The Americans are identical to the British in all respects except, of course, language."
- Oscar Wilde
In 1978, during a debate in the House of Lords, one of the members said:"If there is a more hideous language on the face of the earth than the American form of English , I should like to know what it is." Samuel Johnson in 1796 had observed that 'Americans are a race of convicts and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging'. Thomas Jefferson returned the shot by coining the word 'Anglophobia'.
The two differ in grammar and punctuation but I am sure you wouldn't like me to bore you with that stuff. Where the two are most markedly different is in pronunciation. However, let me just step aside and jot down a disclaimer. Both have a huge variety of local accents, surprisingly much more in the smaller and more compact England than in the vast, multicultural America- and both have significant variations across age groups or classes within the same geographical area.
What we are comparing here is the Received Pronunciation ( spoken around Midlands ) or RP of British and the General American or GA in America. There is always a chance of an illustration offered as typically RP being in use in some part of America and vice versa - so the Smart Alecs here, please don't raise your hands !
What we are comparing here is the Received Pronunciation ( spoken around Midlands ) or RP of British and the General American or GA in America. There is always a chance of an illustration offered as typically RP being in use in some part of America and vice versa - so the Smart Alecs here, please don't raise your hands !
One way to showcase the dissimilarity is to point out the distinction in accents arising out of phonological changes - the stress on some vowels or consonants. The first and foremost is that GA is rhotic unlike RP- Rhotic speakers pronounce the "R" sound in such words as "hard" and "winter," while non-rhotic speakers do not - most modern Brits would tell you it's been a "hahd wintuh.
The Americans, in a streak of remarkable simplicity, stress on the vowel alike in father, bother, cot and caught- pronouncing them as faather, baather, caat and caat respectively. Scooting on in different paths, while the British would make a distinction in the /a/ stress in trap and bath, the first /a/ as in cat and second as in far, the Americans would say trap-bath as well such words as plant, pass, laugh with similar stress on /a/ as in cat.
And even though I will not explain what is yod dropping, let m tell you this is the reason why the British pronounce new, immediate and allude as neeu, immi-djiet and a-lewd while the Americans would utter them as noo, imme-di-et and allood . Finally, if you are surprised that the American air hostess doesn't offer you a glass of water when you ask for , it could be because your pronunciation has not undergone the phonological process of 'flapping' and you had not asked for 'wadder' instead - I think a similar process would account for Malayalis go 'gogonut' on coconut!
And even though I will not explain what is yod dropping, let m tell you this is the reason why the British pronounce new, immediate and allude as neeu, immi-djiet and a-lewd while the Americans would utter them as noo, imme-di-et and allood . Finally, if you are surprised that the American air hostess doesn't offer you a glass of water when you ask for , it could be because your pronunciation has not undergone the phonological process of 'flapping' and you had not asked for 'wadder' instead - I think a similar process would account for Malayalis go 'gogonut' on coconut!
The Americans are not done as yet. In addition to differing over accents of identical vowel, they wantonly hopscotch on longer words to lay stress on vowels on longer multi-syllabic differently from their transatlantic cousins. In a few French loanwords, the British stress on the first and the Americans on the last so that garage sounds like garridge in RP and garraage in GA Reversing roles, the British stress on the last syllable to pronounce magazine as magazeen while the Americans stress on the first to utter magzin.
The most famous illustration is with the word "military" which we heard President Bush ( he of the shaak and aa fame who left the world incredibly more secure than what it was when he assumed charge) use so often . So unlike the British who reduce the second to last syllable of military ( the /a/ after /t/) by almost omitting it and pronouncing as miltri, the Americans full throat it and call aloud milly- tarry.
I think no less disparate than pronunciation is the difference in spellings between the two. The difference started in 18th/ 19th century following the publication of A Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson and American Dictionary of the English Language by Noah Webster .
These have largely taken (with a large number of exceptions, though) the re-forming/ dropping or substituting some vowels/consonants: words ending with -yse in British become -yze in American ( analyse-analyse); -logue ending words are abridged to -log in American ( catalogue -catalog); ae and oe words are written with single e in American ( anaesthesia - anesthesia and foetal- fetal).
Unlike the American, British English doubles the consonant in all inflections ( -ed,-ing,-est) and for noun suffixes-er and -or ( cancelled-canceled, modelling-modeling, cruellest-cruelest, traveller-traveler , counsellor-counselor). The Rhotic Americans like to linger and drool on the letter /r/, hence, a large number of words from French, Latin or Greek stock ending with -tre and -bre end with -er : calibre- caliber, centre- center, goitre- goiter.
Unlike the American, British English doubles the consonant in all inflections ( -ed,-ing,-est) and for noun suffixes-er and -or ( cancelled-canceled, modelling-modeling, cruellest-cruelest, traveller-traveler , counsellor-counselor). The Rhotic Americans like to linger and drool on the letter /r/, hence, a large number of words from French, Latin or Greek stock ending with -tre and -bre end with -er : calibre- caliber, centre- center, goitre- goiter.
What can be befuddling to both are the wholly different words which are given to mean the same - fall and autumn; cabana and beach hut;overpass and underpass - and over 3000 such words.But more than differences in pronunciation, spellings and choice of words of common usage, what can really cause embarrassment or grief is the huge amount of differences that exist in the meanings between identical words and phrases in these two streams of the language.
Bill Bryson points out, that "in Britain the Royal Mail delivers the post, not mail, while in America the Postal Service delivers the mail, not the post". A well meaning "I"ll knock you up in the morning "statement by a British could offend an American lady as a desire to make her pregnant; a Don't-worry, be happy' encouragement in the form of a "keep your pecker up" utterance could be mistaken for a penile exhortation; while a friendly " can I bum a fag?" could make an American wonder about your sexual preference and not your need for tobacco!
And when it comes to 'fanny', the 'transatlantic divide' is complete- with the British and Americans looking to cover up different sides!
