5 Differences Between British and American Vocabulary

We’ve previously looked at the differences between British and American English in grammar and spelling. But there is one more thing we need to cover: vocabulary.

There are lots of transatlantic differences in the words we use. Too many to cover in one blog post, in fact! But here are five of our favourites (or ‘favorites’ if you prefer US spelling).

1. Ambiguous Vegetables

Would you rather have an aubergine, a courgette and a swede? Or an eggplant, a zucchini and a rutabaga? If you ask us, the second option sounds much tastier.

The problem is that they’re actually the same things, so flavour-wise it would make no difference. But it’s hard to deny that ‘rutabaga’ is much more fun to say than ‘swede’!

2. Confusing Cars

There is a huge difference in how we talk about cars and driving on either side of the Atlantic. A British car, for instance, has a bonnet and a boot, but an American car has a hood and a trunk.

There are also differences when it comes to indicators (turn signals), number plates (license plates), windscreens (windshields) and gear sticks (gear shifts).

And while we fill our cars with petrol and leave our vehicles in car parks, Americans use ‘gas’ and pull up in a ‘parking lot’. It’s enough to make you want to walk instead.

But should we use the pavement or the sidewalk?

3. Fried Potatoes

What is a ‘chip’? If you ask anyone in the UK, they’ll tell you it’s a long, thin strip of fried potato.

But in the US, these are known as ‘French fries’ (despite not being French). And a ‘potato chip’ is what we’d call a crisp. But at least we can agree that deep-frying potatoes is a good idea.

4. Punctuation Madness

Since we’re proofreaders, it’d be wrong not to acknowledge the UK–US divide on terminal punctuation: is the little dot at the end of a sentence a full stop or a period?

Originally, these terms were used for different things. A ‘period’ was the dot itself, while a ‘full stop’ was a period at the end of a sentence. But British English has adopted ‘full stop’ to mean the dot itself, which actually makes less sense when it isn’t used at the end of a sentence.

But we’ll ignore that and insist we’re right anyway. That is the British way, after all.

5. Zzzzzzz…

What better place to finish than at the end of the alphabet? The letter ‘z’ is pronounced differently in the UK (‘zed’) and the US (‘zee’). ‘Zed’ is definitely the older pronunciation, dating back to the fifteenth century. But ‘zee’ caught on in America, first recorded in the late 1600s.

Why? Rhyme. Not only does ‘zee’ rhyme with other letters in the alphabet (e.g. ‘bee’, ‘cee’, ‘dee’). It also rhymes with ‘me’, such as in ‘next time won’t you sing with me?’ at the end of the popular song children use to learn the alphabet. And who can argue with a catchy tune?