
Winston Churchill made this statement in 1943 during a speech at Harvard. He wasn’t the first to express this notion and there is plenty of evidence supporting the concept.
From a variety of sources, the Tearsheet has cobbled together some interesting insights into our friends across the pond covering spelling, grammar. punctuation, usage, etc.
For starters most language scholars agree that the two languages share a core vocabulary, with more than 80 percent of words being common to both British and American english. The same holds true for fundamental grammar. British and American english are largely identical, sharing the same sentence structure, verb conjugation patterns and basic rules of usage.
That’s not to say that there aren’t differences. Some of the most common differences are evidenced in spelling (American vs British): color/colour, favor/favour, labor/labour, center/centre, theater/theatre, defense/defence, et.al. Then there are those instances when spelling and pronunciation differ as well: learned/learnt, burned/burnt, et.al. There are times when spelling is the same but the pronunciation differs. An American would pronounce “patronizing” sounding like “pat-ronizing” but a Brit would say it like “pay-tronizing.”
Other differences in words and phrases go well beyond mere spelling and pronunciation. When Americans say, “cookie,” Brits say, “biscuit.” A British “cash point” is an American ATM. An American performance may include an “intermission” while the Brits enjoy an “interval.” And sometimes the overlap can be confusing. American “potato chips” are a Brit’s “crisps.” But a Brit’s “chips” are American “fries.” Pity the poor potato.
The list goes on. An American will ride in an “elevator” while a Brit does the same in a “lift.” Americans drive “trucks” but Brits drive a “lorry.” An American leaves his car in a “parking lot,” but a Brit will leave his car in a “car park.” Americans live in “apartments” and Brits will rent a “flat.”
And those are just some of the more obvious and common examples. Peel back the onion and you encounter the aroma of any number of dialects, regional accents and the like. Then, of course, there is today: January 15,2025. An American would write the date as: 1/15/25, but a Brit would write 15/1/25.
It’s appropriate that Winston Churchill would coin the phrase “two nations divided by a common language.” After all, despite being one of the most notable figures in British history, Churchill’s mother was… an American.
“MUSTANG, n. An indocile horse of the western plains. In English society, the American wife of an English nobleman.” — Ambrose Bierce, an American short story writer, journalist, poet and American Civil War veteran.
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