British and American English


 * Some parts of this article use accent marks to indicate stress and pronunciation: for an explanation and table, see English spellings

Between British English and American English there are numerous differences in the areas of vocabulary, spelling, and phonology. This article compares the forms of British and American speech normally studied by foreigners: the former includes the accent known as Received Pronunciation, or RP; the latter uses Midland American English, which is normally perceived to be the least marked American dialect. Actual speech by educated British and American speakers is more varied, and that of uneducated speakers still more. Grammatical and lexical differences between British and American English are, for the most part, common to all dialects, but there are many regional differences in pronunciation, vocabulary, usage and slang, some subtle, some glaring, some rendering a sentence incomprehensible to a speaker of another variant.

American and British English both diverged from a common ancestor, and the evolution of each language is tied to social and cultural factors in each land. Cultural factors can affect one's understanding and enjoyment of language; consider the effect that slang and double entendre have on humour. A joke is simply not funny if the pun upon which it is based can't be understood because the word, expression or cultural icon upon which it is based does not exist in one's variant of English.

But it is not only humour that is affected. Items of cultural relevance change the way English is expressed locally. A person can say "I was late, so I Akii-Bua'd (from John Akii-Bua, Ugandan hurdler) and be understood all over East Africa, but receive blank stares in Australia. Even if the meaning is guessed from context, the nuance is not grasped; there is no resonance of understanding.  English is a flexible and quickly-evolving language; it simply absorbs and includes words and expressions for which there is no current English equivalent; these become part of the regional English.  American English has hundreds of loan words acquired from its immigrants: these can eventually find their way into widespread use, (spaghetti, mañana), or they can be restricted to the areas in which immigrant populations live. So there can be variances between the English spoken in New York City, Chicago, and San Francisco.  Thanks to Asian immigration, a working-class Londoner asks for a cuppa cha and receives the tea he requested. This would probably be understood in Kampala and New Delhi as well, but not necessarily in Boise, Idaho.

Cultural exchange also has an impact on language. For example, it is possible to see a certain amount of Americanization in the British English of the last 50 years. This influence is not entirely one-directional, though, as, for instance, the previously British English 'flat' for 'apartment' has gained in usage among American twenty-somethings. Similarly the American pronunciation of 'aunt' has changed during the last two decades, and it is considered classier to pronounce 'aunt' in the Commonwealth manner, even for speakers who continue to rhyme 'can't' and 'shan't' with 'ant'. Australian English is based on the language of the Commonwealth, but has also blended indigenous, immigrant and American imports.

Applying these same phenomena to the rest of the English-speaking world, it becomes clear that though the "official" differences between Commonwealth and American English can be more or less delineated, the English language can still vary greatly from place to place.

Musical notes
Most of the English-speaking world has crotchets, minims, semibreves and breves; American English calls these quarter notes, half notes, whole notes and double whole notes respectively.

Usage

 * The expression 'I guess', meaning 'I think', common in American English, is not used in British English.
 * In British, one goes 'to hospital' or 'to university'; in American, one goes 'to the hospital' or 'to the university'. However, one goes 'to college' in both.
 * American English generally prefers the singular for collective nouns: 'the government is considering' where British has 'the government are...' Thus, while 'the United States is topping the medals table', 'England are losing another Test Match'.
 * Toss and flip: in British English, one tosses a coin, but in American, it is usually flipped.
 * In British, an ass (rarely used nowadays) is a donkey or a fool; in American it is used instead of 'arse'.
 * In British, mad means crazy; in American angry.
 * In British, to wash up, or to do the washing up, is to do the dishes; in American however it is to wash oneself, where British English would say to wash one's face or have a wash.
 * What Americans call public schools are in Britain 'state schools', because 'public school' is the British term for a non-profit-making independent school, of which Eton is the most famous example.
 * 'Uptown' and 'downtown' are not widely used outside America. In British English, the former is rendered variously as 'in the suburbs' or 'on the outskirts', 'suburban' or 'residential', whichever is most appropriate. 'Down town' (two words) means to or in the city or town centre.
 * American English usually omits the 'and' in numerals: 'two thousand eight', where BrE has 'two thousand and eight'.
 * British English has 'UK' and 'US', American English 'U.S.' and 'U.K.'
 * A frying-pan can also be called a fry-pan or a skillet in American English.
 * In British, 'sport' is used as an uncountable noun where Americans talk of 'sports'.
 * In British, the 'first floor' is the first floor up, that is, above the ground floor, which is at street level. In American 'ground floor' may occasionally be used that way, but is more often figurative ('I got in on the ground floor', that is, at the beginning); it is the first floor that is at street level.
 * British English introduces a motion by tabling it; American postpones discussion by tabling it (that is, shelving it).
 * In British, 'bacteria' are plural (of 'bacterium'); in American, 'bacterias'...
 * Anymore' can be one word in American, and mean 'nowadays', even with a positive verb, in some varieties of AmE.
 * The situation regarding the use of 'trapezium' and 'trapezoid', whether referring to geometrical shapes or to bones, is complicated, and may be a question of idiolect.

The date
There are no hard and fast rules, but Americans tend to put the month before the day, so where Britons will more often say 'the thirtieth of July', an American might prefer 'July the thirtieth' or even simply 'July thirtieth', which one would hardly ever hear from a Briton. And so in writing, British English tends toward '30 July 2009' where American English usually has 'July 30, 2009', with an important comma.

Spelling
There are a number of spelling differences, some systemic (most notably in suffixes), and others in individual words.

Suffixes
The most striking differences between the spelling of American English and British English are in these suffixes. (The accents, which are not used in English, show stress and pronunciation: see English spellings for a table and English phonemes for a comparison with the International Phonetic Alphabet.)

-ise and -ize
Spellings with -ise are common in British English, but -ize has been for centuries the standard spelling of Oxford University Press (in contrast to Cambridge UP which uses either form at the option of the author) and there is some evidence to suggest that the -ise variant predominated in the UK only after 1945; thus, a spelling such as rêalize is not a good example of an 'American' spelling. The typical 'British' spelling reflects the French spelling from which these words were borrowed, though many originally came from Greek -ιζειν (-izein, with a zeta) via Latin. Some words, such as ádvertise, can supposedly only be spelt with -s- regardless of which side of the Atlantic they are used; however, spellings such as ádvertize are readily found nowadays.

ae and oe become e
In Latin and Greek words where British has ae or oe, American English usually has a solitary e: aesthétic is esthétic and foêtus fêtus.

Other spellings
Other individual spelling variations are:

Also: dôve is an American alternative to dîved as past tense of dîve, with the same spelling as the bird dòve; matinée (pronounced mátinèe) can have a written é accent in British English but no accent in American English.

The spelling dísc is preferred in Britain, except for computer disks, which are often spelt thus, while American prefers dísk, mainly confining the -c spelling to musical recordings. 

Initial capital letters
Champâgne *shám-pâin and Cointreau *quàn-trô have initial capitals in American English, as they are proprietary names; in British they both normally begin with a lower-case letter.

Pronunciation
The pronunciations discussed here are standard British (also called Received Pronunciation), which is associated with London and the Home Counties, and General American, heard in much of the United States and Canada.

Postvocalic r
Most strikingly, ‘postvocalic’ r, that is to say r after a vowel and in the same syllable, is silent in British English (thus merely marking the tense vowel, e.g. càrd, *càd, versus cád) but is pronounced in American English, in words like fàrm, càrve, cürve, swërve, fïrst, nŏrth, cŏrd, bïrth, ëarth. For some speakers of both, it is heard finally before a vowel in the next word: Mŷ càr ísn't réady (*rízzent) and even an invisible 'r' can be heard: relâtions betwêen Chîna(r)and Rússia; this however is less common in British English than it used to be.

In American English an r between two vowels can have an effect on the first vowel: márry can sound to British ears like Mãry; the e in véry can sound like a stressed schwa. British English has -ór- before a vowel but American English always has -ŏr-: British English órifice, órigin, fóreign, American English ŏrifice, ŏrigin, fŏreign. So móral can in American English sound to British ears like *mŏrrl.

British English úr is American English ür: British English coúrage, cúrrency American English coürage, cürrency, and British English òr is similarly altered: British English wòrry, American wörry.

à versus á
British English à is very often in American English a long á: cán’t, lást, fást, hálf, ráther, láther. But not in fàther, Coloràdo, Chicàgo (Sh-), pajàmas (British English pyjàmas) nor before r: fàrm, stàrve nor before -lm: càlm, pàlm, bàlm. And in some place names where British English has á, à is preferred by many Americans: one hears Milàn, Vietnàm, Ugànda, Srì Lànka and Ànkara, where BrE has Milán, etc.

-ary, -ory and -ony
The suffix -ary has a silent a in traditional British English, but in American English it sounds like an é: díctionãry, vocábulãry (*dícshənéry, vəcábyəléry). Indeed, featuring as it does in so much in pop music, the American English sound has become increasingly common in British English. (A similar example is Rôsemary, pronounced with a schwa a in BrE, but as if two words, Rôse Mãry, in American.) This is also the sound of both varieties in the equivalent adverbs: necessãrily (*néssəssérily).

Similarly in British English labóratory American English láboratŏry one o is stressed, rendering the other redundant: British English *labóratry, American English *lábratŏry. Similarly American cátegŏry, perémptŏry, stâtionéry and mónastéry; and also céremôny, álimôny and ácrimôny where British English has silence or schwa for o or e.

However, both varieties have a schwa or no sound for the a when the preceding syllable is the stressed one: suppleméntary (*súpləméntəry), compliméntary (*compləméntəry), but there is a difference where there is an o: AmE perémptŏry, BrE *perémptəry.

Differing e sound
British lêver is American léver; also in inflected forms: lêverage/léverage.

Similarly, evolûtion, ecológical, equiláteral, methane and pederasty have é- in American, ê- in British.

Short o
The [ɒ] (ó) vowel in British English hót does not exist for the vast majority of American English speakers, as it developed following the establishment of colonies in the New World (Australians do use it, since Australia was colonised later). American English may employ a variety of vowels in this position, depending on the phonological context and the speaker's regional background - [ɔ], [ɑ] or others in roughly the same area of the mouth, low and towards the back. They also make distinctions through the use of r, which for British English speakers are homophonous: cŏurt and cåught both use [ɔː], whereas American English speakers pronounce the r in the former: [kɔɹt] and [kɔt], for example. So also, American hót sounds like British heàrt, American póssible like British pàssable.

Short u and its o grapheme
The [ʌ] (ú) vowel in British English hút does not exist in American English: a stressed schwa is used instead, as it is also when the spelling is o, as in òther.

wh-
In words beginning wh- (apart from who, which is pronounced *hoô in both varieties) the h is ignored in British English but sounded before the w in American English, so that whén and whístle are pronounced *hwén and *hwíssle.

-ile
The suffix -île in British English is usually schwa in American English so that vólatîle is pronounced *vólatle, stérîle *stérral, frágîle *frájle and míssîle projectile *míssle, exactly like míssal prayers.

-duce
The suffix -dûce, as in redûce, indûce, prodûce verb and próduce noun is -dyoôss or -joôss in British English but can also be -doôss in American English.

-age
In three words from French with the suffix -age, where British English has an anglicised version, American English prefers to keep the French model, so á in the first syllable cedes its stress to the suffix (this is not to be confused with the cockney pronunciation of, for example, gárage as *garridge):

-t- and -d- between vowels
In American English -t- and -d- between vowels, of which the first vowel is stressed, are voiced and sound like -d-, though actually the sound is a [ɾ] (a 'tap' or 'flap', i.e. a very rapid contact just behind the top front teeth): lâter *lâ[ɾ]er, bútter *bú[ɾ]er, líttle *lí[ɾ]le, shoôting *shoô[ɾ]ing; British English speakers keep these as -t- or -d-. In American English twénty, the -t- blends with the -n- and disappears altogether. The 'flap' often appears as the Scottish English pronunciation of /r/. British English speakers often partially or completely 'glottalise' -t- where American English speakers produce a flap. This glottal stop [ʔ] is common in London English, for example: *bú[ʔ]er for bútter. It also often replaces /t/ at the end of a syllable: *ca[ʔ] for cát. The glottal stop, which is formed by the vocal cords briefly coming together to restrict airflow, is not a phoneme of English and so speakers will usually identify it as a variant of -t-.

-euse
This ending has two pronunciations in American English: in words such as American English 'masseûse, the final e can also be sounded: chanteûsê. British English has only the French-style massëuse, rhyming with the masculine plural form massëurs.

-ative
When preceded by an unstressed syllable, this ending has a secondary stress on the â in American, which is schwa in British, so American authŏritâtive is British authóritative, with a schwa, -tət-, and likewise British méditative is American méditâtive.

-rsion
Words with this ending, such as vërsion and excürsion, have the 'sh' sound in British and the 'zh' sound in American.

Other pronunciations
This table lists further examples of pronunciation differences. See the spelling section above for a table of items, such as kílomêtre/kilómeter, that are also spelt differently. The equals sign, =, means that the following word has the same pronunciation.