Topic: The main English speaker of the vocabulary system of English-speaking countries. Difference between British and American English

Vocabulary[edit]

See also: Lists of words having different meanings in American and British English, Glossary of American terms not widely used in the United Kingdom, and Glossary of British terms not widely used in the United States
The familiarity of speakers with words and phrases from different regions varies, and the difficulty of discerning an unfamiliar definition also depends on the context and the term. As expressions spread with the globalisation of telecommunication, they are often but not always recognised as foreign to the speaker's dialect, and words from other dialects may carry connotations with regard to register, social status, origin, and intelligence.

Words and phrases with different meanings[edit]

Main article: Lists of words having different meanings in American and British English
Words such as bill and biscuit are used regularly in both AmE and BrE but can mean different things in each form. The word "bill" has several meanings, most of which are shared between AmE and BrE. However, in AmE "bill" often refers to a piece of paper money (as in a "dollar bill") which in BrE is more commonly referred to as a note. In AmE it can also refer to the visor of a cap,[9] though this is by no means common. In AmE a biscuit (from the French "twice baked" as in biscotto) is a soft bready product that is known in BrE as a scone or a specifically hard, sweet biscuit. Meanwhile, a BrE biscuit incorporates both dessert biscuits and AmE cookies (from the Dutch 'little cake').
As chronicled by Winston Churchill, the opposite meanings of the verb to table created a misunderstanding during a meeting of the Allied forces;^[10] in BrE to table an item on an agenda means to open it up for discussion whereas in AmE, it means to remove it from discussion, or at times, to suspend or delay discussion; e.g. Let's table that topic for later.
The word "football" in BrE refers to association football, also known in the US as soccer. In AmE, "football" means American football. The standard AmE term "soccer", a contraction of "association (football)", is actually of British origin, derived from the formalisation of different codes of football in the 19th century, and was a fairly unremarkable usage (possibly marked for class) in BrE until later; in Britain it became perceived as an Americanism.^[11] In non-American and non-Canadian contexts, particularly in sports news from outside the United States and Canada, American (or US branches of foreign) news agencies and media organisations also use "football" to mean "soccer", especially in direct quotes.
Similarly, the word "hockey" in BrE refers to field hockey and in AmE, "hockey" means ice hockey.
Words with completely different meanings are relatively few; most of the time there are either (1) words with one or more shared meanings and one or more meanings unique to one variety (for example, bathroom and toilet) or (2) words the meanings of which are actually common to both BrE and AmE but that show differences in frequency, connotation or denotation (for example, smart, clever, mad).
Some differences in usage and meaning can cause confusion or embarrassment. For example, the word fanny is a slang word for vulva in BrE but means buttocks in AmE—the AmE phrase fanny pack is bum bag in BrE. In AmE the word pissed means being annoyed or angry whereas in BrE it is a coarse word for being drunk (in both varieties, pissed off means irritated).
Similarly, in AmE the word pants is the common word for the BrE trousers and knickers refers to a variety of half-length trousers (though most AmE users would use the term "shorts" rather than knickers), while the majority of BrE speakers would understand pants to mean underpants and knickers to mean female underpants.
Sometimes the confusion is more subtle. In AmE the word quite used as a qualifier is generally a reinforcement, though it is somewhat uncommon in actual colloquial American use today and carries an air of formality: for example, "I'm quite hungry" is a very polite way to say "I'm very hungry". In BrE quite (which is much more common in conversation) may have this meaning, as in "quite right" or "quite mad", but it more commonly means "somewhat", so that in BrE "I'm quite hungry" can mean "I'm somewhat hungry". This divergence of use can lead to misunderstanding.