The UK and the USA were once referred to by George Bernard Shaw as "two countries divided by a common language". To this day, Brits and Americans continue to misunderstand and confuse each other. Thankfully, Grammar Check has put together a handy infographic comparing 63 British words to their American counterparts, and it needs to go viral for the sake of communication.
A lot has changed since British explorers brought a funny language called English to the New World over 400 years ago, and the USA is quite proud of the unique accents and identities they've carved out for themselves. The trickiest part is the vocabulary, as some British words came to take on different meanings in the States, while others never made it over the pond to begin with. Have a look at some of the best examples below, and check out a similar diagram from the US State Department here.
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I'm happy to be American, but it really is ridiculous that we call it soccer when the rest of the world says football, or futball, or all the other variations I heard during my years of travel.
ALUMINIUM! WORCESTERSHIRE! MAGDELAIN COLLEGE OXFORD! It's a minefield of vocabular snobbery that makes the unique difference. Proud to be British but hate the pretensions!
The word crisp moves from the back of your mouth to the front as you say it
It is a description based on the fact the fabric has a "nap" ie fibres that stick up but in the case of this material don't lay in a certain direction & doesn't have the meaning tied to hair & race that it does in the US (at least that I'm aware of). When I moved to the USA. I was very confused the first time I heard someones hair described as nappy.
In the UK you have pubs and bars...they're just slightly different things!
This one isn't right really... it will be called something different by almost every other person!
A wardrobe is a stand alone piece of furniture and closets are built in. At least where I'm from.
WAIT YOU GUYS SAY ANTI-CLOCKWISE I hate to be that American but wow I never knew that
But Jello is a trademarked name. Oddly enough, so are Band-Aid and Kleenex
UK overalls would be work clothes covering the body including the arm. Hence 'over all'.
Tube or Underground in the UK and really only the London one is called the tube.
Car comes from carriage, used to carry. But now we only call one type of thing a car. So, I suppose parking lot would be more modern. In Australia though, it's still car park.
In the UK & Ireland we differentiate between a Truck and a Lorry, the image above is of a Lorry but the difference is that a Lorry can never detach its trailer where as a truck can and is usually much bigger than a lorry.
In Philippines we use Flyover for vehicles and Overpass as another term for footbridge
As an American, whenever I hear about a car's bonnet, I think of a VW donning a frilly nursery hat.
Tire in U.K. Means to be tired, sleepy exhausted. Different spelling very different meaning. Same as - are u shore? Would be wrong. Seashore. And are you sure sure.
In the UK you'd only call it a yard if it had some sort of hard surface - stone or paving. If it's mostly plants, it's a garden. Or in my case, I have a jungle :D
I heard "barking mad" in a Cary Grant movie I once saw. I thought they made it up for the movie, but then I heard it somewhere else and realized it was a British expression.
I'd say (in the UK) tin of beans, but would throw away the empty can. Cans of beer though.
Generally railway refers to a company and the railroad refers to the actual tracks...or so we use it in Canada.
It's called a Zipper universally, but we thought it would be cool to shorten it to Zip, as in Zip it not Zipper it.
You've used a picture of a maid/cleaner which is confusing the issue a little. Binman/dustman applies to garbage collector...the people who come round in a big lorry to empty bins weekly/fortnightly.
Geez, hope they're not going to list all the spelling differences separately in this way. We could be here all night....
We don't have Freeways in the Uk. Just Motorways, A roads and B roads (all of which could have tolls on them, but there arn't that many toll roads (lol, we'd moan like hell). We're not that big a country compared to US, Canada or Australia. I actually thought they were just called Freeways in the US (probably because the dog in Hart to Hart was called Freeway because he was found on the freeway. Geez, I'm showing my age now, lol).
So like, I'm from Canada and i was reading through these going, "yup, more like like Britain here", and then "yup, more like America here". Were there any Australians doing this too?
Yes, I'm from Australia and our English is more closely related to English as its spoken in England but being in a global world, there are some American English creeping into our vernacular than there used to be.
Load More Replies...So like, I'm from Canada and i was reading through these going, "yup, more like like Britain here", and then "yup, more like America here". Were there any Australians doing this too?
Yes, I'm from Australia and our English is more closely related to English as its spoken in England but being in a global world, there are some American English creeping into our vernacular than there used to be.
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