58 Differences Between British And American English That Still Confuse Everyone

Pommes 🍟

I'm happy to be American, but it really is ridiculous that we call it soccer when the rest of the world says football, or futball, or all the other variations I heard during my years of travel.

ALUMINIUM! WORCESTERSHIRE! MAGDELAIN COLLEGE OXFORD! It's a minefield of vocabular snobbery that makes the unique difference. Proud to be British but hate the pretensions!

We also have cookies, they're just very different from biscuits!

Tap is easier for me :D

Spongebob squaretrousers

The word crisp moves from the back of your mouth to the front as you say it

Queue is just Q followed by 4 silent letters

Or tennis shoes

It is a description based on the fact the fabric has a "nap" ie fibres that stick up but in the case of this material don't lay in a certain direction & doesn't have the meaning tied to hair & race that it does in the US (at least that I'm aware of). When I moved to the USA. I was very confused the first time I heard someones hair described as nappy.

In the UK you have pubs and bars...they're just slightly different things!

Rubbish is more satisfying to say

Lift me up Scotty!

Actually, just "gas" — which caused translation problems.

This one isn't right really... it will be called something different by almost every other person!

In Australia, I bought tickets to a "torch light tour" only to find out they meant flashlights and not fire torches. Disappointed.

Nuance. In USA, holiday tends to refer to the date itself, and vacation refers to what you do with it.

Lollies.

Calls gf "help! I messed up! Theres a dead body in my boot!" Shes gonna pick me up and take me shoe shopping.

A wardrobe is a stand alone piece of furniture and closets are built in. At least where I'm from.

shedyool

Just "dummy"

"WE CALL IT FALL BECAUSE LEAF FALL DOWN"

WAIT YOU GUYS SAY ANTI-CLOCKWISE I hate to be that American but wow I never knew that

You def dont wanna erase your paper with a rubber in the us...thatll get messy

But Jello is a trademarked name. Oddly enough, so are Band-Aid and Kleenex

UK overalls would be work clothes covering the body including the arm. Hence 'over all'.

Tube or Underground in the UK and really only the London one is called the tube.

In USA, they're called taxis more often than cabs.

South Africa: barrister=advocate, solicitor=attorney/lawyer

Car comes from carriage, used to carry. But now we only call one type of thing a car. So, I suppose parking lot would be more modern. In Australia though, it's still car park.

In the UK & Ireland we differentiate between a Truck and a Lorry, the image above is of a Lorry but the difference is that a Lorry can never detach its trailer where as a truck can and is usually much bigger than a lorry.

In Philippines we use Flyover for vehicles and Overpass as another term for footbridge

Windowscreen up north!

As an American, whenever I hear about a car's bonnet, I think of a VW donning a frilly nursery hat.

Tire in U.K. Means to be tired, sleepy exhausted. Different spelling very different meaning. Same as - are u shore? Would be wrong. Seashore. And are you sure sure.

in UK, a vest is underwear

In the UK you'd only call it a yard if it had some sort of hard surface - stone or paving. If it's mostly plants, it's a garden. Or in my case, I have a jungle :D

I heard "barking mad" in a Cary Grant movie I once saw. I thought they made it up for the movie, but then I heard it somewhere else and realized it was a British expression.

I'd say (in the UK) tin of beans, but would throw away the empty can. Cans of beer though.

Canada is either or

Defo an oven with a hob in U.K.

But you can go to the post office to get the mail.

Aunt Messy

Aunt Messy

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Generally railway refers to a company and the railroad refers to the actual tracks...or so we use it in Canada.

It's called a Zipper universally, but we thought it would be cool to shorten it to Zip, as in Zip it not Zipper it.

I find it annoying that 'apartment' seems to have replaced 'flat' in my area of the UK. It is called a flat here, apartment sounds too American.

Aussies call them number plates too, caught me off guard when my husband asked for my number plate ???

"Pavement" is a word in common usage in the USA, but refers more to the substance of the sidewalk. So you can fall and hit the pavement equally well if you are on a sidewalk or in a parking lot.

You've used a picture of a maid/cleaner which is confusing the issue a little. Binman/dustman applies to garbage collector...the people who come round in a big lorry to empty bins weekly/fortnightly.

Pocketbook? Who uses this word in the real world?

Geez, hope they're not going to list all the spelling differences separately in this way. We could be here all night....

We don't have Freeways in the Uk. Just Motorways, A roads and B roads (all of which could have tolls on them, but there arn't that many toll roads (lol, we'd moan like hell). We're not that big a country compared to US, Canada or Australia. I actually thought they were just called Freeways in the US (probably because the dog in Hart to Hart was called Freeway because he was found on the freeway. Geez, I'm showing my age now, lol).

We use both in the UK. Motorcycle sounds a bit more formal.

It's Marvellous Woman!

I still say I'm going to the flicks when I go to the cinema

Drapes typically are full-length to the floor

well it depends where in USA...some might say Bodega. lol

Whisky - no 'e' - Scotch. Whiskey with an 'e' - from anywhere else.