British and American English

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This article examines the differences between British and American English in the areas of vocabulary, spelling and phonology.

Vocabulary

Lexical differences are:

British American
autumn autumn/fall
car-park parking lot
chips (French or french) fries [1]
crisps potato chips
curtains drapes/draperies/curtains
film movie [2]
flat flat/apartment[3]
full stop period
(Association) football soccer
lift elevator
lorry/truck[4] truck
nappy diaper
off-licence liquor store
pavement sidewalk
road road/pavement
petrol gasoline/gas
rubber[5] eraser
condom condom/rubber (vulgar slang)
sweets candy
sweetshop candy store
pants underwear/underpants
trousers trousers/pants

Spelling

The most striking differences between the spelling of AmE and BrE are in these suffixes (the accents show stress and pronunciation, see English phonemes):

Notes

  1. Though strictly, these are two different shapes, chips being broader than fries.
  2. ‘Movie’ is nowadays normal in BrE when talking Hollywood.
  3. Increasingly heard in British English; in San Francisco, California, at least, a city of small, shared buildings, both "flat" and "apartment" are used, mostly interchangeably. Purists, however, distinguish between the two: an "apartment" is in a building that has a shared main entrance; a "flat" has its own outside entrance door.
  4. British trucks are traditionally small, and pulled, typically on rails.
  5. A common pitfall for British visitors to America, where 'rubber' is a vulgar term for a condom.