British English vs. American English

by Karel Thönissen

Answering a question in Joel on Software on the use of British English vs. American English on websites:

The difference between Br.E. and Am.E. is largely irrelevant for me as a non-native speaker. However, Americans (more than English in my experience) often make a number of very irritating errors in their use of English on their websites:

• Use of abbreviations that I as a non-native speaker do not know and that are not in a normal dictionary, including the popular 'ZIP'.
• Use of slang, ethnic words such as nada, zilch, wanna, gonna, walhalla, ain't. These words are not in a regular translation dictionary as used by foreigners.
• Use of words from popular (American) culture such as references to television series, movies, nursery rhimes, etc.
• Use of non-ISO compliant units, i.e. non-metric units, without also providing the measurement in metric units in parentheses.
• Use of domestic telephone numbers only.
• Use dates like 05/06/04.
• Use of times on a 12-hour clock with AM and PM (even most English and Americans do not get this right for the times between 12 and 1).
• Use of proverbs. Never us proverbs, not even when they where invented by Shakespeare.
• Flags as a sign of patriotism.

Earler articles on the use of International English at Garabit.