American and British Differences

Use of -or instead of -our as a noun ending (as in color and harbor).

 Reduction of -ou- to -o- (as in mold).

Use of -l- instead of -ll- in verbal inflection (as in instal, rivaled, traveler) and converse use of -ll- instead of -l- (as in installment, skillful).

 Suppression of a final mute -e in inflection (as in milage and salable), but not after a soft c or g (as in changeable).

Reduction of final -ogue to -og (as in analog and catalog).

Exclusive use of -ize instead of -ise in verbs that allow both spellings in British English, and variant use of -ize in verbs that are only spelt -ise in British English (as in civilize, privatize, and advertize).

 Use of -z- occasionally instead of -s- (as in analyze and cozy). 

4. Idiom.

There are occasional differences in shared idioms. Examples are: British English man on the street / American English man in the street / British English a new lease of life / American English a new lease on life / British English leave well alone / American English leave well enough alone. 

5. Grammar.

Most of the more important grammatical differences concern use of auxiliary and modal verbs (do, have, shall, will, and others such as dare):

American English favours the type Did you go? rather than Have you been?, I don't have rather than I haven't got, They just left rather than They've just left, I didn't use (or used) to rather than I used not to, and Let's not rather than Don't let's (as in Let's not argue). These preferences are also found to a lesser degree in British English.

Some British English constructions are not available in American English, e.g. British English We weren't to know (British English/American English We couldn't know or couldn't have known), British English meant to (= British English/American English supposed to) as in The food here is meant to be very good.

There are differences in the way prepositions are used. For example, American English has out the window and off of the floor where British English has out of the window and off the floor.

American English has retained gotten, an older form of the past participle of get which has fallen out of use in British English. It is used in American English as well as got. See gotten.

American English differs in the use of shall and should: see shall and will, should and would.

For differences in the use of dare and need, see dare, need.

See also may, might; ought.  

6. Pronunciation.

As with spelling, there are particular differences and systematic differences. Examples of the first are schedule (sk- in American English, sh- in British English) and tomato (tǝ-may-toh in American English, tǝ-mah-toh in British English). It is beyond the scope of this book to explore the pronunciation systems of both varieties in detail, but a few special differences might be mentioned:

The letter r is pronounced or partly pronounced when it occurs in the middle of a word whether or not it is followed by a vowel, whereas typically it is not in British English received pronunciation, as in hard and rare.

The vowel a is pronounced a as in had, not ah as in hard in words such as after, can't, dance, and path.

Pronunciation of short o as in box is closer to ah as in barks.

Pronunciation of yoo as in tube is closer to oo as in boob.

Pronunciation of er in words such as clerk rhymes with murk, not with mark as in British English.

Pronunciation of final syllables in -ile (as in fertile and hostile) is -ǝl, not -iyl as in British English.

Pronunciation of t following n and followed by an unstressed syllable is much less marked in American English than in British English (as in mental and twenty).  

7. Punctuation.

American practice differs in the use of quotation marks and associated punctuation (see quotation marks) and uses a different style in dates (see dates). Other points are noted in individual entries on punctuation marks. 
 
 
 

Bartlett, John R. (1848). Dictionary of Americanisms: A Glossary of Words and Phrases Usually Regarded As Peculiar to the United States. New York: Bartlett and Welford.

Ferguson, Charles A.; & Heath, Shirley Brice (Eds.). (1981). Language in the USA. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Finegan, Edward. (2004). American English and its distinctiveness. In E. Finegan & J. R. Rickford (Eds.), Language in the USA: Themes for the twenty-first century (pp. 18–38). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Finegan, Edward; & Rickford, John R. (Eds.). (2004). Language in the USA: Themes for the twenty-first century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.