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DIFFERENCES BETWEEN AMERICAN AND BRITISH WORDS

PART 2

I am indebted to Dr. Beren S. Ewen for providing a lot more words which are different in the U.K. and America - the comments in green are my own.

This subject has created a great deal of interest and input from visitors.  For ease of use these have been split into several different pages including:-

Differences between Australian, British and American English.

a chart listing some of the differences between the more commonly used British/American words and phrases, 

Differences between some of the more common British and American words and phrases.

Then there are all the suggestions of language differences (2,  3 and 4) which have been sent in by visitors which are shown on three more pages.

After compiling these pages it became very obvious that not only are there differences between continents but also between regions within the same country. 

Polly Campbell, who assumed Hints and Things was an American based site, has sent in her observations on the subject:-

Elastoplast – we don’t call it this (it sounds American to me, but presumably isn’t), we call it a plaster.

Mac / Mackintosh – this is always on lists but Mackintosh is really old fashioned, we might say mac, but really we just call everything a coat

Marrow – this is not a squash. A marrow is a specific vegetable – a big corgette (Zuccini to you). Squash is a family including pumpkin, butternut squash etc. I think this is the same in the US? But maybe you call the green stripy one a squash and that’s why it’s on your list?)

Post code – it’s always post code or postcode not postal. The Royal Mail writes it as one word

Power point – we don’t call it that, that’s the Microsoft programme only. It’s plug socket or just socket (this is the bit in the wall, the bit that goes in is the plug – is that the same in the US?)

You’re right about refectory, no-one says that and most of us wouldn’t know about it (the only time I heard it used was at my very old university). Similarly no one says smalls or sleeping policeman.

For underwear we usually specify what underpants (boy), knickers (girl) or pants for both; bra etc. You can just say underwear for all.
For speed bump we say speed bump

I agree with you snooker, pool and billiards are 3 different games. I think they are everywhere but pool is more common in US and snooker here – don’t think billiards is common anywhere anymore.

Same with sultanas and solicitor. If you’re not being specific about what kind then we’d say lawyer, but mostly we deal with solicitors.

We’d say “I’m going to the doctor’s” rather than surgery. It is the doctor’s surgery but we always miss off saying surgery.

White sauce is a specific sauce – would you really call it gravy? I think you might call it Béchamel?

Hope it’s useful – it’s fascinating what random words are different!!

 

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