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

American and British English differences - Lexis

Most of the differences are in connection with concepts originating from the nineteenth century to the mid twentieth century, where new words were coined independently; almost the entire vocabularies of the car/automobile and railway/railroad industries (see Rail terminology) are different between Britain and America, 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 U.S. or the UK can create the same problems.

It should also be noted that most American words can be freely interchanged with their British versions within the United Kingdom and English-speaking Commonwealth nations without leading to confusion, though they may cause irritation. It tends to be only when the situation is reversed that real problems of understanding occur. However, there are some exceptions, such as gas (as in gasoline), and stroller (in the sense of pushchair) which would be misunderstood by speakers of British English, as well as common trademark names unknown in the other country, such as Dumpster (U.S.) or Sellotape (UK). There are, however, many pitfalls that Americans can fall into without realising it; for example, referring to a woman's fanny in Britain, since the word indicates the buttocks in the U.S. but the vagina in the UK. Speakers of Commonwealth English should be cautious when asking for a fag (cigarette) in America, as it is a derogatory term referring to a homosexual in the U.S., although nowadays these alternate meanings are understood in the UK as their U.S. version, dependent on context. Residents of North and South Carolina beaches should be wary of inviting their British guests to "go out shagging," (a type of dance), for the term in British English refers to sexual intercourse. This meaning has become commonly known in the U.S., however, owing to its repeated usage in the popular Austin Powers films, so many or most Americans are not likely to approach with such an offer unless that is what is in mind. Similarly, avoid telling Australians or New Zealanders what team you root for, as the slang meaning of "root" in these countries is sexual intercourse.

American and British English differences - General trends

While the use of American expressions in English is often noted in Britain, movement in the opposite direction is less common. But recent examples exist, including the idiom "to go missing," which had been a distinctively British expression but is used increasingly in American English, at least in journalism. The noun "queue" also seems to be making inroads in the U.S. as well. (The usual American equivalents of "to go missing" and "queue" are "to disappear" and "line", respectively.) Also, the spelling of 'travelling' and 'traveller' and 'judgement' through observations appear to be creeping into American English.

American and British English differences - Words used only in British English

Speakers of American English are likely to be aware of some British English terms, such as lorry, biscuit, chap, and shag although they would not generally use them, or may be confused as to whether one means the American or British meaning of some (such as biscuit). They will be able to guess approximately what is meant by some others, such as candy floss or driving licence. However, use of many other British words, such as naff (unstylish) or busk (to play a musical instrument in public with the hope of getting donations from passers-by), risks rendering a sentence incomprehensible to most Americans.

American and British English differences - Words used only in American English

Speakers of British English are likely to be aware of some American English terms, such as sidewalk, gas, cookie, elevator although they would not generally use them. They will be able to guess approximately what is meant by some others, such as cotton candy. However, use of some other American words risks rendering a sentence incomprehensible to most British people.

Note that, largely through the influence of Hollywood, the chance of a given Americanism being understood by a British person is significantly greater than in the reverse case. However, Americans who watch britcoms and other imported BBC programs and British news re-broadcasts on American public television (PBS) are more likely to be familiar with British usages than those who do not.

• Fitted is used in both conventions as an adjective ("fitted sheets" are the same size as the mattress) and as the past tense of fit ("to suffer epilepsy", for example, "Leavitt fitted" in The Andromeda Strain); however fit and fitting do not denote epileptic seizure in ordinary British use (though that usage is common within medical circles), as the same effect is achieved by to have a fit or to throw a fit.

American and British English differences - Words with differing meanings

American and British English differences - Words which have become archaic in one dialect

• In Southern Britain the word whilst is used almost interchangeably with while and whilst is the more common term. Whilst is more often used in instruction manuals, legal documents, etc. To Americans the word whilst, in any context, seems very archaic and/or pretentious. The words amidst (as opposed to amid), and to a lesser extent amongst (as opposed to among) are also rarer in American English. ("In the midst" is a standard idiom in both).

• In Britain generally the term "fall" used in the context of the seasons became obsolete and was replaced by the word "autumn". Although archaic, found often in Elizabethan and Dickensian literature, understanding of the word is usually ascribed to its continued use in America.

• In Britain the term "period" for a "full stop" is now obsolete, except when used as a phrase, such as "Don't do that. Period." (although this in itself is very likely to be an American import).

American and British English differences - Numbers

When saying or writing out numbers, the British will insert an "and" before the tens and units, as in "one hundred and sixty-two" and "two thousand and three", whereas Americans will typically drop the "and" as in "two thousand three"; however, "two thousand and three" is also common. Americans are more likely than the British to read numbers like 1,234 as "twelve thirty-four", instead of "one thousand, two hundred and thirty-four" unless discussing the year 1234, when "twelve thirty-four" would be the norm. Similarly, for the house number (or bus number, etc) "272" British people would tend to say "two seven two" while Americans would tend to say "two seventy-two". Between 1100 and 1900 the British commonly read numbers ending in round hundreds as, for instance, "sixteen hundred" instead of "one thousand six hundred", but from 2000 upwards usage like "thirty-two hundred" would be replaced by "three thousand two hundred".

There was also a historical difference between billions, trillions, and so forth. Americans use "billion" to mean one thousand million (1,000,000,000), whereas in Britain, until the latter part of the 20th century, it was almost exclusively used to mean one million million (1,000,000,000,000), with one thousand million sometimes described as a "milliard", the definition adopted by most other European languages. However, the "American English" version has since been adopted for all published writing, and the word "milliard" is obsolete in English, as are billiard (but not billiards), trilliard and so on.

Nevertheless, the majority of people have no direct experience with manipulating numbers this large, so a significant proportion of international readers will interpret "billion" as 10¹², even if they are young enough to have been taught otherwise at school. For this reason, defining the word may be advisable when writing for the general public. However, all major British publications and broadcasters, including the BBC, which long used "thousand million" to avoid ambiguity, now use "billion" to mean thousand million.

See long and short scales for a more detailed discussion of the evolution of these terms in English and other languages.

Finally, when referring to the numeral 0, British people would use "zero", "nought", or "oh" normally, or "nil" in instances such as sports scores and voting results. Americans use the term "zero" most frequently; "oh" is also often used, 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. The digit 0, for example, when reading a phone or account number aloud, is nearly always pronounced "oh" in both languages for the sake of convenience.

When reading numbers in a sequence, such as a telephone or serial number, British people will use the terms double or triple/treble. 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". The directory enquiries prefix 118 is also "one one eight" due to its extensive advertising campaign with the slogan read out as "One one eight, what's your number?". In the US, 911 (the US emergency telephone number) is almost always read "nine-one-one", while 9-11 (September 11, 2001) is usually read "nine-eleven".

American and British English differences - Levels of buildings

There are also variations in floor numbering between the U.S. and U.K. — in most countries, including Britain, the "first floor" is one above the entrance level while the entrance level is the "ground floor"; whereas normal American usage labels the entrance level as the "first floor" and does not use "ground floor." Some American buildings have a "ground floor" or another name for the entrance level, usually as part of a plan to cater to cosmopolitan persons. Nonetheless, the rest of the floors are numbered in the usual American manner.

American and British English differences - Figures of speech

Both English and American English use the expression "I couldn't care less" to mean the speaker does not care at all. In American English, the phrase "I could care less" (without the "n't") is synonymous with this in casual usage. Intonation no longer reflects the originally sarcastic nature of this variant, which is not idiomatic in British English and might be interpreted as anything from nonsense to an indication that the speaker does care.

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 like "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 American English, "to luck out" means to succeed by amazingly good luck, whereas in Commonwealth English "to luck out" is a recent colloquialism which means to have no success. Thus, the phrase "I lucked out on getting the free tickets" means either getting or not getting the free tickets, respectively. In some parts of America though, both meanings can and will be understood. The meaning is derived through context.

American and British English differences - Business

In his history of the Second World War, Winston Churchill records that differences in the interpretation of the verb "to table" caused an argument between British and American planners. The British wanted a matter tabled immediately because it was important, and the Americans insisted it should not be tabled at all because it was important. In British English, the term means "to discuss now" (the issue is brought to the table), whereas in American English it means "to defer" (the issue is left on the table).

In a similar vein, the verb "to slate" means "to schedule" in the U.S. but (informally) "to disparage" in the UK. Thus a headline such as "Third Harry Potter Film Slated" has two very different interpretations.

One usage of the word "bomb" causes similar confusion: in the U.S. "the show bombed" means it was a total failure; in the UK "the show went down a bomb" means it was a great success. The American slang phrase "the bomb," however (perhaps inspired by African American Vernacular English), almost always indicates positivity. For example, the phrase, "That show was the bomb," would mean that the show was outstanding. In this usage, the article "the" will sometimes be pronounced "da", and sometimes would be written "That show was da bomb", indicating a dialect pronunciation of the word "the".

American and British English differences - Education

In the UK, a student is said to "read" or to "study" a subject, while in the U.S., a student either "studies" the subject or "majors" in it. The latter refers only to the student's principal course of study, while the former may be refer to any class being taken.

British English:

American English:

In the UK, a student "revises" or "does revision" for an examination, while in American English, the student "studies" for it. When "taking" or "writing" the examination, a student in the UK would have that examination supervised by a "invigilator" whereas in American English it would be a "proctor" (or merely "(exam) supervisor").

In the UK, a student is said to "sit" or "take" an exam, while in the U.S., a student "takes" an exam. In the UK, a teacher "sets" an exam, while in the U.S., a teacher "writes" or "gives" an exam. The expression "he sits for" an exam also arises in British English, but only rarely in American English; 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.

British English:

American English:

Another source of confusion is the different usage of the word college. In the U.S., this refers to a post-high school institution such as a university, whilst in the UK and most Commonwealth countries it refers primarily to a tertiary institution between high school and university (normally referred to as a "Sixth Form College" after the old 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, with the interchangeability of college with high school being rare but not unknown. Americans may be surprised to hear of a 14 year old attending college in the UK, mistakenly assuming it is at the university level. In both the U.S. and UK, college can refer to some division within a university such as a "college of mathematics and science". Institutions in the U.S. 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 (for example, masters, doctorate) are called a university. However, Americans attending either a college or university are often collectively called "college students", and the institutions themselves "colleges", regardless of their status. The words freshman (or the gender neutral term frosh), sophomore, junior and senior refer to the first, second, third, and fourth year respectively of both high school and college (university) students in the U.S. It is important that the context of either high school or college first be established, or else it must be stated directly (that is, "She is a high school freshman." "He is a college junior."). Many institutions in both countries also use the term "first-year" as a gender-neutral replacement for "freshman".

In the UK, first year university students are often called freshers; however, there are no specific names for those in other years, nor for school pupils.

In the UK, the US equivalent of a high school is often referred to as a secondary school regardless of whether it is public or private. In addition, a public school in the UK is, in fact, a private school, while the UK equivalent to public school is a state (funded) school.

American and British English differences - Transport

Americans refer to transportation, while British people refer to transport.

Differences in terminology are especially obvious in the context of roads. The British term dual carriageway, in American parlance, would be a divided highway. Central reservation on a motorway in the UK would be a median on a freeway or expressway in the U.S. 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 generally known as slip roads in the UK, but U.S. civil engineers call them ramps, and further distinguish between on-ramps (for entering) or off-ramps (for leaving). When American engineers speak of slip roads, or slip ramps, they are referring to on-ramps and off-ramps that have been rearranged (through use of a grade separation) to minimize weaving on a freeway segment between two interchanges that are too close together.

In the UK, the term outside lane refers to the higher-speed passing lane closest to the centre of the road, while inside lane refers to the lane closer to the edge of the road; these terms have the opposite meanings in American English, with the outside lane being the one near the edge and the inside lane being the one closer to the median — it is worth noting that Americans also drive on the opposite side to British people, so that the British inside lane is, like the American one, the leftmost one (going in any given direction).

American and British English differences - Greetings

In the US, when Christmas is explicitly mentioned in a greeting, the universal phrasing is Merry Christmas. The British alternative, Happy Christmas, is entirely unknown in America, and while its meaning is obvious, it might still garner the speaker some odd looks.

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