American and British English differences: Encyclopedia II - American and British English differences - Grammar

American and British English differences - Grammar

American and British English differences - Singular and plural for nouns

• In British English, singular nouns that describe multiple people are often treated as plural, particularly where one is concerned with the people constituting the team, rather than with the team as an entity. The singular form is usually used in American. For example, British "the team are worried"; American "the team is worried". Americans may use the plural form when the individual membership is clear, for example, "the team take their seats" (not "the team takes its seat(s)"), although it is often rephrased to avoid the singular/plural decision, as in "the team members take their seats". The difference occurs for all collective nouns, 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). Proper nouns which are plural in form take a plural verb in both American and British English. Examples:
  • British English: "The Clash are a well-known band." American English: "The Clash is a well-known band." Both: "The Beatles are a well-known band."
  • British English: "New England are the champions." American English: "New England is the champion." Both: "The Patriots are the champions".
• Differences in which nouns are the same in both their plural and singular forms, such as the word sheep. In American English, shrimp is such a word, but in British English the plural of shrimp is shrimps. (Shrimps is occasionally heard in the southern U.S., but is otherwise rare, apart from its colloquial use as a pejorative term for small people). An unusual example is innings, which is both singular and plural in British English, but for which a separate singular form (inning) exists in American English.

American and British English differences - Use of tenses

• British English uses the present perfect tense 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 or the simple past.
  • "Have you cleaned your teeth?" / "Did you clean your teeth?"
  • "Have you done your homework yet?" / "Did you do your homework yet?"
  • "I've just got home." / "I just got home."
  • "I've already eaten." / "I already ate."
• Similarly, the pluperfect is occasionally replaced by the preterite in the USA; this is generally regarded as sloppy usage by those Americans who consider themselves careful users of the language.
• In British English, have got or have can be used for possession and have got to and have to can be used for the modal of necessity. The forms which include got are usually used in informal contexts and the forms without got in more formal contexts. In American speech the form without got is used more than in Britain. American also informally uses got as a verb for these meanings, e.g. "I got two cars," "I got to go"; but these are nonstandard and will be considered sloppy usage by many American speakers.
• The subjunctive mood is more common in American English in expressions such as: "They suggested that he apply for the job". British English would have "They suggested that he should apply for the job" (or even "They suggested that he applied for the job"). However, the British usage ("should apply") is also heard in the United States.

American and British English differences - Verb morphology

• Verb past tenses with -ed: American dreamed, leaped, learned, spelled; Commonwealth dreamt, leapt, learnt, spelt. As with the "tre" words, the t endings are occasionally found in older American texts. The forms with -ed are also common in Commonwealth usage, and preferred by many careful writers of English since they are weak verbs. (Note that the two-syllable form learnèd /'lɜːnɪd/, usually written simply as learned, is still used as an adjective to mean "educated", or to refer to academic institutions, in both British English and American English.)
• Other verb past tense forms: American fit, forecast, knit, lit, wed; Commonwealth fitted, forecasted, knitted, lighted, wedded. The distinction is, however, not rigorous as the Commonwealth forms are also found in American, and both lit and forecast are not only found in Commonwealth English, but are generally considered standard usage.
• Also, the past participle gotten is rarely used in modern British English (although it is used in some dialects), which generally uses got (as do some Americans), except in old expressions such as ill-gotten gains. Commonwealth usage retains the form forgotten, though. Furthermore, according to the Compact Oxford English Dictionary, "The form gotten is not used in British English but is very common in North American English, though even there it is often regarded as non-standard." In North America, most people who use gotten also use got, with gotten emphasizing the action of acquiring, and got tending to indicate simple possession. (Have you gotten it?, as an example)
• The past participle proven is frequently used in American English, although some speakers avoid it, and it remains proved in British English (except in adjectival use; and usage is different in Scots law).
• American English further allows other irregular verbs, such as thrive (throve–thriven) or sneak (snuck), which remain regular in Commonwealth English, and often mixes the preterite and past participle forms (spring–sprang (U.S. sprung)–sprung), sometimes forcing verbs such as shrink (shrank–shrunk) to have a further form, thus shrunk–shrunken. (The Associated Press Stylebook in American English treats some irregular verbs as colloquialisms, insisting on the regular forms for the past tense of dive, plead and sneak.)

American and British English differences - Presence or absence of syntactic elements

• Where a statement of intention involves two separate activities, it is acceptable for speakers of American English to use to go plus bare infinitive. Speakers of British English would instead use to go and plus bare infinitive: thus where a speaker of American English might say "I'll go take a bath", British English 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 American English, where speakers of British English would instead use to come and plus bare infinitive: thus where a speaker of American English might say Come see what I bought, British English speakers would say, Come and see what I've bought (notice the addition of "have": 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 Britain, 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 always say "the new museum will be open starting Tuesday" or "the new museum will open Tuesday", and would probably be confused by the British saying. (This difference does not apply to phrases of the pattern from A to B, which are used in both British and American English.)
• Where an American will meet with someone, a British person can meet someone. To a British person, the use of with seems to reinforce a notion of mutuality (in this case, the usage is similar to to have a meeting with someone, thus meet with is acceptable, but visit with sounds very strange (you cannot visit someone while they are visiting you).
• British people say "I'll write to you" where Americans commonly say "I'll write you".
• Intransitive verbs often become transitive in American English; for example, British English: "The workers protested against the decision." American English: "The workers protested the decision."
• A few "institutional" nouns take no definite article when a certain role is implied: for example, at sea [as a sailor], in prison [as a convict]. Among this group, Commonwealth English has in hospital [as a patient] and at university [as a student], where American English requires in the hospital and at the university. (A nurse, visitor, etc. would be in the hospital in both systems.)
• American English distinguishes in back of [behind] from in the back of; the former is unknown in Britain and liable to misinterpretation as the latter. Both however distinguish in front of from in the front of.
• American legislators and lawyers always use the preposition "of" between the name of a legislative act and the year it was passed, while their British equivalents do not. Compare Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 to Disability Discrimination Act 1995.

American and British English differences - Different prepositions in certain contexts

• In the United States, the word through can mean "up to and including" as in Monday through Friday. In Britain Monday to Friday, or Monday to Friday inclusive is used instead; Monday through to Friday is also sometimes used. (Note: In some parts of Northern England the term while can be used in the same way, as in Monday while Friday.)
• In American English on is usually used to say which street one lives in whereas British English usually uses in, eg on Churchill Street /in Churchill Street.
• After talk American can use the preposition with but British always uses to (i.e. "I'll talk with Dave / I'll talk to Dave". The American form is sometimes seen as more politically correct in British organisations, inducing the ideal of discussing (with), as opposed to lecturing (to). This is, of course, 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 British and American English.
• In American English from is the correct preposition to use after the word different: "American English is different from British English in several respects." While considered technically incorrect, different than is also commonly heard in the US. The British phrasing different to, however, is almost entirely unknown in the US. Note that, when grammar is taught formally in Britain, both different than and different to are strictly prohibited, whereas different from is considered correct.

American and British English differences - Miscellaneous grammatical differences

• In American English there is a normative rule which says that, for a non-human antecedent, which should not be used in restrictive relative clauses. According to The Elements of Style (p. 59), "That is the defining, or restrictive pronoun, which the nondefining, or nonrestrictive. See Rule 3."
• In names of American rivers, the word river usually comes after the name (for example, Colorado River), whereas for British rivers it comes before (as in River Thames). One exception present in British English is the Fleet River, which is rarely called the River Fleet by Londoners outside of official documentation. An exception in the U.S. is the River Raisin in Michigan.
• In the names of counties of the British Isles, the word county comes before the name e.g. County Limerick (Ireland) or is simply absent, i.e. Glamorgan (Wales) or Kent (England), whereas in the U.S., it comes after the name, e.g. Washington County.
• In British English 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 side of the church." This construction is not often heard outside Britain. 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, as many speakers intentionally use an ungrammatical 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 these usages may imply that the subject had been involuntarily forced to sit or stand.
• 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". However, in some British Dialects, 'come with' is used as an abbreviation of 'come with me', as in "I'm going to the office - come with" instead of "I'm going to the office - come with me" (the literal German translation "Komm mit" is occasionally heard).

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Grammar", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki