There are several key differences between American and British English, including vocabulary, spelling, pronunciation, and grammar. Vocabulary differs in terms like automobile and railway terms, idioms, and slang words. Spelling variations were introduced by Noah Webster and include words like "color" and "center" in American English. Pronunciation places stress on different syllables in some words between the two dialects. Grammar also shows differences in verb usage, tenses, and punctuation conventions. American English has influenced British English through globalization and media as well.

1. What Are The Differences
Between American And British
English?

2. Once George Bernard Shaw called Britain and the USA
countries that are separated by one common language.
Unfortunately, it is the truth: despite the fact that the
name of the language is the same, there is a variety of
differences between them that influence the use and
understanding as well as puzzles its learners.
It is natural that native speakers from two opposite
continents will not have troubles to understand each
other, but still, there is an issue for foreigners, who might
get into the trap of misunderstanding.

3. Reasons that influenced the
difference
Originally, there was only one English language (the British one) that was spread all over the
world through colonization. It was exactly the case how the English language appeared in
America in the 16th century, but since that time it has been influenced by many factors:
Local settlers
and Indian tribes
that lived on the
territory of the
USA;
Immigrants from
other countries
that brought
new vocabulary;
Creation of
original
American words
to describe a
completely new
environment;
Technological
development
etc.
All those reasons and may be some others made it apparent that the difference
between to English languages exists and that concerns all the language constituents.

4. Vocabulary
Vocabulary varieties are the most evident differences between
UK and US English. There is quite a big list of terms that sound
completely different in these countries and the best way to learn
them is to use a dictionary. Mainly, it concerns automobile and
railway industries as they were developing after colonization,
but, of course, there are other sources of differences including:
• Idiomatic phrases: e.g. A storm in a teacup vs. A tempest in a teapot
• Phrasal words: e.g. carry on means to have a love affair vs. bring luggage
• Slang and vulgar words: e.g. ass vs buttocks
• Conjunctions: e.g. amongst vs. among
• Numbers and monetary amounts: e.g. twice vs. two times, hash vs. pound sign
• Prepositions: e.g. talk to vs. talk with
• Telling the time and building levels: e.g. quarter past vs. quarter after, ground floor
vs. the first floor
• Education and transportation: e.g. study vs. major in, dual carriageway vs. divided
highway
• Greetings: e.g. Happy Christmas vs. Merry Christmas

5. Spelling
Spelling is another issue that makes these two English
languages completely different. The spelling peculiarities
have been identified by the US lexicographer Noah
Webster, who has composed a dictionary named after him.
Being frustrated by the inconsistent and more difficult
English spelling, he tried to spell words the way they are
pronounced. The brightest example is the word “spell” itself
as Americans add –ed suffix to this word in the past
participle form, while British people say “spelt”.
In general, you can single out some common differences in spelling
including: -our / -or, -ll / -l, -re / -er, -se / -ze, -oe, -ae / -e, -ence / -
ense, -ogue / -og
For example: colour – color, traveler – traveler, centre – center, analyse –
analyze, encyclopaedia – encyclopedia, defence – defense, monologue –
monolog etc.

6. Pronunciation
Differences in pronunciation are also noticeable in these two
languages. First of all, these are stressed syllables: Americans
have preserves French stress on the last syllable, while British place
it earlier. But there is an opposite rule concerning verbs finishing
with –ate. American English words have stress on the first syllable
and British people stress the second one.
Secondly, this is a pronunciation of such affixes as -ary, -ery, -
ory, -mony, -ative, -bury, -berry. Americans pronounce the
vowels as a full sound, while British speakers reduce it or elide
it. There are also some differences in the pronunciation of such
endings as –ile, -ine.

7. Grammar
The second largest group of differences is in grammar. British people tend to
preserve more traditional grammar rules, while Americans have made some
changes to these rules including:
 Use of verb with collective nouns: in BrE, a group of people is treated as plural,
in AmE - as singular only.
 Use of Tenses. Present Perfect in America can be easily substituted by Past
Simple Tense. They also can use pluperfect in the conditionals and subjunctive
mood. British people do not use ‘should’ in the similar sentences.
 Morphology of irregular verbs. British use both forms of verbs – regular and
irregular, while Americans prefer mainly –ed form.
 Absence or presence of different syntactic elements. Americans will omit using
‘and’ between two verbs, while British will place it undoubtedly. There are also
differences with contractions, prepositions, indirect object, articles too.
There are also some miscellaneous grammar cases which have no exact
explanation. That concerns names of rivers or the word ‘also’, for example. British
place the word ‘river’ before the name and the word ‘also’ in the middle of the
sentence and Americans do that after and at the end correspondently.

8. Punctuation
Americans and British have also differences in
punctuation:
• Full Stops and periods in abbreviations. Americans use a full
stop after all abbreviations while British follow the rule that
it must be used only when the last abbreviation letter does
not coincide with the last letter of the full word.
• British avoid using a hyphen in multiple-word adjectives,
while Americans do.
• Americans use double quotation marks (“), while the British
opt for a single one (‘). A full stop is placed after a
quotation mark by the British, while US people place it
before it.
• Writing letters. British people use a comma after the
greeting, while Americans write a colon.

9. Americanisms dominating
in British English
Nowadays traditional British English has gained much from the American
one. That happens because of the media programs, films, music, so many
US expressions have come into UK English too. There are different opinions
whether it is a positive or negative influence on the language, but still,
globalization and other factors will make their contribution to the changes
and some of them are noticeable right now. Here are some examples:
Americans and British would say “I’m good”, “Two times”, “Movie” instead
of original “I’m fine”, “Twice”, “Film”. Of course, this influence can’t be one-
sided and there are expressions from the UK that have become popular in
America too, though their number is much smaller.

10. Check out the original article here:
http://blog.noplag.com/what-are-the-differences-
between-american-and-british-english/
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