Choose Your Side: Are You British or American. Episode 5.
Hello, ladies and gentlemen!
Are you ready for a new installment of British and American differences? Ready to choose your side? That's good, because I'd really like to tell you about a few more words today.
Remember when you were a student at school, and you wrote with a pencil? Sometimes you made mistakes and needed to erase what you had written. What did you use?
If you said 'rubber' then you're a British fan. And what do Americans use? They use erasers.
As for me, an eraser sounds more logical, because it is used to erase. But that's just my humble opinion.
Do you often use a rubber now?
When was the last time you bought or borrowed an eraser?
I'll explain a word and you need to try to guess what I'm talking about.
It's kind of like a fruit, it grows on big stalks and it is covered in a sort of plant-like hair. You need to peel the hair off, boil the yellow fruit, eat it and you will have a cob in the middle. Did you guess what I'm talking about?
Yay, it's corn! Or is it maize?
Which is it for you? Choose your side!
What do Americans call it? That's right, they call it corn. So maize is a British word.
Which did you choose?
Do you like maize?
Do you salt corn before eating it?
Do you have a car or are you a pedestrian? Where do pedestrians walk? They walk on the pavement, don't they? Or do they walk on the sidewalk?
Which is the British word? Yay! Pavement is the British equivalent. What is the American word? Sidewalk.
Which word sounds more familiar to you?
Actually, Americans use the word 'pavement' as well. But in the USA it has a different meaning. Pavement in American English is the surface of a road. The gray rocky stuff that covers the road is the pavement.
So when it rains, the pavement gets wet. Not the sidewalk, the pavement.
Do you always walk on the sidewalk when you can?
I want to drive a car someday. But the fact remains that I don' t know how to drive it (yet) and I still don't have a car. So I need to get a car and one document before I can drive.
What document was I talking about?
A driving licence. That's right. If I want to say the British version then it's a driving licence. Licence to drive.
If I want to use the American version, then I need to get a driver's license, license to be a driver.
Which sounds more familiar to you?
Do you have a driver's license?
By the way, how do you spell ‘licence' in British? L-I-C-E-N-C-E. Is the spelling the same in American? Nope, it isn't. It's L-I-C-E-N-S-E. What changed? The ending from “ce” to “se”.
How do you spell license?
Well, now you know several more differences between British and American English.
Choose your side!
