AMERICAN AND BRITISH ENGLISH COMPARISON

Between the 16th and 17th centuries, the British actually brought the language to the Americas when they arrived there by sea. The spelling at the time was not standardized. How these words appeared was finally codified with the publication of the first dictionaries. The dictionary was put together by academics in London for the UK. The lexicographer at the time was a man by the name of Noah Webster in the United States. To demonstrate the American version’s cultural independence from its mother nation, it is said that he altered the words’ spelling so that it differed from the British version.

• • Vocabulary. The vocabulary differences between American and British English are the most obvious. Numerous common terms have diverse meanings. For instance, Americans refer to a car’s front end as the “hood” while the British refer to it as the “bonnet”. While the British have “holidays”, or “hols”, Americans go on “vacation”. Londoners live in “flats”, while New Yorkers reside in “apartments”. There are a lot more instances than we can list here. The majority of Americans and Britons, fortunately, can typically infer the meaning from the context of a sentence.

• Collective nouns. The two versions of English have a few grammatical differences. Start by looking at group nouns. Collective nouns are used to describe a group of people. Collective nouns in American English are singular. For instance, the terms “staff” and “band” denote groups of workers, musicians, and athletes, respectively. “The band is good”, as they would say in America. However, collective nouns in British English can be either singular or plural. The phrase “The team are playing tonight” or “The team is playing tonight” may be heard from a British speaker.

• Auxiliary verbs. Auxiliary verbs are another area where American and British English differ grammatically. Helping verbs and auxiliary verbs are verbs that contribute to the formation of a grammatical function. They “assist” the main verb by providing time, modality, and voice details. Should is a future tense phrase frequently used by the British. For instance, “I’m going to go home immediately.” Though they are familiar with its meaning, Americans seldom ever use the word in speech. “I’ll go home now” is probably how Americans would phrase it. A British person might ask, “Shall we go now?” whereas an American would likely respond, “Should we leave right away?”

• Past Tense. In American English, the word “learn” is used in the past tense. There are two options for British English: “learned” and “learnt”. The same principle holds true for “burned” and “burned”, “leaned” and “leaned”. British typically use the “-t” ending, while Americans typically use the “-ed” ending. Americans frequently employ the “-en” ending for various irregular verbs in the past participle form. For instance, a British person would say, “I have never got caught,” as opposed to an American who could say, “I have never gotten caught.” In the past tense, Americans use both got and gotten. The British just used got.

• Tag Question. A grammatical construction known as a tag question converts a statement into a question. For instance, “Isn’t the whole thing unfortunate?” or “Do you not like him?” The tag contains a pronoun and the verb “be”, “have”, or “do” that goes with it. People are more likely to respond and concur with the speaker when tags are used. Although less frequently than Brits, Americans also employ tag questions.

• Spelling. Between British and American English, there are countless minor spelling variations. This can be credited to American lexicographer Noah Webster. The dictionary that bears Webster’s name may be a familiar name to you. Webster sought to spell words as they appeared on the page. Another way that America demonstrated its independence from England was through spelling reform. Words spelled with the American spelling, such as color (from hue), honor (from honour), and labor (from labour). To make the spelling of these terms correspond to the pronunciation, American eliminated the letter “u”.

That’s the difference between British and American English. British and American English have far more similarities than differences. We hope with this information you can understand more about each style! 

References:

Differences between British and American English. (n.d.). Britishcouncil. https://www.britishcouncilfoundation.id/en/english/articles/british-and-american-english

The differences in British and American spelling. (2021, February 4). Oxford International English Schools. https://www.oxfordinternationalenglish.com/differences-in-british-and-american-spelling/

VOA Learning English. (2017, September 8). Six Differences Between British and American English. VOA. https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/six-difference-between-britsh-and-american-english/3063743.html