British versus American English
Intro
Can you tell the difference between British and American English? Check out these words, then tell us which variety of English you tend to use by leaving a comment below.Words
British - American
1. Pavement – sidewalk
2. Rubbish – trash
3. Football – soccer
4. Biscuit – cookie
5. Sweets – candy
6. Tube – subway
7. Full stop – period
8. Autumn - fall
9. Flat – apartment
10. Lift – elevator
11. Chips – fries
12. Petrol – Gas
13. Motorway – highway
14. Jam – jelly
15. Cinema – movie theatre
16. Trousers – pants
17. Car park – parking lot
18. Jumper – sweater
19. Holiday – vacation
20. Post code – zip code
Discuss
Over the past 400 years, the form of the language used in the United States – and that used in the United Kingdom and the rest of the British Isles have diverged in many ways, leading to the dialects now commonly referred to as American English and British English. Differences between the two include pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, spelling, punctuation, idioms, formatting of dates and numbers, and so on. A small number of words have completely different meanings between the two dialects or are even unknown or not used in one of the dialects.
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."
Fri, 29/01/2010 - 12:32am — English Online Visitor
British people can not pronounce 'a' or 'r' at the end of words correctly. Linda is said as Linder
Christopher is said as Chritophah
Sun, 24/01/2010 - 9:15am — English Online Visitor
as usual this site is very useful
Thu, 07/01/2010 - 6:20am — English Online Visitor
Very useful
Sat, 26/12/2009 - 8:52pm — English Online Visitor
all those britishisms are also used in the exact same context in Australia, as well (except for no. 3 - we tend to use 'soccer', having too many other codes of football to not be specific).
Sat, 15/08/2009 - 1:19am — English Online Visitor
Quite a few of those "British" counterparts are routinely used in America - i.e. rubbish, sweets, autumn, jam, cinema.
Sat, 01/08/2009 - 1:20am — link.luvk
well i think american english is more funny and figurative while british english somehow more serious...
Wed, 29/07/2009 - 7:14am — English Online Visitor
policeman and cop
Thu, 16/07/2009 - 5:37am — English Online Visitor
There is quite a lot of things that are different between the American English and the British English. The most pleasing thing is people talking in different terms with the same meaning . So we can still understand the sentence or conversation but you need to know whether it is America or British. Americans do not pronounce their T'S IN WORDS WHILE WE BRITISH DO.
Wed, 08/07/2009 - 5:51am — English Online Visitor
british speak half half words while americans full words
Wed, 29/04/2009 - 6:52am — English Online Visitor
no,brits spell with -se while americans spell with -ze