A TO ZED, A TO ZEE A GUIDE TO THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN BRITISH AND AMERICAN ENGLISH A TO ZED, A TO ZEE A GUIDE TO THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN BRITISH AND AMERICAN ENGLISH WRITTEN BY GLENN DARRAGH PUBLISHED BY EDITORIAL STANLEY LAYOUT ANGELA GOMEZ MARTIN FRONT PAGE DESIGN DISENO IRUNES © EDITORIAL STANLEY APDO. 207 - 20302 IRUN - SPAIN TELF. (943) 64 04 12 - FAX. (943) 64 38 63 ISBN: 84-7873-346-9 DEP. LEG. BI-930-00 FIRST EDITION 2000 PRINTERS IMPRENTA BEREKINTZA Contents Preface Introduction: Why are they so different? v Part one: Spelling 2 Part two: Pronunciation 11 Part three: Grammar and Usage 19 Part four: A to Zed: a GB / US lexis 27 Part five: A to Zee: a US / GB lexis 75 Further Reading 121 Preface This book is intended for Americans and This state of affairs is reflected in the Britons who want to understand each structure and content of the present other better, and for foreign students of book, which makes no pretence (or either American or British English who pretense) of being exhaustive, but which want to familiarise (or familiarize) does try to be comprehensive. Short themselves with the other main variety initial chapters outline the historical of the language. According to George background and the differences in Bernard Shaw, the United States and pronunciation, spelling and grammar. England are two great nations separated The main part of the book, however, by a common tongue. In fact, most of consists of a dictionary of British the time the two peoples understand vocabulary and cultural references which each other fairly well, or think they do. someone from the United States might The accent is different, of course, but it have trouble understanding, and of a presents no more of a barrier than any dictionary of American vocabulary and regional accent would. Differences in cultural references that might present grammar, syntax and spelling are problems to someone from the British relatively minor. The main differences, Isles. As the book is not aimed at and they are huge, are lexical and academics, but at laymen (or cultural. laypersons) who are curious about language, phonetic differences are shown, when necessary, by a figured pronunciation. The A to Zed section is written to be read by Americans, the/4 to Zee section by Britons. Finally, a number of older terms have been retained in both sections of the dictionary for the benefit of the small number of Americans and Britons who happen to be complete novices in the study of English as a foreign language. Introduction: Why are they so different? When a Briton and an American meet, of the south-eastern part of England, even though they are far from mutually which is where, in the early 17th century, unintelligible, each is soon aware of the first British colonists originated. differences in the speech of the other. Their peculiar treatment of the final r First, the accent is different: survives in New England and the South, pronunciation, tempo, intonation are but it is exceptional in the US as a distinctive. Next, differences in whole. The distinctive American r, a kind vocabulary, idiom and syntax occur, as of muffled growl produced near the back they would in a foreign language: of the mouth, is fully sounded. It is very individual words are misunderstood or similar to the r still pronounced in parts not understood at all, metaphorical of the west and north of England, and in expressions sound bizarre, subtle Scotland and Ireland, and was almost irregularities become apparent in the certainly brought to America by way words are arranged, or in the subsequent colonists from those parts. position of words in a sentence, or in Since most of the British settlement in the addition or omission of words. It is North America in the 19th century came estimated that some 4,000 words and from the north and west of England and expressions in common use in Britain from Ireland, especially from the today either do not exist or are used northern counties of Ulster, rhotic differently in the US. These differences speech, as it is called, eventually spread are reflected in the way British and across the continent. In many other little American English are written, so that ways, standard American English is variations in spelling and punctuation reminiscent of an older period of the also emerge. Finally, there are immense language. For example, Americans cultural divergences, ranging from pronounce either and neither-with the different trademarks for everyday vowel of teeth or beneath, while in products to different institutions and England these words have changed their forms of government. Little wonder, pronunciation since the American then, that even in this age of global colonies were founded and are now communications, we are still able to pronounced with an initial diphthong, misunderstand each other. Before like the words eye and nigh. (For a examining each of these major fuller discussion of these and other dissimilarities in detail, it may be useful pronunciation differences, see Part 2.) to consider how they have arisen. It is said that all emigrant languages are In fact, many of the distinctive phonetic linguistically nostalgic, preserving features of modern American English archaic pronunciations and meanings. can be traced back to the British Isles. The word vest provides an interesting To take a single example, the r at the example of one of the ways in which the end of words is pronounced in markedly vocabularies of Britain and America different ways in the 'standard' varieties were to grow apart. The first recorded of American and British English. In the use of the word occurs in 1666 (in the 'received pronunciation' of GB, it is diary of Samuel Pepys), referring to 'a barely sounded at all, so that words like sleeveless jacket worn under an outer there and water are pronounced theah coat'. The direct descendant of this and watuh. This pattern is characteristic usage is the modern American vest, A TO ZED, A TO ZEE STANLEY v meaning waistcoat. In the intervening spelling bee. low-down, to have an ax centuries, however, the meaning of the to grind, to sit on the fence, to saw word has shifted in Britain, so that it wood, and so on. At the same time, now applies to 'a piece of clothing worn other words were being assimilated on the top half of the body underneath a ready-made into the language from the shirt'. Americans have retained a different cultures the settlers came into number of old uses like this or old words contact with. Borrowings from the which have died out in England. Their Indians include pecan, squash, use of gotten in place of got as the past chipmunk, raccoon, skunk, and participle of get was the usual form in moccasin', from the French, gopher, England two centuries ago; in modern pumpkin, prairie, rapids, shanty, dime, British English it survives only in the apache, brave and depot; from the expression ill-gotten gains. American Spanish, alfalfa, marijuana, cockroach, still use mad as Shakespeare did, in the coyote, lasso, taco, patio, cafeteria and sense of angry ('Don't get mad, get desperado; from the Dutch, cookie, even.'), and have retained old words like waffle, boss, yankee, dumb (meaning turnpike, meaning a toll road, and fall as stupid), and spook. Massive immigration the natural word for the season. The in the 19th century brought new words American I guess is as old as Chaucer from German (delicatessen, pretzel, and was still current in English speech in hamburger, lager, check, bummer, the 17th century. The importance of such docent, nix], from Italian [pizza, divergences was compounded by two spaghetti, espresso, parmesan, parallel processes. Some words which zucchini] and from other languages. the pilgrims and subsequent settlers Jews from Central Europe introduced brought to the New World did not many Yiddish expressions with a wide transplant, but in England they survived: currency in modern America: chutzpah, e.g. fortnight, porridge, heath, moor, kibitz, klutz, schlep, schmaltz, schlock, ironmonger. Far more important, schnoz, and tush. Likewise, many however, was the process by which, Africanisms were introduced by the under the pressure of a radically enforced immigration of black slaves: different environment, the colonists gumbo, jazz, okra, chigger. Even introduced innovations, coining new supposedly modern expressions like words and borrowing from other cultures. with-it, do your thing, and bad-mouth are word-for-word translations of Many living things, for example, were phrases used in West African languages. peculiar to their new environment, and Eventually many of these enrichments terms were required to describe them: would cross the Atlantic back to mud hen, garter snake, bullfrog, potato England, but by no means all of them. bug, groundhog. Other words illustrate Those that did not cross back form the things associated with the new mode of basis of the differentiation that has life: back country, backwoodsman, taken place between the American and squatter, clapboard, corncrib, bobsled. the British vocabulary (Parts 4 and 5, for This kind of inventiveness, dictated by an examination of current lexical necessity, has of course continued to differences and explanations of many of the present day, but many of the most the terms cited above). distinctive Americanisms were in fact formed early: sidewalk, lightning rod, A further important change was to take vi STANLEY A TO ZED, A TO ZEE place, in the domain of spelling. In the surprisingly few major differences. On years immediately following the the whole, however, Americans, as American Revolution, many Americans though impelled by an urgent need to sought to declare their linguistic as they express themselves, appear less had their political independence.