【英語單詞趣談】英美單詞的不同之處
Can you tell the difference between British and American English? Check out these words, then tell us which variety of English you tend to use by leaving a comment below.
英式英語和美式英語有什麼不同？看看這些單詞，然後說說你平時願意用英式英語還是美式英語。
British - American
1. Pavement – sidewalk
1.人行道
2. Rubbish – trash
2.垃圾
3. Football – soccer
3.足球（小編注：football在美式英語裏也存在，是美式足球也就是橄欖球的意思）
4. Biscuit – cookie
4.餅乾
5. Sweets – candy
5.糖
6. Tube – subway
6.地鐵
7. Full stop – period
7.句號
8. Autumn - fall
8.秋天
9. Flat – apartment
9.公寓
10. Lift – elevator
10.電梯（小編注：這種電梯是箱子一樣上下的那種，如果是扶手電梯則叫escalator）
11. Chips – fries
11.薯條
12. Petrol – Gas
12.汽油
13. Motorway – highway
14.高速公路
14. Jam – jelly
14.果醬，果凍
15. Cinema – movie theatre
15.電影院
16. Trousers – pants
16.褲子
17. Car park – parking lot
17.停車場
18. Jumper – sweater
18.毛衣
19. Holiday – vacation
19.假期
20. Post code – zip code
20.郵編
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.
過去的四百年間，美國、英聯邦以及不列顛羣島使用的語言都在不斷地發生變化，最終演變成了英式英語和美式英語。兩種英語在音標、語法、詞彙、拼寫、標點、諺語、日期和數字的形式等等許多方面都有不同。有一小部分詞在兩種英語中有着完全不同的意思，有些甚至在另外一種英文中不會使用。
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."
美式英語和英式英語之間甚至讓蕭伯納產生了“英美兩國是被同一種語言分開了”的感慨。丘吉爾也發出了類似的感嘆。王爾德也寫到：“現如今除了語言，我們與美國有許多相似之處。”
