Difference between American

English(AmE) and British

English(BrE)
By
Dhinesh .V
Dileepan.V
Raj kumar.T
Abhinesh .P
 CAUSES FOR DIFFERENCE IN ENGLISH

First, British English changed itself, as a result of the

passage of time.

Secondly, English as spoken and written in America

acquired a character of its own reflecting the growth and
history of the American community.

Third, the interaction and the relations between Britain

and American changed themselves, which also affected
the history of English.
 British English since Elizabethan
times

Many words were borrowed from Latin & Greek.

Some of them are
Many modification were done in British English since
Elizabethan times.
eg,
Complex
Curriculum
Arena
Apparatus
Formula
 Some of the words borrowed by the
British while migrating to other
countries for trade, administration etc.
are
1. Bungalow (from India)
2. kangaroo (from Australia)
3. Pyjamas (from Persia)
4. Tattoo (from Polynesia)
5. Tea (from China)
American English since Elizabethan
times

The first task for English in America after

colonization was the need to find names to refer
to places, plants, animals, and customs which
existed in America only.
So they borrowed words from different countries
like France, India, Africa, Spain, Germany,
Netherland
 British v American English
American English (AmE)
is the form of English used
in the United States. It
includes all English
dialects used within the
United States of America.
General American (GA)
is considered to be
"standard" or "accentless"
6
British English (BrE) is
the form of English used in
the United Kingdom. It
includes all English
dialects used within the
United Kingdom.
In the United Kingdom,
Received Pronunciation
(RP) is considered
"standard
also called the Queen's
English and BBC English
 Contents
Differences in
1
1 Spelling

4
2 Grammar

3 Pronunciation

4 4 Writing

5 5 Vocabulary
 Spelling

Noah Webster

-our (BrE) -> -or(AmE)

colour -> color
labour -> labor
honour -> honor

-re (BrE) -> -er(AmE)

centre -> center
theatre -> theater
-ise
(BrE) -> -ize(AmE)
realise -> realize

-ce (BrE) -> -se (AmE)

defence -> defense

Etc.
Cheque -> check
Catalogue -> catalog
 Grammar

Nouns

British : collective nouns can take either singular or plural verb form.
American : collective nouns are usually singular in construction.

Ex1. a committee was appointed. (AmE, BrE)

the committee were unable to agree. (BrE)

Ex2. Spain are the champions. (BrE)

Spain is the champion. (AmE)
 Verbs - Verb morphology:
British
Present Past Past participle
saw sawed sawn
get got got
dream dreamt dreamt

American
Present Past Past participle
saw sawed sawed
get got gotten
dream dreamed dreamed
 Verbs - Use of tenses

BrE uses the present perfect to talk about an event in the recent
past and with the words already, just and yet. In American usage
these meanings can be expressed with the present perfect or
the simple past.

Ex1. BrE : Have you cleaned your teeth?

AmE : Did you clean your teeth?

Ex2. BrE : I've just got home.

AmE : I just got home.
 Presence or absence of syntactic
elements

Presence or absence of syntactic elements

1. AmE : go + bare infinitive
BrE : go and + bare infinitive
Ex. AmE : I'll go take a bath.
BrE : I'll go and have a bath.

2. AmE : come + bare infinitive

BrE : come and + bare infinitive
Ex. AmE : come see what I bought.
BrE : come and see what I've bought.
 Prepositions

American English British English

Play on a team Play in a team

On Churchill street In Churchill street

I'll talk with/to him I'll talk to him

Affiliate with Affiliate with/to

Different from/than Different from/to

 Miscellaneous grammatical
differences

1. In names of American rivers the word river usually comes after the
name whereas for British rivers it comes before.

Ex. Colorado River (AmE)

River Thames (BrE)

2. In BrE speech, titles may precede names but not descriptions of

offices, both normally precede names in AmE.

Ex. President Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister (BrE)

President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill (AmE)
3. AmE freely adds the suffix -s to day, night, evening, weekend, Monday,
etc. to form adverbs denoting repeated or customary action.

4. Singular attributives in one country may be plural in the other, and vice
versa.

American English British English

Drug problem Drugs problem
Sports section Sport section
Math Maths
 Pronunciation

1. Stressed vowels are often lengthened

more in American English than in British.
2. Most vowels are pronounced a little
differently in British and American English.
American English British English
[a:] in spot [o] in spot
[ae] in fast [a:] in fast
[d] in better [t] in better
[r] pronounced [r] sometimes silent
everywhere [] in privacy
[a] in privacy
 Writing

American usage is different from British in

certain ways when they write the letters
eg,
1) In dates, the month is put before the day
(March 21st 1970 = 3/21/1970), British
people put the day first ( 21st March,
1970).
2) After the salutation, Americans normally put a colon
(Dear Mr. Haekes:) or(informally) a comma (Dear Mr
Haekes,). In British English we either use no punctuation
or put a comma.
3) Gentlemen is used instead of Dear Sirs.
4) Yours faithfully is not used; common endings are
Sincerely, Sincerely yours, Yours sincerely or Yours truly.
5) Americans are often addressed (and sign their names)
with the first name in full, followed by the initial of a
middle name (Keith S. Parker). This is unusual in Britain.
6) Americans usually write Mr., Mrs., Ms., and Dr. with a full
stop
 Vocabulary
Differences

Lexical Social and Idiosyncratic

differences cultural differences differences
 Lexical differences

In BrE and AmE, some words and phrases may appear

with the same appearance,
however,
they actually have different meanings.
Examples,
1) flat in BrE apartment in AmE,
rubber eraser
2) civilisation in BrE civilization in AmE;
favourite favorite
Social and cultural differences

Take vocabulary of education between American and

British English for instance. These differences in the
area of education are mainly reflected on the fields of
school, university and some general terms. Here we
have got a table which is a comparison of the naming
of school years in British (except Scotland) and
American English
 Idiosyncratic differences

Some equivalent idioms have the same meaning

but show differences in appearance between BrE
and AmE
Examples,
1) BrE: a home from home
AmE: a home away from home
2) BrE: a drop in the ocean
AmE: a drop in the bucket
 Exercise 1

How many differences between

British and American English can you
find from reading these two short
texts?
 David (York, England)
I live in a flat with my mum, my dad and my
two older sisters. My hobbies are playing
football and watching films on TV, and my
favourite food is burger with chips. Theres a
good film on TV at the weekend, Titanic, but I
dont think Ill watch it because Ive already
seen it.
 David (New York, United States)
Id say New York is my favorite city in the States, and I
have a nice apartment here. However because my job is
so busy, the only time I can do stuff like go out to watch
a movie, or even just watch a soccer game on TV, is on
the weekend. Some days I dont even have time to eat
properly I just get chicken and fries from the place
next door. Id like to move back to Florida to be closer
to mom and my brother. I already visited them twice
this year, but its not enough
 Exercise 2

Complete the American English

words that are the equivalent of the
British English words in the table
below.
1. trousers = p _ nts
2. pavement = side _ _ lk
3. grey = gr _ y
4. autumn = f _ ll
5. queue = li _ _
6. rubbish = ga _ b _ ge
7. maths = m___
8. petrol = g _ so _ i _e
9. holiday = v _ _ _ _ ion
10. railway = rail _ _ _ d
11. mobile phone = _ _ ll phone
12.chemists = dr _ _ store
13. aeroplane = _ _ _ plane
14. cheque = ch _ _ k
15. programme = progr _ _
16. sweets = c _ _ dy
17. trainers = sn _ _ k _ _ s
18. metre = met _ _
19. lift = el _ _ a _ _ r
20. nappy = diap _ _
 Exercise 3

Look each of the sentences below and decide whether

they are written in British English (B), American English
(A), or if they would be the same in both types of
English (AB).
Then change the British English sentences into
American English, and the American English sentences
into British English.
1. My mom said shes not going to buy me new sneakers.
2. Summers there are quite warm, but in the autumn it starts
getting cold.
3. Dont eat too much candy its bad for your teeth.
4. Gray is such a sad color I prefer yellow or orange.
5. Eating lots of sugar isnt good for you.
6. You can pay by cheque or credit card.
7. The hotels up there on the left, about a hundred meters
past that drugstore.
8. The price of petrol is increasing.
9. He knows whats happening tonight because I already
spoke to him.
10. Lots of railways were built in the United States in the
nineteenth century.
Conclusion