American and British variants of English

English mi­grants→America (17th c) Are not in the British Vocabulary

Fall = autumn Backwoods = wooded, uninhabited districts

To guess = to think old meanings cold snap = a sudden frost

Sick = ill, unwell blue-grass = a sort of grass in North America

blue-jack = a small Ameri­can oak

egg-plant = a plant with edible fruit

sweet potato = a plant with sweet

edible roots

redbud = an American tree having

small budlike pink flowers,

the state tree of Oklahoma

red cedar = an American co­niferous tree

with reddish fragrant wood

cat-bird = a small North-American bird

whose call resembles the

mewing of a cat

cat-fish = called so because of spines

likened to a cat's claws

bull-frog = a huge frog pro­ducing

sounds not unlike a bull's roar

sun-fish = a fish with a round flat

golden body

(4)

(5)

(6) Spanish borrowings (e. g. ranch, sombrero, canyon, cinch),

Negro borrow­ings (e. g. banjo)

Indian borrowings (rather numerous and have a peculiar fla­vourof their own) (wigwam, squaw, canoe, moccasin, to­boggan, caribou, tomahawk.)

Trans­lation-loans of Indian origin (pale-face (the name of the Indians for all white people), war path, war paint, pipe of peace, fire-water)

(7) Ohio [su'haiau], Michigan ['mifigsn], Tennessee [tene'si:], Illinois [ih'noi(s)], Ken­tucky [ken'Uki]

(8) Should you ask me, whence the stories? Whence these legends and traditions, With the odour of the forest, With the dew and damp of meadows, With the curling smoke of wigwams* With the rushing of great rivers...

(From Hiawatha Song)

(9) American shortenings - were produced on American soil, yet most of them are used both in American English and British English:

movies, talkies, auto, gym (for gymnasium), dorm (for dormitory), perm (for permanent wave, "kind of hair­do"), mo (for moment, e. g. Just a mo), circs (for cir­cumstances, e. g. under the circs), cert (for certainty, e. g. That's a cert), n. g. (for no good), b. f. (for boy­friend), g. m. (for grandmother), okay.

All these wordsrepresent informal stylistic strata of the vocabulary.

(10)

(11)

(12)

On the whole, British people are exposed to a lot of American English on TV, in films and so on and so they will usually understand most American vocabulary. But the Americans don’t often understand Britishisms! Study the following list, make a conclusion which of the words – BrE o AmE – are most widely used by yourself, your teachers, in the books you read and films you se: