What are some words you feel sound more right in both the American and British English?
I use a mix of the two depending on the word.
For example, I stand by pronouncing words like “Amazon” with an “ehn” sound at the end over an “ohn” sound, prefer spelling colour and flavour with a u, and also like using double Ls for words like travelling. Also, it is “grey”. (British English)
However, I pronounce Z as “zee”and call them fries rather than chips.
There are also spellings where I sort of alternate between depending on my mood, such as “meter” vs “metre”and“airplane” vs “aeroplane”
Are there any words that you think sound better in British and American spellings/pronunciations?
I propose a combined American, British, Australian vernacular only using the word with fewer syllables. (New Zealand and Canada are welcome too)
British Wins:
American Wins:
Australian Wins:
Since your Australia section is lacking, here’s a couple:
transport > transit
ute > pickup truck
bogan > redneck
metro > subway
cyclone > hurricane
“Thongs” could be misinterpreted in a hilarious way though.
Re fall/autumn - is there a US equivalent for the work autumnal? Falllike doesn’t seem quite right, nor fallish, nor fallumnal.
I’ve only ever heard Autumnal used for the equinox. Otherwise Autumn and Fall are also used as adjectives in American English. Fall colors. Fall planting. A cool autumn breeze.
In most of these sentence examples, an American would use fall/autumn interchangably where autumnal is used.
That makes sense, but they wouldn’t work so well with the adjective at the end of a sentence.
Eg
“Today feels very autumnal” 👍
“Today feels very fall” 👎
Not remotely important, I know, but I find stuff like this interesting.
But how do I differentiate between visiting the chemist and visiting the chemist?