9.2 Spelling Differences between American and British English

The most significant spelling differences which can be detected in AE and BE can be classified as follows:

American –or versus British –our

American –z versus British –s

American –er versus British –re

American –l versus British –ll

American –ense versus British –ence

The change of y into a, ia or i:

The omission of unaccented foreign terminations

Simplification of ae and oe

Miscellaneous spelling differences

7.3 Grammatical Differences between American and British English

The grammatical systems of languages are more or less stable. Still, close contacts with some other languages often bring about certain simplifications of grammar, which is exactly the case with American English. In the morphological system there are a number of verbs usually treated as regular in American English and as irregular in British English, e.g.:

The following verbs have retained the archaic forms of the past participle in both AE and BE: proven, written, ridden, risen, driven, frozen, spoken, stolen, woven, broken, forgotten, bitten, hidden, eaten, chosen, given, shaken, taken, fallen, swollen, and others. Only AE retained –en in gotten.

While speaking about verb forms, it is necessary to mention the preference of the auxiliary verbs will and would in AE to shall and should in BE: I shan’t go. We shall not leave. I won’t go. We will not leave. The Americans sometimes use past simple where the British use the present perfect: I just wrote vs. I have just written.

Crystal mentions differences of word order in the noun phrases: Hudson River (AE) vs. River Thames (BE), a half hour (AE) vs. half an hour (BE). There is a difference in the use of articles as well: in the future (AE) vs. in future (BE), in the hospital (AE) vs. in hospital (BE), and others (p.311).

One of the most striking grammatical differences is the usage of prepositions. The British live in a street and American live on a street. The English would say, “The university was named after him,” or “He is nervous of doing something,” while the Americans would say, “The university was named for him,” or “He is nervous about doing something.” Here are some more examples:

AE membership in chat with under the circumstances a week from Tuesday to protest war on the street

BE membership of chat to in the circumstances a week on Tuesday to protest against the war in the street

AE mad about on the weekend out the window on the firing line a new lease on life

BE mad on at the weekend out of the window in the firing line a new lease of life

There are also different prepositional constructions in British and American English:

AE to check something

BE To check up on something

AE to visit with someone

BE to call on someone

BE requires on before a day of the week or a specific date, but AE (especially colloquial) frequently does without it:

AE The school year begins September 1st. Let’s do it Sunday.

BE The school year begins on September 1st. Let’s do it on Sunday.

Generally speaking, Americans tend to omit prepositions where the British carefully insert them:

AE I work nights as a bartender. Is Mary home?

BE I work at nights as a barman. Is Mary at home?

This tendency to simplify grammatical constructions can be illustrated by different forms of grammatical tenses and moods:

(BE) Have you (got) a pencil? (AE) Do you have a pencil?

In BE, Do you have…? means “Do you habitually have…?” while Have you (got)…? has the meaning “Do you own or possess it at this moment?”

–Have you (got) strawberries? --No, unfortunately not.

--Do you have them? --Yes, usually in the morning.

Subjunctive Mood

The construction They suggested that Brown be dropped from the team is chiefly American English, while They suggested that Brown should be dropped from the team is preferred by British English. AE uses the infinitive with the particle to, while BE uses the construction should + infinitive:

AE He said to go with him.

BE He said that I should go with him.

Past Participle seems to be much more popular in the U.S. than it is in England.

AE BE

he lay sprawled he lay sprawling

Many verbs become transitive in AE that are intransitive in BE, e.g.:

AE to protest something to battle something

BE to protest against something to battle against something

The examples above are but a few grammatical differences between British and American English.

To sum up, there are significant differences between British and American English. Yet, they do not split these two variants into entirely different languages. Faster communication in the future is likely to override language changes so that the current tendency for American and British English to converge is likely to continue. This does not mean that American and British English will ever become indistinguishable, but they are not likely to become mutually unintelligible, either. In the meantime, as Robert Burchfield, the editor of the Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary, emphasizes, “American English is and will continue to be the major global form of English into the indefinite future” (1986).