British English
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StressFor many loanwords from French where AE has final-syllable stress, BE stresses an earlier syllable. Such words include: BE first-syllable stress:, ballet, , brochure, buffet, café, canard, , chalet, chauffeur, chiffon, cliché, coupé, croissant, garage, gateau, gourmet, lamé, montage, parquet, pastel, pâté, précis, sachet, salon, soupçon, vaccine; matinée, negligée, nonchalant, nondescript; A few French words have other stress differences: AE first-syllable, BE last-syllable: address (postal), m(o)ustache; cigarette, magazine, AE first-syllable, BE second-syllable: exposé, liaison, AE second-syllable, BE last-syllable: New Orleans Single differences
Grammar The past tense and past participle of the verbs learn, spoil, spell (only in the word-related sense), burn, dream, smell, spill, leap, and others, can be either irregular (learnt, spoilt, etc.) or regular (learned, spoiled, etc.). In BE, both the irregular and regular forms are current; in some cases (smelt, leapt) there is a strong tendency towards the irregular forms (especially by speakers using Received Pronunciation); in other cases (dreamed, leaned, learned) the regular forms are somewhat more common. In AE, the irregular forms are never or hardly ever used (except for burnt, leapt, and dreamt). Prepositions Where British people would say "She resigned on Friday", Americans often say "She resigned Friday", but both forms are common in American usage. The preposition can also be absent when referring to months: "I'll be here June" The first of these two examples of omitting prepositions may be seen as yet another German influence on American English.
BE has in hospital and at university (as a student), where AE requires in the hospital and at the university. British athletes play in a team; American athletes play on a team. (Both may play for a particular team.) In names of American rivers, the word river usually comes after the name (for example, Colorado River), whereas for British rivers it comes before (as in River Thames). Vocabulary (Lexis) Most of the differences in lexis or vocabulary between British and American English are in connection with concepts originating from the 19th century to the mid 20th century, when new words were coined independently.
Words with differing meanings Words like bill (AE "paper money", BE and AE "invoice") and biscuit (AE: BE's "scone", BE: AE's "cookie") are used regularly in both AE and BE, but mean different things in each form. Between British and American English there are also some differences in the choice of vocabulary. Some words mean different things in the two varieties. For example: Mean: (American English - angry, bad humored, British English - not generous, tight fisted) Rubber: (American English - condom, British English - tool used to erase pencil markings) Spelling
In British English, words that end in -l preceded by a vowel usually double the -l when a suffix is added, while in American English the letter is not doubled. The letter will double in the stress is on the second syllable.
Spelling of verbs -ed vs. -t
base form vs. -ed
irregular vs. -ed
Punctuation Full stops/Periods in abbreviations: Americans tend to write Mr., Mrs., St., Dr. etc., while British will most often write Mr, Mrs, St, Dr, etc., following the rule that a full stop is used only when the last letter of the abbreviation is not the last letter of the complete word. Idioms
A number of English idioms that have essentially the same meaning show lexical differences between the British and the American version; for instance:
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