to secondary schools—if one "goes to school", this type of institution is implied. By contrast an American student at a university may talk of "going to school" or "being in school". US law students and medical students almost universally speak in terms of going to "law school" and "med school", respectively. However, the word is used in BrE in the context of higher education to describe a division grouping together several related subjects within a university, for example a "School of European Languages" containing departments for each language and also in the term "art school". It is also the name of some of the constituent colleges of the University of London, for example, School of Oriental and African Studies
, London School of Economics
.
Among high-school and college students in the United States, the words freshman (or the gender-neutral term frosh or first year), sophomore, junior and senior refer to the first, second, third, and fourth years respectively. For first-year students, "frosh" is another gender-neutral term that can be used as a qualifier, for example "Frosh class elections". It is important that the context of either high school or college first be established or else it must be stated direct (that is, She is a high school freshman. He is a college junior.). Many institutes in both countries also use the term first-year as a gender-neutral replacement for freshman, although in the US this is recent usage, formerly referring only to those in the first year as a graduate student. One exception is the University of Virginia
; since its founding in 1819 the terms "first-year", "second-year", "third-year", and "fourth-year" have been used to describe undergraduate university students. At the United States military academies
, at least those operated by the federal government direct, a different terminology is used, namely "fourth class", "third class", "second class" and "first class" (the order of numbering being the reverse of the number of years in attendance). In the UK first-year university students are sometimes called freshers early in the academic year; however, there are no specific names for those in other years nor for school pupils. Graduate and professional students in the United States are known by their year of study, such as a "second-year medical student" or a "fifth-year doctoral candidate." Law students are often referred to as "1L", "2L", or "3L" rather than "nth-year law students"; similarly medical students are frequently referred to as "M1", "M2", "M3", or "M4").
While anyone in the US who finishes studying at any educational institution by passing relevant examinations is said to graduate and to be a graduate, in the UK only degree and above level students can graduate. Student itself has a wider meaning in AmE, meaning any person of any age studying at any educational institution, whereas in BrE it tends to be used for people studying at a post-secondary educational institution and the term pupil is widely used for a young person at primary or secondary school.
The names of individual institutions can be confusing. There are several "University High Schools" in the United States that are not affiliated with any post-secondary institutions and cannot grant degrees, and there is one public high school, Central High School of Philadelphia, which does grant bachelor's degrees to the top ten per cent of graduating seniors. British secondary schools occasionally have the word "college" in their names.
Differences in terminology are especially obvious in the context of road
s. The British term dual carriageway
, in American parlance, would be divided highway
. The central reservation on a motorway or dual carriageway in the UK would be the median or center divide on a freeway, expressway, highway or parkway in the US. The one-way lanes that make it possible to enter and leave such roads at an intermediate point without disrupting the flow of traffic are known as slip roads in the UK but US civil engineers call them ramps and further distinguish between on-ramps (for entering) and off-ramps (for leaving). When American engineers speak of slip roads, they are referring to a street that runs alongside the main road (separated by a berm) to allow off-the-highway access to the premises that are there, sometimes also known as a frontage road
—in both the US and UK this is also known as a service road.
In the UK, the term outside lane refers to the higher-speed overtaking lane (passing lane in the US) closest to the centre of the road while inside lane refers to the lane closer to the edge of the road. In the US outside lane is used only in the context of a turn, in which case it depends in which direction the road is turning (i.e. if the road bends right the left lane is the "outside lane" but if the road bends left it is the right lane). Both also refer to slow and fast lanes (even though all actual traffic speeds may be at or around the legal speed limit).
In the UK drink driving is against the law whilst in the US the term is drunk driving. The legal term in the US is driving while intoxicated (DWI) or driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI). The equivalent legal phrase in the UK is drunk in charge of a motor vehicle (DIC) or more commonly driving with excess alcohol.
Specific auto parts and transport terms have different names in the two dialects, for example:
", as well as to the entire run. However, the entire run may sometimes be revered to as a "show".
The term telecast, meaning television broadcast, is not used in British English. A television programme would be broadcast, aired or shown.
between the US and UK. In most countries, including the UK, the "first floor" is one above the entrance level while the entrance level is the "ground floor". In the US the ground floor is considered the first floor. In a British lift one would press the "G" or "0" button to return to the ground floor whereas in an American elevator, one would push the "1", "G", or "L" (for Lobby) button to return to the ground floor. The "L" button in a British lift would take you to the lower ground floor (i.e. the floor below ground, the basement), which may also be numbered "−1" (minus one).
American (AmE) apartment buildings / (BrE) blocks of flats frequently are exceptions to this rule. The ground floor often contains the lobby and parking area for the tenants, while the numbered floors begin one level above and contain only the flats (AmE apartments) themselves.
Some American schools teach students to pronounce decimally written fractions (for example, .5) as though they were longhand fractions (five tenths), such as thirteen and seven tenths for 13.7. This formality is often dropped in common speech and is steadily disappearing in instruction in mathematics and science as well as in international American schools. In the UK, 13.7 would be read thirteen point seven.
In counting, it is common in both varieties of English to count in hundreds up to 1,900—so 1,200 may be twelve hundred. However, Americans use this pattern for much higher numbers than is the norm in British English, referring to twenty-four hundred where British English would most often use two thousand four hundred. Even below 2,000, Americans are more likely than the British are to read numbers like 1,234 as twelve hundred thirty-four, instead of one thousand two hundred and thirty-four.
In the case of years, however, twelve thirty-four would be the norm on both sides of the Atlantic for the year 1234. The year 2000 and years beyond it are read as two thousand, two thousand (and) one and the like by both British and American speakers. For years after 2009, twenty ten, twenty twelve etc. are becoming common.
For the house number (or bus number, etc.) 272, British people tend to say two seven two while Americans tend to say two seventy-two.
There is also a historical difference between billions
, trillions and so forth. Americans use billion to mean one thousand million (1,000,000,000), whereas in the UK, until the latter part of the 20th century, it was used to mean one million million (1,000,000,000,000). In 1974 the British prime minister, Harold Wilson, told the House of Commons that UK government statistics would now use the short scale; followed by the Chancellor, Denis Healey, in 1975, that the treasury would now adopt the US billion version. One thousand million was sometimes described as a milliard, the definition adopted by most other European languages. However, the 'American' version has since been adopted for all published writing and the word milliard is obsolete in English, as are billiard (but not billiards
, the game), trilliard and so on. All major British publications and broadcasters, including the BBC, which long used thousand million to avoid ambiguity, now use billion to mean thousand million.
Many people have no direct experience of manipulating numbers this large, and many non-American readers may interpret billion as 1012 (even if they are young enough to have been taught otherwise at school); moreover usage of the "long" billion is standard in some non-English speaking countries. For these reasons, defining the word may be advisable when writing for the public. See long and short scales
for a more detailed discussion of the evolution of these terms in English and other languages.
When referring to the numeral 0
, British people would normally use nought, oh, or zero, although nil is common in sports scores. Americans use the term zero most frequently; oh is also often used (though never when the quantity in question is nothing), and occasionally slang terms such as zilch or zip. Phrases such as the team won two–zip or the team leads the series two–nothing are heard when reporting sports scores. In the case of association football—known as "football" in Britain and "soccer" in America—Americans will sometimes use "nil" as in Britain, although this usage is mostly confined to soccer journalists and hardcore fans and is not universal among either group. The digit 0, for example, when a phone or account number is being read aloud, is nearly always pronounced oh in both language varieties for the sake of convenience. In the internet age the use of the term oh can cause certain inconveniences when one is referencing an email address, causing confusion as to whether the character in question is a zero or the letter O.
When reading numbers in a sequence, such as a telephone or serial number, British people will usually use the terms double followed by the repeated number. Hence 007
is double oh seven. Exceptions are the emergency telephone number 999, which is always nine nine nine and the apocalyptic "Number of the Beast
", which is always six six six. In the US 911
(the US emergency telephone number) is usually read nine one one, while 9/11 (in reference to the September 11, 2001 attacks) is usually read nine eleven.
. Occasionally other formats are encountered, such as the ISO 8601
2000-12-25, popular among programmers, scientists and others seeking to avoid ambiguity, and to make alphanumeric
al order coincide with chronological order. The difference in short-form date order can lead to misunderstanding. For example 06/04/05 could mean either June 4, 2005 (if read as US format), 6 April 2005 (if seen as in UK format) or even 5 April 2006 if taken to be an older ISO 8601-style format where 2-digit years were allowed.
A consequence of the different short-form of dates is that in the UK, many people are reluctant to refer to "9/11", although its meaning is instantly understood. On the BBC "September the 11th" is generally used in preference to 9/11. However, 9/11 is commonplace in the British press to refer to the events of September 11, 2001.
When using the word of the month rather than the number to write a date for example, April 21, both that and 21 April are used in the UK, but as a rule only April 21 would be seen in the U.S. British usage often changes the day from an integer to an ordinal, i.e. 21st instead of 21. In speech "of" and "the" are used in the UK, as in "April the 21st" and "the 21st of April".
Phrases such as the following are common in Britain but are generally unknown in the US: "A week today", "a week tomorrow", "a week on Tuesday" and "Tuesday week" (this is found in central Texas), "a fortnight on Friday" (the latter referring to two weeks after "next Friday"). In the US the standard construction is "a week from today", "a week from tomorrow", etc. BrE speakers may also say "Thursday last" or "Thursday gone" where AmE would prefer "last Thursday". "I'll see you (on) Thursday coming" or "Let's meet this coming Thursday" in BrE refer to a meeting later this week, while "Not until Thursday next".
(18:00 or 1800) is considered normal in the UK and Europe in many applications including air, rail and bus timetables; it is largely unused in the US outside of military, police, aviation and medical applications.
15 minutes after the hour is called quarter past in British usage and a quarter after or, less commonly, a quarter past in American usage. 15 minutes before the hour is usually called quarter to in British usage and a quarter of, a quarter to or a quarter 'til in American usage; the form a quarter to is associated with parts of the Northern United States
, while a quarter 'til is found chiefly in the Appalachia
n region. Thirty minutes after the hour is commonly called half past in both BrE and AmE; half after used to be more common in the US. In informal British speech, the preposition is sometimes omitted, so that 5:30 may be referred to as half five. The AmE formations top of the hour and bottom of the hour are not used in BrE. Forms such as eleven forty are common in both dialects.
.
When used as the unit of measurement the plural form of stone is correctly stone (as in "11 stone"). When describing the units, the correct plural is stones (as in "Please enter your weight in stones and pounds").
, New Year's Day
, Hanukkah
, Diwali
, St Lucia Day and Kwanzaa
) while avoiding any specific religious reference, though this is rarely, if ever, heard in the UK. Season's Greetings is a common phrase printed in greetings cards in both America and Britain.
In both areas, saying, "I don't mind" often means, "I'm not annoyed" (for example, by someone's smoking), while "I don't care" often means, "The matter is trivial or boring". However, in answering a question such as "Tea or coffee?", if either alternative is equally acceptable an American may answer, "I don't care" while a British person may answer, "I don't mind". Either sounds odd to the other.
In BrE the phrase I can't be arsed (to do something) is a very recent vulgar equivalent to the British or American I can't be bothered (to do it). To non-BrE speakers this may be confused with the Southern English pronunciation of I can't be asked (to do that thing), which sounds either defiantly rude or nonsensical.
Old BrE often uses the exclamation "No fear!" where current AmE has "No way!" An example from Dorothy L. Sayers
:
This usage may confuse users of AmE, who are likely to interpret and even use "No fear!" as enthusiastic willingness to move forward.
In some cases, the American variant is also used in BrE, or vice versa.
. For the most part current BrE spellings follow those of Samuel Johnson
's Dictionary of the English Language
(1755). Among the advocates of spelling reform in England, the influences of those who preferred the Norman
(or Anglo-French) spellings of certain words proved decisive. In many cases AmE deviated in the 19th century from mainstream British spelling; on the other hand it has also often retained older forms. Many of the now characteristic AmE spellings were introduced, although often not created, by Noah Webster
in his An American Dictionary of the English Language of 1828. Webster was a strong proponent of spelling reform
for reasons both philological and nationalistic. Many other spelling changes proposed in the US by Webster himself and by the Simplified Spelling Board
in the early 20th century never caught on. Subsequent spelling adjustments in the UK had little effect on present-day US spelling, and vice versa.
varies.
Sometimes the words in titles of publications and newspaper headlines as well as chapter and section headings are capitalized in the same manner as in normal sentences (sentence case). That is, only the first letter of the first word is capitalized, along with proper noun
s, etc.
However, publishers sometimes require additional words in titles and headlines to have the initial capital, for added emphasis
, as it is often perceived as appearing more professional. In AmE this is common in titles but less so in newspaper headlines. The exact rules differ between publishers and are often ambiguous; a typical approach is to capitalize all words other than short articles
, prepositions, and conjunctions
. This should probably be regarded as a common stylistic difference rather than a linguistic difference, as neither form would be considered incorrect or unusual in either the UK or the US. Many British tabloid newspapers (such as The Sun
, The Daily Sport
) use fully capitalised headlines for impact as opposed to readability (for example, BERLIN WALL FALLS or BIRD FLU PANIC). On the other hand the broadsheet
s (such as The Guardian
, The Times
, and The Independent
) usually follow the sentence style of having only the first letter of the first word capitalized.
American newspapers commonly use a comma as a shorthand for "and" in headlines. For example, the Washington Post had the headline "A TRUE CONSERVATIVE: For McCain, Bush Has Both Praise, Advice."
British English
British English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere...
and American English
American English
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
, which, for the purposes of these articles, are defined as follows:
- British English (BrE) is the form of English used in the United Kingdom. It includes all English dialectDialectThe term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
s used within the United Kingdom. - American English (AmE) is the form of English used in the United States. It includes all English dialects used within the United States.
Written forms of British and American English as found in newspapers and textbooks vary little in their essential features, with only occasional noticeable differences in comparable media (comparing American newspapers with British newspapers, for example). This kind of formal English, particularly written English, is often called "standard English".
The spoken forms of British English vary considerably, reflecting a long history of dialect development amid isolated populations. Dialects and accents vary not only among the countries of the United Kingdom, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland
Scottish English
Scottish English refers to the varieties of English spoken in Scotland. It may or may not be considered distinct from the Scots language. It is always considered distinct from Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic language....
and Wales
Welsh English
Welsh English, Anglo-Welsh, or Wenglish refers to the dialects of English spoken in Wales by Welsh people. The dialects are significantly influenced by Welsh grammar and often include words derived from Welsh...
, but also within these individual countries.
There are also differences in the English spoken by different groups of people in any particular region. Received Pronunciation
Received Pronunciation
Received Pronunciation , also called the Queen's English, Oxford English or BBC English, is the accent of Standard English in England, with a relationship to regional accents similar to the relationship in other European languages between their standard varieties and their regional forms...
(RP) has traditionally been regarded as proper English; this is also referred to as "BBC English" or "the Queen's English". The BBC and other broadcasters
Broadcasting
Broadcasting is the distribution of audio and video content to a dispersed audience via any audio visual medium. Receiving parties may include the general public or a relatively large subset of thereof...
now intentionally use a mix of presenters with a variety of British accents and dialects, and the concept of "proper English" is now far less prevalent.
An unofficial standard for spoken American English has also developed, as a result of mass media and geographic and social mobility
Social mobility
Social mobility refers to the movement of people in a population from one social class or economic level to another. It typically refers to vertical mobility -- movement of individuals or groups up from one socio-economic level to another, often by changing jobs or marrying; but can also refer to...
, and broadly describes the English typically heard from network newscasters, commonly referred to as non-regional diction
Diction
Diction , in its original, primary meaning, refers to the writer's or the speaker's distinctive vocabulary choices and style of expression in a poem or story...
, although local newscasters tend toward more parochial
Parochialism
Parochialism means being provincial, being narrow in scope, or considering only small sections of an issue. It may, particularly when used pejoratively, be contrasted to universalism....
forms of speech. Despite this unofficial standard, regional variations of American English have not only persisted but have actually intensified, according to linguist William Labov
William Labov
William Labov born December 4, 1927) is an American linguist, widely regarded as the founder of the discipline of variationist sociolinguistics. He has been described as "an enormously original and influential figure who has created much of the methodology" of sociolinguistics...
.
Regional dialects in the United States typically reflect the elements of the language of the main immigrant groups in any particular region of the country, especially in terms of pronunciation and vernacular
Vernacular
A vernacular is the native language or native dialect of a specific population, as opposed to a language of wider communication that is not native to the population, such as a national language or lingua franca.- Etymology :The term is not a recent one...
vocabulary. Scholars have mapped at least four major regional variations of spoken American English: Northern, Southern
Southern American English
Southern American English is a group of dialects of the English language spoken throughout the Southern region of the United States, from Southern and Eastern Maryland, West Virginia and Kentucky to the Gulf Coast, and from the Atlantic coast to most of Texas and Oklahoma.The Southern dialects make...
, Midland
Midland American English
The Midland dialect of American English was first defined by Hans Kurath as being the dialect spoken in an area centered on Philadelphia and expanding westward to include most of Pennsylvania and part of the Appalachian Mountains...
, and Western. After the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, the settlement of the western territories by migrants from the east led to dialect mixing and levelling, so that regional dialects are most strongly differentiated in the eastern parts of the country that were settled earlier. Localized dialects also exist with quite distinct variations, such as in Southern Appalachia and New York.
British and American English are the reference norms for English as spoken, written, and taught in the rest of the world. For instance the English-speaking members of the Commonwealth
Commonwealth of Nations
The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...
often closely follow British English forms while many new American English forms quickly become familiar outside of the United States. Although most dialects of English used in the former British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
outside of North America are, to various extents, based on British English, most of the countries concerned have developed their own unique dialects, particularly with respect to pronunciation, idioms and vocabulary. Chief among other English dialects are Canadian English
Canadian English
Canadian English is the variety of English spoken in Canada. English is the first language, or "mother tongue", of approximately 24 million Canadians , and more than 28 million are fluent in the language...
, based on the English of United Empire Loyalists who left the 13 Colonies, and Australian English
Australian English
Australian English is the name given to the group of dialects spoken in Australia that form a major variety of the English language....
, which rank third and fourth in number of native speakers.
Historical background
The English languageEnglish language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
was first introduced to the Americas
Americas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
by British colonization, beginning in 1607 in Jamestown, Virginia
Jamestown, Virginia
Jamestown was a settlement in the Colony of Virginia. Established by the Virginia Company of London as "James Fort" on May 14, 1607 , it was the first permanent English settlement in what is now the United States, following several earlier failed attempts, including the Lost Colony of Roanoke...
. Similarly, the language spread to numerous other parts of the world as a result of British trade and colonization elsewhere and the spread of the former British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
, which, by 1921, held sway over a population of 470–570 million people, approximately a quarter of the world's population at that time.
Over the past 400 years the form of the language used in the Americas
Americas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
—especially in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
—and that used in the United Kingdom have diverged in a few minor ways, leading to the dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
s now occasionally referred to as American English and British English. Differences between the two include pronunciation
Pronunciation
Pronunciation refers to the way a word or a language is spoken, or the manner in which someone utters a word. If one is said to have "correct pronunciation", then it refers to both within a particular dialect....
, grammar
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
, vocabulary (lexis)
Lexis (linguistics)
In linguistics, a lexis is the total word-stock or lexicon having items of lexical, rather than grammatical, meaning. This notion contrasts starkly with the Chomskian proposition of a “Universal Grammar” as the prime mover for language...
, spelling
Spelling
Spelling is the writing of one or more words with letters and diacritics. In addition, the term often, but not always, means an accepted standard spelling or the process of naming the letters...
, punctuation
Punctuation
Punctuation marks are symbols that indicate the structure and organization of written language, as well as intonation and pauses to be observed when reading aloud.In written English, punctuation is vital to disambiguate the meaning of sentences...
, idiom
Idiom
Idiom is an expression, word, or phrase that has a figurative meaning that is comprehended in regard to a common use of that expression that is separate from the literal meaning or definition of the words of which it is made...
s, formatting of date
Calendar date
A date in a calendar is a reference to a particular day represented within a calendar system. The calendar date allows the specific day to be identified. The number of days between two dates may be calculated. For example, "24 " is ten days after "14 " in the Gregorian calendar. The date of a...
s and number
Number
A number is a mathematical object used to count and measure. In mathematics, the definition of number has been extended over the years to include such numbers as zero, negative numbers, rational numbers, irrational numbers, and complex numbers....
s, although the differences in written and most spoken grammar structure tend to be much less than those of other aspects of the language in terms of mutual intelligibility. A small number of words have completely different meanings in the two dialects or are even unknown or not used in one of the dialects. One particular contribution towards formalizing these differences came from Noah Webster
Noah Webster
Noah Webster was an American educator, lexicographer, textbook pioneer, English spelling reformer, political writer, editor, and prolific author...
, who wrote the first American dictionary
Webster's Dictionary
Webster's Dictionary refers to the line of dictionaries first developed by Noah Webster in the early 19th century, and also to numerous unrelated dictionaries that added Webster's name just to share his prestige. The term is a genericized trademark in the U.S.A...
(published 1828) with the intention of showing that people in the United States spoke a different dialect from Britain, much like a regional accent.
This divergence between American English and British English once caused George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
to say that the United States and United Kingdom are "two countries divided by a common language"; a similar comment is ascribed to Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
. Likewise, Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
wrote, "We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, the language" (The Canterville Ghost
The Canterville Ghost
"The Canterville Ghost" is a popular short story by Oscar Wilde, widely adapted for the screen and stage. It was the first of Wilde's stories to be published, appearing in the magazine The Court and Society Review in February 1887. It was later included in a collection of short stories entitled...
, 1888). Henry Sweet incorrectly predicted in 1877 that within a century American English, Australian English and British English would be mutually unintelligible. It may be the case that increased worldwide communication through radio, television, the Internet and globalization
Globalization
Globalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...
has reduced the tendency to regional variation. This can result either in some variations becoming extinct (for instance, the wireless, superseded by the radio) or in the acceptance of wide variations as "perfectly good English" everywhere. Often at the core of the dialect though, the idiosyncrasies remain.
Nevertheless it remains the case that, although spoken American and British English are generally mutually intelligible, there are enough differences to cause occasional misunderstandings or at times embarrassment—for example some words that are quite innocent in one dialect may be considered vulgar in the other.
Formal and notional agreement
In BrE, collective nounsEnglish collective nouns
In linguistics, a collective noun is a word used to define a group of objects, where objects can be people, animals, emotions, inanimate things, concepts, or other things. For example, in the phrase "a pride of lions", pride is a collective noun....
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. The term the Government always takes a plural verb in British civil service convention, perhaps to emphasise the principle of cabinet collective responsibility
Cabinet collective responsibility
Cabinet collective responsibility is constitutional convention in governments using the Westminster System that members of the Cabinet must publicly support all governmental decisions made in Cabinet, even if they do not privately agree with them. This support includes voting for the government in...
. Compare also the following lines of Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello , born Declan Patrick MacManus, is an English singer-songwriter. He came to prominence as an early participant in London's pub rock scene in the mid-1970s and later became associated with the punk/New Wave genre. Steeped in word play, the vocabulary of Costello's lyrics is broader...
'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, actually combine with plural verbs most of the time.
In AmE, collective nouns are almost always singular in construction: the committee was unable to agree. However, when a speaker wishes to emphasize that the individuals are acting separately, a plural pronoun may be employed with a singular or plural verb: the team takes their seats or the team take their seats, rather than the team takes its seats. 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.
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
The Clash
The Clash were an English punk rock band that formed in 1976 as part of the original wave of British punk. Along with punk, their music incorporated elements of reggae, ska, dub, funk, rap, dance, and rockabilly...
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
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
are a well-known band; The Saints are the champions, with one major exception: largely for historical reasons, in American English, the United States is is almost universal.
Verb morphology
- 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 PronunciationReceived PronunciationReceived Pronunciation , also called the Queen's English, Oxford English or BBC English, is the accent of Standard English in England, with a relationship to regional accents similar to the relationship in other European languages between their standard varieties and their regional forms...
. For other words (such as dreamed, leaned, and learned) the regular forms are somewhat more common. In most accents of AmE, the irregular forms are never or rarely used (except for burnt, leapt and dreamt).
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 /ˈlɜrnɪd/, usually written without the graveGrave accentThe grave accent is a diacritical mark used in written Breton, Catalan, Corsican, Dutch, French, Greek , Italian, Mohawk, Norwegian, Occitan, Portuguese, Scottish Gaelic, Vietnamese, Welsh, Romansh, and other languages.-Greek:The grave accent was first used in the polytonic orthography of Ancient...
, 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. Conversely, fit as the past tense of fit is more widely used in AmE than BrE, which generally favours fitted.
- The past tense of spit "expectorate" is spat in BrE, spit or spat in AmE. AmE typically has spat in figurative contexts, for example, "He spat out the name with a sneer", or in the context of expectoration of an object that is not saliva, for example, "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).
- The past participle gotten is never used in modern BrE (apart from in the dialects of North-Eastern and Western England), 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." The American dictionary Merriam-Webster, however, lists "gotten" as a standard past participle of "get." 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 verbPhrasal verbA phrasal verb is a combination of a verb and a preposition, a verb and an adverb, or a verb with both an adverb and a preposition, any of which are part of the syntax of the sentence, and so are a complete semantic unit. Sentences may contain direct and indirect objects in addition to the phrasal...
s 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. (Both dialects use proven as an adjective, and in formulas such as not proven).
- AmE further allows other irregular verbs, such as dive (dove) or sneak (snuck), and often mixes the preterit and past participle forms (spring–sprang, US also sprung–sprung), sometimes forcing verbs such as shrink (shrank–shrunk) to have a further form, thus shrunk–shrunken. These uses are often considered nonstandard; the AP StylebookAP StylebookThe Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law, usually called the AP Stylebook, is a style and usage guide used by newspapers and in the news industry in the United States...
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 idiolectIdiolectIn linguistics, an idiolect is a variety of a language unique to an individual. It is manifested by patterns of vocabulary or idiom selection , grammar, or pronunciations that are unique to the individual. Every individual's language production is in some sense unique...
s. 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. Even in areas where the feature predominates, however, it has not gained widespread acceptance as standard usage.
Use of tenses
- Traditionally, BrE uses the present perfect to talk about an event in the recent past and with the words already, just and yet. In American usage these meanings can be expressed with the present perfect (to express a fact) or the simple pastPreteriteThe preterite is the grammatical tense expressing actions that took place or were completed in the past...
(to imply an expectation). This American style has become widespread only in the past 20 to 30 years; the British style is still in common use as well. Recently the American use of just with simple past has made inroads into BrE, most visibly in advertising slogans and headlines such as "Cable broadband just got faster".- "I've just arrived home." / "I just arrived home."
- "I've already eaten." / "I already ate."
- Similarly AmE occasionally replaces the past perfect with the simple past.
- In BrE, have got or have can be used for possession and have got to and have to can be used for the modal of necessityModal verbA modal verb is a type of auxiliary verb that is used to indicate modality -- that is, likelihood, ability, permission, and obligation...
. The forms that include ‘‘got’’ are usually used in informal contexts and the forms without got in contexts that are more formal. In American speech the form without got is used more than in the UK, although the form with got is often used for emphasis. Colloquial AmE informally uses got as a verb for these meanings—for example, I got two cars, I got to go.
- In conditional sentences, US spoken usage often substitutes would and would have (usually shortened to [I]'d and would've) for the simple past and for the pluperfect (If you'd leave now, you'd be on time. / If I would have [would've] cooked the pie we could have [could've] had it for lunch). This tends to be avoided in writing because it is often still considered non-standard although such use of would is widespread in spoken US English in all sectors of society. Some reliable sources now label this usage as acceptable US English and no longer label it as colloquial. (There are, of course, situations where would is used in British English too in seemingly counterfactual conditions, but these can usually be interpreted as a modal use of would: If you would listen to me once in a while, you might learn something.) In cases in which the action in the if clause takes place after that in the main clause, use of would in counterfactual conditions is, however, considered standard and correct usage in even formal UK and US usage: If it would make Bill happy, I'd [I would] give him the money.
- The subjunctive moodSubjunctive moodIn grammar, the subjunctive mood is a verb mood typically used in subordinate clauses to express various states of irreality such as wish, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, necessity, or action that has not yet occurred....
(morphologically identical with the bare infinitive) is regularly used in AmE in mandative clauses (as in They suggested that he apply for the job). In BrE, this usage declined in the 20th century in favour of constructions such as They suggested that he should apply for the job (or even, more ambiguously, They suggested that he applied for the job). However, the mandative subjunctive has always been used in BrE.
Verbal auxiliaries
- Shall (as opposed to will) is more commonly used by the British than by Americans. Shan't is almost never used in AmE (almost invariably replaced by won't or am not going to) and is increasingly rare in BrE as well. American grammar also tends to ignore some traditional distinctions between should and would; however, expressions like I should be happy are rather formal even in BrE.
- The periphrastic futurePeriphrasisIn linguistics, periphrasis is a device by which a grammatical category or grammatical relationship is expressed by a free morpheme , instead of being shown by inflection or derivation...
"be going to" is about twice as frequent in AmE as in BrE.
Transitivity
The following verbs show differences in transitivity between BrE and AmE.- agree: Transitive or intransitive in BrE, usually intransitive in AmE (agree a contract/agree to or on a contract). However, in formal AmE legal writing one often sees constructions such as as may be agreed between the parties (rather than as may be agreed upon between the parties).
- appeal (as a decision): Usually intransitive in BrE (used with against) and transitive in AmE (appeal against the decision to the Court/appeal the decision to the Court).
- catch up ("to reach and overtake"): Transitive or intransitive in BrE, strictly intransitive in AmE (to catch sb up/to catch up with sb). A transitive form does exist in AmE, but has a different meaning: to catch sb up means that the subject will help the object catch up, rather the opposite of the BrE transitive meaning.
- cater ("to provide food and service"): Intransitive in BrE, transitive or intransitive in AmE (to cater for a banquet/to cater a banquet).
- claim: Sometimes intransitive in BrE (used with for), strictly transitive in AmE.
- meet: AmE uses intransitively meet followed by with to mean "to have a meeting with", as for business purposes (Yesterday we met with the CEO), and reserves transitive meet for the meanings "to be introduced to" (I want you to meet the CEO; she is such a fine lady), "to come together with (someone, somewhere)" (Meet the CEO at the train station), and "to have a casual encounter with". BrE uses transitive meet also to mean "to have a meeting with"; the construction meet with, which actually dates back to Middle English, appears to be coming back into use in Britain, despite some commentators who preferred to avoid confusion with meet with meaning "receive, undergo" (the proposal was met with disapproval). The construction meet up with (as in to meet up with someone), which originated in the US, has long been standard in both dialects.
- provide: Strictly monotransitiveMonotransitive verbA monotransitive verb is a verb that takes two arguments: a subject and a single direct object. For example, the verbs buy, bite, break, and eat are monotransitive in English.Verbs are categorized in terms of transitivity A monotransitive verb is a verb that takes two arguments: a subject and a...
in BrE, monotransitive or ditransitiveDitransitive verbIn grammar, a ditransitive verb is a verb which takes a subject and two objects which refer to a recipient and a theme. According to certain linguistics considerations, these objects may be called direct and indirect, or primary and secondary...
in AmE (provide sb with sth/provide sb sth). - protest: In sense "oppose", intransitive in BrE, transitive in AmE (The workers protested against the decision/The workers protested the decision). The intransitive protest against in AmE means, "to hold or participate in a demonstration against". The older sense "proclaim" is always transitive (protest one's innocence).
- write: In BrE, the indirect object of this verb usually requires the preposition to, for example, I'll write to my MP or I'll write to her (although it is not required in some situations, for example when an indirect object pronoun comes before a direct object noun, for example, I'll write her a letter). In AmE, write can be used monotransitively (I'll write my congressman; I'll write him).
Complementation
- The verbs prevent and stop can be found in two different constructions: "prevent/stop someone from doing something" and "prevent/stop someone doing something". The latter is well established in BrE, but not in AmE.
- Some verbs can take either a to+infinitive construction or a gerundGerundIn linguistics* As applied to English, it refers to the usage of a verb as a noun ....
construction (for example, to start to do something/to start doing something). For example, the gerund is more common:- In AmE than BrE, with start, begin, omit, enjoy;
- In BrE than AmE, with love, like, intend.
Presence or absence of syntactic elements
- Where a statement of intention involves two separate activities, it is acceptable for speakers of AmE to use to go plus bare infinitive. Speakers of BrE would instead use to go and plus bare infinitive. Thus, where a speaker of AmE may say I'll go take a bath, BrE speakers would say I'll go and have a bath. (Both can also use the form to go to instead to suggest that the action may fail, as in He went to take/have a bath, but the bath was full of children.) Similarly, to come plus bare infinitive is acceptable to speakers of AmE, where speakers of BrE would instead use to come and plus bare infinitive. Thus, where a speaker of AmE may say come see what I bought, BrE speakers would say come and see what I've bought (notice the present perfect: a common British preference).
- Use of prepositions before days denoted by a single word. Where British people would say She resigned on Thursday, Americans often say She resigned Thursday, but both forms are common in American usage. Occasionally the preposition is also absent when referring to months: I'll be here December (although this usage is generally limited to colloquial speech).
- In the UK, from is used with single dates and times more often than in the United States. Where British speakers and writers may say the new museum will be open from Tuesday, Americans most likely say the new museum will be open starting Tuesday. (This difference does not apply to phrases of the pattern from A to B, which are used in both BrE and AmE.) A variation or alternative of this is the mostly American the play opens Tuesday and the mostly British the play opens on Tuesday.
- American legislatorLegislatorA legislator is a person who writes and passes laws, especially someone who is a member of a legislature. Legislators are usually politicians and are often elected by the people...
s and lawyers always use the preposition of between the name of a legislative act and the year it was passed; their British compeers do not. Compare Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 is a law that was enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1990. It was signed into law on July 26, 1990, by President George H. W. Bush, and later amended with changes effective January 1, 2009....
to Disability Discrimination Act 1995Disability Discrimination Act 1995The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which has now been repealed and replaced by the Equality Act 2010 , except in Northern Ireland where the Act still applies...
.
The definite article
- A few 'institutional' nouns take no definite articleDefinite ArticleDefinite Article is the title of British comedian Eddie Izzard's 1996 performance released on VHS. It was recorded on different nights at the Shaftesbury Theatre...
when a certain role is implied: for example, at sea (as a sailor), in prison (as a convict), and at/in college (for students). Among this group, BrE has in hospitalHospitalA hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment by specialized staff and equipment. Hospitals often, but not always, provide for inpatient care or longer-term patient stays....
(as a patient) and at university (as a student), where AmE requires in the hospital and at the university (though AmE does allow at college and in school). When the implied roles of patient or student do not apply, the definite article is used in both dialects. - Likewise, BrE distinguishes in future ("from now on") from in the future ("at some future time"); AmE uses in the future for both senses.
- AmE omits, and BrE requires, the definite article in a few standard expressions such as tell (the) time.
- In BrE, numbered highways usually take the definite article (for example "the M25", "the A14"); in America they usually do not ("I-495", "Route 66"). Upstate New York, Southern California EnglishCalifornia EnglishCalifornia English is a dialect of the English language spoken in California. California is home to a highly diverse population, which is reflected in the historical and continuing development of California English.-History:English was first spoken on a wide scale in the area now known as...
and Arizona are exceptions, where "the 33", "the 5" or "the 10" are the standard. A similar pattern is followed for named roads (for example, Strand in London is almost always referred to as the Strand), but in America, there are local variations and older American highways tend to follow the British pattern ("the Boston Post Road"). - AmE distinguishes in back of [behind] from in the back of; the former is unknown in the UK and liable to misinterpretation as the latter. Both, however, distinguish in front of from in the front of.
- Dates usually include a definite article in UK spoken English, such as "the eleventh of July", or "July the eleventh"; American speakers most commonly say "July eleventh" or "July eleven".
Prepositions and adverbs
- In the United States, the word through can mean "up to and including" as in Monday through Friday. In the UK (and for many Americans) Monday to Friday, or Monday to Friday inclusive is used instead; Monday through to Friday is also sometimes used. (In some parts of Northern England, mainly Lancashire and Yorkshire, the term while can be used in the same way, as in Monday while Friday, whereas in Ireland Monday till Friday would be more natural.)
- In the United States on the weekend is used instead of the British equivalent, at the weekend.
- British sportsmen play in a team; American athletes play on a team. (Both may play for a particular team.)
- In AmE, the use of the function word out as a preposition in out the door and out the window is standard to mean "out through". For example, in AmE, one jumps "out of a boat" by jumping "out the porthole," and it would be incorrect in standard AmE to "jump out the boat" or climb "out of the porthole." In BrE, out of is preferred in writing for both meanings, but out is common in speech. Several other uses of out of are peculiarly British (out of all recognition, out of the team; cf. above); all of this notwithstanding, out of is overall more frequent in AmE than in BrE (about four times as frequent, according to Algeo).
- Near New York City, "on line" (two words) refers to the state of waiting in a line or queue; for example, standing on a sidewalk waiting for a table at a restaurant. Elsewhere in AmE, one waits "in line". Throughout AmE, going "online" (one word) refers to using the Internet. Usage of "queue" among Americans has increased in the last twenty years. In BrE, queue is the universal term and no variants of line are used in relation to waiting in turn. In BrE, people talk of standing in a queue, queuing up, joining the queue, sitting in a queue (for example, when driving) and simply queuing.
- The word heat meaning "mating season" is used with on in the UK (Regional Variation) and with in in the US.
- The intransitive verb affiliate can take either with or to in BrE but only with in AmE.
- The verb enrol(l) usually takes on in BrE and in in AmE (as in "to enrol(l) on/in a course") and the on/in difference is used when enrolled is dropped (as in "I am (enrolled) on the course that studies....").
- In AmE, one always speaks of the street on which an address is located, whereas in BrE in can also be used in some contexts. In suggests an address on a city street, so a service station (or a tourist attraction or indeed a village) would always be on a major road, but a department store might be in Oxford StreetOxford StreetOxford Street is a major thoroughfare in the City of Westminster in the West End of London, United Kingdom. It is Europe's busiest shopping street, as well as its most dense, and currently has approximately 300 shops. The street was formerly part of the London-Oxford road which began at Newgate,...
. Moreover if a particular place on the street is specified then the preposition used is whichever is idiomatic to the place, thus "at the end of Churchill Road." - BrE favours the preposition at with weekend ("at (the) weekend(s)"); the constructions on, over and during (the) weekend(s) are found in both varieties but are all more common in AmE than BrE. See also Word derivation and compounds.
- Adding at to the end of a question requesting a location is common in spoken AmE, for example, "where are you at?", but would be considered superfluous in standard BrE (though not in some dialects). However, some south-western British dialects use to in the same context; for example "where are you to?", to mean "where are you".
- After talk American can also use the preposition with but British always uses to (that is, I'll talk with Dave / I'll talk to Dave). The American form is sometimes seen as more politically correctPolitically CorrectPolitically Correct may refer to:*Political correctness, language, ideas, policies, or behaviour seeking to minimize offence to groups of people-See also:*Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, book by James Finn Garner, published in 1994...
in British organizations, inducing the ideal of discussing (with) as opposed to lecturing (to). This is unless talk is being used as a noun; for example: "I'll have a talk with him" in which case this is acceptable in both BrE and AmE. - In both dialects, from is the preposition prescribed for use after the word different: American English is different from British English in several respects. However, different than is also commonly heard in the US, and is often considered standard when followed by a clause (American English is different than it used to be), whereas different to is a common alternative in BrE.
- It is common in BrE to say opposite to as an alternative to opposite of when used as a noun, the only form normally found in AmE. The use of opposite as a preposition (opposite the post office) has long been established in both dialects but appears to be more common in British usage.
- The noun opportunity can be followed by a verb in two different ways: opportunity plus to-infinitive ("the opportunity to do something") or opportunity plus of plus gerund ("the opportunity of doing something"). The first construction is the most common in both dialects but the second has almost disappeared in AmE and is often regarded as a Briticism.
- Both British and Americans may say (for example) that a river is named after a state, but "named for a state" would rightly be regarded as an Americanism.
- BrE sometimes uses to with near (we live near to the university); AmE avoids the preposition in most usages dealing with literal, physical proximity (we live near the university), although the to reappears in AmE when near takes the comparative or superlative form, as in she lives nearer/nearest to the deranged axe murderer's house.
- In BrE, one rings someone on his or her telephone number; in AmE, one calls someone at his or her telephone number.
- When referring to the constituency of an American legislator, the preposition "from" is usually used: "Senator from New York," whereas British MPs are "for" their constituency: "MP for East Cleveland."
- In AmE, the phrases aside from and apart from are used about equally; in BrE, apart from is far more common.
- In AmE, the compound "off of" may be used where BrE almost always uses "off", and "off of" is considered slang. Compare AmE "He jumped off of the box" and BrE "He jumped off the box".
- In AmE absent is sometimes used as a preposition to introduce a prepositional phrase (Absent any objections, the proposal was approved.). The equivalent in BrE would be In the absence of any objections, the proposal was approved; this form is also common in AmE.
Phrasal verbs
- Influenced by the German "ausfüllen", in the US forms are usually but not invariably filled out but in Britain they are usually filled in. However, in reference to individual parts of a form Americans may also use in (fill in the blanks). In AmE the direction fill it all in (referring to the form as a collection of blanks, perhaps) is as common as fill it all out.
- Britons facing extortionate pricesRip-Off BritainRip-off Britain is when some products and services cost significantly more in the United Kingdom than in other places, especially the United States and other member states of the European Union....
may have no option but to fork out, whereas Americans are more likely to fork (it) over or sometimes up; however, the out usage is found in both dialects. - In both countries, thugsCrimeCrime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...
will beat up their victim; AmE also allows beat on (as both would for an inanimate object, such as a drum) or beat up on, which are often considered slang. - When an outdoor event is postponed or interrupted by rain, it is rained off in the UK and rained out in the US.
Miscellaneous grammatical differences
- In names of American rivers the word river usually comes after the name (for example, Colorado RiverColorado RiverThe Colorado River , is a river in the Southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, approximately long, draining a part of the arid regions on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. The watershed of the Colorado River covers in parts of seven U.S. states and two Mexican states...
) whereas for British rivers it comes before (as in the River ThamesRiver ThamesThe River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...
). Exceptions in BrE include the Fleet River, which is rarely called the River Fleet by LondonGreater LondonGreater London is the top-level administrative division of England covering London. It was created in 1965 and spans the City of London, including Middle Temple and Inner Temple, and the 32 London boroughs. This territory is coterminate with the London Government Office Region and the London...
ers outside official documentation, and also where the river name is an adjective (the Yellow RiverYellow RiverThe Yellow River or Huang He, formerly known as the Hwang Ho, is the second-longest river in China and the sixth-longest in the world at the estimated length of . Originating in the Bayan Har Mountains in Qinghai Province in western China, it flows through nine provinces of China and empties into...
). Exceptions in the US are the River RougeRiver Rouge (Michigan)The River Rouge, also known as the Rouge River, is a river in the Metro Detroit area of southeastern Michigan. It flows into the Detroit River at Zug Island, which is the boundary between the cities of River Rouge and Detroit....
and the River RaisinRiver RaisinThe River Raisin is a river in southeastern Michigan, United States that flows through glacial sediments into Lake Erie. The area today is an agricultural and industrial center of Michigan. The river flows for almost , draining an area of in the Michigan counties of Lenawee, Monroe, Washtenaw,...
, both in MichiganMichiganMichigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
and named by the French. This convention is mixed in some Commonwealth nations, where both arrangements are often seen. - In BrE speech, titles may precede names but not descriptions of offices (President Roosevelt, but Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister and Mr Jones, the team's coach); both normally precede names in AmE (President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill and Coach Jones).
- In BrE the word sat is often colloquially used to cover sat, sitting, and seated: I've been sat here waiting for half an hour. The bride's family will be sat on the right-hand side of the church. This construction is not often heard outside the UK. In the 1960s, its use would mark a speaker as coming from the north of England but by the turn of the 21st century this form had spread to the south. Its use often conveys lighthearted informality, when many speakers intentionally use a dialect or colloquial construction they would probably not use in formal written English. This colloquial usage is widely understood by British speakers. Similarly stood can be used instead of standing. To an American and still to many Britons these usages are passive and may imply that the subject had been involuntarily forced to sit or stand or directed to hold that location.
- In most areas of the United States the word with is also used as an adverb: I'll come with instead of I'll come along, although it is rarely used in writing. Come with is used as an abbreviation of come with me, as in I'm going to the office – come with by speakers in MinnesotaMinnesotaMinnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
and parts of the adjoining states. These parts of the United States have high concentrations of both ScandinavianScandinaviansScandinavians are a group of Germanic peoples, inhabiting Scandinavia and to a lesser extent countries associated with Scandinavia, and speaking Scandinavian languages. The group includes Danes, Norwegians and Swedes, and additionally the descendants of Scandinavian settlers such as the Icelandic...
and German AmericanGerman AmericanGerman Americans are citizens of the United States of German ancestry and comprise about 51 million people, or 17% of the U.S. population, the country's largest self-reported ancestral group...
populations. It is similar to South African EnglishSouth African EnglishThe term South African English is applied to the first-language dialects of English spoken by South Africans, with the L1 English variety spoken by Zimbabweans, Zambians and Namibians, being recognised as offshoots.There is some social and regional variation within South African English...
, where the expression comes from Dutch, and is used by Afrikaans speakers when speaking English. These contractions are not used by native BrE speakers. - The word also is used at the end of a sentence in AmE (just as as well and too are in both dialects) but not so commonly in BrE, although it is encountered in Northern IrelandNorthern IrelandNorthern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
. Additionally, the sentence-ending as well is more formal in AmE than in BrE. - Before some words beginning with a pronounced (not silent) h in an unstressed first syllable, such as hallucination, hilarious, historic(al), horrendous and horrific, some (especially older) British writers prefer to use an over a (an historical event, etc.). An is also preferred before hotel by some writers of BrE (probably reflecting the relatively recent adoption of the word from French, where the h is not pronounced). The use of "an" before words beginning with an unstressed "h" is more common generally in BrE than American. Such usage would now be seen as affected or incorrect in AmE. American writers normally use a in all these cases, although there are occasional uses of an historic(al) in AmE. According to the New Oxford Dictionary of English, such use is increasingly rare in BrE too. Unlike BrE, AmE typically uses an before herb, since the h in this word is silent for most Americans.
Word derivation and compounds
- Directional suffix -ward(s): British forwards, towards, rightwards, etc.; American forward, toward, rightward. In both dialects distribution varies somewhat: afterwards, towards, and backwards are not unusual in America; while in Britain forward is common, and standard in phrasal verbPhrasal verbA phrasal verb is a combination of a verb and a preposition, a verb and an adverb, or a verb with both an adverb and a preposition, any of which are part of the syntax of the sentence, and so are a complete semantic unit. Sentences may contain direct and indirect objects in addition to the phrasal...
s such as look forward to. The forms with -s may be used as adverbs (or preposition towards) but rarely as adjectives: in Britain as in America, one says "an upward motion". The Oxford English DictionaryOxford English DictionaryThe Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...
in 1897 suggested a semantic distinction for adverbs, with -wards having a more definite directional sense than -ward; subsequent authorities such as FowlerFowler's Modern English UsageA Dictionary of Modern English Usage , by Henry Watson Fowler , is a style guide to British English usage, pronunciation, and writing...
have disputed this contention. - AmE freely adds the suffix -s to day, night, evening, weekend, Monday, etc. to form adverbs denoting repeated or customary action: I used to stay out evenings; the library is closed Saturdays. This usage has its roots in Old English but many of these constructions are now regarded as American (for example, the OED labels nights "now chiefly N. Amer. colloq."; but to work nights is standard in BrE).
- In BrE, the agentive -er suffix is commonly attached to football (also cricketCricketCricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
; often netballNetballNetball is a ball sport played between two teams of seven players. Its development, derived from early versions of basketball, began in England in the 1890s. By 1960 international playing rules had been standardised for the game, and the International Federation of Netball and Women's Basketball ...
; occasionally basketball). AmE usually uses football player. Where the sport's name is usable as a verb, the suffixation is standard in both dialects: for example, golfGolfGolf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....
er, bowler (in Ten-pin bowlingTen-pin bowlingTen-pin bowling is a competitive sport in which a player rolls a bowling ball down a wooden or synthetic lane with the objective of scoring points by knocking down as many pins as possible.-Summary:The lane is bordered along its length by semicylindrical channels Ten-pin bowling (commonly just...
and in Lawn BowlsBowlsBowls is a sport in which the objective is to roll slightly asymmetric balls so that they stop close to a smaller "jack" or "kitty". It is played on a pitch which may be flat or convex or uneven...
), and shooterShooting sportsA shooting sport is a competitive sport involving tests of proficiency using various types of guns such as firearms and airguns . Hunting is also a shooting sport, and indeed shooting live pigeons was an Olympic event...
. AmE appears sometimes to use the BrE form in baller as slang for a basketball player, as in the video game NBA BallersNBA BallersThis article is for the original game, for the sequel see NBA Ballers: Phenom.For the PSP version see NBA Ballers: ReboundNBA Ballers is a streetball game which is similar to AND 1 Streetball and gameplay similar to the NBA Jam series. The game features fictional NBA analyst Bob Benson and MC...
. However, this is derived from slang use of to ball as a verb meaning to play basketball. - English writers everywhere occasionally (and from time immemorial) make new compound words from common phrases; for example, health care is now being replaced by healthcare on both sides of the Atlantic. However, AmE has made certain words in this fashion that are still treated as phrases in BrE.
- In compound nouns of the form
<noun>, sometimes AmE favours the bare infinitive where BrE favours the gerund GerundIn linguistics* As applied to English, it refers to the usage of a verb as a noun ....
. Examples include (AmE first): jump ropeJump ropeJump rope or skipping rope is the primary tool used in the game of skipping played by children and many young adults, where one or more participants jump over a rope swung so that it passes under their feet and over their heads...
/skipping rope; racecar/racing car; rowboat/rowing boat; sailboat/sailing boat; file cabinet/filing cabinet; dial tone/dialling tone; drainboard/draining board. - Generally AmE has a tendency to drop inflectional suffixes, thus favouring clipped forms: compare cookbook v. cookery book; Smith, age 40 v. Smith, aged 40; skim milk v. skimmed milk; dollhouse v. dolls' house; barbershop v. barber's shop. This has recently been extended to appear on professionally printed commercial signage and some boxes themselves (not mere greengrocers' chalkboards): can vegetables and mash potatoes appear in the US.
- Singular attributives in one country may be plural in the other, and vice versa. For example the UK has a drugs problem while the United States has a drug problem (although the singular usage is also commonly heard in the UK); Americans read the sports section of a newspaper; the British are more likely to read the sport section. However, BrE maths is singular, just as AmE math is: both are abbreviations of mathematics.
Vocabulary
Most of the differences in lexis or vocabulary between British and American English are in connection with concepts originating from the 19th century to the mid 20th century, when new words were coined independently. Almost the entire vocabularies of the car/automobile and railway/railroad industries (see Rail terminology) are different between the UK and US, for example. Other sources of difference are slang or vulgar terms (where frequent new coinage occurs) and idiomatic phrases, including phrasal verbs. The differences most likely to create confusion are those where the same word or phrase is used for two different concepts. Regional variations, even within the US or the UK, can create the same problems.It is not a straightforward matter to classify differences of vocabulary. David Crystal identifies some of the problems of classification on the facing page to his list of American English/British English lexical variation and states "this should be enough to suggest caution when working through an apparently simple list of equivalents".
Overview of lexical differences
Note: A lexicon is not made up of different words but different "units of meaning" (lexical units or lexical items e.g. "fly ball" in baseball), including idioms and figures of speech. This makes it easier to compare the dialects.Though the influence of cross-culture media has done much to familiarize BrE and AmE speakers with each other's regional words and terms, many words are still recognized as part of a single form of English. Though the use of a British word would be acceptable in AmE (and vice versa), most listeners would recognize the word as coming from the other form of English and treat it much the same as a word borrowed from any other language. For instance a British speaker using the word chap or mate to refer to a friend would be heard in much the same way as an American using the Spanish word amigo.
Words and phrases that have their origins in BrE
Some speakers of AmE are aware of some BrE terms, although they may not generally use them or may be confused as to whether someone intends the American or British meaning (such as for biscuit). They will be able to guess approximately what some others, such as "driving licence", mean. However, use of many other British words such as naff (slang but commonly used to mean "not very good") are unheard of in American English.Words and phrases that have their origins in AmE
Speakers of BrE are likely to understand most common AmE terms, examples such as "sidewalk", "gas (gasoline/petrol)", "counterclockwise" or "elevator (lift)", without any problem, thanks in part to considerable exposure to American popular culture and literature. Certain terms that are heard less frequently, especially those likely to be absent or rare in American popular culture, e.g. "copacetic (satisfactory)", are unlikely to be understood by most BrE speakers.Words and phrases with different meanings
Words such as bill (AmE "paper money," BrE and AmE "invoice") and biscuit (AmE: BrE's "scone", BrE: AmE's "cookie") are used regularly in both AmE and BrE but mean different things in each form. As chronicled by Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
, the opposite meanings of the verb to table created a misunderstanding during a meeting of the Allied forces; in BrE to table an item on an agenda means to open it up for discussion whereas in AmE, it means to remove it from discussion, or at times, to suspend or delay discussion.
The word "football" in BrE refers to Association football, also known as soccer. In AmE, "football" means American football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
(although "soccer", a contraction of "association (football)", the standard AmE term, is also of British origin, derived from the formalization of different codes of football in the 19th century, and was a fairly unremarkable usage (possibly marked for class) in BrE until relatively recently; it has latterly become falsely perceived as an intrusive Americanism).
Similarly the word "hockey" in BrE refers to field hockey
Field hockey
Field Hockey, or Hockey, is a team sport in which a team of players attempts to score goals by hitting, pushing or flicking a ball into an opposing team's goal using sticks...
; in AmE "hockey" means ice hockey
Ice hockey
Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...
.
Other ambiguity (complex cases)
Words with completely different meanings are relatively few; most of the time there are either (1) words with one or more shared meanings and one or more meanings unique to one variety (for example, bathroom and toilet) or (2) words the meanings of which are actually common to both BrE and AmE but that show differences in frequency, connotation or denotation (for example, smart, clever, mad).
Some differences in usage and/or meaning can cause confusion or embarrassment. For example the word fanny is a slang word for vulva
Vulva
The vulva consists of the external genital organs of the female mammal. This article deals with the vulva of the human being, although the structures are similar for other mammals....
in BrE but means buttocks
Buttocks
The buttocks are two rounded portions of the anatomy, located on the posterior of the pelvic region of apes and humans, and many other bipeds or quadrupeds, and comprise a layer of fat superimposed on the gluteus maximus and gluteus medius muscles. Physiologically, the buttocks enable weight to...
in AmE—the AmE phrase fanny pack
Fanny pack
A fanny pack , belt pack , belly bag , Buffalo pouch , hip sack , waist bag , hip pack , bum bag , cangurera , banano or moon bag is a small fabric pouch secured with a zipper and worn by use of a strap around the hips or...
is bum bag in BrE. In AmE the word fag (short for faggot) is a highly offensive term for a gay male but in BrE it is a normal and well-used term for a cigarette, for hard work, or for a chore, while a faggot
Faggot (food)
Faggots are a traditional dish in the UK, especially South and Mid Wales and the Midlands of England. It is made from meat off-cuts and offal, especially pork. A faggot is traditionally made from pig's heart, liver and fatty belly meat or bacon minced together, with herbs added for flavouring and...
itself is a sort of meatball
Meatball
A meatball is made from an amount of ground meat rolled into a small ball, sometimes along with other ingredients, such as breadcrumbs, minced onion, spices, and possibly eggs...
. In AmE the word pissed means being annoyed whereas in BrE it is a coarse word for being drunk (in both varieties, pissed off means irritated).
Similarly, in AmE the word pants is the common word for the BrE trousers, while the majority of BrE speakers would understand pants to mean underwear. Many dialects in the North of England agree with the AmE usage and use pants to refer to trousers; this is often incorrectly considered an Americanism by people from elsewhere in Britain. The word pants is a shortening of the archaic pantaloons, which shares the same source as the French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
for trousers, pantalon.
Sometimes the confusion is more subtle. In AmE the word quite used as a qualifier is generally a reinforcement: for example, "I'm quite hungry" means "I'm very hungry". In BrE quite (which is much more common in conversation) may have this meaning, as in "quite right" or "quite mad", but it more commonly means "somewhat", so that in BrE "I'm quite hungry" can mean "I'm somewhat hungry". This divergence of use can lead to misunderstanding.
Frequency
- In the UK the word whilst is historically acceptable as a conjunction (as an alternative to while, especially prevalent in some dialects). In AmE only while is used in both contexts.
- In the UK generally the term fall meaning "autumnAutumnAutumn is one of the four temperate seasons. Autumn marks the transition from summer into winter usually in September or March when the arrival of night becomes noticeably earlier....
" is obsolete. Although found often from Elizabethan literature to Victorian literatureVictorian literatureVictorian literature is the literature produced during the reign of Queen Victoria . It forms a link and transition between the writers of the romantic period and the very different literature of the 20th century....
, continued understanding of the word is usually ascribed to its continued use in America. - In the UK the term period for a full stopFull stopA full stop is the punctuation mark commonly placed at the end of sentences. In American English, the term used for this punctuation is period. In the 21st century, it is often also called a dot by young people...
is not used; in AmE the term full stop is rarely, if ever, used for the punctuation mark. For example, Tony BlairTony BlairAnthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
said, "Terrorism is wrong, full stop", whereas in AmE, "Terrorism is wrong, period."
Social and cultural differences
Lexical items that reflect separate social and cultural development.School
| Age range | British English | American English | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Alternative name | Syllabus | Name | Alternative name | |
| 1–4 | Preschool (optional) Preschool education Preschool education is the provision of learning to children before the commencement of statutory and obligatory education, usually between the ages of zero and three or five, depending on the jurisdiction.... |
||||
| Nursery | Playgroup | Foundation Stage Foundation Stage Foundation Stage is the British government label for education of pupils aged 3 to 5 in England. In Northern Ireland, it is also used to refer to the first two years of compulsory education for pupils aged 4 to 6.-England:... 1 |
|||
| 4–5 | Primary school | Preschool Preschool education Preschool education is the provision of learning to children before the commencement of statutory and obligatory education, usually between the ages of zero and three or five, depending on the jurisdiction.... |
|||
| Reception | Infants Infant school An Infant school is a term used primarily in the United Kingdom for school for children between the ages of four and seven years. It is usually a small school serving a particular locality.... reception |
Foundation Stage 2 | Pre-kindergarten | Pre-K | |
| 5–6 | Year 1 | Infants year 1 | Key Stage Key Stage A Key Stage is a stage of the state education system in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the British Territory of Gibraltar setting the educational knowledge expected of students at various ages... 1 |
Kindergarten | |
| Elementary school | |||||
| 6–7 | Year 2 | Infants year 2 | 1st grade | ||
| 7–8 | Year 3 | Junior Junior school A junior school is a type of school which caters for children, often between the ages of 7 and 11.-Australia:In Australia, a junior school is usually a part of a private school that educates children between the ages of 5 and 12.... year 3 |
Key Stage 2 | 2nd grade | |
| 8–9 | Year 4 | Junior year 4 | 3rd grade | ||
| 9–10 | Year 5 | Junior year 5 | 4th grade | ||
| 10–11 | Year 6 | Junior year 6 | 5th grade | ||
| 11–12 | Secondary school / High School High school High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions.... |
Middle school | Junior high school | ||
| Year 7 | First form Form (education) A form is a class or grouping of students in a school. The term is used predominantly in the United Kingdom, although some schools, mostly private, in other countries also use the title... |
Key Stage 3 | 6th grade | ||
| 12–13 | Year 8 | Second form | 7th grade | ||
| 13–14 | Year 9 | Third form | 8th grade | ||
| 14–15 | Year 10 | Fourth form | Key Stage 4, GCSE General Certificate of Secondary Education The General Certificate of Secondary Education is an academic qualification awarded in a specified subject, generally taken in a number of subjects by students aged 14–16 in secondary education in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and is equivalent to a Level 2 and Level 1 in Key Skills... |
High school | |
| 9th grade | Freshman year | ||||
| 15–16 | Year 11 | Fifth form | 10th grade | Sophomore year | |
| 16–17 | Sixth form (currently optional, until 2013) Sixth form In the education systems of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and of Commonwealth West Indian countries such as Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Belize, Jamaica and Malta, the sixth form is the final two years of secondary education, where students, usually sixteen to eighteen years of age,... |
11th grade | Junior year | ||
| Year 12 | Lower sixth (AS) | Key Stage 5, A level | |||
| 17–18 | Year 13 | Upper sixth (A2) | 12th grade | Senior year | |
In the UK the US equivalent of a high school is often referred to as a secondary school regardless of whether it is state funded or private. Secondary education in the United States also includes middle school or junior high school, a two- or three-year transitional school between elementary school and high school. "Middle school" is sometimes used in the UK as a synonym for the younger junior school, covering the second half of the primary curriculum—current years 4 to 6 in some areas.
A public school has opposite meanings in the two countries. In the US this is a government-owned institution supported by taxpayers. In England and Wales the term strictly refers to an ill-defined group of prestigious private independent school
Independent school (UK)
An independent school is a school that is not financed through the taxation system by local or national government and is instead funded by private sources, predominantly in the form of tuition charges, gifts and long-term charitable endowments, and so is not subject to the conditions imposed by...
s funded by students' fees, although it is often more loosely used to refer to any independent school. Independent schools are also known as private schools, and the latter is the correct term in Scotland and Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
for all such fee-funded schools. Strictly, the term public school is not used in Scotland and Northern Ireland in the same sense as in England, but nevertheless Gordonstoun
Gordonstoun
Gordonstoun School is a co-educational independent school for boarding and day pupils in Moray in North East Scotland. Named after the estate originally owned by Sir Robert Gordon in the 1600s, the school now uses this estate as its campus...
, the Scottish private school which Charles, Prince of Wales
Charles, Prince of Wales
Prince Charles, Prince of Wales is the heir apparent and eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Since 1958 his major title has been His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales. In Scotland he is additionally known as The Duke of Rothesay...
attended, is sometimes referred to as a public school. Government-funded schools in Scotland and Northern Ireland are properly referred to as state schools—but are sometimes confusingly referred to as public schools (with the same meaning as in the US); whereas in the US, where most public schools are administered by local governments, a state school is typically a college or university
State university system
A state university system in the United States is a group of public universities supported by an individual state, or a similar entity such as the District of Columbia. These systems constitute the majority of public-funded universities in the country...
run by one of the states
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
. The UK use of the term "public" school is in contrast with "private" education, i.e. to be educated privately with a tutor.
Speakers in both the United States and the United Kingdom use several additional terms for specific types of secondary school. A US prep school or preparatory school
University-preparatory school
A university-preparatory school or college-preparatory school is a secondary school, usually private, designed to prepare students for a college or university education...
is an independent school funded by tuition fees; the same term is used in the UK for a private school for pupils under thirteen
Preparatory school (UK)
In English language usage in the former British Empire, the present-day Commonwealth, a preparatory school is an independent school preparing children up to the age of eleven or thirteen for entry into fee-paying, secondary independent schools, some of which are known as public schools...
, designed to prepare them for fee-paying public schools. An American parochial school
Parochial school
A parochial school is a school that provides religious education in addition to conventional education. In a narrower sense, a parochial school is a Christian grammar school or high school which is part of, and run by, a parish.-United Kingdom:...
covers costs through tuition and has affiliation with a religious institution, most often a Catholic church or diocese. (Interestingly, the term "parochial" is almost never used to describe schools run by fundamentalist Protestant
Fundamentalist Christianity
Christian fundamentalism, also known as Fundamentalist Christianity, or Fundamentalism, arose out of British and American Protestantism in the late 19th century and early 20th century among evangelical Christians...
groups.) In England, where the state-funded education system
Education in the United Kingdom
Education in the United Kingdom is a devolved matter with each of the countries of the United Kingdom having separate systems under separate governments: the UK Government is responsible for England, and the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive are...
grew from parish schools organized by the local established church, the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
(C. of E., or C.E.), and many schools, especially primary schools
Primary education
A primary school is an institution in which children receive the first stage of compulsory education known as primary or elementary education. Primary school is the preferred term in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth Nations, and in most publications of the United Nations Educational,...
(up to age 11) retain a church connection and are known as church schools, C.E. Schools or C.E. (Aided) Schools. There are also faith schools associated with the Roman Catholic Church and other major faiths, with a mixture of funding arrangements.
In the US, a magnet school
Magnet school
In education in the United States, magnet schools are public schools with specialized courses or curricula. "Magnet" refers to how the schools draw students from across the normal boundaries defined by authorities as school zones that feed into certain schools.There are magnet schools at the...
receives government funding and has special admission requirements: pupils gain admission through superior performance on admission tests. The UK has city academies
Academy (England)
In the education system of England, an academy is a school that is directly funded by central government and independent of control by local government in England. An academy may receive additional support from personal or corporate sponsors, either financially or in kind...
, which are independent privately sponsored schools run with public funding and which can select up to 10% of pupils by aptitude
Aptitude
An aptitude is an innate component of a competency to do a certain kind of work at a certain level. Aptitudes may be physical or mental...
. Moreover in the UK 36 Local Education Authorities retain selection by ability at 11. They maintain Grammar Schools (State funded secondary schools), which admit pupils according to performance in an examination (known as the 11+) and Comprehensive schools that take pupils of all abilities. Grammar Schools cream from 10% to 23% of those who sit the exam. However, nationally only 6% of pupils attend Grammar Schools. Private schools can also call themselves Grammar Schools.
University
In the UK a university student is said to study, to read or informally simply to do a subject. In the recent past the expression 'to read a subject' was more common at the older universities such as Oxford and Cambridge. In the US a student studies or majors in a subject (although concentration or emphasis is also used in some US colleges or universities to refer to the major subject of study). To major in something refers to the student's principal course of study; to study may refer to any class being taken.
BrE:
- "She read biology at Cambridge."
- "She studied biology at Cambridge."
- "She did biology at Cambridge." (informal)
AmE:
- "She majored in biology at HarvardHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
." - "She studied biology at Harvard."
- "She concentrated in biology at Harvard."
At university level in BrE, each module is taught by a lecturer
Lecturer
Lecturer is an academic rank. In the United Kingdom, lecturer is a position at a university or similar institution, often held by academics in their early career stages, who lead research groups and supervise research students, as well as teach...
or tutor; professor is the job-title of a senior academic. In AmE each class is generally taught by a professor (although some US tertiary educational institutions follow the BrE usage), while the position of lecturer is occasionally given to individuals hired on a temporary basis to teach one or more classes and who may or not have a doctoral degree.
The word course in American use typically refers to the study of a restricted topic (for example, a course in Early Medieval England, a course in Integral Calculus) over a limited period of time (such as a semester or term) and is equivalent to a module at a British university. In the UK a course of study is likely to refer to a whole programme of study, which may extend over several years and be made up of any number of modules.
General terms
In both the US and the UK, a student takes an exam, but in BrE a student can also be said to sit an exam. The expression he sits for an exam also arises in BrE but only rarely in AmE; American lawyers-to-be sit for their bar exams and American master's and doctoral students may sit for their comprehensive exams, but in nearly all other instances, Americans take their exams.
When preparing for an exam students revise (BrE)/review (AmE) what they have studied; the BrE idiom to revise for has the equivalent to review for in AmE.
Examinations are supervised by invigilators in the UK and proctors (or (exam) supervisors) in the US (a proctor in the UK is an official responsible for student discipline at the University of Oxford or Cambridge). In the UK a teacher sets an exam while in the US, a teacher writes (prepares) and then gives (administers) an exam.
BrE:
- "I sat my Spanish exam yesterday."
- "I plan to set a difficult exam for my students, but I don't have it ready yet."
AmE:
- "I took my exams at Yale."
- "I spent the entire day yesterday writing the exam. I'm almost ready to give it to my students."
Another source of confusion is the different usage of the word college. (See a full international discussion of the various meanings at college
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...
.) In the US this refers to a post-high school institution that grants either associate's or bachelor's degrees while in the UK it refers to any post-secondary institution that is not a university (including Sixth Form College after the name in secondary education for Years 12 and 13, the 6th form) where intermediary courses such as A Levels or NVQs can be taken and GCSE courses can be retaken. College may sometimes be used in the UK or in Commonwealth countries as part of the name of a secondary or high school (for example, Dubai College
Dubai College
Dubai College is a British system independent school in the Al Sufouh area of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, established in 1978. It is a secondary school for 11-16 year olds with a sixth form for 16-18 year old. Students prepare for the British GCSE and A level examinations...
). In the case of Oxford, Cambridge, Aberdeen
University of Aberdeen
The University of Aberdeen, an ancient university founded in 1495, in Aberdeen, Scotland, is a British university. It is the third oldest university in Scotland, and the fifth oldest in the United Kingdom and wider English-speaking world...
, London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
, Lancaster
Lancaster University
Lancaster University, officially The University of Lancaster, is a leading research-intensive British university in Lancaster, Lancashire, England. The university was established by Royal Charter in 1964 and initially based in St Leonard's Gate until moving to a purpose-built 300 acre campus at...
, Durham
Durham University
The University of Durham, commonly known as Durham University, is a university in Durham, England. It was founded by Act of Parliament in 1832 and granted a Royal Charter in 1837...
, Kent
University of Kent
The University of Kent, previously the University of Kent at Canterbury, is a public research university based in Kent, United Kingdom...
and York
University of York
The University of York , is an academic institution located in the city of York, England. Established in 1963, the campus university has expanded to more than thirty departments and centres, covering a wide range of subjects...
universities, all members are also members of a college which is part of the university, for example, one is a member of Clare College, Cambridge
Clare College, Cambridge
Clare College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1326, making it the second-oldest surviving college of the University after Peterhouse. Clare is famous for its chapel choir and for its gardens on "the Backs"...
and hence the University.
In both the US and UK college can refer to some division within a university such as the "college of business and economics" though in the UK "faculty" is more often used. Institutions in the US that offer two to four years of post-high school education often have the word college as part of their name, while those offering more advanced degrees are called a university. (There are exceptions of course: Boston College
Boston College
Boston College is a private Jesuit research university located in the village of Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, USA. The main campus is bisected by the border between the cities of Boston and Newton. It has 9,200 full-time undergraduates and 4,000 graduate students. Its name reflects its early...
, Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
and The College of William & Mary are examples of colleges that offer advanced degrees, while Vincennes University
Vincennes University
Vincennes University is a public university in Vincennes, Indiana, in the United States. Founded in 1801 as Jefferson Academy, VU is the oldest public institution of higher learning in Indiana. Since 1889, VU has been a two-year university, although baccalaureate degrees in seven select areas are...
is an unusual example of a "university" that offers only associate degrees in the vast majority of its academic programs.) American students who pursue a bachelor's degree (four years of higher education) or an associate degree (two years of higher education) are college students regardless of whether they attend a college or a university and refer to their educational institutions informally as colleges. A student who pursues a master's degree or a doctorate degree in the arts and sciences is in AmE a graduate student; in BrE a postgraduate student although graduate student is also sometimes used. Students of advanced professional programmes are known by their field (business student, law student, medical student). Some universities also have a residential college
Residential college
A residential college is an organisational pattern for a division of a university that places academic activity in a community setting of students and faculty, usually at a residence and with shared meals, the college having a degree of autonomy and a federated relationship with the overall...
system, the details of which may vary but generally involve common living and dining spaces as well as college-organized activities.
"Professor" has different meanings in BrE and AmE. In BrE it is the highest academic rank
Academic rank
This list of academic ranks identifies the hierarchical ranking structure found amongst scholars in academia, whether tenured or non-tenured. The lists below refer specifically to colleges and universities throughout the world, although other institutions of higher learning may follow a similar...
, followed by Reader, Senior Lecturer and Lecturer. In AmE "Professor" refers to academic staff of all ranks, with (Full) Professor (largely equivalent to the UK meaning) followed by Associate Professor and Assistant Professor.
"Tuition" has traditionally had separate meaning in each variation. In BrE it is the educational content transferred from teacher to student at a university. In AmE it is the money (the fees) paid to receive that education (BrE: Tuition fees).
There is additionally a difference between American and British usage in the word school. In British usage "school" by itself refers only to primary (elementary) and secondary (high) schools and to sixth forms attached to secondary schools—if one "goes to school", this type of institution is implied. By contrast an American student at a university may talk of "going to school" or "being in school". US law students and medical students almost universally speak in terms of going to "law school" and "med school", respectively. However, the word is used in BrE in the context of higher education to describe a division grouping together several related subjects within a university, for example a "School of European Languages" containing departments for each language and also in the term "art school". It is also the name of some of the constituent colleges of the University of London, for example, School of Oriental and African Studies
School of Oriental and African Studies
The School of Oriental and African Studies is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the University of London...
, London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
.
Among high-school and college students in the United States, the words freshman (or the gender-neutral term frosh or first year), sophomore, junior and senior refer to the first, second, third, and fourth years respectively. For first-year students, "frosh" is another gender-neutral term that can be used as a qualifier, for example "Frosh class elections". It is important that the context of either high school or college first be established or else it must be stated direct (that is, She is a high school freshman. He is a college junior.). Many institutes in both countries also use the term first-year as a gender-neutral replacement for freshman, although in the US this is recent usage, formerly referring only to those in the first year as a graduate student. One exception is the University of Virginia
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
; since its founding in 1819 the terms "first-year", "second-year", "third-year", and "fourth-year" have been used to describe undergraduate university students. At the United States military academies
United States military academies
The United States Service academies, also known as the United States Military Academies, are federal academies for the undergraduate education and training of commissioned officers for the United States armed forces.There are five U.S...
, at least those operated by the federal government direct, a different terminology is used, namely "fourth class", "third class", "second class" and "first class" (the order of numbering being the reverse of the number of years in attendance). In the UK first-year university students are sometimes called freshers early in the academic year; however, there are no specific names for those in other years nor for school pupils. Graduate and professional students in the United States are known by their year of study, such as a "second-year medical student" or a "fifth-year doctoral candidate." Law students are often referred to as "1L", "2L", or "3L" rather than "nth-year law students"; similarly medical students are frequently referred to as "M1", "M2", "M3", or "M4").
While anyone in the US who finishes studying at any educational institution by passing relevant examinations is said to graduate and to be a graduate, in the UK only degree and above level students can graduate. Student itself has a wider meaning in AmE, meaning any person of any age studying at any educational institution, whereas in BrE it tends to be used for people studying at a post-secondary educational institution and the term pupil is widely used for a young person at primary or secondary school.
The names of individual institutions can be confusing. There are several "University High Schools" in the United States that are not affiliated with any post-secondary institutions and cannot grant degrees, and there is one public high school, Central High School of Philadelphia, which does grant bachelor's degrees to the top ten per cent of graduating seniors. British secondary schools occasionally have the word "college" in their names.
Politics
In Britain, political candidates stand for election, while in the US, they run for office. There is virtually no crossover between BrE and AmE in the use of these terms.Transport/Transportation
Americans refer to transportation and British people to transport. (Transportation in Britain has traditionally meant the punishment of criminals by deporting them to an overseas penal colony.) In AmE, the word transport is mainly used only as a verb, seldom as a noun or adjective except in reference to certain specialized objects, such as a tape transport or a military transport (e.g., a troop transport, a kind of vehicle, not the act of transporting).Differences in terminology are especially obvious in the context of road
Road
A road is a thoroughfare, route, or way on land between two places, which typically has been paved or otherwise improved to allow travel by some conveyance, including a horse, cart, or motor vehicle. Roads consist of one, or sometimes two, roadways each with one or more lanes and also any...
s. The British term dual carriageway
Dual carriageway
A dual carriageway is a class of highway with two carriageways for traffic travelling in opposite directions separated by a central reservation...
, in American parlance, would be divided highway
Divided Highway
Divided Highway is a compilation album by American rock band The Doobie Brothers, released in 2003. . All tracks are taken from the albums Cycles and Brotherhood .-Track listing:...
. The central reservation on a motorway or dual carriageway in the UK would be the median or center divide on a freeway, expressway, highway or parkway in the US. The one-way lanes that make it possible to enter and leave such roads at an intermediate point without disrupting the flow of traffic are known as slip roads in the UK but US civil engineers call them ramps and further distinguish between on-ramps (for entering) and off-ramps (for leaving). When American engineers speak of slip roads, they are referring to a street that runs alongside the main road (separated by a berm) to allow off-the-highway access to the premises that are there, sometimes also known as a frontage road
Frontage road
A frontage road is a non-limited access road running parallel to a higher-speed road, usually a freeway, and feeding it at appropriate points of access...
—in both the US and UK this is also known as a service road.
In the UK, the term outside lane refers to the higher-speed overtaking lane (passing lane in the US) closest to the centre of the road while inside lane refers to the lane closer to the edge of the road. In the US outside lane is used only in the context of a turn, in which case it depends in which direction the road is turning (i.e. if the road bends right the left lane is the "outside lane" but if the road bends left it is the right lane). Both also refer to slow and fast lanes (even though all actual traffic speeds may be at or around the legal speed limit).
In the UK drink driving is against the law whilst in the US the term is drunk driving. The legal term in the US is driving while intoxicated (DWI) or driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI). The equivalent legal phrase in the UK is drunk in charge of a motor vehicle (DIC) or more commonly driving with excess alcohol.
Specific auto parts and transport terms have different names in the two dialects, for example:
| UK | US |
|---|---|
| B road | rural road |
| bonnet | hood |
| boot | trunk |
| bumper | bumper, fender |
| hood | convertible top |
| car park | parking lot |
| dual carriageway | divided highway |
| estate car | station wagon |
| flyover | overpass |
| gearbox | transmission |
| juggernaut | 18 wheeler |
| lorry | truck |
| articulated lorry | trailer truck |
| motorway or M way | freeway or highway |
| pavement | sidewalk |
| roadworks | construction zone |
| petrol | gasoline or gas |
| saloon | sedan |
| silencer | muffler |
| spanner | wrench |
| ticking over | idling |
| windscreen | windshield |
| anti-clockwise | counter-clockwise |
| car valeting Auto detailing Auto detailing , is the performance of an extremely thorough cleaning, polishing and waxing of an automobile, both inside and out, to produce a show-quality level of detail. Besides improving appearance, detailing helps to preserve resale value of a car.Today, the United States may have more than... |
auto detailing |
Television
In American television the episodes of a program (BrE programme) first broadcast in a particular year constitute a season, while the entire run of the program—which may span several seasons—is called a series. In British television, on the other hand, the word series may apply to the episodes of a programme in one particular year, for example, "The 1998 series of Grange HillGrange Hill
Grange Hill is a British television drama series originally made by the BBC. The show began in 1978 on BBC1 and was one of the longest running programmes on British television...
", as well as to the entire run. However, the entire run may sometimes be revered to as a "show".
The term telecast, meaning television broadcast, is not used in British English. A television programme would be broadcast, aired or shown.
Levels of buildings
There are also variations in floor numberingStorey
A storey or story is any level part of a building that could be used by people...
between the US and UK. In most countries, including the UK, the "first floor" is one above the entrance level while the entrance level is the "ground floor". In the US the ground floor is considered the first floor. In a British lift one would press the "G" or "0" button to return to the ground floor whereas in an American elevator, one would push the "1", "G", or "L" (for Lobby) button to return to the ground floor. The "L" button in a British lift would take you to the lower ground floor (i.e. the floor below ground, the basement), which may also be numbered "−1" (minus one).
American (AmE) apartment buildings / (BrE) blocks of flats frequently are exceptions to this rule. The ground floor often contains the lobby and parking area for the tenants, while the numbered floors begin one level above and contain only the flats (AmE apartments) themselves.
Numbers
When saying or writing out numbers, the British insert an and before the tens and units, as in one hundred and sixty-two or two thousand and three. In the United States it is considered correct to drop the and, as in one hundred sixty-two or two thousand three.Some American schools teach students to pronounce decimally written fractions (for example, .5) as though they were longhand fractions (five tenths), such as thirteen and seven tenths for 13.7. This formality is often dropped in common speech and is steadily disappearing in instruction in mathematics and science as well as in international American schools. In the UK, 13.7 would be read thirteen point seven.
In counting, it is common in both varieties of English to count in hundreds up to 1,900—so 1,200 may be twelve hundred. However, Americans use this pattern for much higher numbers than is the norm in British English, referring to twenty-four hundred where British English would most often use two thousand four hundred. Even below 2,000, Americans are more likely than the British are to read numbers like 1,234 as twelve hundred thirty-four, instead of one thousand two hundred and thirty-four.
In the case of years, however, twelve thirty-four would be the norm on both sides of the Atlantic for the year 1234. The year 2000 and years beyond it are read as two thousand, two thousand (and) one and the like by both British and American speakers. For years after 2009, twenty ten, twenty twelve etc. are becoming common.
For the house number (or bus number, etc.) 272, British people tend to say two seven two while Americans tend to say two seventy-two.
There is also a historical difference between billions
Long and short scales
The long and short scales are two of several different large-number naming systems used throughout the world for integer powers of ten. Many countries, including most in continental Europe, use the long scale whereas most English-speaking countries use the short scale...
, trillions and so forth. Americans use billion to mean one thousand million (1,000,000,000), whereas in the UK, until the latter part of the 20th century, it was used to mean one million million (1,000,000,000,000). In 1974 the British prime minister, Harold Wilson, told the House of Commons that UK government statistics would now use the short scale; followed by the Chancellor, Denis Healey, in 1975, that the treasury would now adopt the US billion version. One thousand million was sometimes described as a milliard, the definition adopted by most other European languages. However, the 'American' version has since been adopted for all published writing and the word milliard is obsolete in English, as are billiard (but not billiards
Billiards
Cue sports , also known as billiard sports, are a wide variety of games of skill generally played with a cue stick which is used to strike billiard balls, moving them around a cloth-covered billiards table bounded by rubber .Historically, the umbrella term was billiards...
, the game), trilliard and so on. All major British publications and broadcasters, including the BBC, which long used thousand million to avoid ambiguity, now use billion to mean thousand million.
Many people have no direct experience of manipulating numbers this large, and many non-American readers may interpret billion as 1012 (even if they are young enough to have been taught otherwise at school); moreover usage of the "long" billion is standard in some non-English speaking countries. For these reasons, defining the word may be advisable when writing for the public. See long and short scales
Long and short scales
The long and short scales are two of several different large-number naming systems used throughout the world for integer powers of ten. Many countries, including most in continental Europe, use the long scale whereas most English-speaking countries use the short scale...
for a more detailed discussion of the evolution of these terms in English and other languages.
When referring to the numeral 0
0 (number)
0 is both a numberand the numerical digit used to represent that number in numerals.It fulfills a central role in mathematics as the additive identity of the integers, real numbers, and many other algebraic structures. As a digit, 0 is used as a placeholder in place value systems...
, British people would normally use nought, oh, or zero, although nil is common in sports scores. Americans use the term zero most frequently; oh is also often used (though never when the quantity in question is nothing), and occasionally slang terms such as zilch or zip. Phrases such as the team won two–zip or the team leads the series two–nothing are heard when reporting sports scores. In the case of association football—known as "football" in Britain and "soccer" in America—Americans will sometimes use "nil" as in Britain, although this usage is mostly confined to soccer journalists and hardcore fans and is not universal among either group. The digit 0, for example, when a phone or account number is being read aloud, is nearly always pronounced oh in both language varieties for the sake of convenience. In the internet age the use of the term oh can cause certain inconveniences when one is referencing an email address, causing confusion as to whether the character in question is a zero or the letter O.
When reading numbers in a sequence, such as a telephone or serial number, British people will usually use the terms double followed by the repeated number. Hence 007
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
is double oh seven. Exceptions are the emergency telephone number 999, which is always nine nine nine and the apocalyptic "Number of the Beast
Number of the Beast
The Number of the Beast is a term in the Book of Revelation, of the New Testament, that is associated with the first Beast of Revelation chapter 13, the Beast of the sea. In most manuscripts of the New Testament and in English translations of the Bible, the number of the Beast is...
", which is always six six six. In the US 911
9-1-1
9-1-1 is the emergency telephone number for the North American Numbering Plan .It is one of eight N11 codes.The use of this number is for emergency circumstances only, and to use it for any other purpose can be a crime.-History:In the earliest days of telephone technology, prior to the...
(the US emergency telephone number) is usually read nine one one, while 9/11 (in reference to the September 11, 2001 attacks) is usually read nine eleven.
Monetary amounts
- Monetary amounts in the range of one to two major currency units are often spoken differently. In AmE one may say a dollar fifty or a pound eighty, whereas in BrE these amounts would be expressed one dollar fifty and one pound eighty. For amounts over a dollar an American will generally either drop denominations or give both dollars and cents, as in two-twenty or two dollars and twenty cents for $2.20. An American would not say two dollars twenty. On the other hand, in BrE, two pounds twenty would be the most common form.
- It is more common to hear a British-English speaker say one thousand two hundred dollars than a thousand and two hundred dollars, although the latter construct is common in AmE. The term twelve hundred dollars, popular in AmE, is frequently used in BrE but only for exact multiples of 100 up to 1900. Speakers of BrE very rarely hear amounts over 1900 expressed in hundreds, for example twenty-three hundred.
- In BrE, particularly in television or radio advertisements, integers can be pronounced individually in the expression of amounts. For example, on sale for £399 might be expressed on sale for three nine nine, though the full Three hundred and ninety-nine pounds is at least as common. An American advertiser would almost always say on sale for three ninety-nine. In British English the latter pronunciation implies a value in pence, so three ninety-nine would be understood as £3.99.
- The BrE slang term quid is roughly equivalent to the AmE buck and is often used for whole (round) pound/dollar amounts, as in fifty-three quid for £53 and forty-seven bucks for $47. A hundred and fifty grand in either dialect could refer to £150,000 or $150,000 depending on context. Quid was formerly also used in Ireland for the punt and today is used for the euro. "Quid" does not (generally) have a plural form but "buck" does (aside from the expression "quids in"—meaning having made or won a lot of money).
- A user of AmE may hand-write the mixed monetary amount $3.24 as $324 or $324 (often seen for extra clarity on a check); BrE users will always write this as £3.24. In all cases there may or may not be a space after the currency symbol, or the currency symbols may be omitted depending on context.
- In order to make explicit the amount in words on a check, Americans write three and (using this solidusSolidus (punctuation)The solidus is a punctuation mark used to indicate fractions including fractional currency. It may also be called a shilling mark, an in-line fraction bar, or a fraction slash....
construction or with a horizontal division line): they do not need to write the word dollars as it is usually already printed on the check. On a cheque UK residents would write three pounds and 24 pence, three pounds 24 or three pounds 24p, since the currency unit is not preprinted. To make unauthorized amendment difficult, it is useful to have an expression terminator even when a whole number of dollars/pounds is in use: thus Americans would write three and or three and on a three-dollar check (so that it cannot easily be changed to, for example, three million) and UK residents would write three pounds only. - The term pound signPound signThe pound sign is the symbol for the pound sterling—the currency of the United Kingdom . The same symbol is used for similarly named currencies in some other countries and territories, such as the Irish pound, Gibraltar pound, Australian pound and the Italian lira...
in BrE always refers to the currency symbol £ whereas in AmE pound sign means the number signNumber signNumber sign is a name for the symbol #, which is used for a variety of purposes including, in some countries, the designation of a number...
, which the British call the hash symbol, #. (From the 1960s to the 1990s the British telephone company, the GPO and its successors Post Office TelecommunicationsPost Office TelecommunicationsPost Office Telecommunications was set up as a separate department of the UK Post Office, in October 1969. The Post Office Act of that year was passed to provide for greater efficiency in post and telephone services; rather than run a range of services, each organisation would be able to focus on...
and British TelecomBT GroupBT Group plc is a global telecommunications services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is one of the largest telecommunications services companies in the world and has operations in more than 170 countries. Through its BT Global Services division it is a major supplier of...
referred to this as gate on telephone keypads.) - In spoken BrE the word pound is sometimes colloquially used for the plural as well. For example three pound forty and twenty pound a week are both heard in British English. Some other currencies do not change in the plural; yen and rand being examples. This is in addition to normal adjectival use, as in a twenty-pound-a-week pay-rise. The euro most often takes a regular plural -s in practice despite the EU dictum that it should remain invariable in formal contexts; the invariable usage is more common in Ireland, where it is the official currency.
- In BrE the use of p instead of pence is common in spoken usage. Each of the following has equal legitimacy: 3 pounds 12 p; 3 pounds and 12 p; 3 pounds 12 pence; 3 pounds and 12 pence; as well as just 8 p or 8 pence.
- AmE uses words such as nickelNickel (United States coin)The nickel is a five-cent coin, representing a unit of currency equaling five hundredths of one United States dollar. A later-produced Canadian nickel five-cent coin was also called by the same name....
, dimeDime (United States coin)The dime is a coin 10 cents, one tenth of a United States dollar, labeled formally as "one dime". The denomination was first authorized by the Coinage Act of 1792. The dime is the smallest in diameter and is the thinnest of all U.S...
, and quarterQuarter (United States coin)A quarter dollar, commonly shortened to quarter, is a coin worth ¼ of a United States dollar, or 25 cents. The quarter has been produced since 1796. The choice of 25¢ as a denomination, as opposed to 20¢ which is more common in other parts of the world, originated with the practice of dividing...
for small coins. In BrE the usual usage is a 10-pence piece or a 10p piece or simply a 10p, for any coin below £1, but pound coin and two-pound coin. BrE did have specific words for a number of coins before decimalisationDecimal DayDecimal Day was the day the United Kingdom and Ireland decimalised their currencies.-Old system:Under the old currency of pounds, shillings and pence, the pound was made up of 240 pence , with 12 pence in a shilling and 20 shillings in a...
. Terms such as half crown, florin, bob and tanner for pre-decimalization coins are still familiar to older BrE speakers but they are not used for modern coins. In older terms like two-bob bit and threepenny bit, the word bit had common usage before decimalization similar to that of piece today.
Dates
Dates are usually written differently in the short (numerical) form. Christmas Day 2000, for example, is 25/12/00 or 25.12.00 in the UK and 12/25/00 in the US, although the formats 25/12/2000, 25.12.2000, and 12/25/2000 now have more currency than they had before the Year 2000 problemYear 2000 problem
The Year 2000 problem was a problem for both digital and non-digital documentation and data storage situations which resulted from the practice of abbreviating a four-digit year to two digits.In computer programs, the practice of representing the year with two...
. Occasionally other formats are encountered, such as the ISO 8601
ISO 8601
ISO 8601 Data elements and interchange formats – Information interchange – Representation of dates and times is an international standard covering the exchange of date and time-related data. It was issued by the International Organization for Standardization and was first published in 1988...
2000-12-25, popular among programmers, scientists and others seeking to avoid ambiguity, and to make alphanumeric
Alphanumeric
Alphanumeric is a combination of alphabetic and numeric characters, and is used to describe the collection of Latin letters and Arabic digits or a text constructed from this collection. There are either 36 or 62 alphanumeric characters. The alphanumeric character set consists of the numbers 0 to...
al order coincide with chronological order. The difference in short-form date order can lead to misunderstanding. For example 06/04/05 could mean either June 4, 2005 (if read as US format), 6 April 2005 (if seen as in UK format) or even 5 April 2006 if taken to be an older ISO 8601-style format where 2-digit years were allowed.
A consequence of the different short-form of dates is that in the UK, many people are reluctant to refer to "9/11", although its meaning is instantly understood. On the BBC "September the 11th" is generally used in preference to 9/11. However, 9/11 is commonplace in the British press to refer to the events of September 11, 2001.
When using the word of the month rather than the number to write a date for example, April 21, both that and 21 April are used in the UK, but as a rule only April 21 would be seen in the U.S. British usage often changes the day from an integer to an ordinal, i.e. 21st instead of 21. In speech "of" and "the" are used in the UK, as in "April the 21st" and "the 21st of April".
Phrases such as the following are common in Britain but are generally unknown in the US: "A week today", "a week tomorrow", "a week on Tuesday" and "Tuesday week" (this is found in central Texas), "a fortnight on Friday" (the latter referring to two weeks after "next Friday"). In the US the standard construction is "a week from today", "a week from tomorrow", etc. BrE speakers may also say "Thursday last" or "Thursday gone" where AmE would prefer "last Thursday". "I'll see you (on) Thursday coming" or "Let's meet this coming Thursday" in BrE refer to a meeting later this week, while "Not until Thursday next".
Time
The 24-hour clock24-hour clock
The 24-hour clock is a convention of time keeping in which the day runs from midnight to midnight and is divided into 24 hours, indicated by the hours passed since midnight, from 0 to 23. This system is the most commonly used time notation in the world today...
(18:00 or 1800) is considered normal in the UK and Europe in many applications including air, rail and bus timetables; it is largely unused in the US outside of military, police, aviation and medical applications.
15 minutes after the hour is called quarter past in British usage and a quarter after or, less commonly, a quarter past in American usage. 15 minutes before the hour is usually called quarter to in British usage and a quarter of, a quarter to or a quarter 'til in American usage; the form a quarter to is associated with parts of the Northern United States
Northern United States
Northern United States, also sometimes the North, may refer to:* A particular grouping of states or regions of the United States of America. The United States Census Bureau divides some of the northernmost United States into the Midwest Region and the Northeast Region...
, while a quarter 'til is found chiefly in the Appalachia
Appalachia
Appalachia is a term used to describe a cultural region in the eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York state to northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Canada to Cheaha Mountain in the U.S...
n region. Thirty minutes after the hour is commonly called half past in both BrE and AmE; half after used to be more common in the US. In informal British speech, the preposition is sometimes omitted, so that 5:30 may be referred to as half five. The AmE formations top of the hour and bottom of the hour are not used in BrE. Forms such as eleven forty are common in both dialects.
Weight
In British usage, human body weight is typically expressed in stones (equal to 14 pounds). People normally describe themselves as weighing, for example, "11 stone 4" (11 stones and 4 pounds) and not "158 pounds" (the conventional way of expressing the same weight in the United States). Less commonly, people in Britain may also choose to express their weight in terms of kilogramsKilogram
The kilogram or kilogramme , also known as the kilo, is the base unit of mass in the International System of Units and is defined as being equal to the mass of the International Prototype Kilogram , which is almost exactly equal to the mass of one liter of water...
.
When used as the unit of measurement the plural form of stone is correctly stone (as in "11 stone"). When describing the units, the correct plural is stones (as in "Please enter your weight in stones and pounds").
Greetings
When Christmas is explicitly mentioned in a greeting, the universal phrasing in North America is Merry Christmas. In the UK Happy Christmas is also heard. It is increasingly common for Americans to say Happy Holidays, referring to all winter holidays (Christmas, YuleYule
Yule or Yuletide is a winter festival that was initially celebrated by the historical Germanic people as a pagan religious festival, though it was later absorbed into, and equated with, the Christian festival of Christmas. The festival was originally celebrated from late December to early January...
, New Year's Day
New Year's Day
New Year's Day is observed on January 1, the first day of the year on the modern Gregorian calendar as well as the Julian calendar used in ancient Rome...
, Hanukkah
Hanukkah
Hanukkah , also known as the Festival of Lights, is an eight-day Jewish holiday commemorating the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabean Revolt of the 2nd century BCE...
, Diwali
Diwali
Diwali or DeepavaliThe name of the festival in various regional languages include:, , , , , , , , , , , , , popularly known as the "festival of lights," is a festival celebrated between mid-October and mid-December for different reasons...
, St Lucia Day and Kwanzaa
Kwanzaa
Kwanzaa is a week long celebration held in the United States honoring universal African-American heritage and culture, observed from December 26 to January 1 each year. It features activities such as lighting a candle holder with seven candles and culminates in a feast and gift giving...
) while avoiding any specific religious reference, though this is rarely, if ever, heard in the UK. Season's Greetings is a common phrase printed in greetings cards in both America and Britain.
Figures of speech
Both BrE and AmE use the expression "I couldn't care less" to mean the speaker does not care at all.In both areas, saying, "I don't mind" often means, "I'm not annoyed" (for example, by someone's smoking), while "I don't care" often means, "The matter is trivial or boring". However, in answering a question such as "Tea or coffee?", if either alternative is equally acceptable an American may answer, "I don't care" while a British person may answer, "I don't mind". Either sounds odd to the other.
In BrE the phrase I can't be arsed (to do something) is a very recent vulgar equivalent to the British or American I can't be bothered (to do it). To non-BrE speakers this may be confused with the Southern English pronunciation of I can't be asked (to do that thing), which sounds either defiantly rude or nonsensical.
Old BrE often uses the exclamation "No fear!" where current AmE has "No way!" An example from Dorothy L. Sayers
Dorothy L. Sayers
Dorothy Leigh Sayers was a renowned English crime writer, poet, playwright, essayist, translator and Christian humanist. She was also a student of classical and modern languages...
:
- Q.: Wilt thou be baptized in this faith?
A.: No fear! - — from Creed or chaos? : And other essays in popular theology
This usage may confuse users of AmE, who are likely to interpret and even use "No fear!" as enthusiastic willingness to move forward.
Equivalent idioms
A number of English idioms that have essentially the same meaning show lexical differences between the British and the American version; for instance:| British English | American English |
|---|---|
| not touch something with a bargepole | not touch something with a ten-foot pole |
| sweep under the carpet | sweep under the rug |
| touch wood | knock on wood |
| see the wood for the trees | see the forest for the trees |
| throw a spanner (in the works) | throw a (monkey) wrench (into a situation) |
| put (or stick) your oar in but it won't make a ha'porth of difference to put your two penneth (or tuppence worth) in |
to put your two cents (or two cents' worth) in |
| skeleton in the cupboard | skeleton in the closet |
| a home from home | a home away from home |
| blow one's trumpet | blow (or toot) one's horn |
| a drop in the ocean | a drop in the bucket |
| flogging a dead horse | beating a dead horse |
| haven't (got) a clue | don't have a clue or have no clue |
| a new lease of life | a new lease on life |
| lie of the land | lay of the land |
| to take something with a pinch of salt | to take something with a grain of salt |
| a tempest (or storm) in a teacup | a tempest in a teapot |
In some cases, the American variant is also used in BrE, or vice versa.
Spelling
Before the early 18th century English spelling was not standardized. Different standards became noticeable after the publishing of influential dictionariesDictionary
A dictionary is a collection of words in one or more specific languages, often listed alphabetically, with usage information, definitions, etymologies, phonetics, pronunciations, and other information; or a book of words in one language with their equivalents in another, also known as a lexicon...
. For the most part current BrE spellings follow those of Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
's Dictionary of the English Language
A Dictionary of the English Language
Published on 15 April 1755 and written by Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, sometimes published as Johnson's Dictionary, is among the most influential dictionaries in the history of the English language....
(1755). Among the advocates of spelling reform in England, the influences of those who preferred the Norman
Norman conquest of England
The Norman conquest of England began on 28 September 1066 with the invasion of England by William, Duke of Normandy. William became known as William the Conqueror after his victory at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066, defeating King Harold II of England...
(or Anglo-French) spellings of certain words proved decisive. In many cases AmE deviated in the 19th century from mainstream British spelling; on the other hand it has also often retained older forms. Many of the now characteristic AmE spellings were introduced, although often not created, by Noah Webster
Noah Webster
Noah Webster was an American educator, lexicographer, textbook pioneer, English spelling reformer, political writer, editor, and prolific author...
in his An American Dictionary of the English Language of 1828. Webster was a strong proponent of spelling reform
Spelling reform
Many languages have undergone spelling reform, where a deliberate, often officially sanctioned or mandated, change to spelling takes place. Proposals for such reform are also common....
for reasons both philological and nationalistic. Many other spelling changes proposed in the US by Webster himself and by the Simplified Spelling Board
Simplified Spelling Board
The Simplified Spelling Board was an American organization created in 1906 to reform the spelling of the English language, making it simpler and easier to learn, and eliminating many of its inconsistencies...
in the early 20th century never caught on. Subsequent spelling adjustments in the UK had little effect on present-day US spelling, and vice versa.
Punctuation
- Full stops/Periods in abbreviations: Americans tend to write Mr., Mrs., St., Dr.; the British will most often write Mr, Mrs, St, Dr, following the rule that a full stop/period is used only when the last letter of the abbreviation is not the last letter of the complete word. This kind of abbreviation is known as a contraction in the UK. The use of full stops/periods after most abbreviations can also be found in the UK, although publications generally tend to eschew the use of American punctuation. Unit symbols such as kg and Hz are never punctuated.
- QuotingQuotation markQuotation marks or inverted commas are punctuation marks at the beginning and end of a quotation, direct speech, literal title or name. Quotation marks can also be used to indicate a different meaning of a word or phrase than the one typically associated with it and are often used to express irony...
: Americans begin their quotations with double quotation marks (") and use single quotation marks (') for quotations within quotations. BrE usage varies, with some authoritative sources such as The EconomistThe EconomistThe Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in offices in the City of Westminster, London, England. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843...
and The TimesThe TimesThe Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
recommending the same usage as in the US, whereas other authoritative sources, such as The King's EnglishThe King's EnglishThe King's English is a book on English usage and grammar. It was written by the Fowler brothers, Henry Watson Fowler and Francis George Fowler, and published in 1906, and thus pre-dates by 20 years Modern English Usage, which was written by Henry alone after Francis's death in 1918.The King's...
, recommend single quotation marks. In journals and newspapers, quotation mark double/single use depends on the individual publication's house style. - Quotation usage: Americans occasionally place commaCommaA comma is a type of punctuation mark . The word comes from the Greek komma , which means something cut off or a short clause.Comma may also refer to:* Comma , a type of interval in music theory...
s and periods inside quotation marks. Specific exceptions are made only for parenthetical citation and cases in which the addition of a period or comma could create confusion, such as the quotation of web addresses or certain types of data strings. In both styles, question marks and exclamation marks are placed inside the quotation marks if they belong to the quotation and outside otherwise. With narration of direct speech, both styles retain punctuation inside the quotation marks, with a full stop changing into a comma if followed by explanatory text, also known as a dialogue tag. Americans tend to apply quotations when signifying doubt of veracity (sarcastically or seriously), to imply another meaning to a word or to imply a cynical take on a paraphrased quotation, without punctuation at all.- Carefree means "free from care or anxiety." (American style)
- Carefree means 'free from care or anxiety'. (British style)**
- "Hello, John," I said. (both styles)
- Did you say, "I'm shot"? No, I said, "Why not?" (Both styles)
- To insert an ampersand, hold "shift" and type the number "7." (American grammar—period inside quotes always. See Gregg English Grammar Manual.)
- Yeah, you really "showed" him. (American style)
- My "friend" just told the whole school about my "problem." (American style)
- She told me that I was "too nice." (American style)
- The American style was established for typographical reasons, a historical legacy from the use of the handset printing pressPrinting pressA printing press is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium , thereby transferring the ink...
. It is used by most American newspapers, publishing houses and style guides in the United States and Canada (including the Modern Language Association's MLA Style Manual, the American Psychological Association's APA Publication ManualAPA styleAmerican Psychological Association Style is a set of rules that authors use when submitting papers for publications in APA journals. The APA states that they were developed to assist reading comprehension in the social and behavioral sciences, for clarity of communication, and to "move the idea...
, the University of Chicago's The Chicago Manual of StyleThe Chicago Manual of StyleThe Chicago Manual of Style is a style guide for American English published since 1906 by the University of Chicago Press. Its 16 editions have prescribed writing and citation styles widely used in publishing...
, the American Institute of Physics's AIP Style Manual, the American Medical Association's AMA Manual of Style, the American Political Science Association's APSA Style Manual, the Associated PressAssociated PressThe Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
' The AP Guide to Punctuation and the Canadian Public Works'Public Works and Government Services CanadaPublic Works and Government Services Canada is the department of the government of Canada with responsibility for the government's internal servicing and administration....
The Canadian Style). It also makes the process of copy editingCopy editingCopy editing is the work that an editor does to improve the formatting, style, and accuracy of text. Unlike general editing, copy editing might not involve changing the substance of the text. Copy refers to written or typewritten text for typesetting, printing, or publication...
easier, eliminating the need to decide whether a period or comma belongs to the quotation.
- Hart's RulesHart's RulesHart's Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford was an authoritative reference book and style guide published in England by Oxford University Press...
and the Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors call the British style "new" quoting. It is also similar to the use of quotation marks in many other languages (including Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, Catalan, Dutch and German). A few US professional societies whose professions frequently employ various non-word characters, such as chemistry and computer programming, use the British form in their style guides (see ACS Style Guide). According to the Jargon FileJargon FileThe Jargon File is a glossary of computer programmer slang. The original Jargon File was a collection of terms from technical cultures such as the MIT AI Lab, the Stanford AI Lab and others of the old ARPANET AI/LISP/PDP-10 communities, including Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Carnegie Mellon...
, American hackers switched to what they later discovered to be the British quotation system because placing a period inside a quotation mark can change the meaning of data strings that are meant to be typed character-for-character. (It may be noted that the current American system places periods and commas inside the quotes in these cases anyway.)
- Parentheses/brackets:
- In British English, "" marks are generally referred to as brackets, whereas "[ ]" are called square brackets and "{ }" are called curly brackets. In American English "" marks are parentheses (singular parenthesis), "[ ]" are called brackets, and "{ }" can often be called curly braces. In both countries, standard usage is to place punctuation outside the parenthesis:
- "I am going to the store (if it is still open)."
- In the case of a parenthetical expression which is itself a complete sentence, the final punctuation may be placed inside the parenthesis, particularly if not a period:
- "I am going to the store (is it still open?)"
- "I am going to the store (I hope it's still open!)"
Titles and headlines
Use of capitalizationCapitalization
Capitalization is writing a word with its first letter as a majuscule and the remaining letters in minuscules . This of course only applies to those writing systems which have a case distinction...
varies.
Sometimes the words in titles of publications and newspaper headlines as well as chapter and section headings are capitalized in the same manner as in normal sentences (sentence case). That is, only the first letter of the first word is capitalized, along with proper noun
Proper noun
A proper noun or proper name is a noun representing a unique entity , as distinguished from a common noun, which represents a class of entities —for example, city, planet, person or corporation)...
s, etc.
However, publishers sometimes require additional words in titles and headlines to have the initial capital, for added emphasis
Emphasis (typography)
In typography, emphasis is the exaggeration of words in a text with a font in a different style from the rest of the text—to emphasize them.- Methods and use :...
, as it is often perceived as appearing more professional. In AmE this is common in titles but less so in newspaper headlines. The exact rules differ between publishers and are often ambiguous; a typical approach is to capitalize all words other than short articles
Article (grammar)
An article is a word that combines with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. Articles specify the grammatical definiteness of the noun, in some languages extending to volume or numerical scope. The articles in the English language are the and a/an, and some...
, prepositions, and conjunctions
Grammatical conjunction
In grammar, a conjunction is a part of speech that connects two words, sentences, phrases or clauses together. A discourse connective is a conjunction joining sentences. This definition may overlap with that of other parts of speech, so what constitutes a "conjunction" must be defined for each...
. This should probably be regarded as a common stylistic difference rather than a linguistic difference, as neither form would be considered incorrect or unusual in either the UK or the US. Many British tabloid newspapers (such as The Sun
The Sun (newspaper)
The Sun is a daily national tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom and owned by News Corporation. Sister editions are published in Glasgow and Dublin...
, The Daily Sport
The Daily Sport
The Daily Sport was a tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom by Daily Sport Ltd., which specialised in celebrity news and softcore pornographic stories and images. The daily paper was launched in 1991 by David Sullivan, following its former Sunday sister title, Sunday Sport . It ceased...
) use fully capitalised headlines for impact as opposed to readability (for example, BERLIN WALL FALLS or BIRD FLU PANIC). On the other hand the broadsheet
Broadsheet
Broadsheet is the largest of the various newspaper formats and is characterized by long vertical pages . The term derives from types of popular prints usually just of a single sheet, sold on the streets and containing various types of material, from ballads to political satire. The first broadsheet...
s (such as The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, and The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
) usually follow the sentence style of having only the first letter of the first word capitalized.
American newspapers commonly use a comma as a shorthand for "and" in headlines. For example, the Washington Post had the headline "A TRUE CONSERVATIVE: For McCain, Bush Has Both Praise, Advice."
See also
- American and British English pronunciation differencesAmerican and British English pronunciation differencesDifferences in pronunciation between American English and British English can be divided into:* differences in accent...
- English languages
- International EnglishInternational EnglishInternational English is the concept of the English language as a global means of communication in numerous dialects, and also the movement towards an international standard for the language...
- Australian EnglishAustralian EnglishAustralian English is the name given to the group of dialects spoken in Australia that form a major variety of the English language....
- Canadian EnglishCanadian EnglishCanadian English is the variety of English spoken in Canada. English is the first language, or "mother tongue", of approximately 24 million Canadians , and more than 28 million are fluent in the language...
- Classification of Germanic languages
- Dissertation on the English LanguageDissertation on the English LanguageDissertation on the English Language was a book written by American lexicographer Noah Webster in 1789. The book followed Webster's 1783 work Spelling Book and aimed to differentiate American English from British English. In the book, Webster commented that "our honor requires us to have a system...
(book) - English language in EnglandEnglish language in EnglandThe English language in England refers to the English language as spoken in England. These forms of English are a subsection of British English, as spoken throughout Great Britain. Other terms used to refer to the English language as spoken in England include:...
- English orthographyEnglish orthographyEnglish orthography is the alphabetic spelling system used by the English language. English orthography, like other alphabetic orthographies, uses a set of habits to represent speech sounds in writing. In most other languages, these habits are regular enough so that they may be called rules...
- General AmericanGeneral AmericanGeneral American , also known as Standard American English , is a major accent of American English. The accent is not restricted to the United States...
- Hiberno-EnglishHiberno-EnglishHiberno-English is the dialect of English written and spoken in Ireland .English was first brought to Ireland during the Norman invasion of the late 12th century. Initially it was mainly spoken in an area known as the Pale around Dublin, with Irish spoken throughout the rest of the country...
- Indian EnglishIndian EnglishIndian English is an umbrella term used to describe dialects of the English language spoken primarily in the Republic of India.As a result of British colonial rule until Indian independence in 1947 English is an official language of India and is widely used in both spoken and literary contexts...
- List of dialects of the English language
- Midlands EnglishMidlands English (disambiguation)Midlands English refers to a number of distinct dialects spoken in the English Midlands . It may refer to:*East Midlands English*West Midlands English...
- Plain EnglishPlain EnglishPlain English is a generic term for communication styles that emphasise clarity, brevity and the avoidance of technical language – particularly in relation to official government communication, including laws.The intention is to write in a manner that is easily understood by the target...
- Regional accents of English
- Scottish EnglishScottish EnglishScottish English refers to the varieties of English spoken in Scotland. It may or may not be considered distinct from the Scots language. It is always considered distinct from Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic language....
- Scots languageScots languageScots is the Germanic language variety spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster . It is sometimes called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Celtic language variety spoken in most of the western Highlands and in the Hebrides.Since there are no universally accepted...
- South African EnglishSouth African EnglishThe term South African English is applied to the first-language dialects of English spoken by South Africans, with the L1 English variety spoken by Zimbabweans, Zambians and Namibians, being recognised as offshoots.There is some social and regional variation within South African English...
- Southern American EnglishSouthern American EnglishSouthern American English is a group of dialects of the English language spoken throughout the Southern region of the United States, from Southern and Eastern Maryland, West Virginia and Kentucky to the Gulf Coast, and from the Atlantic coast to most of Texas and Oklahoma.The Southern dialects make...
- British English in Southern England
- Standard EnglishStandard EnglishStandard English refers to whatever form of the English language is accepted as a national norm in an Anglophone country...
- The Chicago Manual of StyleThe Chicago Manual of StyleThe Chicago Manual of Style is a style guide for American English published since 1906 by the University of Chicago Press. Its 16 editions have prescribed writing and citation styles widely used in publishing...
- Philadelphia dialectPhiladelphia dialectThe Philadelphia dialect is the dialect of English spoken in Philadelphia; and extending into Philadelphia's suburbs in the Delaware Valley and southern New Jersey. It is one of the best-studied dialects of American English since Philadelphia's University of Pennsylvania is the home institution of...
- YinglishYinglishYinglish words are neologisms created by speakers of Yiddish in English-speaking countries, sometimes to describe things that were uncommon in the old country...
- Welsh EnglishWelsh EnglishWelsh English, Anglo-Welsh, or Wenglish refers to the dialects of English spoken in Wales by Welsh people. The dialects are significantly influenced by Welsh grammar and often include words derived from Welsh...
Sources
- Algeo, John (2006). British or American English?. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-37993-8.
- Hargraves, Orin (2003). Mighty Fine Words and Smashing Expressions. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-515704-4
- McArthur, Tom (2002). The Oxford Guide to World English. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-866248-3.
- Peters, Pam (2004). The Cambridge Guide to English Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-62181-X.
- Trudgill, Peter and Jean Hannah. (2002). International English: A Guide to the Varieties of Standard English, 4th ed. London: Arnold. ISBN 0-340-80834-9
External links
- Word substitution list, by the Ubuntu English (United Kingdom) Translators team
- Proper Treatment: British vs. American (Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
) - List of American and British spelling differences
- Linguistics Issues List of American, Canadian and British spelling differences
- Map of US English dialects
- The Septic's Companion: A British Slang Dictionary
- Selected Vocabulary Differences Between British and American English
- Which Language Variety?, a web tool that estimates statistically if a word or phrase is typical for British English or American English