AmericanvsBritishEnglish

American vs British English By Rosanne Skirble and Avi Arditti Broadcast Thursday December 26 2002 MUSIC Help Beatles AA I m Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble This week on Wordmaster we talk about a few of the differences between American English and British English RS It s a question we often get After all some differences can lead to embarrassment others to plain old confusion AA For instance Americans put babies to sleep in a crib The British call the same kind of bed a cot RS In America a cot is a flimsy fold up bed made of canvas AA Oh you mean what the British call a camp bed RS In Britain public school is what Americans would call private school where you pay to have your children go Now let s say you have to go or you re looking for the toilet Here it s not polite to ask where the toilet is Say bathroom or restroom when speaking to an American Graphic Image AA Joining us now from New York is the author of a handy little book called Speak American A Survival Guide to the Language and Culture of the U S A Dileri Borunda Johnston lived in England so she knows what it s like from both sides JOHNSTON A lot of the grammar is slightly different so you would have things in British English that perhaps you wouldn t want an American child to learn because it might sound slightly incorrect Like you wouldn t say I haven t got any more You would rather an American kid would learn to say I don t have any more AA Let s say a speaker of British English steps off a plane in the States Just to catch a bus or train into town from the airport requires a different vocabulary JOHNSTON In England you would catch a coach whereas here you take the bus or if you re taking the public transportation you would take the subway in America rather than the tube or the underground as you would in England AA Also what the British call lorries we Americans call trucks RS Now let s say the weather is cold and wet and our traveler didn t pack the right clothes Dileri Johnston pointed out some British terms that might confuse an American clerk JOHNSTON Like for example jumper which in England is the most common thing to call a sweater RS Here it s a dress JOHNSTON And a jumper here is a dress yes AA And then here we have boots and galoshes and there JOHNSTON They have wellies yes RS They have what JOHNSTON Wellies AA Here we talk about boots but again a boot is in British English the trunk of a car Here it s a heavy shoe that you wear when you re going through puddles JOHNSTON You use the word boot in British English as well you know for regular boots or cowboy boots or riding boots or anything like that But just the rubber boots are called wellies RS And the differences don t stop there JOHNSTON Pants is the very big sort of trouble spot because pants here are quite you know the common thing to call the things you put on your the long things you put on your legs whereas pants in England is always referring to underwear RS So here that would be underpants JOHNSTON Underpants or underwear or boxers or whatever RS So if you say do you have a pair of pants to wear to the party that would be pretty inappropriate to say in England unless you were forewarned JOHNSTON And over there they say trousers which is not a word that is completely unknown in American English but it s not the most common one RS Along these lines it seemed to us that a lot of the terms used in British English are older forms of the words used by Americans for instance it might sound odd for an American to say spectacles instead of glasses JOHNSTON That s often the case You know you have spectacles you have trousers They tend to be sort of things that might be more common in regional varieties of American English You know like in England it s quite common to say reckon which in American English is quite unusual or you might here it in the South perhaps or in more old fashioned contexts AA Like I reckon I ll go in when the sun gets too hot JOHNSTON Yeah and people in England say it sort of quite seriously without meaning it to be funny or ironic or anything like that RS Same with some other terms that might strike Americans as funny JOHNSTON You know if you go shopping for example you don t really want to take a trolley which is what Americans ride around in on the street like say in San Francisco Here you would rather use a shopping cart when you go to do your groceries AA And it s not just words that set American and British speakers apart JOHNSTON Speakers of British English have to be very conscious of the fact that British accents are quite incomprehensible to Americans at times I know from experience my husband who s British has a horrible time ordering water in restaurants Nobody understands him when he asks for waw tuh So he s tried to modify it and say waw da can I have some waw da please laughter And he more or less gets understood nowadays AA Dileri Borunda Johnston author of Speak American A Survival Guide to the Language and Cu