English is English. Or is it? While many students worldwide embark on the task of learning English for various reasons, one must be cognizant of what type of English he or she is learning, specifically American or British English. While the differences are small enough that you will be generally understood wherever you go, they are also great enough to cause some confusion and merit some attention. This is a study not so much of the grammatical differences between the two styles, but rather an examinations of the quirks, nuances, irregularities, and colloquialisms inherent in the two styles.

With some exposure, learners and speakers of English will notice that the regional differences and dialects are far greater within British English than they are within American English (Wikipedia). Due to today’s mass communication and the initial, highly heterogeneous settling of the “American West” in the nineteenth century, American English dialects experienced, over time, a “mixing” and “leveling” which makes the speech more homogeneous today (Ibid). Conversely, there was a much longer history of dialect development within Great Britain and, as such, dialects today can very greatly not only across borders (Scotland, England, Wales, etc.), but also regionally within borders (Ibid.)

Regional, dialectical differences aside, today’s greatest difference between the American and British English forms seems to be vocabulary choice (Beare). Firstly, this entails having different vocabulary words for the same object. For example, in America we say “hood” and “trunk” to refer to the front and back compartments of a car whereas in the British Isles these are referred to as the “bonnet” and the “boot” (Beare). Similarly, Americans say “napkin” and British people “serviettes”. Furthermore, there are British words for which there is no American equivalent, per say, as well as American words for which the English seem to lack an exact equivalent. The British word for two weeks is a fortnight, but Americans would just say “two weeks”. Along those lines, Americans have the word “flashlight” which is different from a stick with fire, which we call a torch. British people call what we call a flashlight a torch.

Further confusion can arise through further pronunciation and definitional differences. There are some words which, although they are spelled and pronounced the same, have different meanings. One example is the word “mean” which in America could mean angry while in Great Britain it could mean frugal (Beare). There are also words which have different spellings but the same pronunciation and meaning. Examples of such words are color vs. colour, favor vs. favour, and tire vs. tyre (American vs British). Compounding the idiosyncrasies is the reverse, words with the same spelling but different forms of pronunciation. This can be glimpsed with words like leisure, can’t, and schedule (Ibid).

Nevertheless, some continuity and patterns between the two forms of English arise with a little study. In terms of spelling changes, there is a pattern of transformation. Words that end in “or” in American English change their endings to “our” in British English. Similarly, words that end in “ize” in American English change their endings to “ise” (Beare).

One final discrepancy between the two forms of English is the way in which the date is written. In America the date is written in the order of month/day/year. In Great Britain this becomes day/month/year. This is just one further example of the slight, yet potentially confusing differences which exist in one “common language”.

And so, it appears that English is not necessarily just English. While great regional differences still exist within British English, American English is rather homogeneous. The greatest differences we have seen involve vocabulary choices from one side of the Atlantic to the other along with slight, accompanying spelling and pronunciation differences. As an American you might get some strange glances or quirky stares while using your form of English in Great Britain, and vise versa, but on the whole, the two forms of English are mutually intelligible.

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Works Cited

"American and British English Differences." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. March

25, 2007. Online. Available

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_
British_English_differences#_ref-5.

March 26, 2007.

"American vs British English - Basic differences and Influences of Change." About:

English as a Second Language. February 25, 2007. Online. Available

Beare, Kenneth. "Differences Between American and British English." About: English as

a Second Language. November 6, 1998. Online. Available

Tandy Hoffmann