Article: English GB, English USA

How different are British English and American English?

British cityscape
American cityscape

Professional people and big corporations on both sides of the Atlantic speak and write the same English. I sometimes listen to American TV and completely forget that they have an accent; or I read a book and get to page 150 before I see a word like "gotten" and realise that the writer is American.

So what is standard English?

That's a very controversial question, so I'll start with a different question. Does international English exist? Yes, definitely. It's the language of international study, sport, science, engineering, medicine, law, diplomacy and politics - and friends - on both sides of the Atlantic.

International English is the language any English-speaking person uses at home and at work, but minus the dialect. When I say dialect, I mean the words and pronunciation that show that the speaker is part of a particular sub-culture. In Britain, the biggest cultural language differences are between social classes; in America the biggest differences are regional.

Is there a big difference between British English and American English? Well, yes and no. A university professor at Oxford or Cambridge sounds almost identical to a university professor at Harvard or UCLA. Professional people (lawyers, doctors, scientists, business executives) also sound very similar on both sides of the Atlantic.

British and American English

If the English of professional people in Britain and America is almost identical, the biggest problem is not accent or vocabulary or spelling; it's deciding what to call this type of English. Some experts say that its real home in Britain is the university of Oxford, and that the real home of standard American English ("general American") is the Midwest. Any name will upset somebody... I'm going to call it Standard English.

There are some small differences between the British and American kind. Most of the differences are in pronunciation - the way we say things. You can listen to these differences online with the Oxford Learner's Dictionaries:

Pronouncing O: When a Brit says got, thought, job and Scotland, an American says a longer vowel sound: "gaat", "thaat", "jaab" and "Scaatland". In the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) the word got is spelled gɒt for British English and ɡɑːt for USA English.

Pronouncing R: American English is "rhotic", which means that Americans say the letter "r" more than most British people. You can hear this in words like world, large, learn, heard, bird, art, Superman, wonder and attorney. For art and Superman, most British people say aht and Soopaman, but when an American says these words you can hear the "r" sound; most Americans say art and Sooprman. The IPA spellings for learn and heard are lɜːrn and hɜːrd for American English, but lɜːn and hɜːd for British English.
British people say the "r" if it's followed by a vowel. For example, "her orange hat" or "put the car in the garage". Most British and American speakers sound about the same when they say "He's gathering opinions", because the "r" is followed by a vowel; but when a British speaker says "So I gather." there's no "r" sound.
For a good audio example, go to the Oxford Learner's Dictionaries website to listen to Britsh and American voices saying attorney.

Pronouncing T: The "t" sound in American English is softer. Where a Brit says matter, better and interesting, a lot of Americans say "madder", "bedder" and "inneresting". In the USA, Little Italy often becomes Lidl Iddli. Americans are more likely to use "reduced forms" such as "gonna" instead of "going to". "Want to" becomes "wonna", "have to" becomes "hafta" and "what do you" becomes "woddaya". You'll sometimes see "gonna" and "wanna" in American writing.

Pronouncing U: There are four ways to say the letter "u".
First, there's the basic "u" sound of words like but, butter, cup, duck, just, justice, lunch, must and run. In the International Phonetic Alphabet that sound is ʌ, so but is bʌt. That's the same in British and American English.
Second, there's the short "u" sound of words like put, push and pull - and book, hook, foot, stood and hood. In the International Phonetic Alphabet that sound is ʊ, so put and book are pʊt and bʊk. That's also the same in British and American English.
Third, there's the long "oo" sound. Some words with "u" sound like the words boot, who and school. For example, blue, clue, cruise, dude, juice, June, July, juniper, lubricant, lunatic, nude, plume, prune, rude, rule, ruse, too, true and truth. In the International Phonetic Alphabet that sound is uː. That's also the same in British and American English.
Finally, there's the long "yoo" sound. For example, cute is always pronounced kyoot. In the International Phonetic Alphabet that sound is juː so the IPA spelling of cute is kjuːt. This time, there's a difference between British and American English. Let's start with some words that sound the same on both sides of the Atlantic: beauty, cube, cubic, cue, cute, fugue, feud, few, fuel, funeral, huge, humid, humour, mule, music, mute, puny, queue, refuse, rescue, reputation, review, revue, steward, tune, use, value, view. So, everybody pronounces the word cubic with a "yoo" sound. The sound is not koobik, it's kyoobik.
Now for some words that sound different in British and American English. The difference is that British people say some words with a long "yoo" (juː) sound when most Americans say them with a long "oo" (uː). The word new is pronounced nyoo in Britain, but noo in the USA. Here are some more: assume, dual, due, duel, duke, dune, durable, duty, endure, enthusiasm, nuclear, obtuse, pneumatic, suit, stew, student, tube, tuna, tune, Tuesday.

There are British-American differences in stress. When a word in the English language has more than one syllable, one of the syllables is stressed more than the other. For example America, Britain, important, government, banana. The stress isn't always on the same syllable on both sides of the Atlantic. Here are some examples:

In Britain becomes In America
adult in Britain becomes adult in the USA
address in Britain becomes address in the USA
cigarette in Britain becomes cigarette in the USA
concrete in Britain becomes concrete in the USA
detail in Britain becomes detail in the USA
frontier in Britain becomes frontier in the USA
magazine in Britain becomes magazine in the USA

 

Let's use what we just learned about t and u to say the word duality. In Britain it's dyooality (djuː'æləti in the International Phonetic Alphabet). In the USA it's dooalidy (duː'ælədi in the IPA). And let's try the word attitude: In Britain it's attityood; in the USA it's additood.

For French words that are now part of the English langage, British and American speakers often put the stress in different places, or use a different vowel sound. For example opera, ballet, baroque, bourgeois, brochure, cliché, cordial, croissant, agile, fragile, futile, missile, moustache, premier, première, route and schedule. (Again, you can listen to these differences online with the Oxford Learner's Dictionaries.) You will also hear different pronunciations for a lot of place names including Iraq and Moscow.

There's another little difference with the word herb. In Britain there are only four words that start with a silent h (hour, honour, honest and heir) but in the USA there are five. Brits say "a herb" but many Americans say "an 'erb". "A herbivore" in British English often becomes "an 'erbivore" in American English.

There are some small differences in grammar. The verb to get has one past participle in Britain, but in the USA it has two. In England we say "I get, I got, I have got" but in the USA it is often "I get, I got, I have got or I have gotten". The verbs to dive and to sneak have a different past tense across the Atlantic. In England, we always say "I dive, I dived" and "I sneak, I sneaked" and so do Americans in formal writing. When they speak, though, Americans often say "I dive, I dove" and "I sneak, I snuck".

There are differences between British and American spelling (orthography). They're not very important, except that it makes Boolean searches on Google more complicated. I quite often see American spelling in text written by British people.

Difference: in Britain in the USA
-re or -er centre, theatre, litre center, theater, liter
-our or -or colour, honour, armour, favourite color, honor, armor, favorite
-ogue or -og catalogue, dialogue catalog, dialog
-lled and -lling
or -led and -ling		 cancelled, travelling canceled, traveling
-ise and -yse
or -ize and -yze		 recognise, organise, organisation, analyse recognize, organize, organization, analyze
-gramme or -gram programme, kilogramme, gramme (but telegram) program, kilogram, gram
-ce or -se offence, defence, pretence (but sense, dense, incense
and both licence and license)		 offense, defense, pretense, license (but fence and hence)
-oe or -e
-ae or -e		 foetal, oedema, oestrogen,
anaesthetic, aesthetic		 fetal, edema, estrogen.
anesthetic, esthetic (or aesthetic)

If you follow the rules in the table above, that will give you solutions for about 99% of spelling differences, but some individual words are also spelt differently in British and American English. Aluminium (UK) becomes aluminum (US); doughnut (UK) often becomes donut (US); moustache (UK) becomes mustache (US); tyre (UK) becomes tire (US); plough (UK) becomes plow (US); sceptic (UK) becomes skeptic (US); axe (UK) sometimes becomes ax (US); kerb (UK) becomes curb (US).
Anything based on sulphur (sulphate, sulphide, sulphuric, sulphonamide, sulpha drugs) is spelled with an f in the USA: sulfur, sulfate, sulfide, sulfuric, sulfonamide, sulfa drugs.

British English and American English are converging (becoming more similar) because we do a lot of business across the Atlantic.
We watch their films and they watch ours.
Hollywood and Microsoft influence British English, Britpop influences American speech.

American and British English have a few different words and expressions. Most of these are now used on both sides of the Atlantic, so it wasn't easy to write a sentence with real differences, but try this:

When an American goes on vacation in the fall, he leaves his second-floor apartment, goes down in the elevator, walks along the sidewalk to where his station wagon is parked by the curb, drives on the freeway, passes some trucks and semi-trailers, stops at a service station to get some gas and check under the hood, leaves his car in a parking lot at the mall, buys a best-seller in a bookstore, and goes to a bar for a beer.
When a Brit goes on holiday in autumn, he leaves his first-floor flat, goes down in the lift, walks along the pavement to where his estate car is parked by the kerb, drives on the motorway, overtakes some lorries and artics, stops at a filling station to get some petrol and check under the bonnet, leaves his car in a car park at a shopping centre, buys, a best-seller in a bookshop, and goes to a pub for a pint.

An American's mother is his mom, mine is my mum.
Americans say movie, Brits usually say film but sometimes movie.
In Britain, a mean person is somebody who doesn't like to spend money; in America a mean person is unkind or violent.
In Britain, a person who is really pissed has drunk far too much alcohol; in America, he's very angry.
On both sides of the Atlantic dumb means silent, or unable to speak, but its most common meaning in America is stupid, silly, idiotic, from the German words dumm and dummkopf.

SupermanIn the USA a man wears shoes, pants and a shirt, and trousers don't exist. In Britain, a man wears shoes, trousers and a shirt. In British English, pants are underwear, so the only person who wears his pants outside his trousers is Superman.

Usually, we know what they mean, and they know what we mean. No problem. Most of the words that really do cause misunderstandings relate to s*x. Here's one example that sometimes causes embarrassment in ordinary life: If you like to write or draw with a pen, you correct your mistakes with Tipp-Ex. If you write or draw with a pencil, you correct your mistakes with a rubber. But not in America, where a rubber is usually a male contraceptive; if you want to rub out a pencil mistake, you use an eraser.

There are some differences in technical English. For temperatures, Americans use the fahrenheit scale, but the British use the centigrade / celsius scale. Americans generally use feet, inches and fractions of an inch, but the British use metres, centimetres and millimetres. A British tonne or ton is 1000 kg; an American ton could be a short ton (907 kg), a metric ton (1000 kg) or a long ton (1016 kg). British people say aluminium aeroplane, Americans say aluminum airplane. You can make aircraft and boats from carbon fibre. Americans say carbon fiber or graphite (I have to say this: graphite is a particular form of carbon which is great for making pencils or dry lubricants, but definitely not for making aircraft or boats!). If a metal component exists in many different sizes, an American may say that the smallest size is "double ought". There's no British equivalent for that. American builders like to use something called Masonite. I'm not really sure what that is, unless it's oil-tempered hardboard. Cooking measures are different. American cooks usually measure flour, sugar and water with spoons, cups and fluid ounces. British cooks use millitres.

In Britain a buzzard is a bird like a small eagle and a creek is a small tidal channel in a marsh or estuary.
In America a buzzard is a bird like a vulture and a creek is a non-tidal small river.

For more differences, go to:
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_words_having_different_meanings_in_American_and_British_English

 

Anti-intellectualism

The big difference between British and American English isn't the accent, the spelling or the vocabulary. It's that American English has an anti-intellectual flavour. American politicians, writers and even academics are careful to speak and write non-intellectual English, using words and phrases like folksy (informal, unpretentious), down home (homely, rural, unpretentious), a whole bunch (a lot), from the get-go (from the start), snuck (sneaked), no-no (a definite no), feisty (lively, spirited), sassy (lively, spirited), bushwa (bourgeois), pesky (annoying), shoot (sh*t), critter (creature) and anyhoo (anyhow).

Isaac Asimov said "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been... Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread ... through our political and cultural life... the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge'." In other words, many Americans choose to be ignorant, and are likely to be quite aggressive about the opinions of scientists and other experts, especially on hot topics such as vaccination of children, where an 'anti-vaxxer' movement now exists. Enough Americans are suspicious of university education to make a crucial difference to American politics. Barack Obama was US President from 2009 to 2017 despite being a law professor, but Mitt Romney's supporters weren't happy in 2012 when they heard that he could speak French. And in 2016 Donald Trump was elected President, followed by endless newspaper articles about his "astounding ignorance", "wilful ignorance", etc. The Chicago Tribune commented, "Trump does not treat his ignorance as a flaw to be fixed. He treats it as a precious jewel to be protected".

If a lot of Americans are suspicious of education, naturally the people who do it will feel apologetic. Professor Jack Lynch is a specialist in 18th century English literature at Rutgers University in New Jersey. His English grammar guide for students is full of folksy language like wimpy (weak), dumb (stupid), blech, ick and yucky (disgusting, ugly), oh yeah, you ain't seen nothin' yet, get-out-of-jail-free card, don't get dogmatic on me, think that's a mess? and get down on your knees and thank the good Lord above.

There is an increasing cult of ignorance in England, but it's like racism, sexism and fascism - it's usually a secret. The only public figures I can think of in Britain who pretend they're not educated are stand-up comedians (a lot of them went to very expensive schools, but they like to keep that a secret) and populist, pro-Brexit politicians like Boris Johnson and Michael Gove. They both had very long, very expensive educations, but in public they're hostile to intellectuals and logic. When Gove was asked to name some economists who thought Brexit was a good idea, he said "People in this country have had enough of experts"; and when Johnson was asked what Brexit would do to British business, he said "F**k business".

More local differences

If professional people and big corporations in every English-speaking country use the same English, why do we think there's such a big difference between America and Britain? It's because there are huge differences between regions and cultural groups inside the USA. There are even cities that have their own accent and vocabulary. These differences are very visible from movies about people who have exciting lives and interesting accents (cowboys, gangsters, police, smugglers, forest rangers, firefighters, special forces, etc).

We all watch films about gangsters in Chicago and cowboys in New Mexico; we don't watch so many films about lawyers in Chicago and accountants in New Mexico!

Some British cities also have strong local accents, but if you're not British, you probably don't watch films with those accents.

New York and London are the biggest UK and US cities. So, are they the best places to hear British and American English? Not necessarily, because they both have some very strong regional accents. There's the Brooklyn / New Jersey ("Noo Joisey") accent, the Cockney accent in east London, and Estuary English in most of south London ("saaf Lundin") and south-east England.

The word "dead" is pronounced ded, dad and even dayed in different parts of America. And in the Scottish city of Glasgow, there's an old joke about the local accent: "The Sicilian Mafia makes you an offer you can't refuse, the Glasgow Mafia makes you an offer you can't understand".

 

Listen to regional accents (USA, UK, Australia):

 

Social class and English accents

Here's another very dangerous subject. Most countries have different social classes, or at least rich and poor who speak in different ways, but England has rules of its own.

George Bernard Shaw wrote about them in 1912, in his play "Pygmalion", which was made into the great 1964 musical film "My Fair Lady". The 1998 crime comedy "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" is in English from the East End of London, and it had to have subtitles for American audiences, with Londoners saying vis, vat, uvva instead of this, that, other; and fing, Erf, free instead of thing, Earth, three; anyfink instead of anything, joo instead of do you, bu'er instead of butter (that's called a "glottal stop") and saaf instead of south. Click on the link below to watch some of "Lock, Stock".

Class differences are specifically English. They don't exist, or not in the same way, in Wales or Scotland. Social class is not the impossible barrier it was 20 or 30 years ago, but it still restricts what an English person can do. It affects how he or she speaks and uses body language. It makes a big difference to the way people choose clothes and jewellery; wine, beer or spirits; cigarettes, e-cigarettes (vaping) or nothing; tattoos, piercings or nothing; what part of town to live in, where to go on holiday, what sports to do, what kind of dog to have, what name to give their baby, how to react to insults or aggression, whether to go to university, and which school to choose for their children. Even worse, it defines what job you can do.

Some people feel very strongly that young English people are now classless and have free choices. Personally, I doubt it. In about two seconds, anybody from England can tell you the class of any other English person by listening to their accent and vocabulary. Most English people still say they are either upper class, middle class or working class. About 60% of British people say they are working class.

There is one really strange thing about the English class system - it's not about money. If you're upper class and you lose all your money, you're still upper class. A middle class person can't just decide to be working class or upper class. David Beckham was born working class, and his football skills made him very rich. He's now David Beckham OBE, and he was nearly Sir David Beckham OBE, but he's still working class.

People from Russia and many other countries just don't understand the English class system. And of course, it's a bad system. It's almost impossible for intelligent, motivated, working-class people to become doctors, architects, lawyers, university lecturers, bankers, senior civil servants, executives in big companies, military officers or diplomats. This could by why so many doctors in Britain come from India, and why the British army did so badly in Iraq.

What does this mean for people who come to learn English in England? Well, their teacher will probably be middle class, but most of the people they meet will be working class. My students sometimes say to me, "Nicholas, are you English? You sound really different to our host family". I'm English, but I'm middle class. My parents were teachers and I was a lawyer for twenty years, so I speak the English of a middle class professional.

Some people say that teaching a single kind of English, especially the English of the professional middle classes, is "linguistic imperialism". They say we should encourage linguistic diversity. They want students to listen to people talking English with working class, minority or regional accents; to read books in non-standard English like Catcher in the Rye or A Clockwork Orange; or to learn different kinds of English such as Hinglish, which is a mixture of Hindi and English, widely used in India.

To me, the whole point of using English as an international language is that it is a single language.
I recommend Standard English (or whatever you want to call it) for international communication because:

  • It's the version of English that's already used by the professionals and major businesses of all English-speaking countries.
  • It's easier to understand than most dialects.
  • It's been the English of most English-language books for the last 200 years.
  • Because of this, it changes very slowly.
  • It has clear pronunciation.

 

Listen to social class accents (UK):