Comparison of American and British English

For the Wikipedia editing policy on use of regional variants in Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Manual of style § National varieties of English.

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:

• British English (BrE) is the form of English used in the United Kingdom. It includes all English dialects 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, word use and accents vary not only among the countries of the United Kingdom, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, but also within these individual countries. Received Pronunciation (RP) refers to a way of pronouncing Standard English that is actually used by about two percent of the UK population. It remains the accent upon which dictionary pronunciation guides are based, and for teaching English as a foreign language. It is referred to colloquially as "BBC English", "Oxford English" and "the Queen's English", although none of these actually use or require it exclusively.

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.

Historical background

The English language 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 dialects now occasionally referred to as American English and British English. Differences between the two include pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary (lexis), spelling, punctuation, idioms, formatting of dates and numbers, 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.

Grammar

Nouns

Formal and notional agreement

In BrE, collective nouns 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.

Verbs

Verb morphology

See also: English irregular verbs

• 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 Pronunciation. 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 grave, 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 verbs 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 Stylebook 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 idiolects. 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 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 have just arrived home." / "I just arrived home."
  • "I have 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 necessity. 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 mood (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 future "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 exists in AmE, with a different meaning: to catch somebody 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 monotransitive in BrE, monotransitive or ditransitive in AmE (provide sb with sth/provide somebody something).
• 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 gerund 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 legislators 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 1990 to Disability Discrimination Act 1995.

The definite article

• 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), and at/in college (for students). Among this group, BrE has in hospital (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 English 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".

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 Street. 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 correct 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 prices 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, thugs 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 River) whereas for British rivers it comes before (as in the River Thames). Exceptions in BrE include the Fleet River, which is rarely called the River Fleet by Londoners outside official documentation, and also where the river name is an adjective (the Yellow River). Exceptions in the US are the River Rouge and the River Raisin, both in Michigan and named by the French. This convention is mixed in some Commonwealth nations, where both arrangements are often seen.
• In BrE speech, some descriptions of offices do not become titles (President Roosevelt, but Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister and Mr Jones, the team's coach), while they do 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 Minnesota and parts of the adjoining states. These parts of the United States have high concentrations of both Scandinavian and German American populations. It is similar to 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 Ireland. 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 verbs 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 Dictionary in 1897 suggested a semantic distinction for adverbs, with -wards having a more definite directional sense than -ward; subsequent authorities such as Fowler 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 cricket; often netball; 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, golfer, bowler (in Ten-pin bowling and in Lawn Bowls), and shooter. AmE appears sometimes to use the BrE form in baller as slang for a basketball player, as in the video game NBA Ballers. 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 <verb><noun>, sometimes AmE favours the bare infinitive where BrE favours the gerund. Examples include (AmE first): jump rope/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.

Divergence

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, 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. However, the standard AmE term "soccer", a contraction of "association (football)", 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.

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 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.

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 "autumn" is obsolete. Although found often from Elizabethan literature to Victorian literature, continued understanding of the word is usually ascribed to its continued use in America.
• In the UK the term period for a full stop is not used; in AmE the term full stop is rarely, if ever, used for the punctuation mark. For example, Tony Blair 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.

Education

School

Main articles: Primary education, Secondary education in the United Kingdom, and Secondary education in the United States

The naming of school years in British (except Scotland) and American English

Age range	British English			American English
	Name	Alternative name	Syllabus	Name	Alternative name
1–4	Preschool (optional)
	Nursery	Playgroup	Foundation Stage 1	Day care	Preschool
3–5	Primary school
	Reception	Infants reception	Foundation Stage 2	Pre-kindergarten	Pre-K
5–6	Year 1	Infants year 1	Key Stage 1	Kindergarten
				Elementary school
6–7	Year 2	Infants year 2		1st grade
7–8	Year 3	Junior 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			Middle school	Junior high school
	Year 7	First form	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	High school
				9th grade	Freshman year
15–16	Year 11	Fifth form		10th grade	Sophomore year
16–17	Sixth form (currently optional, until 2013)			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 schools 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.

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 Harvard."

"She studied biology at Harvard."

"She concentrated in biology at Harvard."

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, at some universities, the equivalent of the BrE lecturer is instructor, especially when the teacher has a lesser degree or no University degree, though the usage may become confusing according to whether the subject being taught is considered technical or not. Also, it is not to be confused with Adjunct Instructor/Professor.) 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.) 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.

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 roads. 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:

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

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 Hill", 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 numbering 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.

Units and measurement

Numbers

See also: Names of numbers in English

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, 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.

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-twenty or two pounds twenty would be most common.
• 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 pounds and 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 informally 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 24⁄100 (using this solidus 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 00⁄100 or three and no⁄100 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 sign in BrE always refers to the currency symbol £ whereas in AmE pound sign means the number sign, which the British call the hash symbol, #. (From the 1960s to the 1990s the British telephone company, the GPO and its successors Post Office Telecommunications and British Telecom 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 nickel, dime, and quarter 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 decimalisation. Formal coin names such as such as half crown (2/6) and florin (2/-), as well as slang or familiar names such as bob (1/-) and tanner (6d) 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 (2/-) and thrupenny bit (3d), 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 problem. 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 alphanumerical 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 that week, while "Not until Thursday next" would refer to the next week.

Time

The 24-hour clock (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 Appalachian 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 kilograms.

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

Main article: Holiday 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, Yule, 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.

Idiosyncratic differences

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:

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.

Writing

Spelling

Main article: American and British English spelling differences

Before the early 18th century English spelling was not standardized. Different standards became noticeable after the publishing of influential dictionaries. 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.

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.
• Quoting: 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 Economist and The Times recommending the same usage as in the US, whereas other authoritative sources, such as The King's English, 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 commas 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 press. 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 Manual, the University of Chicago's The Chicago Manual of Style, 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 Press' The AP Guide to Punctuation and the Canadian Public Works' The Canadian Style). It also makes the process of copy editing easier, eliminating the need to decide whether a period or comma belongs to the quotation.

Hart's Rules 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 File, 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 capitalization 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 nouns, 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 broadsheets (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."

Keyboard layouts

See: British and American keyboards

See also

• American and British English pronunciation differences
• English languages
• International English
• Australian English
• Canadian English
• Classification of Germanic languages
• Dissertation on the English Language (book)
• English language in England
• English orthography
• General American
• Hiberno-English
• Indian English
• List of dialects of the English language
• Midlands English
• Plain English
• Regional accents of English
• Scottish English
• Scots language
• South African English
• Southern American English
• British English in Southern England
• Standard English
• The Chicago Manual of Style
• Philadelphia dialect
• Yinglish
• Welsh English

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 University)
• 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