separated-by-the-same-language
A living catalogue of different words and phrases across the English language
Note: George Bernard Shaw was quoted in 1942 as saying, “England and America are two countries separated by the same language.”
Preface
This page attempts to capture some of the ‘quirks’ in how the English language is used between the US and the UK and Ireland (UK&I).Over the years I’ve found some of differences in interpretation of words, turn of phrase and even pronunciation can be a little amusing.
While a native speaker of the English language, I am not a linguistic expert so the following is merely an assembly of observations from:
-
Growing up in Ireland where we speak an ‘Irish’ version of English - i.e. locale EN-IE.
-
Working and living in the UK for almost a decade.
-
Working for US Multinationals for over 25 years where I’ve worked with Americans from all over the country.
Professionally, I’ve found myself having to adapt the written word for the audience, the majority of which are usually American. I ‘whince’ ever so slightly at the ‘mis-spellings’ I deliberately make with flashbacks to my primary school education. Eventually, after many years of fighting the good fight, I gave in and changed my spell-checker to US-EN. Now, I have to consciously adapt my spelling when messaging Europeans.
Contents
- Spelling
- Pronunciation
- Turn of Phrase
- Different Words for the Same Thing
- Similar Words for the Same Thing
- Conventions & Measurements
Spelling
It’s worth reminding ourselves of the primary spelling differences between English and American-English. The latter tends to rely on more phonetic spelling.
-
Words ending in ‘our’ tend to be spelt phonetically as ‘or’ - e.g. ‘colour’ and ‘neighbour’ are spelt as ‘color’ and ‘neighbor’ respectively.
-
Words that pronounce ‘s’ towards the end, like ‘realise’ and ‘serialize’ are also subject to phonetic spelling and replace the ‘s’ with ‘z’. i.e. ‘realize’ and ‘serialize’.
-
Words that have a slightly different spelling to donate the noun and verb, like ‘licence’ and ‘license’ respectively are not differentiated in US English.
-
Along the theme of phonetics, other word spellings vary - e.g. ‘grey’ is used in other English speaking countries whereas ‘gray’ is more common in the US.
-
The more observant will have picked up on my usage of ‘spelt’ rather than ‘spelled’ in the point above. It’s been my experience that Americans will tend not to use the former. So, for example, you tend to see ‘learned’ rather than ‘learnt’ in written US-English.
-
Certain words are spelt with both the trailing ‘re’ or ‘er’ - e.g. ‘centre’ and ‘center’ in the UK and Ireland but only the latter is used in the US.
-
The older spelling of ‘program’ is ‘programme’. You’ll see both spellings in the UK&I but only the former in the US.
-
US English drops the silent letter ‘e’ in words like potatoe - i.e. potato.
Pronunciation
This is one of more quirky differences, which of course is only apparent in spoken English. This is where I draw the line on making accommodations for our American cousins… :-) Here, I speak normally as the word is usually out before I can adapt anyway so instead I’d typically add “…or as you Americans say…”.
| Word | US | UK&I |
|---|---|---|
| aluminum & aluminium | “alu-min-um” | “alu-min-ee-um” |
| basil | “baazz-ill” | “baz-ill” |
| buoy | “booeey” | “boy” |
| lever | “lev-er” | “leev-er” |
| oregano | “oreg-ano” | “ore-gano” |
| niche | “nitch” | “neesh” |
| route & router | “wrout” and “wrouter” | “root and “rooter” |
| herb | “herb” | “eerb” |
For some reason, there seems to be much divergence on pronunciation of herb names, ironically including the word ‘herb’ itself.
[!WARNING]
Let’s not open the can of worms relating to how ‘data’ should be pronounced. :-)
Turn of Phrase
| US-EN Phrases | UK & Ireland Phrases | Details |
|---|---|---|
| “Speak to.” | “Speak about.” | A reference towards someone’s ability to talk about a particular topic. e.g. “John can speak to that” or “I can speak to that”. In both the UK and Ireland, it’s more common to hear people say, for example, “John can speak about that” or “I can speak about that”. |
| “Touch base.” | “Catch ya later.” | This phrase is used in the US English to mean I’ll be be in contact as in “I’ll touch base with you about that” or “can you touch base with John to confirm that”. I believe the expression originated in baseball and simply means that someone will contact another person. I reckon a close UK&I equivalent is “I’ll catch up with you later”. |
| N/A | “That’s like turkeys voting for Christmas.” | What your supporting does not serve your own interests. I was surprised to learn this phrase didn’t resonate in the US. Of course, turkeys have more of an association with ‘Thanksgiving’ and not necessarily Christmas as on might expect in UK&I. |
| “Run it up the flag pole.” | “Try it out.” or “Give it a go.” | I believe this is a shortened version of “Run it up the flagpole and see who salutes it.”, meaning “let’s try it out and see if it works”. A common turn of phrase in the UK might be to “give it a whirl” and in Ireland it might be to “give it a lash”. The latter can also be used in the content of encouragement as in “Give it a go!”. |
| “I’m all set.” | “I’m fine.” | You may hear someone in the UK say “I’m sorted” while someone in Ireland might say “I’m grand.” |
Different Words for the Same Thing
In many cases, we have quite different words for the same thing.
| US | UK&I | Example | |
|---|---|---|---|
| sidewalk | footpath | ||
| elevator | lift | ||
| hood (car) | bonnet | ||
| trunk (car) | boot | ||
| practice | training | e.g. “I brought my kids to training/practice yesterday.” | |
| cleats (football) | studs | e.g. “Check your cleats/studs on your boots.” | |
| chips | crisps | A consitent source of confusion - see ‘chips’ under UK&I | |
| fries | chips | Fried, chipped potatoes | |
| pot stickers | dumplings |
Similar Words for the Same Thing
In some cases, we have nuanced differences with words for the same thing.
| US | UK&I | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| math | maths | This seems to be one of convention and one on which I’ve been queried as to why we say ‘maths’ on this side of the pond… To which I replied “Because it’s the abbreviations for ‘mathematics’.” |
| wince | whince | This is a matter of spelling style between US and UK&I English. |
| license | licence | UK English differentiates between the noun ‘licence’ and the verb ‘license’, which US English does not. |
Conventions & Measurements
-
In the US, the ground floor of a building is Floor 1. The next floor up is Floor/Level 2. In Europe, the ground floor is just the ground floor and the next level up is the ‘First Floor’. (i.e. count from 1 versus count from 0).
-
In the US, many taller buildings do not have a ‘13th’ floor as it’s considered to be unlucky.
-
The US uses Imperial while most of Europe uses Metric. However, the UK still measure things like distance and speed-limits in miles/mph but scientific and engineering work uses metric.
-
Temperature is measured in Fahrenheit in both the US and the UK but Celsius is used in Ireland and the rest of Europe.
-
The US measures distance in miles, which is the same as the UK mile. While speed limits are measured in kph (kilometers per hour) in Ireland, many people will still think of distance in terms of miles.
-
Likewise, many older people in Ireland will judge weight using Imperial measures but think in terms of ‘stones’ and ‘pounds’ whereas the US only thinks in terms of ‘pounds’. e.g. “That guy must be over 250 pounds.” versus “That guy must be 18 stone.”
-
Ireland adopted the Metric system in the mid-70’s shortly after joining the EU, then known as the EEC. Consequently, many generations still work in both Imperial and Metric.
-
A pint of beer in the US is smaller than a pint in the UK. Beer is served in pint sizes in Ireland too (as 568ml).
-
Shoe sizes and clothing sizes are different across the US, UK and Europe.