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Some people think that the British and the Americans speak the same language. If you tell an Englishman that, he'll laugh. He'll tell you that the British speak English and the Americans speak American.
Everyone knows that the Americans speak English with an accent. They don't say little; they say lil. This is difficult for the British: Lil is a woman's name!
But there are also words that mean one thing in British English and another in American English. If an Englishman asks for 'pants' in a shop in New York, he'll find that the shop assistant shows him trousers. An American calls a tap 'a faucet'; he calls a lift 'an elevator'. He always likes to say longer words than the British. In British English the man who empties your dustbin is called a dustman; in American English, he's called a garbage disposal operative! And Americans don't like to say words like 'toilet' (for 'toilet', they say 'John', because the name of the man who made the first modern toilet was John! )
To show you how difficult it sometimes is for the British and Americans to understand each other, there's a famous story about a phone conversation. An Englishman had tried for half-an-hour to phone a friend in New York. Then he heard his friend pick up the phone.
"Hallo?" said the American operator in New York. "Are you through?" "Yes," said the Englishman - and the operator cut off his phone! 'Are you through?' in British English means: 'Are you speaking to the person you wanted to phone? ' ; but in American English it means: 'Have you finished? '
Sometimes Americans can accidentally be very rude to the British. If an American asks an English hotel porter: "Do you have baths? ",he means: 'Have you got baths in this hotel? 'but the Englishman will think that the American's telling him that he's dirty!
The Americans usually talk to people less politely than the British, and they sometimes make barmen and waiters in Britain angry. They say: "Give me a glass of beer," when the British say: "A glass of beer, please." One well-known barman in the West End of London always gave the customer his beer and then said: "Give me your money! "
Perhaps one day the British will have to buy a dictionary before they go to America!