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4. Most of the differences in vocabulary between American and British English
Most of the differences in vocabulary between American and British English relate to words denoting objects and concepts that emerged between the nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries. During that period, new words for them were created separately in Great Britain and the United States. For example, most of the words for objects and concepts in the automobile (car/automobile) and railway (railway/railroad) industries differ between Americans and Britons. Differences are still present in slang and mate (where new words often emerge), as well as in phraseology and idioms, including phrasal verbs. Most often, misunderstandings in a conversation between a US resident and a British resident are caused by words that have completely different meanings in their respective language variants. The same difficulties can arise when using local, dialectal forms in speech, even if both interlocutors are from the same country. Due to the development of information technology, already since the middle of the 20th century new words have been adopted in both directions through movies and music. The influence of the American vocabulary on the British vocabulary is particularly strong.

Researchers often have difficulty in classifying the lexical differences between language variants. The British linguist David Crystal put several common problems on the cover of his list of lexical differences between American and British English. He accompanied them with the following remark: "this should be enough to realize that one must be careful when dealing with a seemingly simple list of equivalents."

An overview of grammatical differences
Attention! In this article the lexicon is understood as a set of semantic units, which in addition to words also contains figures of speech and phrases. With this assumption, the comparison is simplified.

Most speakers of both language variants are familiar with each other's regional vocabulary thanks to the common intercultural information environment that developed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Nevertheless, words used only in one language variant, although they will be understood in the other one, will be perceived by the interlocutor as foreign, up to the point of equating them to borrowings from the other language. For example, if a Briton were to address his American friend as chap or mate, it would look to the latter as if the American were to address his friend as Spanish amigo.

Words and expressions from British English
Most native speakers of American English know at least a couple of expressions that are strictly British. Sometimes confusion can arise in conversation if people don't know whether a word has a British or an American meaning, as with the word biscuit, for example. Some British words are easy to guess, such as driving license. However, much of the British vocabulary is unheard of in America, so words like nuff are unknown to Americans.

Words and expressions from American English

The British understand the most common American words such as sidewalk, gas (gasoline/petrol), counterclockwise, and elevator. This is primarily due to the influence of American pop culture and literature. Those expressions that are not found in pop culture, such as copacetic (satisfactory), are not known in Great Britain.
Differences
Words and expressions with different meanings
Words like bill and biscuit are often used in both versions of English, but mean different things in each. In American English, the word bill most often refers to paper money, as in "dollar bill," a "dollar bill. The British use the word bill to mean a bill payable, for example "the repair bill was £250" - "the repair bill was £250. What the U.S. calls a biscuit is called a scone (a barley or wheat flatbread) in Britain. The British biscuit means the same thing as the American cookie. Winston Churchill, in his writings, recalled the curious case of the British and American representatives at a meeting of the anti-Hitler coalition countries during the Second World War when they could not understand each other because of the verb to table, which has opposite meanings in British and American English. To table in British English means "to bring an issue to the table," while in American English it means "to postpone discussion of the subject.

The British understand the word football by the rules of the Football Association, which is the same sport as soccer in Russian. In America, the word football means American soccer, but traditional soccer is called soccer. The term "soccer" first appeared in British English in the 19th century to distinguish the modern standardized form of soccer among many other varieties (rugby, American soccer and others). In modern English, the word soccer is often mistaken for Americanism, since the term is now in regular use exclusively in the United States and Canada.

Similarly, in Great Britain the word hockey refers to field hockey, and in America to ice hockey.

Other ambiguities (complicated cases)

The language variants under consideration, among other things, also contain words with completely different meanings. They are divided into two groups: the first includes words with multiple meanings, one or more of which are unique to a variant (American or British). Examples of words from this group are bathroom and toilet, because in America bathroom is any room with a toilet, while in Britain it is only a bathroom.

Some differences can lead to misunderstandings and difficulties in communication. For example, the word fanny in British English is a slang term for the vulva, whereas in America it means the buttocks. The equivalent of the American word fanny bag (bag carried on the belt) in Britain is bum bag. Another example is the word fag (short for faggot), which in American English is a ribald insult and in British English is quite a common multi-valued word. Among its meanings are "cigarette," "hard work," "dirty and chore," "faggot," and even one of the national English dishes (pork cutlets, bassoons).

In a similar way the meaning of the word pants differs. In Americans it is pants (Brit. trousers), and in Britons it is underwear. The American meaning of the word pants is also used in several dialects of Northern England. In other parts of Britain, it is often considered an Americanized word, despite the fact that it comes from an abbreviation of the ancient French word pantaloons.

Sometimes the differences are not so sharp. For example, the word quite in American English is used as a substitute for the word very, as in "I'm quite hungry. In British English, on the other hand, quite is used much more often and means "like" - "I'm quite hungry" would be understood in Britain as "I'm, like, hungry. Such a discrepancy in meaning can also lead to confusion.

Frequency of use of individual words
In the UK, it is acceptable to use the full-fledged conjunction while instead of while. In the United States only while is used as a conjunction and as a preposition.
The word fall, meaning "autumn," is considered obsolete by the British. Although fall in this sense occurs frequently in Elizabethan and Victorian English literature, nowadays the British firmly associate it with American English.
The term "full stop" is used in British English to denote a point (punctuation mark), and "period" in American English. For example, the words of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, "Terrorism is wrong, full stop," would carry the same meaning for U.S. residents in the following entry: "Terrorism is wrong, period. However, under the influence of the American media, the word period begins to appear in everyday British speech as an interjection, meaning the same as the Russian expressions "and all," "and period.
In the United States, fifth grade (5th grade) refers to elementary school, and eighth grade (8th grade) is the last grade of junior high school. In the U.S. educational system there are no uniform standards of division into grades, and therefore differences in the name and order of educational stages can occur even within the same state.

The British traditionally refer to American high school as secondary school, a concept that applies to both public and private schools. In America there is also a transitional phase between elementary school and high school - the so-called middle school or junior high school. The word middle school in Great Britain is used synonymously with the word junior school - the second half of elementary school lasting 4-6 years. However, the meaning of the term middle school varies from region to region. For example, in Dorset (Southern England) it means the second stage of schooling in the three-tier system, usually grades 5-8. Elsewhere, for example in Evesham and the surrounding county of Worcestershire, the second stage lasts from 6th to 8th grade, with children going on to secondary school in 9th grade. A very different system is adopted in Kirklees, West Yorkshire and the villages of Dearne Valley. School education is also divided into three stages, but the first of them (First School) lasts six years (grades Reception - Year 5), the second (Middle School) lasts three years (grades 6 to 8) and the third (High School) lasts four years (grades 9 to 13).

The concept of public school in America and Great Britain has two opposite meanings. In the United States it means a public educational institution financed from public tax revenues (like public schools in Russia). In contrast, in England and Wales, public school refers to a prestigious private independent school (independent school) where tuition is charged. Independent schools are also called private schools (private schools), and this name is officially adopted for all fee-paying schools in Northern Ireland and Scotland. The name public school in these two regions is usually never applied in the same sense as in England. However, there are exceptions - Scottish private school Gordonstoun, where Prince Charles studied, is also sometimes called public school (as well as several other schools in Scotland). Publicly funded schools in Scotland and Northern Ireland are officially called state schools, but are also sometimes mistakenly referred to as public schools in the American way. In the U.S. state school is understood to be a state-run institution of higher education. This confusion arises because of the multiple meanings of the English word state, which can refer both to a state (a social institution or country), and to a single U.S. state.
Speech of speakers of both languages also contains some other terms for special schools. For example, the term preparatory school in the U.S. includes all private schools that prepare students for university. In the United Kingdom, a preparatory school is a private school for children under 13 years of age that prepares students for the transition to a fee-paying high school. The term parochial school in the United States means a fee-paying school run by a religious organization, most often the Catholic Church and its diocese (similar to parochial schools in Russia). The adjective "parochial" is never used in reference to schools run by Protestant fundamentalist organizations. Modern British state schools are descended from medieval parochial schools, which were funded by local religious organizations. Those, in turn, were controlled by the state through the Church of England (Anglicanism was the official religion of England). This system is partly preserved in the modern British educational system, and many schools, especially primary schools (children under 11), have not lost their connection to the church. They are called church schools, C.E. Schools or C.E. (Aided) Schools. There are also so-called faith schools run by the Roman Catholic Church and other religious organizations, not just Christian ones.