There are many forms of English around the globe: Australian, South African, Singapore, Indian English, and all are developing their own standards. English is not the only language to have a variety of standards; the same is true of Spanish, French and Dutch, to name a few. But with the United States being such a global power these days, and having such a large presence both on the internet and in the film industry, even British English natives are sometimes confused about what UK standard English is.
So what are the main differences between UK and US English?
Below is a list of some of the main differences between these two standard Englishes.
To explain it in a nutshell, English is a language that originated with the invasions of Norsemen, Danes and Vikings speaking various Germanic dialects. Until that time, Britain was an island populated by Celtic tribes that all spoke separate languages. The Old English that had developed during the 5th century AD was then massively influenced by the Norman invasion in 1066 and the several hundred years of French rule that followed. The language of this period, Middle English, continued to be influenced by the Latin language that had been imposed by the early Roman invaders that continued to have a hold over, in particular, education and religious literature in Britain. The French language dominated among the nobility and the educated classes. English always remained the language of the common people, but the common people were spread across the land and spoke quite different forms of English since they had little contact with each other.
When the printing press was introduced to Britain by William Caxton, in 1476, and books began to be increasingly available to the lower classes and more common people became literate, the English language had borrowed so many words over the centuries from the variety of languages that had influenced it, yet not yet established a regular form of spelling since scribes and scholars and humble authors had been writing how the language sounded to their own ears in their own dialects.
All this meant that by the late eighteenth century British English desperately needed to be standardised so that writing all over the country was spelt the same, regardless of the regional dialects of the people, so that even if they spoke differently and pronounced words differently, everyone would be able to understand written English that came from different parts of the country. In particular English from the capital, the ruling English, the English of the finance world and the one to be taught in schools became the national standard. This uniformity eliminated a great deal of confusion and misunderstandings within the land.
In the late eighteenth century, when British English was also undergoing its process of standardisation, The United States of America was becoming established as a nation independent of Great Britain, with English as its chosen first language, and Americans wanted to emphasise their own standard English and give it an individual identity. Noah Webster created the first American English dictionary in the early 1800s and one of his priorities was to take silent or unnecessary letters out of words, so that their written appearance was closer to how they sounded when spoken.
All the examples below are illustrative and far from exhaustive!
Spelling differences
As exemplified in the first and second line of the paragraph above, words with -ise became -ize:
- UK: standardisation, emphasise, normalise
- US: standardization, emphasize, normalize
Words with -yse became -yze:
- UK: analyse, paralyse
- US: analyze, paralyze
Words ending in -re became -er:
- UK: centre, theatre, metre
- US: center, theater, meter
Words with a double consonant were changed to a single consonant spelling:
- UK: traveller, cancelling, labelled
- US: traveler, canceling, labeled
Words ending in -our became -or:
- UK: colour, favour, honour
- US: color, favor, honor
Nouns spelt with -ce became -se :
- UK: defence, practice, licence
- US: defense, practise, license
Other words were changed to more closely resemble their pronunciation rather than the languages they were originally ‘borrowed’ from:
- UK: programme, aesthetic, manoeuvre, paediatric
- US: program, esthetic, maneuver, pediatric
For a complete guide to the differences between UK and US spellings, follow this link.
Different lexis
Then there are some words that are just different because the countries have each evolved in their own expressive directions over the past couple of centuries:
- UK: trousers
- US: pants
- UK: lorry
- US: truck
- UK: rubbish
- US: garbage/ trash
- UK: bonnet (of a car)
- US: hood
- UK: boot (of a car)
- US: trunk
- UK: post
- US: mail
- UK: lift
- US: elevator
- UK: flat
- US: apartment
- UK: biscuit
- US: cookie
- UK: queue
- US: line
For a complete guide to the differences between UK and US vocabulary, follow this link.
Punctuation differences
For those who are really looking to work at top level, punctuation also varies in a number of ways. While punctuation can often be a matter of the chosen style guide for any particular university, publishing house or company, general differences exist between the standards:
The first and best known may be the date format:
- UK: 24/05/2023
- US: 05/24/2023
Then there is the Oxford comma, known in the US as the Serial or Harvard comma. This is a comma that is used when creating a list to add extra clarification. An example of how commas are usually used in a list would be:
- The colours of the rainbow are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.
As you see there is no need for a comma after indigo. However, sometimes there is need for a comma to give clarification, and this is called the Oxford comma. For example,
- The menu choices are burger and fries, fish and chips, lasagne, pizza, and risotto.
This last comma is needed to clarify that the final option is not pizza and risotto, in case there could be a misinterpretation.
However, in the US, the Oxford comma is frequently used as a matter of course in any listings, regardless of whether there is a possibility of misinterpretation. For example,
- UK: I bought apples, oranges and pears.
- US: I bought apples, oranges, and pears.
The use of the colon also differs. Whereas in the UK the word following a colon is not capitalised, in the US it is capitalised. Again this can vary according to individual house styles.
This is also true of quotation marks:
- UK: Single quotation marks ‘ are typically used to enclose direct speech or quotations, while double quotation marks “ are used for quotations within quotations.
- US: Double quotation marks “ are commonly used for both direct speech and quotations, while single quotation marks ‘ are reserved for quotations within quotations.
In addition, punctuation that is used with quotation marks varies:
- UK: Punctuation marks like commas and periods are placed outside the quotation marks unless they are part of the quoted material.
- US: Punctuation marks are generally placed inside the quotation marks, regardless of whether they are part of the quoted material or not.
Once again, this is a matter of house style, and increasingly in this matter UK grammar is leaning more towards using the punctuation within the speech marks these days.
The use of the comma can also vary between the countries, as it does vary from how it is used in some ways with other European languages, but since comma use is a complex topic in its own right that will be clarified in a separate article.
Grammatical terms
When learning grammar there can also be differences in the terms used. For example ‘the continuous tense’ in UK English is referred to as ‘the progressive tense’ in American English. In addition the ‘full stop’, the dot that signifies the end of a sentence is called a ‘period’ in US English.
A further example of different terminology is ‘inverted commas’, which is the UK term for ‘quotation marks’, although these too are increasingly known here in the UK as ‘double-‘ or ‘single quotation marks’. Furthermore, the US ‘parentheses’ are called ‘brackets’ in the UK. These terms refer to the punctuation marks used to enclose additional information or clarify a point.
Pronunciation
Over the years pronunciation has grown apart between these two standard Englishes. Not only are the native accents of speakers notably different, but the syllables of some words are beginning to be stressed differently, but this is also a matter of regional dialects and not only national divisions. It is also a fact that in some parts of the United States and Australia people finish their sentences on a rising tone, as though they were asking a question, whereas UK English tends to having a falling tone at the end of a sentence. There are also individual words and sounds such as the letter -Z, which is pronounced ‘zed’ in UK English and ‘zee’ in US English.
Conclusion
So as you can see from the above examples, whether you are writing an academic essay, editing a book, or studying for English as a foreign language for a particular exam board, it would be easy to create a mixture of the two language standards inadvertently.
See if you can spot any examples yourself, on the internet or perhaps in a film (or movie) you may watch, and do get in touch if you have any questions or comments.
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