CanyoutellthedifferencebetweenBritishandAmericanEnglish?Checkoutthesewords,thentelluswhichvarietyofEnglishyoutendtousebyleavingacommentbelow.
Words
British-American
1.Pavement–sidewalk
2.Rubbish–trash
3.Football–soccer
4.Biscuit–cookie
5.Sweets–candy
6.Tube–subway
7.Fullstop–period
8.Autumn-fall
9.Flat–apartment
10.Lift–elevator
11.Chips–fries
12.Petrol–Gas
13.Motorway–highway
14.Jam–jelly
15.Cinema–movietheatre
16.Trousers–pants
17.Carpark–parkinglot
18.Jumper–sweater
19.Holiday–vacation
20.Postcode–zipcode
Discuss
Overthepast400years,theformofthelanguageusedintheUnitedStates–andthatusedintheUnitedKingdomandtherestoftheBritishIsleshavedivergedinmanyways,leadingtothedialectsnowcommonlyreferredtoasAmericanEnglishandBritishEnglish.Differencesbetweenthetwoincludepronunciation,grammar,vocabulary,spelling,punctuation,idioms,formattingofdatesandnumbers,andsoon.Asmallnumberofwordshavecompletelydifferentmeaningsbetweenthetwodialectsorareevenunknownornotusedinoneofthedialects.
ThisdivergencebetweenAmericanEnglishandBritishEnglishoncecausedGeorgeBernardShawtosaythattheUnitedStatesandUnitedKingdomare"twocountriesdividedbyacommonlanguage";asimilarcommentisascribedtoWinstonChurchill.Likewise,OscarWildewrote,"WehavereallyeverythingincommonwithAmericanowadays,except,ofcourse,thelanguage."