UK English vs US English
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Written By-
Prajakta Thorat
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Category-
Education
Soft Skills
The English language was first developed during the 5th century AD. This language is rapidly spreading over the planet, and now it’s referred to as Formal Language. Land language is employed in official terms.
American’s try to speak English in several ways. May it be the prepositions, accents, punctuations, etc. there are various questions like how one language has diverged in such a definite way? Why do we spell things differently?
Why do Americans call Football “soccer”?
It’s probably known most over the globe that football could be a sport where two teams fight for a goal by kicking the ball. Soccer name originated in Britain. But still, the word soccer is generally being utilized by the US quite the United Kingdom.
In the 1800s, UK universities began playing various variations of the medieval “Football”. But the United Kingdom itself started calling it “soccer” as a brief form for “football”. When football was first brought within the US, the name “soccer” got stuck. And hence, the US called football “soccer.”
Avoiding the letter “U”:
The most important, common, and noticeable difference between the United Kingdom and therefore the US words is that the letter “U”. For the US the letter “U” is extremely unnecessary and quaint in some words like “colour” or “honour”.
This is simply because of a person called ‘Noah Webster’, who wanted to form American touch distinct from the United Kingdom English. Therefore, he removed all the unnecessary “U” and replaced it with the “er” or “r” at the top of the word like ‘theater’.
UK English vs US English
We have already seen some differences between the US English and UK English, now let’s go deeper into it and learn the common difference between them.
Accent:-
It’s very difficult to search out the precise differences between the United Kingdom and US accents with both. A Texan and a replacement Yorker are both Americans but have very different accents. The identical goes for the United Kingdom accent in London, Manchester, and Glasgow.
Anyway, general differences are often made. Like Americans often use “r” at the top of each word whereas, Britain’s use “r” just for the primary letter of the word.
The differences between UK English and US English are often detected in areas like spelling, vocabulary, and grammar.
Spellings:-
UK English US English |
Colour Color |
Behaviour Behavior |
Theatre Theater |
Metre Meter |
Organise Organize |
Travelled Traveled
Vocabulary:-
UK English US English |
Flat Apartment |
University College |
Holiday Vacation |
Chips French)fries |
The cinema The movies |
Jumper Sweater |
Postbox Mailbox Plaster Band-Aid Chemist’s Drugstore |
Biscuit Cookie
Grammar:-
The perfect participle of get.
In the UK the participle of ‘get’ was taken as ‘gotten’, but later it was considered as “got”. However, within the US still people use “gotten” because of the participle.
UK English US English |
Get-got-gotten Get-got-got |
haven’t got any mail from the company. ’ve not got any mail from the company. |
Questions:-
We all must have noticed the main difference between UK English and US English while greeting people or for asking something, Right? Let’s see a number of that difference:
UK English US English |
How’s it going, mate? What’s up, dude? |
Do you fancy a biscuit? Wanna cookie? |
Where’s the loo? Where’s the restroom? |
Where’s the TORCH? Where’s the FLASHLIGHT? |
Can I have the bill, please? The check, please? |
Are you skint? Are you broke?
Collective Nouns:-
We use collective nouns to visit a gaggle of people. In US English collective nouns are singular, e.g. Staff refers to a bunch of employees; band refers to a bunch of musicians. Whereas Americans would say, “The band is nice.” But in UK English, collective nouns will be singular or plural. Britain would say, “The team is playing tonight.”
Prepositions:-
There are some prepositional differences between UK English and US English.
UK English US English |
Monday to Friday. Monday through Friday. |
t’s different from/to the others. t’s different from/than the others. |
’m going to a party this weekend. ’m going to a party on the weekend. |
What are you doing at Christmas? What are you doing on Christmas? |
Conclusion
As English is the most-spoken language within the world, it must be flexible. English is simple to find out the language and may it be the United Kingdom English or US English. This could not be an obstacle while communicating with people on the other side or anywhere on the earth.