British English vs American English

So which is better: British English or American English? I thought I’d look at some British English versus American English words, and give them marks out of 5 for appropriateness.

DIFFERENT WORDS FOR THE SAME THING

1.     British: SKIPPING ROPE American: JUMP ROPE

5/5 for both definitions. It’s a rope that you skip over. Or jump over.  If I had to award a prize, I’d give it to American English because you don’t actually have to skip over the rope, whereas you do have to jump over it.

2.      British: SEESAW American: TEETER-TOTTER

SEESAW gets 1/5. It seems to be based on changes in field of vision (I’m up, I see you; I’m down, I saw you). What an obscure definition!

TEETER-TOTTER: 2/5. This word suggests that this piece of playground equipment is a permanent health and safety hazard, with children always on the verge of falling off. But since it does suggest falling from height, I’ll give it an extra mark.

3.      British: SPANNER American: WRENCH

SPANNER: 1/5. What does it span? The width of the nut? (And while we’re on the subject, why call it a “nut” instead of something like “screw fastener”? What kind of tree grows hexagonal nuts with holes in the middle?)

WRENCH: 3/5. Actually wrenching the tool is bad practice, but at least the word describes the action of using the tool to some extent.

4.      British: CAR American: AUTOMOBILE

CAR: 3/5. Short for ‘carriage’. A car does indeed carry people around, but the name says nothing about how it does so.

AUTOMOBILE: 4/5. This means ‘something that moves by itself’, which describes a motor vehicle pretty accurately if you leave the handbrake off. It doesn’t say why it moves, which CAR does, but I still give AUTOMOBILE the higher mark.

5.      British: BONNET American: HOOD

Both score 4/5. If you assume that the engine is the ‘head’ of a car, then calling its covering  a ‘bonnet’ or a ‘hood’ is equally sensible. The British word BONNET would seem to suggest that cars are female; this may have been coined by someone who found British cars attractive to look at but sometimes  temperamental …

6.      British: BOOT American: TRUNK

BOOT: 1/5. Presumably named because it’s at the opposite end to the bonnet. But who carries around their luggage in their shoes?

TRUNK: 4/5. It performs the same function as a sea or air passenger’s trunk.

7.      British: WELLINGTON BOOTS American: GALOSHES

WELLINGTON BOOTS: 3/5. They’re really rubber boots, so naming them after a British general is pretty random, but they are boots.

GALOSHES: 4/5. The word means waterproof overshoes, which describes their function pretty well. 

SAME WORDS, DIFFERENT MEANINGS:

            ENJOIN. British: to urge strongly. American: to forbid.

British 4/5, American 2/5. JOIN usually means to begin to participate in some activity, so ENJOIN sounds like encouragement to do something. The American word means almost the opposite, so I’ve given it the opposite score.

CHIPS. British: French fries (but bigger). American: Crisps.

British 5/5. Potato chips are, indeed, bits chipped off a potato.

American: 3/5. American potato chips are thin slices of a potato, which are then fried almost beyond recognition.

JELLY. British: Jell-o (or fruit-free jelly). American: Jam or other preserves.

British: 4/5. The word means a substance that is made with gelatine. The British version is gelatine, water, and (hopefully) fruit juice.

American: 3/5. Using the same word for gelatine-based foodstuffs with or without fruit is unnecessarily confusing. British English even has a third word – marmalade – which used to distinguish sharper-tasting preserves made with citrus fruits from jam made with sweeter fruits.

FOOTBALL. British: soccer. American: gridiron.

British 5/5, American 2/5.

British English wins again. The American name may be ultimately the fault of an English schoolboy from Rugby, but I refuse to call any game ‘football’ when 98% of the players never touch the ball with their feet. 

CONCLUSION

Where the Americans have gone the American way, inventing their own words, they have had logical ideas and have put them into practice more successfully than the British. But where the Americans have tried to do things the same way the British do, the Brits win easily.

Sounds like the rest of life, really ...