Individual Words which Differ in Spelling

BrE AmE

ensure insure

enclose inclose

endorse indorse

The practice of writing compounds as two words, as a hyphenated word or as a single unhyphenated word varies, however, there is a marked avoidance of hyphenation in AmE.

BrE AmE

make-up make up

neo-colonialism neocolonialism

Many Americans write compound numbers without a hyphen (e.g. twenty five), but most retain a hyphen (e.g. twenty-five), as do most British writers.

AmE drops French accent marks in some words (e.g. cafe, entree) while BrE may be more likely to retain them (e.g. café, entrée).

The most common differences in spelling

BrE AmE

aluminium aluminum

cheque check

jewellery jewelry

storey (of a building) story

tyre tire

kerb curb

pyjamas pajamas

whisky whiskey

Nonce (випадкові) spellings (especially in advertising)

AmE

kwik (quick)

donut (doughnut)

e-z (easy)

rite (right, write)

blu (blue)

tuff (tough)

Punctuation

There are only a few differences worth mentioning:

● different names

BrE full stop AmE period

brackets parentheses

square brackets brackets

quotation marks quotation mark

(+ inverted commas)

BrE uses single quotation marks ‘…..’ in the normal case and resorts to double one “……” for quotation within a quotation (‘….. “…….” ….’).

AmE starts with double quotation marks and goes to single ones for a quote within a quote. Exclamation mark is also called exclamation point in AmE.

The slash / may be termed an oblique (BrE stroke) and a diagonal in AmE.

BrE usage sets a comma between the house number and the street name in addresses (331, High Street), something which is not practiced in AmE.

The usage or not of a dot (period, full stop) after abbreviations, especially titles, also differs. AmE uses a dot, BrE distinguishes abbreviations which end with the same letter as their unabbreviated form and which therefore have no dot:

e.g. Mister > Mr

Missus > Mrs

Sergeant > Sgt

Lieutenant > Lt

In contrast, abbreviations which end with a letter different from the final letter of the full form have a dot:

e.g. General > Gen.

captain > capt.

the Reverend > Rev.

editor > ed.

editors > eds.

In business letters, the salutation (Dear Sir, Dear Madam, Dear General Jones) is followed by a colon in AmE, but by a comma in BrE. Salutations containing a name may have a comma in AmE.

When a colon is used to introduce lists it may sometimes be followed by a hyphen in BrE, this is never the case in AmE:

e.g. Several commodities have fallen in price significantly: - coffee, cocoa, tea and tobacco.

In BrE per cent (is written as two words), in AmE - as a single one percent.

In addition, BrE uses the abbreviation %, p.c. or pc as in 16 pc drop in unemployment.

Dates can be the source of misunderstanding since BrE uses date/month/year between slashes or separated by dots and AmE month/day/year (no dots in AmE).

Clock times use a dot in BrE 3.45 p.m., but a colon in AmE 3:45 p.m.

Both varieties abbreviate number as No, Nos (capitalized or not). E.g. No. 8 (BrE), No 8 (AmE without a dot). However only AmE uses for number the symbol # and the possible plural ## 5 and 8.

PART 2

EXERCISES

Exercise 1

Consider some commonly held beliefs about dialects demonstrated by popular uses of this term in the following quotes:

1) “We went to the Outer Banks of North California for a vacation and the people there sure do speak a dialect”.

2) “I know we speak a dialect in the mountains, but it’s a very colorful way of speaking”.

3) “The kids in that neighborhood don’t really speak English; they speak a dialect”.

4) “The kids in this school all seem to speak the dialect”.

What does the term “dialect” refer to in these quotes?