AMERICAN
ENGLISH
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They
eliminated the syllables which are not pronounced. For more information: Spelling
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Singular
nouns which refer to collectives always use singular verbs. In British the verb
can be plural or singular. Ex.: The
police is very useful (American).
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The present
perfect is not used when referring to actions in the past. Ex.: I ate an apple
(American) // I have eaten an apple (British).
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Americans
don’t use ‘’have got’’ to referring possession. The use ‘’have’’ only.
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The past
participle of ‘’get’’ in British is ‘’got’’, but in American is ‘’gotten’’.
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Some verbs
have two forms of past: one regular and one irregular. British uses the
irregular form and American uses the regular form. Ex.: BURN (burnt and burned,
respectively).
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Americans
use different words which have other names in British. See this page: Words
HIBERNO
ENGLISH (IRELAND)
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They never
use ‘’yes’’ or ‘’no’’ when answering questions. Ex.: Do you want cake? I do.
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Irish
people use some archaic expressions such as ‘’tis’’ (it is), ‘’tisn’t’’ (it
isn’t), ‘’ye’’ or ‘’yous’’ (you), ‘’amn’t’’ (am not).
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They don’t
have the past perfect, so they use the past continuous with after. Ex.: They
had gone to my house when I was outside (British) // They were after going when
I was outside (Irish).
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The Irish
finish the sentences with words like ‘’no?’’ or ‘’yeah’’.
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They use
the expression ‘’to have’’ as a synonym ‘’to speak’’. Ex.: I speak English
(British) // I have English (Irish).
SCOTTISH
ENGLISH
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It has
fewer diphthongs than British English.
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The modal
“will” can be used as a substitute for “shall” and “may”.
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Just like
in Ireland, the abbreviated from of “I am not” is “I amn’t” instead of “I’m
not”.
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Future
negation always requires the presence of an independent “not”, instead of the
correspondent negative form of the verb. Example: “I won’t study for the exam.”
(British) // “I’ll not study for the exam”. (Scottish).
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Its
vocabulary contains words inherited from Gaelic (“loch” for “lake”, “cailleach”
for “old woman”) and Old Norse (“bern” for “child”).
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It also
contains expressions inherited from Scots, a language variety spoken in Lowlad
Scotland. For example, “outwith” for “outside of” or “janitor” for “caretaker”.
Curiously, “janitor” is also accepted in American English.
