本文选自《英国大使馆文化教育处》的博客，点击查看博客原文
英式英语 vs 美式英语1. 人行道：(B) Pavement;(A) sidewalk
2. 垃圾： (B) Rubbish;(A)trash
3. 足球：(B)football;(A)soccer
4. 地铁(B)Tube(A)subway
5.饼干：(B)biscuit;(A)cookie
6.糖果：(B)sweets;(A)candy
7.句号：(B)full stop;(A)period
8. 秋天：(B)autumn;(A)fall
9.公寓(B)Flat;(A) apartment
10.电梯(B) Lift;(A)elevator
11.炸薯条(B)chips;(A)fries
12.汽油(B) Petrol –(A)Gas
13.高速公路(B)Motorway –(A)highway
14.果冻 (B)Jam –(A) jelly
15.电影院(B) Cinema –(A)movie theatre
16.裤子(B)Trousers –(A)pants
17. 停车场(B)Car park –(A)parking lot
18.毛衣 (B)Jumper –(A)sweater
19.节假日 (B)–(A)vacation
20.邮政编码(B)Post code –(A)zip code
Over the past 400 years, the form of the language used in the United States – and that used in the United Kingdom and the rest of the British Isles have diverged in many ways, leading to the dialects now commonly referred to as American English and British English. Differences between the two include pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, spelling, punctuation, idioms, formatting of dates and numbers, and so on. A small number of words have completely different meanings between the two dialects or are even unknown or not used in one of the dialects。
在过去四百年里，美国和英国所使用的英语不尽相同，也就是我们所熟知的美式英语和英式英语。两者的不同表现在方方面面，包括发音、语法、词汇、拼写、标点符号，惯用语和日期和数字的格式等等。有一小部分词汇甚至是“完全的同形异义词”，使用者甚至根本不知道这一点：在这种方言里使用的这个词的意义并不在另一种方言里使用。
This divergence between American English and British English once caused George Bernard Shaw to say that the United States and United Kingdom are "two countries divided by a common language"; a similar comment is ascribed to Winston Churchill. Likewise, Oscar Wilde wrote, "We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, the language."
关于美式英语和英式英语的这种分歧，剧作家萧伯纳大发感慨“美英两国是一种语言，两个国家”，英国首相丘吉尔也曾说过类似的话。无独有偶，英国作家王尔德也嘲讽地写道：“可以说，除了语言，如今我们在各方面和美国是完全一样的。”