The Language

England and America are two countries divided by a common language.

G.B. Shaw

If the colonization of the American continent had taken place long before the invention of printing American English might have been as different from British English as French is from Italian. At that time most colonists felt strong ties with England and the books they read came mainly from England.

As to the linguistic picture today, recent decades have seen an increase in the amount of influence the two models have had on each other, especially American on British. The influence of US films and television has led to a considerable passive understanding of much American English vocabulary in Britain, and some of this has turned into active use (as in the case of ‘mail’), especially among young people. The reverse pattern is less obvious, but British films and TV programs are seen sufficiently often in the USA and a growth in awareness of UK vocabulary should not be ignored.

Nonetheless, the number of differences between British and American English is likely to be extremely large, particularly in such spheres as banking, transport, shopping, sports, politics, armed forces.

Differences in Vocabulary

This is probably the most noticeable area of differences between the two varieties. An American lives in an apartment building, while a Britisher lives in a block of flats. His room may have a French door (Br.E French window). He keeps all his clothes in a closet (Br.E wardrobe) and likes sitting in his armchair and reading a book under the light of his floor lamp (Br.E standard lamp). Sometimes an American has to take a beltway (Br.E ring road) to avoid traffic jams on a freeway (Br.E motorway). If he prefers to travel by train, he buys a one-way or round trip ticket (Br.E single or return ticket) and shows it to the conductor (Br.E guard) on entering his car (Br.E carriage).

In the following list you will find some more examples of this kind.

Am.E

allowance

checking account

bulletin board

checkers

desk clerk

driver’s license

engineer

fire department

sales clerk

sneakers

shopping cart

Br.E

pocket money

current account

notice board

draughts

reception clerk

driving licence

engine driver

fire brigade

shop assistant

trainers

trolley

Differences in Grammar

There are relatively few grammatical differences between educated British English and American English. In the following paragraphs American English examples precede.

In the verb phrase, American English prefers ‘have’ to ‘have got’ for possession ('Do you have a car?' vs 'Have you got a car?'). Am.E prefers such forms as ‘burned’ to ‘burnt’. Am E also sometimes uses the past simple where BrE has the present perfect (‘I just had breakfast’ vs ‘I’ve just had breakfast’).

In the noun phrase, there are some differences of word order (‘a half hour’ vs ‘half an hour’) and the use of the article (‘in the future’ vs ‘in future’, ‘in the hospital’ vs ‘in hospital’). AmE prefers collective nouns in the singular (‘the government is’), whereas BrE allows plural also (‘the government are’).

There are some of the ways in which prepositions contrast between AmE and BrE and it appears that this is an area of major grammatical differentiation. AmE prefers ‘round’ to ‘around’ in such sentences as ‘we went round the corner’ and ‘around’ to 'about' in ‘They walked around a mile’. Compound prepositions also show some contrasts, such as the AmE preference for ‘aside from’ (BrE ‘apart from’), ‘in behalf of’ (BrE ‘on behalf of’).

Here are some other differences of this kind:

AmE

It’s twenty of five.

It’s ten after four.

It’s in the back of the building.

I’ll see you over the weekend.

I haven’t seen you in ages.

Tuesdays we take the train.

Half the cash goes for clothes.

They live on Oxford street.

BrE

It’s twenty to five.

It’s ten past four.

It’s behind the building.

I’ll see you at the weekend.

I haven’t seen you for ages.

On Tuesdays we take the train.

Half the cash goes on clothes.

They live in Oxford street.

BrE usage is changing under the influence of AmE: ‘talk with’ is now common in BrE (as opposed to ‘talk to’) and while the British traditionally ‘fill in’ (or sometimes ‘up’) forms, they now commonly ‘fill them out’, as Americans do.