English language varieties

Spelling

Noah Webster, compiler of the first major dictionary of American English in the early 19th century, made a number of simplifications in the spelling. These are now standard in American English, but generally not used in other varieties.

British English doubles the final consonant in some words when adding an ending, for example in "traveller". American English usually spells it "traveler". American English drops the "U" in "-our" endings:

However, the word "glamour" is always spelled with the "U". Words borrowed from French keep the French "-re" ending in British English, but get changed to the more phonetic "-er" in American English:

British English changes a "C" to an "S" to distinguish a noun from a verb. James Bond has a "licence" to kill, and was "licensed" after qualifying as a spy. The American form always uses the "S" in most such pairs, but always has a "C" in "practice". In a few cases, such as "advice"/"advise", the distinction is retained in all varieties of English. American English uses an "S" in some words, while British English uses a "C".

The adjective forms, "defensive" and "offensive", are always spelled with an "S". Some varieties of English change the "S" to a "Z" in some "-ise" and "-yse" endings. American English does this universally, while British spelling choice varies by dictionary; the Oxford English Dictionary recommends using the Z, while most other dictionaries opt for the S:

Canadian spelling as well as the British Oxford Dictionary generally uses the American -ize endings, although the UK Oxford Dictionary uses -yse endings. In some words, British English retains the -ae or -oe spellings while American English simplifies it to an -e.

When adding a suffix for some words ending with a silent "E", American English sometimes drops the "E" while British English retains the "E":

Some words, such as "bathing" and "usable" drop the "E" everywhere, while some others, such as "dyeing" and "changeable" retain the "E" everywhere. Canada and Australia generally follow U.S. usage here. Some words have silent letters dropped in American English or are just spelled differently:

And a few words are both pronounced and spelled differentl

Grammar

There are many minor differences in grammar and usage, which may be interesting if you are studying or teaching English; however, they are almost never a cause for confusion. We list a few that may cause confusion below.

Plural "you" The second person pronoun "you" can be either singular or plural in standard English, but in many dialects of colloquial spoken English there are separate plural forms:

"y'all" in the American South and African American Vernacular English (AAVE). "youse" (also spelled "yous") in parts of Ireland, the Glasgow area in Scotland, the Liverpool area in England, and parts of the U.S. "ye" in parts of Ireland "you lot" in parts of the UK "you guys" in much of Canada and parts of the US. This is gender-neutral; a group of women can be addressed as "you guys".

Verb forms Some verbs take different forms in different varieties of English. The past participle form "gotten" is still common in American English but in British English it has almost entirely vanished; the participle is just "got". For past forms of some verbs, the older irregular spellings are more common in British English but the regular "-ed" forms predominate in American English. The verbs "dive" and "sneak", however, have the opposite pattern.

Some verbs retain the older form in all dialects, for example "slept", "built" and "wept".

Australia uses both spellings, although words like "leant" (instead of leaned), "sneaked" (instead of snuck), and "dreamt" (instead of dreamed) are no longer used and others such as "learnt" (instead of learned) are rare, and in general, there's a move towards the US spelling. Similarly Canada also uses a mix of the two spellings, and similar to Australian usage, it depends on the word. New Zealand follows UK usage except for "snuck", in which the U.S. form is used. Some subjunctive forms are less used in British English. Many in the UK could say "I suggest that he is fired" but in North America it must be "I suggest that he be fired".

Pronunciation

Educated people from almost anywhere in the English-speaking world can talk to each other without difficulty. Consider an international crew on an oil rig somewhere. The engineers and managers would almost certainly be able to talk to each other without any real problems, whether they studied in Edinburgh or Edmonton. However, two working guys from the same two countries — say working class Glasgow and a Newfoundland fishing village — would be quite likely to find communication a bit difficult due to stronger regional accents and use of dialectical words. An important difference in English dialects is whether "R" is pronounced after a vowel. Words such as "fork", "word" or "mother" are quite different in the two types, though everyone pronounces the "R" in other contexts, for example in "rabbit" or "area". Linguists call dialects with the "R" rhotic and those without non-rhotic.

Dialects with the "R": Some parts of western and northern England, Scotland, Ireland, the Otago and Southland regions of New Zealand, the Philippines, Canada, most of the U.S., Aboriginal Australian English and parts of South Australia. Dialects without "R": Most of England, Wales, most of Australia, most of New Zealand, South Africa, India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Singapore, parts of New England, parts of the Southern U.S., some New York City-area accents, and African American Vernacular English (used by many African Americans interchangeably with the standard dialect of their region). People not familiar with dialects other than their own sometimes lump all "R"-less dialects together, as when an American takes a New Zealand accent for British, and others make the opposite error, like an Englishwoman taking a Canadian accent for Irish. The pronunciation of the R can also vary between speakers; in Scotland, India and among black people in South Africa, the R is often trilled like in Spanish and Italian. Another noticeable difference is the "A" sound in words such as "bath", "laugh", "grass" and "chance"; many dialects pronounce them with the "short A" as in "trap", but southern England, South Africa, New Zealand, some parts of Boston and some parts of Australia pronounce them with the "br

Vocabulary

All dialects of English include words borrowed from other languages, and many of those such as "bungalow" (Hindi), "canoe" (Carib), or "typhoon" (Chinese) are now standard in all dialects. However, many dialects also include loanwords that are non-standard. Canadians use more terms of French origin than other dialects and are more likely to pronounce them as French speakers do, New Zealanders occasionally mix Māori terms into their English, Indian English has Hindi or Urdu words, and so on. Non-native English speakers may on occasion use false friends, words that make sense in their other language but have a different meaning in English; one example is that French librairie means "bookstore", not "library". Manga in Japanese refers to any type of comics, but the word borrowed into English is used to refer specifically to Japanese comics. In some cases, particularly when pseudo-English words like Handy (German for "mobile phone") are used, confusion may arise. Sometimes, non-native English speakers may also use literal translations of idiomatic expressions from their languages into English that do not make sense to native English speakers. For instance, in Southeast Asia, you may hear "coffee money" or "tea money" being used to refer to bribes, which are literal translations of the equivalent terms from Malay and Burmese respectively.

Get in/around

commute: In much of the Anglosphere, this word refers to regular trips made between home and work. In Philippine English, commute means travelling by public transport. depot: In most of the English-speaking world, this is a place whe