British English - A Guide for Americans

George Bernard Shaw once said €œEngland and America are two countries separated by the same language.€ Of course, Winston Churchill and Oscar Wilde were also mistakenly credited with the same expression, but this is unimportant. What is important is to realize (realize) that you can get into serious trouble if you think that in England €œshagging€ has something to do with catching baseballs.
Most of the differences in lexis or vocabulary between British and American English are in connection with concepts originating from the 19th century to the mid 20th century, when new words were coined independently. Almost the entire vocabularies of the car/automobile and railway/railroad industries are different between the UK and US, for example. Other sources of difference are slang or vulgar terms (where frequent new coinage occurs) and idiomatic phrases, including phrasal verbs. The differences most likely to create confusion are those where the same word or phrase is used for two different concepts. Regional variations, even within the US or the UK, can create the same problems. Included in this guide is a list of cockney rhyming slang. Cockney rhyming slang is a form of English slang which originated in the East End of London . Many of its expressions have passed into common language, and the creation of new ones is no longer restricted to Cockneys. Up until the late 20th Century, rhyming slang was also common in Australian slang, probably due to the formative influence of cockney on Australian English.