Differences between British and American English

George Bernard Shaw famously said that the British and the Americans were "two nations separated by a common language".

Below are some examples of this separation in usage between British and American English. You may already be aware of some of these differences, others may surprise you.

US / UK Zip code / Post code Run (for office) / Stand (for office) Checking account / Current account Check / Cheque Mutual fund / Unit trust Two weeks / Fortnight Legal holiday / Bank holiday Regular/special shareholders' meeting / Ordinary/extraordinary general meeting (of the shareholders) (Articles of incorporation and) bylaws / (Memorandum and) articles of association Penitentiary / Prison Income statement / Profit and loss account Currency exchange / Bureau de change President/Chairman / Chairman Chief Executive Officer / Managing director Realtor / Estate agent Real estate / Property

These are just a few examples. It is often worthwhile establishing whether your audience/the recipients of your document would prefer British or American terminology, as although many US terms may be understood by a British person and vice versa others may cause confusion and a need for time to be spent on further explanations/clarifications.

As well as the differences in vocabulary we just considered, it is also possible to spot divergences in grammar and country-specific structures in 'British' and 'American' documents. There are often no strict rules, it is merely a question of usage and the outcome of how the language has evolved in each country.

The date is a quite familiar example:

US / UK September 29, 2003 / 29 September 2003 9/29/2003 / 29/9/2003

Helpful Hint: It may be a good idea to write a date out in full, to avoid confusion: Is 3/9/2003 the 3rd of September 2003 or March 9, 2003 ?

The use of the comma in a list is also different. Note the extra comma in the US version of the following sentence:

UK: The company has not issued any shares, bonds, stock options or securities this year.

US: The company has not issued any shares, bonds, stock options, or securities this year.

Some grammatical differences are shown in the next table:

US / UK I live on Third Avenue / I live in Third Avenue Shall we go see a movie? / Shall we go and see a film? Different than/different from / Different from/different to I already ate / I have already eaten Look out the window / Look out of the window Hudson River / River Thames I will write her next weekend / I will write to her next weekend It was nice to talk with him / It was nice to talk to him I am meeting with the union representatives today / I am meeting the union representatives today

Another interesting example is the third person singular form 'one': "one does what one is told to do".

This is still in use in the UK in formal language, but is very rarely heard in the US .

Familiar speech forms can also differ greatly. Whereas Americans might say "I sure could use a drink", the British would say "I really need a drink" or even "I'm dying for a drink".

You are much more likely to hear a British person say "yes, of course" or "leave it with me", when an American might say "sure can" or "will do" when asked to do something,

Though such usage may be particular to one country, in most cases it is readily understood in the other. Indeed, with today's increasingly 'global' culture, many British people are now using 'Americanisms', although the reverse is seldom true!

Lastly, words are often spelt differently in American and British English. For instance:

UK / US -s organise / -z organize -our favour, behaviour / -or favor, behavior

Mistakes can easily be averted by choosing the appropriate language (American or British English) in your word processing software and executing a spell-check. It seems pretty obvious, but is easy to forget!

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