Differences between British and American English (ANU/EN/2018/P/0037)

Lexical Differences between American and British English

“In words as fashions the same rule will hold alike fantastic if too new or old be not the first by whom the new are tired nor yet the last to lay the old aside”

(Alexander Pope: An Essay on Criticism ii 133- 136)

W

hen American and British people meet, the first obvious difference is their accent, the pronunciation of words. However, at a deeper and less apparent level, vocabulary differences give the right to treat the two varieties as two completely different languages. 

• Sometimes, words are used in different ways to name the same thing, such as for the American ‘railroad tie’ and the British ‘railway sweeper’.
•  Sometimes, two different words are used but their meaning is quite obvious, such as for the American ‘luggage’ and the British ‘baggage’.
•  In other cases, some words that are common in one place are rare in the other, such as the words ‘soppy’ or ‘row’: although they are listed in American dictionaries, they are very uncommon in American speech but they are quite well known in the UK.
•  Some words retained in Great Britain have been dropped by Americans, such as ‘fortnight’ and ‘constable’ and many no longer used in British are retained in American, such as ‘mad’ (in the sense of angry), ‘fall’, ‘sick’, etc.

Of course, language is not totally imitated from one generation to another. Youth can be one of the most important social groups in language evolution, observing that younger people are more likely to experiment with language, by producing slang, deviant spellings, idioms, and expressions, some of which eventually become part of the standard. 

Isolation also contributes to the differences: some dialects are separated by geographical features that naturally separate people. Reciprocal comprehension is favored by the spread of the media, although American films are more likely to be exported in the UK rather than the reverse case. People who decide to learn English as a foreign language can decide to choose either an American English center or a British one, basing their choice on their needs. However, schools and universities usually teach British English. Only in recent years, some schools and universities include an analysis of the differences between the two ‘Englishes’ because of the increasing possibilities of contact with the two varieties. Many internet websites have sections concerning this subject, to which people can contribute giving their own testimonies to the classification and description of the differences.

2.1. Classification of UK/US Lexical Differences

As previously said, most differences can be found in ordinary life, especially in oral speech. Many online sources offer useful comparisons between British and American lexicon, such as the Macmillan English Dictionary Magazine 2004 and James Smith’s American to British Dictionary, both of which have been very useful for this work. However, the problem is that before dealing directly with speakers of the other variety, some people do not even think that there are any divergences, apart from pronunciation.

In particular, attention must be paid to false cognates. For instance, British English ‘suspenders’ are called ‘garters’ in US English, which use ‘suspenders’ for the British ‘braces’. This also occurs for American ‘shorts’ that are British ‘underpants’; American ‘pants’ are British ‘trousers’.

Naturally, awareness of lexical differences is not only for sake of linguistic curiosity: globalization has increased the possibility of interaction between speakers of the two varieties, and thus the issue has urged the attention of professional linguists and translators, due to a considerable demand of the market. The following sections will briefly give a description of lexical differences in the fields of housing, transport, shopping, food, and numerical systems, as part of everyday language that could be quite confusing.

2.1.1. House Vocabulary

 As regards house terminology, there is a straightforward translation from a variety to the other for some terms, such as the American ‘apartment house’, ‘condominium’, ‘duplex’, and ‘row house’, which in British are respectively a ‘block of flats’, ‘owner-occupied flat’, ‘semi-detached house’, and ‘terraced house’.

In other cases, there may be no exact British equivalent for the American term, 

• ‘Brownstone’, used for a house made of red-brown stone, typical of nineteenth century cities in eastern US.
• As regards rooms, American and British English have many words in common. However, Americans use the euphemism ‘bathroom’ as a polite synonym for the word ‘toilet’, because many Americans consider the term ‘toilet’ indelicate.
• The British ‘sitting room’ sounds rather old fashioned to American ears, as they always call it a ‘living room’.
• The word ‘cupboard’ is used with different meanings in the two varieties: the British ‘cupboard’ can be used to storey all sorts of things whereas Americans use it only in kitchens. Americans would be very surprised to be told to put their clothes in a ‘cupboard’, since they use a ‘closet’.
•  Many differences concern kitchen utensils. Americans use ‘can openers’, ‘electrical outlets’, ‘dishpans’, ‘stoves’, and ‘waste baskets’, while British use ‘tin openers’, ‘power points’, ‘washing up bowls’, ‘cookers’, and ‘waste bins’. To wash and dry dishes, American uses the expression ‘to do the dishes’, while in British it is ‘to do the washing up’. Most furniture items have the same names in the two varieties; however, the MED Dictionary reports that some differences can create great confusion:
• To an American a bureau is a piece of furniture with drawers for holding things such as towels or items of clothing; British use the expression ‘a chest of drawers’.
• To a British a bureau is a piece of furniture, but with a top part that opens and makes it a writing table. An American would call this a writing table.
•  In American English, a cot is a light narrow bed that can be folded up, for example for camping. In fact, the British call this type of be a camp bed. To speakers of British English a cot is a small bed for a baby with tall sides that have bars, something Americans refer to as a crib.

Moreover, tourists have to deal with level numbering differences in the US and UK. In many countries, Great Britain included, the expression ‘first floor’ is used to indicate the level above the entrance floor, while the entrance level is designated as the ‘ground floor’. American usage labels the entrance level as the ‘first floor’, thus ‘ground floor’ is not considered. To adapt to tourists or people used to the British level system, many American buildings now use the expression ‘ground floor’ or another name for the entrance level.

2.1.2. Transport 

 Many differences between American and British English are related to transport vocabulary.

                                               

                     Whereas in British people take a ‘couch’, Americans say they would take a ‘bus’; Americans take ‘subways’, whereas in Great Britain this means of transport is called an ‘underground’. Americans would go by train or ‘railroad’, which is the American equivalent of the British term ‘railway’. ‘Baggage car’, ‘cafè car’, ‘one-way ticket’,’ round.-trip ticket’, ‘railroad’ are the American equivalents of ‘baggage van’, ‘buffet car’, ‘single ticket’, ‘return ticket’, and ‘railway carriage’ in British.

                          Other vehicle differences are the American ‘motorcycle’, ‘station wagon’, and ‘truck’ against the British ‘motorbike’, ‘estate (car)’, and ‘lorry’. Reminding that British people also drive on the opposite side to Americans, in the UK, the term ‘outside lane’ refers to the higher speed passing lane closest to the centre of the road, while the term ‘inside lane’ refers to the lane closer to the edge. In American English these terms have the opposite meaning.  As regards other street objects, ‘parking meter’, ‘pedestrian’, and ‘traffic’ are shared by the two varieties. However, Americans use the terms ‘crosswalk’, ‘gas station’, ‘overpass’, ‘sidewalk’, and ‘stoplight’ and British ‘pedestrian crossing/zebra crossing’, ‘petrol station’, ‘flyover’, ‘pavement’, and ‘traffic lights’ respectively, only to mention the most evident differences.

2.1.3. Shopping

 Going shopping might be quite confusing in the two countries if some lexical differences are unknown.

o   First of all, the nouns ‘shop’ and ‘store’ are used somewhat differently in American and  British English. In general, Americans use ‘store’ the way British use 'shop’. Most British              ‘shops’ would be called ‘stores’ in the US where the noun ‘shop’ is more often used to mean        a small retail establishment, such as an ‘antique shop’ or a ‘gift shop’.

o   British go to the ‘chemist’s’, while Americans go to a drugstore’ or a ‘pharmacy’, where they      can buy medicines and other items, such as body care products, stationary, and cigarettes.

o   To describe clothing, many differences have a on to one equivalent, such as the American           ‘bathrobe’, ‘nightgown’, ‘sneakers’, and ‘tuxedo’, which are ‘dressing gown’, ‘nightdress’,                 ‘trainers’, and ‘dinner jacket’ in British.

o   In other cases, the same word has a different meaning: the word ‘jumper’ exists in both American and British English, but British use the word ‘jumper’ for knitted clothing that     covers the top half of the body whereas for Americans it is a sleeveless dress worn over shirt         or a blouse.

o   The British ‘vest’ is an American ‘undershirt’, and what Americans mean with ‘vest’, is the           British ‘waistcoat’.

2.1.4. Food

 Recipes demonstrate how many differences in food and cooking terminology there are. 

o   For instance, a British ‘biscuit’ is an American ‘cookie’, and American ‘biscuit’ is a British                 ‘scone’.

o   Also some fruit and vegetables terms are different, such as the American ‘eggplants’ and                 ‘blueberries’ which in British are ‘aubergines’ and ‘bilberries’.  

Furthermore, American and British use the same words for most categories of meat as beef, pork, and lamb; the differences are for specific meat dishes, as the MED explains: For example, what the British call a joint (a large piece of meat, such as a leg of lamb or loin of pork, cooked in an oven and eaten with potatoes and other vegetables) is known as a roast in the U.S. Most Americans would be shocked to hear that the Sunday joint is a British family tradition. To Americans, a joint is not something that people roast, but something that they smoke: a marijuana cigarette. 

 Some others are ‘chop’, ‘ground meat’, and ‘tenderloin steak’ which in British are called ‘cutlet’, ‘minced meat’, and ‘fillet steak’. As regards seafood, what Americans call ‘shrimp’ are ‘prawns’ in Britain; other examples are the American ‘canned tuna’, ‘craw-fish’, and ‘fish sticks’ that for the British are ‘tinned tuna’, ‘crayfish’, and ‘fish fingers’.

2.1.5. Numbers

 Finally, the system of saying and writing numbers is a little different. 

•  The British insert ‘and’ before the tens and the units, as in ‘two hundred and fifty ’. Americans are more likely to read numbers like 1,456 as ‘fourteen fifty-six’ instead of ‘one    thousand, four hundred and fifty-six’, unless they are referring to years.

Also monetary vocabulary is often said differently. 

•  For amounts over the dollar, an American would say both dollars and cents or drop both        denominations as in ‘three twenty’ or ‘three dollars and twenty cents’ for $3.20. In Great       Britain the form ‘three pounds twenty’ is the most heard.

• The British slang form ‘quid’ is a sort of equivalent of the American ‘buck’ for the round           amounts, as in 50 ‘quid’, or fifty ‘bucks’. Nowadays we are assisting to a certain change, as    the American variety is not taking over, but at least resulting more known by British English      speakers as a result of globalization and the spread of new media. 
•  

The MED has noticed that: While American and British English show some differences in vocabulary related to shopping and other common activities, all evidence suggests that the two varieties of the language are moving closer together. The movement is mostly eastward. Each year, more words that were once exclusively American are found in the spoken and written language of both Britain and the U.S.

(Source:https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=15&ved=2ahUKEwjq1Me68_TfAhVIFHIKHbyRDwIQFjAOegQIBRAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Felies.rediris.es%2FLanguage_Design%2FLD15%2FLD15_03_Scotto_di_Carlo.pdf&usg=AOvVaw0G53atXFjzErHpp75ocjRY)