British English, American English or International English?

When you’re getting professional translations into English, do you think about whether you want your content to be written in British English, American English or International English?

There’s no right or wrong answer – it depends on who your target audience is. If you’re a DMO (destination marketing organisation), hotel or tour operator targeting the UK, Irish, Australian, New Zealand or Canadian markets, then you should choose British English. And if you’re targeting the American market, then American English.

However, if you’re using English content not just to target native speaker markets, but also as an international language to reach a global audience of people who speak English as a second language, then you can choose a variant sometimes referred to as International English. This typically features spelling based on British English, but steers away from any phrases associated with just one specific locale that non-native speakers may perhaps not be familiar with.

Now let’s take a look at some of the ways in which British and American English differ.

The most common differences between British and American English lie in spelling. While British English is more influence by French in its spelling, with many words ending in -our, -ise and -ogue (flavour, jeopardise, dialogue), American English has adopted the endings -or, -ize and -og (flavor, jeopardize, dialog). Note that, despite the spelling differences, these words are generally pronounced the same in both language variants. Other common spelling differences include centre (British) versus center (American) and defence (British) versus defense (American).

The next big difference is in punctuation. The serial comma, also known as the Oxford comma, which appears before the words ‘and’ / ‘or’ in a list of items, is commonly used in American English, but only seldomly in British English (e.g. A, B, and C versus A, B and C). There are some amusing situations when the presence or absence of the serial comma can radically change the meaning of a sentence. Consider:

My father, the dog and the cat went to the beach.

My father, the dog, and the cat went to the beach.

Using a serial comma here encloses ‘the dog’ in commas, which gives the impression that the dog is the speaker’s father! So, regardless of whether your content is written in British or American English, it’s important here not to use a serial comma.

My parents, the dog and the cat, went to the beach.

My parents, the dog, and the cat, went to the beach.

This time, the opposite is true. The serial comma is vital here to ensure that ‘the dog and the cat’ are not construed to be the speaker’s two parents!

Other punctuation differences include the use of en-dashes and em-dashes and the way in which closing quotation marks are used with full stops and commas.

There are also extensive differences in the vocabulary of British and American English. In the specific fields of automotive and clothing in particular, the two variants have evolved in contrasting directions.

You can see a brief overview of the some of the key areas of difference in the image below.