British vs American English - Are we Really Speaking the Same Language?

As a UK based (born and bred) writer, I seem to spend a lot of time pretending to be American. Most of the SEO work I do for hire is for clients in North America. They don't mind me being British. Some of them quite like it. But, they want me to write in an American voice. I started off thinking that would be simple but it's taken me years to get it right.

We live in a truly global society. The UK embraced the US long ago and we're more than aware of McDonalds, Starbucks, Walmart, Borders and Amazon. We loved Woolworths for years after its original country did. We watch American TV. We listen to American music. We technically speak the same language. Technically but not really.

A lot of the differences that you'll see if you ever start to write American as a Brit is in words. We eat aubergines; they eat eggplants. We eat courgettes; they eat zucchini. We eat sweets; they eat candy. We bake scones; they bake biscuits. We eat biscuits; they eat cookies. Actually, we eat cookies now too. That's how global we are :)

Sometimes, getting it wrong can be funny. Or embarrassing. Really depends on who you're talking to or writing for. We don't go for a smoke over here. We go out for a fag. You might get a raised eyebrow from an American with that one. An American who refers to someone's fanny is not being unspeakably rude and therefore should not be slapped. They are simply referring to your bum.

Getting the words right actually isn't that hard as you get going. Phrases, however, can be really tricky. This kind of thing can sort the men from the boys. You can change an s to a z. You can spell-check in US English. But, phrases can catch you out.

So, in the UK we might blow our own trumpet. In the US, you'd be more likely to blow your own horn. Here, if the cap fits, we might wear it. There, it's all about the shoe and not the cap. We have a drop in the ocean. Americans have a drop in the bucket.

Funnily enough I probably wrote much better copy when I was new to the differences. I was scared witless of sounding like a Brit so my copy was tight and uncluttered by word-count filling phrases! Reading a couple of books on the differences helped and you really start to notice what people say and how they say it when you watch US TV.

And, just one last thing. Having David Beckham call it soccer doesn't make it soccer. It's football. We had it first :)