Gramley, Stephan; P?tzold, Kurt-Michael. A Survey of Modern English

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In a similar vein, AmE drops French accent marks in some words (cafe, entree) while

BrE may be more likely to retain them (café, entrée). However, the tendency towards

Anglicization (= no accent marks) is great in both varieties.

The following list includes the most common differences in spelling, always with the

BrE form listed ﬁrst: aluminium/aluminum, (bank) cheque/check, gaol (also jail)/jail,

jewellery/jewelry, (street) kerb/curb, pyjamas/pajamas, storey (of a building)/story,

sulphur/sulfur, tyre/tire, whisky/whiskey.

In addition, informal spellings, especially in advertising, can probably be found more

frequently in AmE than in BrE, e.g. kwik (quick), do-nut (now almost standard for

doughnut), e-z (easy), rite (right, write), blu (blue), tuff (tough) and many more.

12.2.2 Punctuation

Aside from the lexical differences in the designations for some of the marks of punctu-

ation, there are only a few differences in practice worth mentioning here. But ﬁrst, some

different names: a BrE full stop is an AmE period; BrE brackets are AmE parentheses,

while BrE square brackets are AmE brackets. AmE and BrE quotation marks are

frequently inverted commas in BrE. Note also that BrE uses single quotation marks

(‘. . .’) in the normal case and resorts to double ones (“. . .”) for a quotation within a

quotation (‘. . . “. . .” . . .’). AmE starts with double quotation marks and alternates to

single ones for a quote within a quote. Common British-American exclamation mark is

also called an exclamation point in AmE. And the slash, /, may be termed an oblique

(stroke) in BrE and a virgule, a solidus or a diagonal in AmE.

Simplification vs regularization AmE opts for simpliﬁcation whenever closing

quotation marks occur together with a period or a comma: The period or comma always

comes inside the quotation marks whether or not it ‘belongs’ to the material quoted or

not. BrE places its full stops and commas inside if they belong to what is quoted and

outside if they do not. See, for example, (a) below where the punctuation belongs to the

quotation vs (b) where it does not:

a) BrE: ‘He belongs to the club,’ he told her. Or: He answered, ‘She left an hour

ago.’

AmE: Usage is identical here except that AmE sets double quotation marks

instead of single ones.

b) BrE: These may be called ‘corruptions’, ‘degradations’ and ‘perversions’.

AmE: These may be called ‘corruptions,’ ‘degradations,’ and ‘perversions.’

The principle of regularization is observed in AmE usage (as in BrE) for all other marks

of punctuation, i.e. question marks and exclamation points come inside the quotation

marks if they belong, but are placed outside if they do not belong to the quotation itself.

Note also that in lists AmE usage is more likely than BrE usage to use a comma

before the conjunction joining the ﬁnal item in a list (AmE x, y, and z vs BrE x, y and

z). On the other hand, (conservative) BrE usage sets a comma between the house number

and the street name in addresses, e.g. 331, High Street, something which is not practised

in AmE.

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The use or not of a dot (period, full stop) after abbreviations, especially titles, also

differs. While AmE opts for simplicity, always using a dot, BrE distinguishes abbrevia-

tions which end with the same letter as their unabbreviated form and which therefore have

no dot, e.g. Mister > Mr, Missus > Mrs, Colonel > Col, Lieutenant > Lt etc. 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. etc. Note that in the

bibliographical information in this book editor is abbreviated as ed. (as is edited), but

editors as eds (without a dot).

Miscellaneous differences in punctuation In business letters, the salutation

(Dear Sir, Dear Madam) is followed by a colon in AmE, but by a comma in BrE. Informal

salutations have a comma in AmE. The colon, when used as punctuation between

two main clauses, is followed by a small (lower case) letter in the second clause in BrE.

In AmE, there may be capitalization, e.g. One solution is quite evident: check (BrE)/Check

(AmE) the credit-worthiness of the client carefully. 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. The symbol <%> is written out as two words in BrE (per cent), but is a single

one in AmE (percent). In addition, BrE uses the abbreviation p.c. or pc, as in 16 pc drop

in unemployment, but AmE does not.

Dates can be the source of serious misunderstanding between the two varieties since

BrE goes with European usage in placing the date before the month between oblique

strokes or separated by (raised) dots: 2 April 2003 is 2/4/03 or 2·4·03. In AmE 2/4/03

(oblique strokes only) is February 4, 2003. In cases of possible confusion it is best to

write out the name of the month or its abbreviation. The raised dots just mentioned are

unknown in AmE, but are also used for decimals and times in BrE, e.g. 3·1416 or 10·43

a.m. A normal period/full stop may also be used in BrE. Clock times use a dot in BrE

(3.45 p.m.), but a colon in AmE (3:45 p.m.). Both varieties abbreviate number(s) as No.

or Nos (capitalized or not, with a dot or not according to AmE and BrE rules, e.g. No. 8

or nos 5 and 8); however, only AmE uses the symbol # (# 8).

12.3 GRAMMAR AND MORPHOLOGY

12.3.1 The verb

Morphology A number of verbs ending in a nasal (dream, lean) or an <l> (spill) have

two forms for their past tense and past participle; one is regular, adding {-ed}; the other

adds {-t} (sometimes with and sometimes without a change in the vowel in pronuncia-

tion). These verbs include the following: burn, dream, dwell, kneel, lean, learn, spell,

spill and spoil. In each case, AmE is more likely to have the regular form and BrE to

have the form in -t. For example, leant /lent/ is rare in AmE in contrast to leaned /li

nd/.

Note, however, that there are verbs ending in <m, n, l> which do not have two forms;

for example, there is only irregular meant /ment/ in both varieties, just as there is only

regular quelled and teamed. A further widespread phenomenon is the greater tendency in

AmE for non-standard past tense forms to be used higher up in the scale of stylistic

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formality. This is especially the case with the pattern sprung for sprang (see also simple

past tense rung, shrunk, sung, sunk, stunk and swum).

Most other differences in the past tense and past participle forms are singular, inci-

dental ones, including the differing pronunciation of the past tense forms ate (BrE /et/,

AmE /e

t/) and shone (BrE /ʃɒn/; AmE /ʃoυn/) or AmE past tense dove and snuck (beside

common dived and sneaked) or BrE quitted, betted and ﬁtted (beside common quit and

bet and AmE ﬁt). AmE also sometimes uses proven and shaven as past participles next

to common proved and shaved. Furthermore, AmE has the past participles beat, shook

and swelled (beside normal beaten, shaken and swollen) in the expressions, to be beat

‘completely exhausted’, all shook up ‘upset’ and to have a swelled head ‘be conceited’.

Slay (itself more common in AmE) has two past tenses, literal, though archaic, slew

‘killed’ and ﬁgurative slayed, as in That slayed me ‘caused me to laugh vigorously’.

Get and have Get has two past participle forms in AmE, got and gotten, each used

with a different meaning. Have got is used for possession, obligation or logical necessity

in both varieties (for example: possession, I’ve got a book on that subject; obligation,

you’ve got to read it; logical necessity, it’s got to be interesting). Have got for logical

necessity, familiar in AmE, is apparently a more recent and less widespread phenomenon

in BrE. Have gotten, which does not occur in BrE at all, means ‘receive’, as in I’ve

just gotten a letter from her. In its modal sense have gotten means ‘be able, have the

opportunity’, as in I’ve gotten to do more reading lately. These distinctions must be made

lexically in BrE. In addition, the past form had got is not a real option for expressing

possession in either variety, but it is just barely possible in the modal meaning of

obligation in BrE (e.g. They had got to reply by yesterday).

Do and have Further differences in the ways of expressing possession and obligation

(but also events) involve have. AmE treats have in these uses as a lexical verb and there-

fore uses periphrastic do for negation and inversion; only the perfect auxiliary is an

operator in AmE, which means that only it inverts and negates directly (see 5.1.3).

In BrE this seems to be increasingly the case as well; however, lexical have, especially

in the broad sense of possession, may also be treated as an operator, e.g. I haven’t any

idea; Have you a book on this subject?; or Hadn’t she any news? This use, which is as

good as unknown in AmE, is becoming rarer in BrE, especially in questions and even

more so in past tense use. Note that do-periphrasis is obligatory in both varieties for events

such as having lunch, having a good time, having trouble etc.

Pro-form do A further difference involves do as a pro-form. This is the use of one

of its forms (do, does, did, done, doing) to replace a lexical verb instead of repeating

it, e.g. A: Did you write to the hotel? B: Yes, I have done. This type of construction is

exclusively BrE; in AmE B’s reply would be: Yes, I have or Yes, I have done so, both of

which are also possible in BrE.

Modal auxiliaries Other differences between AmE and BrE in the area of the verb

concern the frequencies of the modal verbs. Should, shall, ought to, dare, need and must,

all of which are relatively infrequent in BrE, are even more so in AmE. Dare and need,

furthermore, are more likely to be used as blends between operators and lexical verbs

in AmE. This means that they will use do-periphrasis, but an unmarked inﬁnitive, e.g.

284 NATIONAL AND REGIONAL VARIETIES OF ENGLISH

I don’t dare think about it. The use of ought without to in questions and negations

(i.e. non-assertive contexts) is an increasingly frequent pattern not only in AmE and

BrE, but also in AusE. Modal must is losing ground to have (got) to in its obligation

meaning, especially in AmE; and also in its epistemic use for logical necessity (‘must

is very much alive and is now met with also in clauses negated by not, a usage that

appears to be fairly recent in origin’ (Jacobson 1979: 311)). Quirk et al. consider negated

must, as in His absence must not have been noticed, to be particularly American (1985:

§4.54).

The modal used to still has direct negation relatively frequently in BrE (used not to,

usen’t to); in AmE (as well as in BrE) the preferred form of negation is with do-periphrasis

(didn’t use(d) to). The modal would is normally used in the if clause of a conditional

sentence when it indicates willingness (e.g. If you would agree, everything would be ﬁne).

Here the two varieties agree. However, AmE extends the use of would to if clauses where

no volition is involved (e.g. If it would rain, everything would be okay). A further point

involving the would is that the expression ’d rather, which is a contraction of would

rather, is sometimes re-expanded to had rather, chieﬂy in AmE. The growing use of the

modal will with ﬁrst person pronouns (I/we will) instead of traditional shall is an instance

where British and American usage are converging: ‘Increasingly even in Southern

Standard BrE the forms formerly associated with AmE are becoming the norm’ (Quirk

et al. 1985: §4.50). Shall is heard in AmE almost only in questions inquiring about the

desirability of the speaker’s doing something, e.g. Shall I get you an ashtray? More

common, however, would be the phrasing, Would you like me to?, Should I? or Can I?

The semi-modals (had) better and (have) got to (gotta) are more common in conversa-

tion in BrE than in AmE, but have to and be going to are more common in AmE than in

BrE (Biber et al. 1999: 488f.).

The subjunctive In AmE the subjunctive is far more common than in BrE. This is

less the case with the so-called formulaic subjunctive (e.g. I wish I/he/she/it were; If I

were you), which is becoming less and less current in both varieties. Rather, what is typi-

cally American usage is the so-called mandative subjunctive, used after predicates of

command or recommendation and other predicates which mark something as desirable

future action, e.g. we suggest/recommend that you be on time tomorrow; it is important/

mandatory that you not misunderstand me. While this is somewhat formal usage in AmE,

it is by no means unusual in the everyday language. In BrE, on the contrary, it is largely

restricted to formal written usage, though it seems to be making a comeback due to

American inﬂuence. What BrE uses in its place is either what is called putative should

(it is mandatory that you should not misunderstand me), which is also available in AmE,

or the indicative (it is mandatory that you don’t misunderstand me). This latter option is

impossible in AmE. See also 5.7.4 ‘Suggest’.

The perfect The use of the perfect is interpreted somewhat differently in the two vari-

eties. While there is basic agreement, AmE speakers may choose to use the past in

sentences with the adverbs yet, just or already, all of which would almost automatically

trigger the use of the present perfect in BrE, e.g. AmE He just/already came for BrE and

also, but less stringently, AmE He has just/already come.

Complementation Of the more important differences in the patterns of comple-

mentation used in AmE and BrE one has already been discussed: the use of a that clause

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with the subjunctive after verbs of command, suggestion and desirable future action.

A second pattern which differs is the use of an inﬁnitive complement whose subject

is introduced by for after verbs of emotion such as love, like, hate and prefer, e.g. They

would like for you to come. While adjectives take such for . . . to complements in both

varieties (e.g. They would be happy for you to come), the occurrence of the for . . . to

construction after verbs is more typical of AmE. Note, however, that this pattern is not

employed all the time in AmE, nor is it completely unknown in some varieties of BrE.

When something separates the main verb from the inﬁnitive complement, for will occur

in both varieties, e.g. They would like very much for you to come.

The third case involves copular verbs. These may be classiﬁed as ascriptive (be,

become: he is silly), as cognitive (seem, appear: he seems silly) or sensorial (look, sound,

feel: he looks silly). So long as what follows is an adjective, the two varieties follow the

same pattern (as in the examples). When, however, a noun follows, there are divergences.

Both allow nouns following ascriptive be and become: he is a fool. The case is quite

different with appear and seem, however, which may take noun predicative complements

directly in BrE, but require to be in AmE (also possible in BrE): he seemed (to be) a fool.

With sensorial copulas, ﬁnally, BrE once again allows a noun to follow directly while

AmE requires intervening like (also possible in BrE): he looked (like) a fool. Note that

even in BrE not every noun may follow directly (i.e. without to be or like); this seems

to be possible only when the noun is more or less adjectival in nature (to seem/look a

fool = to seem/look foolish). This practically dictates that the indeﬁnite article be used,

for then reference is general and serves the purposes of characterization just as an adjec-

tive does. In addition, the noun used must be gradable in the sense of more or less

(someone can be very much a fool).

Concord This is the ﬁnal point concerning the verb. As elsewhere in the grammar the

two varieties agree here almost completely. The one important divergence has to do with

the greater degree to which notional concord is applied in BrE. While both types of

English construe words like people and police as plurals, a large number of collective

nouns for groups of people are often seen as plural in BrE while they virtually never are

in AmE, e.g. government, team, committee, council, board etc. Hence BrE frequently has

The council have decided to make further inquiries, where AmE (but BrE as well) has

The council has decided. A minor point of concord is the BrE use of interrogative aren’t

I for the non-existent contracted form of am. This is rare in AmE.

Tag questions Tag questions, at least those which show grammatical change

according to the subject and auxiliary of the preceding main clause, are probably more

common in BrE than in AmE; certainly ones without reversed polarity and especially

those in which both main verb and tag are negative are rare or virtually unheard of in

AmE, e.g. They aren’t leaving tomorrow, aren’t they?

12.3.2 The noun, the pronoun and the article

The noun Besides the difference in interpretation of some collective nouns as

notional plurals, as just discussed, it is perhaps of interest to note that some words

appear regularly in the singular in the one, but in the plural in the other variety: plural

286 NATIONAL AND REGIONAL VARIETIES OF ENGLISH

pre-modiﬁers such as the drugs business or the trades union are more common in BrE

than in AmE even though both share many such combinations such as arms race or sales

talk. Also, BrE has the plural (trafﬁc)lights and maths where AmE has singular light

and math; on the other hand, AmE has plural accommodations and sports where BrE

has abstract and non-count accommodation and sport. In AmE inning (as in baseball) is

a count noun with a singular and a plural; in BrE there is only the unchanging singular

and plural form innings (as in cricket). BrE can (but need not) give words like ﬁsh or

shrimp a plural ending (ﬁshes, shrimps), while this is strange in AmE. Furthermore,

numbers are also sometimes treated differently: when a noun follows a number ending

in thousand, million etc. no plural {-S} is added to it (ﬁve thousand books); when the

noun is elided BrE may add a plural (possible BrE ﬁve thousands); AmE may not.

The pronoun In addition to what has been said about collective nouns and notional

concord we can note that both varieties agree in frequently, but not necessarily, using

plural pronoun reference for ‘group’ nouns, e.g. their in the following: The council is/are

considering this at their next meeting. A second point reveals greater divergence: a

singular interpretation of a collective noun like committee or council will lead to the use

of the relative pronoun which, while the BrE plural interpretation will be more likely to

take who, e.g. The Committee, which is considering the move vs The Committee, who are

considering the move (see generic pronouns in 9.1). There is a tendency in AmE to use

the relative pronoun that in restrictive relative clauses noticeably more often than which,

which is less conversational and more academic in style.

Two additional pronoun differences are ﬁrst the greater preference for -body (e.g.

anybody) over -one (e.g. everyone) in AmE and, second, the widespread use of a distinct

second person plural pronoun in Southern AmE, you all, sometimes shortened to y’all

(possessive you all’s or y’all’s). Although a few other second person plural forms exist

in both BrE and AmE such as yous(e), none of them have the relative acceptance which

you all has.

The article A few differences in article choice include the following well known

difference: BrE to/in hospital vs AmE to/in the hospital. While all the seasons (spring,

summer, autumn, winter) can be used with or without the article in both varieties,

the usual AmE word for autumn, namely fall cannot occur without it (in the fall, not

*in fall). Although there are other differences in usage, none of them are of great

signiﬁcance.

12.3.3 The preposition, the conjunction and the adverb

Prepositions While BrE and AmE both prefer while, among and amid, BrE also uses

the forms whilst, amongst and amidst, which are rare in AmE. BrE sometimes also

employs in regard of where both normally have in regard to. Common to both is behind,

apart from and on top of, but AmE also has in back of, aside from and atop respectively,

which are unfamiliar in BrE. AmE uses in behalf of in addition to shared on behalf

of. Next to common off, opposite and alongside, AmE also has off of, opposite of and

alongside of without any difference in meaning. AmE prefers different than next to BrE

different from and different to. Furthermore, AmE usage is much more prone to leave the

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preposition out altogether in time expressions such as Tuesdays, where BrE has on

Tuesdays. AmE also omits prepositions more freely in time expressions, e.g. She starts

work (on) Monday.

The preposition out (AmE, informal BrE) is not used in the same way as common out

of. The former may only be employed with two-dimensional objects which designate paths

of exit, as in out the window, door etc. Out of may be used here as well in both varieties

and indeed usually is in BrE.

The pair round and around also overlap in much the same way except that here it is

AmE which has no choice since the form round is scarcely found there. In BrE, on the

other hand, round may be distinguished from around as in to go round the earth ‘in a

circular movement, as for example a satellite’ vs to go all around the world ‘to travel to

various places anywhere in the world’. This distinction is missing in AmE.

The preposition through as in AmE Volume one of the dictionary goes from A through

G is not current in BrE, where the ambiguous A to G or the cumbersome A to G inclusive

might be found.

The present perfect of verbs expressing continuous activity regularly has for to intro-

duce periods of time in both varieties, e.g. I’ve been working for an hour. For individual

events within a period both varieties use in, e.g. I have gone twice in (the past) two

weeks. Usage differs when a verb expressing individual events is negated. Here BrE uses

for: I haven’t gone for (the past) two weeks, while AmE prefers in: I haven’t gone in (the

past) two weeks. In other words, BrE usage is generalized from the continuity of non-

action while AmE usage is generalized from the non-occurrence of individual acts.

An additional difference in the application of generalities is the preference for at (BrE

and common) vs over (AmE) for longer holidays and weekends (at/over Easter). Here at

usage stresses the relatively punctual nature of the time unit, while AmE usage under-

scores its longer absolute length. The use of at the weekend (BrE; impossible in AmE)

ﬁts this pattern and treats weekend punctually. AmE on (beside over) the weekend treats

weekend in the same way as a weekday (on Monday).

To indicate a ﬁxed time in the future, the time of reference will always follow from

in AmE while BrE may omit the preposition and even invert the elements, e.g. common

We’ll meet two weeks from Saturday and BrE We’ll meet Saturday fortnight.

For clock time, informal AmE uses of or till for common to as in It’s quarter of/

till ten. This usage with of is unknown in BrE; till is rare there. Informal BrE, on the

other hand, has the preposition gone ‘past’ as in It’s gone eight, which would puzzle an

AmE speaker. Equally hard to understand for this speaker is the time expression It’s half

eight for ‘eight-thirty’. AmE frequently uses after (It’s twenty after nine), while BrE uses

only the shared form past; however, AmE demands past in combination with quarter and

half (a quarter/half past ten). A ﬁnal preference worth mentioning is the use of time

expressions without a preposition, which is more common in AmE than in BrE as in The

meeting started seven-thirty.

Conjunctions A few usages show preferences in the one or the other direction, for

example, lest is more common in AmE (e.g. Be quiet lest he call the police). In BrE this

counts as somewhat archaic. Instead the informal in case might be used in much the same

sense, e.g. Be quiet in case he should call the police, a usage which, however, is not

possible in AmE. Note that both could have . . . so that he won’t call the police.

288 NATIONAL AND REGIONAL VARIETIES OF ENGLISH

In AmE the prepositions plus, like and on account of are sometimes used as conjunc-

tions, e.g. I don’t feel like we should go out on account of it’s late, plus I’m tired (plus as

a conjunction seems to be gaining ground in BrE). In BrE, on the other hand, the adverbs

directly and immediately can also be conjunctions, e.g. Immediately/Directly you came,

he left. Furthermore, in BrE nor may be an adverbial conjunct and co-occur with the con-

junctions and or but, e.g. I don’t like French cheese, but nor do I like cheddar.

Adverbs Perhaps the most noticeable difference in the use of adverbs is the greater

tendency in AmE, especially in speech, informal writing and sports journalism, to use

adjectives rather than adverbs as in You did that real good. While the use of an adjective

in the function of a manner adverb (good in the example) is rejected in more

careful usage, adjectives as intensiﬁers (real in the example) are used much further

up the stylistic scale. The use of adverbs formed from nouns plus the ending -wise (e.g.

time-wise ‘from the point of view of time’ or word-wise ‘as far as words are concerned’)

is considered more typically American. A further morphological difference is the partiality

of AmE to the ending -ward (without a ﬁnal -s) as in toward or backward. AmE has both

someplace and somewhere; BrE has only the latter.

12.3.4 Word order

BrE has Will you give it me? for common Will you give me it? or Will you give it to me?

In the complimentary close to business letters American usage has Sincerely yours while

BrE uses Yours sincerely. In BrE inversion such as Monday last can be found, but hardly

in AmE. See also the River Thames (Humber, Avon etc.), but the Mississippi (Missouri,

Hudson etc.) River. Pre-modiﬁers in journalistic style are more frequent in AmE than in

BrE, for example, British novelist Graham Greene, where more formal styles would have

Graham Greene, the British novelist.

12.4 LEXIS

The lexical relations between BrE and AmE have been analysed in many different ways

of which only the most important can be mentioned in this section.

12.4.1 The developmental approach

What might be called the developmental approach takes the criteria of use, intelligibility

and regional status to set up four groups which can be seen as the stages through which

regional words have to pass before they are fully accepted in StE. The ﬁrst category

consists of words that are neither understood nor used in the other variety, e.g. AmE meld

‘merge’ or BrE hive off ‘separate from the main group’. Group two contains items that

are understood but not used elsewhere (AmE checkers, cookie, howdy or BrE draughts,

scone, cheerio). In the third there are items that are both understood and used in both,

but which still have a distinctly American or British ﬂavour to them (AmE ﬁgure out,

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movie; BrE niggle, telly). The last group, ﬁnally, includes lexical material that is not only

completely intelligible and widely used in the other variety, but has also lost whatever

American or British ﬂavour it may once have had (originally AmE boost, debunk, hi;

originally BrE brass tacks, semi-detached, pissed off). There can be no doubt that many

items start in group one and end up in the last group. It has to be added, however, that

there is often no agreement on where an item should be grouped. Student, for example,

in the (broader than university) sense of ‘young person at school’ used to be usual only

in AmE, but is now commonly heard in BrE as well. Conversely, the BrE word trendy

may have overtaken AmE chic in America. Finally, though almost all dictionaries say

that bag lady ‘a homeless woman who carries everything she owns around with her’ is

an AmE word, it is frequently found in newspapers in Britain, where the phenomenon is

also widespread. This lack of consensus does not, however, mean that the criteria and the

four groups have no value.

The national ﬂavour of a word can be important in determining whether it is accepted

or not. Some people in Britain seem to resent the great number of Americanisms in BrE.

The controversy around the word hopefully, as in hopefully, he will be back soon, has

frequently served as a call-to-arms for purists who condemn it by pointing out that it came

from across the Atlantic. Other speakers in Britain, on the other hand, especially younger

people, might perhaps welcome transatlantic items simply because they are AmE. Overall,

Americans show a more tolerant attitude towards British loans than vice versa; however,

there are far fewer of them in AmE than the other way (a)round.

12.4.2 The causal approach

Scholars have also enquired into the less subjective and more linguistic reasons why items

are or are not borrowed from the one variety into the other. In the causal approach, the

vivid and expressive nature of a number of words and phrases is held to have helped them

expand, for example many of the informal or slang items from AmE like ﬁend (as in dope

ﬁend or ﬁtness ﬁend), joint ‘cheap or dirty place of meeting for drinking, eating etc.’ and

sucker (‘gullible person’). Secondly, many borrowings are short and snappy and often

reinforce the trend in common StE towards the monosyllabic word, such as AmE cut

(next to reduction) and ﬁx (in addition to prepare, repair) or BrE chips (beside AmE

french fries). The third reason has to do with the fact that some loans provide a term for

an idea or concept where there was none before, called a lexical gap. When the idea itself

is missing, this is known as a conceptual gap. Examples of lexical-conceptual gaps are

originally AmE boost, debunk, know-how and high, middle and low brow or originally

BrE brunch, smog, cop, tabloid or gadget.

Finally, part of the attraction of many loans may lie in their morphological make-up.

When they conform to productive word formation patterns of English, they are more likely

to be borrowed. This may include phrasal verbs or zero derived items (see Chapter 2).

Examples of phrasal verbs: originally AmE be into something (‘be passionately interested

in’), bone up (on) (‘study intensively’), cave in (‘collapse, give up’) or originally BrE

butter up ‘sweet talk’ or be cheesed off ‘annoyed’. Among zero derivations of American

origin brush-off, hairdo and showdown can be mentioned.

Conversely, words current in the language of ethnic minorities in the United States,

such as Blacks, Jews and people of Hispanic origin may provide other examples. The

290 NATIONAL AND REGIONAL VARIETIES OF ENGLISH

same is probably true of words borrowed into BrE from many of Britain’s former colonial

holdings, e.g. Anglo-Indian pukka, ‘genuine, sound’ or Arabic shufti ‘a look at some-

thing’. Originally Yiddish words for instance, which are known and used especially on

the east coast of the United States, like schmooze (‘to converse informally’), schlep(p)

(‘carry, move slowly or with great effort’) or schlock (‘trash, cheap goods’) are said to

be unattractive to British ears and tongues perhaps because of the initial consonant clusters

ʃl/ and /ʃm/. But it would be rash to maintain that this type of word will ‘remain ﬁrmly

unborrowed in British English’ (Burchﬁeld 1985: 163); all the same, the latest edition of

the Concise Oxford Dictionary does still mark schlock as (chieﬂy) colloquial American

(but the regional label is not attached to schlep(p) any longer).

12.4.3 The semantic approach

Perhaps the most common way to deal with the lexis of the two varieties is what may

be called the semantic approach. This method compares words and phrases with their

referents or meanings in terms of sameness and difference. Despite varying approaches

with sometimes numerous groupings, ﬁve different groups may conveniently be recog-

nized.

First of all, most words and their meanings are the same, which explains the fact that

British and American speakers rarely experience any difﬁculty in understanding each

other. As a result this ﬁrst group is seldom mentioned. The second group comprises words

which are present in only one variety because they refer to something unknown in the

other culture. This can be words for things in the natural environment such as BrE moor

or heath and AmE prairie and canyon. It also may include social and political institu-

tions, e.g. BrE Yorkshire pudding or back bench and AmE succotash or favorite son.

Although cases in the second category make linguistic help necessary, they do not cause

misunderstandings. A variant on this type of distinction involves lexical gaps. Here the

referent or concept is known in the other variety but not lexicalized, i.e. only paraphrases

are available, e.g. BrE chapel ‘a local (branch) of a printers’ union’ or BrE (slang) to tart

up ‘to dress up in a garish manner’.

The third group covers those cases where different words and phrases are used to

express the same meaning. BrE petrol is AmE gas(oline) and AmE truck is BrE lorry.

In the fourth category the two varieties share a word/phrase, but with a fully different

meaning, as with vest, which in AmE is what is called a waistcoat in BrE, but which in

BrE is what is called an undershirt in AmE. A variation on this is the case in which the

two varieties agree in the meanings, but one variety has an additional meaning not known

or used in the other. For example, both agree in the meaning of leader ‘someone who

leads’, but BrE also uses it in the sense of AmE (and shared) editorial. Conversely, both

understand the noun fall as ‘downward movement’, but AmE also uses this word in the

sense of BrE (and shared) autumn. In many cases special words and meanings arise only

in certain contexts. Examples in BrE are sit or enter for when they collocate with exam,

while freshen has the extra meaning ‘add more liquid etc. to a drink’ in AmE only in

collocation with drink. BrE set an exercise is assign an exercise in AmE. The ﬁnal, ﬁfth

grouping is the very common instance in which both varieties share an expression and

its meaning(s), but where one or both have a further expression for the same thing not

shared by the other. Both AmE and BrE have taxi, while cab is AmE. Likewise, both

1111

1011

4111

20111

5111

30111

40111

47111

STANDARD BRITISH AND AMERICAN ENGLISH IN COMPARISON 291