English language prevalence in the United States. Darker shades of blue indicate higher concentrations of native English speakers in the corresponding states.

American and British English differences
British English (BrE) American English (AmE) American English is the dialect of the English language used mostly in the United States of America American English may also refer to: American English, a song by Idlewild from their 2002 album The Remote Part American/English, a 2005 album by Acoustic Alchemy Category: ... U.S. English, Inc. ... Image File history File links English_USC2000_PHS.svg‎ Summary The language spread of English in the United States according to U. S. Census 2000 and other resources interpreted by research of U. S. ENGLISH Foundation, percentage of home speakers. ... Image File history File links English_USC2000_PHS.svg‎ Summary The language spread of English in the United States according to U. S. Census 2000 and other resources interpreted by research of U. S. ENGLISH Foundation, percentage of home speakers. ... This is one of a series of articles about the differences between American English and British English, which, for the purposes of these articles, are defined as follows: American English (AmE) is the form of English used in the United States. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_the_United_Kingdom. ... British English (BrE, BE, en-GB) is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere in the Anglophone world. ... Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ...
Vocabulary
List of American words not widely used in the United Kingdom List of British words not widely used in the United States List of words having different meanings in British and American English
Pronunciation
American and British English pronunciation differences
Orthography It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into List of words having different meanings in British and American English. ... This is a list of British words not widely used in the United States. ... This is a list of words and phrases having differing meanings in British and American English. ... Differences in pronunciation between American English (AmE) and British English (BrE) can be divided into: differences in accent (i. ...
American and British English spelling differences
Computing
British and American keyboards
Fiction Spelling differences redirects here. ... There are two major English language keyboard layouts, the United States layout and the United Kingdom layout. ...
List of works with different titles in the UK and US
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American English (AmE, AE, AmEng, USEng, en-US^[1]), also known as United States English or U.S. English, is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two thirds of native speakers of English live in the United States.^[2] For dialects of programming languages, see Programming language dialect. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... “Native Language” redirects here. ...

The use of English in the United States was inherited from British colonization. The first wave of English-speaking settlers arrived in North America in the 17th century. During that time, there were also speakers in North America of Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Norwegian, Swedish, Scots, Welsh, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Finnish, and numerous Native American languages. British colonization of the Americas (including colonization under the Kingdom of England before the 1707 Acts of Union created the Kingdom of Great Britain) began in the late 16th century, before reaching its peak after colonies were established throughout the Americas, and a protectorate was established in Hawaii. ... This article is about the Anglic language of Scotland. ... Welsh redirects here, and this article describes the Welsh language. ... // Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig) is a member of the Goidelic branch of Celtic languages. ... Native American languages are the indigenous languages of the Americas, spoken by Native Americans from the southern tip of South America to Alaska and Greenland. ...

Phonology

See also: North American English regional phonology.

In many ways, compared to English English, North American English^[3] is conservative in its phonology. Some distinctive accents can be found on the East Coast (for example, in Eastern New England and New York City), partly because these areas were in contact with England, and imitated prestigious varieties of English English at a time when those varieties were undergoing changes^[4]. In addition, many speech communities on the East Coast have existed in their present locations longer than others. The interior of the United States, however, was settled by people from all regions of the existing U.S. and, as such, developed a far more generic linguistic pattern. English English is a term that has been applied to the English language as spoken in England. ... Phonology (Greek phonē = voice/sound and logos = word/speech), is a subfield of linguistics which studies the sound system of a specific language (or languages). ... Regional definitions vary from source to source. ...

Most North American speech is rhotic, as English was in most places in the 17th century. Rhoticity was further supported by Hiberno-English and Scottish English as well as the fact most regions of England at this time also had rhotic accents. In most varieties of North American English, the sound corresponding to the letter r is a retroflex [ɻ] or alveolar approximant [ɹ] rather than a trill or a tap. The loss of syllable-final r in North America is confined mostly to the accents of eastern New England, New York City and surrounding areas, South Philadelphia, and the coastal portions of the South. In rural tidewater Virginia and eastern New England, 'r' is non-rhotic in accented (such as "bird", "work", "first", "birthday") as well as unaccented syllables, although this is declining among the younger generation of speakers. ( Dropping of syllable-final r sometimes happens in natively rhotic dialects if r is located in unaccented syllables or words and the next syllable or word begins in a consonant. In England, the lost r was often changed into [ə] (schwa), giving rise to a new class of falling diphthongs. Furthermore, the er sound of fur or butter, is realized in AmE as a monophthongal r-colored vowel (stressed [ɝ] or unstressed [ɚ] as represented in the IPA). This does not happen in the non-rhotic varieties of North American speech. Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Scottish English is usually taken to mean the standard form of the English language used in Scotland, often termed Scottish Standard English[1][2]. It is the language normally used in formal, non-fiction written texts in Scotland. ... The retroflex approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... The alveolar approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. ... The Boston accent is found not only in the city of Boston, Massachusetts itself but also much of eastern Massachusetts. ... New York Dialect is the variety of the English language spoken by most European Americans in New York City and much of its metropolitan area including Northern New Jersey, Westchester and Rockland counties, and all of Long Island. ... South Philadelphia district, highlighted on map of Philadelphia County. ... Southern American English is a group of dialects of the English language spoken throughout the Southern region of the United States, from Southern and Eastern Maryland, West Virginia and Kentucky to the Gulf Coast, and from the Atlantic coast to throughout most of Texas. ... Tidewater Virginia is commonly used as a term to refer to all portions in Virginia east of the fall line which are located adjacent to tidal waters (generally Rivers and the Chesapeake Bay) except (perhaps ironically) the Eastern Shore (which is actually entirely tidal by that definition). ... This article is about the region in the United States of America. ... The IPA symbol for the Schwa In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can mean: An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in any language, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel. ... In phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (Greek δίφθογγος, diphthongos, literally with two sounds, or with two tones) is a monosyllabic vowel combination involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another, often interpreted by listeners as a single vowel sound or phoneme. ... A monophthong (in Greek μονόφθογγος = single note) is a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation; compare diphthong. ...   In phonetics, an r-colored vowel or rhotacized vowel is a vowel either with the tip or blade of the tongue turned up during at least part of the articulation of the vowel (a retroflex articulation) or with the tip of the tongue down and the back of the tongue... Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ...

Some other British English changes in which most North American dialects do not participate:

• The shift of /æ/ to /ɑ/ (the so-called "broad A") before /f/, /s/, /θ/, /ð/, /z/, /v/ alone or preceded by a homorganic nasal. This is the difference between the British Received Pronunciation and American pronunciation of bath and dance. In the United States, only eastern New England speakers took up this modification, although even there it is becoming increasingly rare.
• The realization of intervocalic /t/ as a glottal stop [ʔ] (as in [bɒʔəl] for bottle). This change is not universal for British English and is not considered a feature of Received Pronunciation. This is not a property of most North American dialects. Newfoundland English is a notable exception.

On the other hand, North American English has undergone some sound changes not found in Britain, especially not in its standard varieties. Many of these are instances of phonemic differentiation and include: The trap-bath split is a vowel split that occurs mainly in southern varieties of English English, in the Boston accent, and in the Southern Hemisphere accents (Australian English, New Zealand English, South African English), by which the Early Modern English phoneme was lengthened in certain environments and ultimately merged... Sagittal section of nose mouth, pharynx, and larynx. ... Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... Dictionary of Newfoundland English Newfoundland English is a name for several dialects of English found in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, often regarded as the most distinctive dialect of English in Canada. ... Phonemic differentiation is the phenomenon of a phoneme in a language splitting into two phonemes over time, a process known as a phonemic split. ...

• The merger of /ɑ/ and /ɒ/, making father and bother rhyme. This change is nearly universal in North American English, occurring almost everywhere except for parts of eastern New England, hence the Boston accent.
• The merger of /ɒ/ and /ɔ/. This is the so-called cot-caught merger, where cot and caught are homophones. This change has occurred in eastern New England, in Pittsburgh and surrounding areas, and from the Great Plains westward.

The red areas are those where non-rhotic pronunciations are found among some white people in the United States. AAVE-influenced non-rhotic pronunciations may be found among black people throughout the country.^[5]

• For speakers who do not merge caught and cot: The replacement of the cot vowel with the caught vowel before voiceless fricatives (as in cloth, off [which is found in some old-fashioned varieties of RP]), as well as before /ŋ/ (as in strong, long), usually in gone, often in on, and irregularly before /g/ (log, hog, dog, fog [which is not found in British English at all]).
• The replacement of the lot vowel with the strut vowel in most utterances of the words was, of, from, what and in many utterances of the words everybody, nobody, somebody, anybody; the word because has either /ʌ/ or /ɔ/;^[6] want has normally /ɔ/ or /ɑ/, sometimes /ʌ/.^[7]

• Vowel merger before intervocalic /ɹ/. Which vowels are affected varies between dialects. One such change is the laxing of /e/, /i/ and /u/ to /ɛ/, /ɪ/ and /ʊ/ before /ɹ/, causing pronunciations like [pɛɹ], [pɪɹ] and [pjʊɹ] for pair, peer and pure. The resulting sound [ʊɹ] is often further reduced to [ɝ], especially after palatals, so that cure, pure, mature and sure rhyme with fir.
• Dropping of /j/ after alveolar consonants so that new, duke, Tuesday, suit, resume, lute are pronounced /nu/, /duk/, /tuzdeɪ/, /sut/, /ɹɪzum/, /lut/.
• æ-tensing in environments that vary widely from accent to accent; for example, for many speakers, /æ/ is approximately realized as [eə] before nasal consonants. In some accents, particularly those from Philadelphia to New York City, [æ] and [eə] can even contrast sometimes, as in Yes, I can [kæn] vs. tin can [keən].
• The flapping of intervocalic /t/ and /d/ to alveolar tap [ɾ] before unstressed vowels (as in butter, party) and syllabic /l/ (bottle), as well as at the end of a word or morpheme before any vowel (what else, whatever). Thus, for most speakers, pairs such as ladder/latter, metal/medal, and coating/coding are pronounced the same. For many speakers, this merger is incomplete and does not occur after /aɪ/; these speakers tend to pronounce writer with [əɪ] and rider with [aɪ]. This is a form of Canadian raising but, unlike more extreme forms of that process, does not affect /aʊ/.
• Both intervocalic /nt/ and /n/ may be realized as [n] or [ɾ̃], making winter and winner homophones. This does not occur when the second syllable is stressed, as in entail.
• The pin-pen merger, by which [ɛ] is raised to [ɪ] before nasal consonants, making pairs like pen/pin homophonous. This merger originated in Southern American English but is now found in parts of the Midwest and West as well.

Some mergers found in most varieties of both American and British English include: // Father-bother merger The father-bother merger is a merger of the Early Modern English vowels and that occurs in almost all varieties of North American English (exceptions are accents in Eastern New England (such as the Boston accent) and New York-New Jersey English. ... The Boston accent is found not only in the city of Boston, Massachusetts itself but also much of eastern Massachusetts. ... // Father-bother merger The father-bother merger is a merger of the Early Modern English vowels and that occurs in almost all varieties of North American English (exceptions are accents in Eastern New England (such as the Boston accent) and New York-New Jersey English. ... This article is about the term in linguistics. ... Pittsburgh English, popularly known as Pittsburghese, is the dialect of American English spoken by many residents of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA and surrounding Western Pennsylvania. ... For other uses, see Great Plains (disambiguation). ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (573x673, 49 KB) Recreation of User:Angrs Image:Rdropping. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (573x673, 49 KB) Recreation of User:Angrs Image:Rdropping. ... Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... An African American (also Afro-American, Black American, or simply black) is a member of an ethnic group in the United States whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Africa. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... The English language has undergone a number of phonological changes before the historic phoneme . ... Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth). ... // H-cluster reductions The h-cluster reductions are various consonant reductions that have occurred in the history of English involving consonant clusters beginning with /h/ that have lost the /h/ in certain dialects. ... Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets) of the superior teeth. ... // Trap-bath split The trap-bath split is a vowel split that occurs mainly in southern varieties of English English (including Received Pronunciation), in the Boston accent, and in the Southern Hemisphere accents (Australian English, New Zealand English, South African English), by which the Early Modern English phoneme was lengthened... A nasal consonant is produced when the velum—that fleshy part of the palate near the back—is lowered, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. ... For other uses, see Philadelphia (disambiguation) and Philly. ... New York, New York and NYC redirect here. ... This page discusses a phonological phenomenon. ... The alveolar tap or flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... Canadian raising is a phonetic phenomenon that occurs in varieties of the English language, especially Canadian English, in which diphthongs are raised before voiceless consonants (e. ... // Weak vowel merger The weak vowel merger (or Lennon-Lenin merger) is a phonemic merger of (schwa) with unstressed (sometimes written as ) in certain dialects of English. ... Southern American English is a group of dialects of the English language spoken throughout the Southern region of the United States, from Southern and Eastern Maryland, West Virginia and Kentucky to the Gulf Coast, and from the Atlantic coast to throughout most of Texas. ...

• The merger of the vowels /ɔ/ and /o/ before 'r', making pairs like horse/hoarse, corps/core, for/four, morning/mourning, etc. homophones.
• The wine-whine merger making pairs like wine/whine, wet/whet, Wales/whales, wear/where, etc. homophones, in most cases eliminating /ʍ/, the voiceless labiovelar fricative. Many older varieties of southern and western AmE still keep these distinct, but the merger appears to be spreading.

The English language has undergone a number of phonological changes before the historic phoneme . ... Homonyms (in Greek homoios = identical and onoma = name) are words which have the same form (orthographic/phonetic) but unrelated meaning. ... The wine-whine merger is a merger by which the sound or sequence (spelled wh) becomes ; it occurs in the speech of the great majority of English speakers. ... This article is about the term in linguistics. ... The voiceless labiovelar approximant (traditionally called a voiceless labiovelar fricative) is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ...

Vocabulary

North America has given the English lexicon many thousands of words, meanings, and phrases. Several thousand are now used in English as spoken internationally; others, however, died within a few years of their creation. Look up lexicon in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Creation of an American lexicon

The process of coining new lexical items started as soon as the colonists began borrowing names for unfamiliar flora, fauna, and topography from the Native American languages. Examples of such names are opossum, raccoon, squash and moose (from Algonquian). Other Native American loanwords, such as wigwam or moccasin, describe artificial objects in common use among Native Americans. The languages of the other colonizing nations also added to the American vocabulary; for instance, cookie, cruller, stoop, and pit (of a fruit) from Dutch; levee, portage ("carrying of boats or goods") and (probably) gopher from French; barbecue, stevedore, and rodeo from Spanish. Native American languages are the indigenous languages of the Americas, spoken by Native Americans from the southern tip of South America to Alaska and Greenland. ... Genera Several; see text Didelphimorphia is the order of common opossums of the Western Hemisphere. ... For the river, see Raccoon River. ... Species - hubbard squash, buttercup squash - cushaw squash C. moschata- butternut squash C. pepo- most pumpkins, acorn squash, summer squash References: ITIS 223652002-11-06 Hortus Third Squashes are four species of the genus Cucurbita, also called pumpkins and marrows depending on variety or the nationality of the speaker. ... For other uses, see Moose (disambiguation). ... The Algonquian (also Algonkian) languages are a subfamily of Native American languages that includes most of the languages in the Algic language family (others are Wiyot and Yurok of northwestern California). ... Apache wickiup, by Edward S. Curtis, 1903 A wigwam or wickiup is a domed single-room dwelling used by certain Native American tribes. ... The word moccasin was first introduced into English in 1612, from a Virginia Algonquian language, most likely Powhatan (makasin ‘shoe’), though similar words exist in Narragansett (mokussin), Micmac (m’kusun), and Ojibwa (makasin). ... This article is about the food. ... Chocolate covered French cruller A cruller (or Twister) is a type of doughnut. ... A stoop is a steep dive toward prey by a raptor. ... Dutch ( ) is a West Germanic language spoken by around 24 million people, mainly in the Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname, but also by smaller groups of speakers in parts of France, Germany and several former Dutch colonies. ... A levee, levée (from the feminine past participle of the French verb lever, to raise), floodbank or stopbank is a natural or artificial slope or wall, usually earthen and often parallels the course of a river. ... A gopher is a small burrowing rodent. ... A barbecue on a trailer at a block party in Kansas City. ... Stevedores on a New York dock loading barrels of corn syrup onto a barge on the Hudson River. ... For other uses, see Rodeo (disambiguation). ...

Among the earliest and most notable regular "English" additions to the American vocabulary, dating from the early days of colonization through the early 19th century, are terms describing the features of the North American landscape; for instance, run, branch, fork, snag, bluff, gulch, neck (of the woods), barrens, bottomland, notch, knob, riffle, rapids, watergap, cutoff, trail, timberline and divide. Already existing words such as creek, slough, sleet and (in later use) watershed received new meanings that were unknown in England. A Coast Douglas-fir snag provides nest cavities for birds In forest ecology, a snag refers to a standing, partly or completely dead tree, often missing a top or most of the smaller branches. ... Bluff may refer to: Look up bluff in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A gulch is a deep V-shaped valley formed by erosion. ... Cascadilla Creek, near Ithaca, New York in the United States, an example of an upland river habitat. ... For other uses, see Rapid (disambiguation). ... “Footpath” redirects here. ... In this view of an alpine tree-line, the distant line looks particularly sharp. ... Main European water divides (red lines) separating catchments (gray regions). ... Butchers Creek, Omeo, Victoria A stream, brook, beck, burn or creek, is a body of water with a detectable current, confined within a bed and banks. ... The term slough (in the UK, pronounced to rhyme with cow; In the US, pronounced slew) has several meanings related to wetland or aquatic features that seem to derive from local experience. ... Sleet is a term used in a variety of ways to describe precipitation intermediate between rain and snow but distinct from hail. ... Drainage basin. ...

Other noteworthy American toponyms are found among loanwords; for example, prairie, butte (French); bayou (Choctaw via Louisiana French); coulee (Canadian French, but used also in Louisiana with a different meaning); canyon, mesa, arroyo (Spanish); vlei, kill (Dutch, Hudson Valley). For other uses, see Prairie (disambiguation). ... Butte near Sedona, Arizona A butte is an isolated hill with steep sides and a small flat top. ... Big Cypress Bayou in Jefferson, Texas off U.S. Route 59. ... For other uses, see Choctaw (disambiguation). ... A coulee (or coulée) is a deep steep-sided ravine formed by erosion, commonly found in the northwestern United States and southwestern Canada. ... Grand Canyon, Arizona Noravank Monastery complex and canyon in Armenia. ... For other uses, see Mesa (disambiguation). ... An arroyo is a dry creek bed or gulch that fills with water either seasonally, or after a heavy rain. ... As a body of water, a kill is a creek. ... For the magazine, see Hudson Valley (magazine). ...

The word corn, used in England to refer to wheat (or any cereal), came to denote the plant Zea mays, the most important crop in the U.S., originally named Indian corn by the earliest settlers; wheat, rye, barley, oats, etc. came to be collectively referred to as grain (or breadstuffs). Other notable farm related vocabulary additions were the new meanings assumed by barn (not only a building for hay and grain storage, but also for housing livestock) and team (not just the horses, but also the vehicle along with them), as well as, in various periods, the terms range, (corn) crib, truck, elevator, sharecropping and feedlot. Look up corn in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Binomial name Zea mays L. Maize (Zea mays ssp. ... The word grain has several meanings, most being descriptive of a small piece or particle. ... This article is about the building. ... Rangeland refers to a large, mostly unimproved section of land that is predominantly used for livestock grazing. ... 19th century corn crib in Russia A corn crib or corncrib is a type of granary used to dry and store corn. ... In agriculture, market gardening is the relatively small-scale production of fruits, vegetables and flowers as cash crops, frequently sold directly to consumers and restaurants. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Chopping cotton on rented land near White Plains, Greene County, Ga. ... Beef cattle on a feedlot in the Texas Panhandle A feedlot or feedyard is a type of concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) (also known as factory farming) which is used for finishing livestock, notably beef cattle, prior to slaughter. ...

Ranch, later applied to a house style, derives from Mexican Spanish; most Spanish contributions came indeed after the War of 1812, with the opening of the West. Among these are, other than toponyms, chaps (from chaparreras), plaza, lasso, bronco, buckaroo, rodeo; examples of "English" additions from the cowboy era are bad man, maverick, chuck ("food") and Boot Hill; from the California Gold Rush came such idioms as hit pay dirt or strike it rich. The word blizzard probably originated in the West. A couple of notable late 18th century additions are the verb belittle and the noun bid, both first used in writing by Thomas Jefferson. This article is about a type of land use and method of raising livestock. ... Ranch-style houses are also called American ranch or California rambler. ... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... This article is about the U.S.–U.K. war. ... Chaps are sturdy leather coverings for the legs. ... Plaza is a Spanish word related to field which describes an open urban public space, such as a city square. ... Lariat redirects here. ... Man riding a bucking bronco, 1908 Bronco, or bronc, is a term used in the United States and Canada to refer to an untrained horse or one that habitually bucks. ... A cowboy (Spanish vaquero) tends cattle and horses on cattle ranches in North and South America. ... For other uses, see Rodeo (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Cowboy (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Boot Hill (disambiguation). ... The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) began shortly after January 24, 1848 (when gold was discovered at Sutters Mill in Coloma). ... Thomas Jefferson (13 April 1743 N.S.–4 July 1826) was the third President of the United States (1801–09), the principal author of the Declaration of Independence (1776), and one of the most influential Founding Fathers for his promotion of the ideals of Republicanism in the United States. ...

With the new continent developed new forms of dwelling, and hence a large inventory of words designating real estate concepts (land office, lot, outlands, waterfront, the verbs locate and relocate, betterment, addition, subdivision), types of property (log cabin, adobe in the 18th century; frame house, apartment, tenement house, shack, shanty in the 19th century; project, condominium, townhouse, split-level, mobile home, multi-family in the 20th century), and parts thereof (driveway, breezeway, backyard, dooryard; clapboard, siding, trim, baseboard; stoop (from Dutch), family room, den; and, in recent years, HVAC, central air, walkout basement). Lot is: Place Specific - A French département, see Lot (département) A French river, a tributary of the Garonne, see Lot River A Belgian town, see Lot, Belgium A Polish Airline, see LOT Polish Airlines Character Specific - A Biblical figure, the nephew of Abraham, see Lot (Biblical) Lot, a... Waterfront, by definition is the land alongside a body of water, or the dockland district of a town. ... For other uses, see Log cabin (disambiguation). ... Renewal of the surface coating of an adobe wall in Chamisal, New Mexico Adobe is a natural building material composed of sand, sandy clay and straw or other organic materials, which is shaped into bricks using wooden frames and dried in the sun. ... A wooden-frame detached house under construction Light-frame construction is a building technique based around structural members, usually called studs, which provide a stable frame to which interior and exterior wall coverings are attached, and covered by a roof comprising horizontal joists or sloping rafters covered by various sheathing... This article is about the structure. ... Shacks are most often used for storage or have been abandoned. ... Sea shanties (singular shanty, also spelled chantey; derived from the French word chanter, to sing) were shipboard working songs. ... This article is about the form of housing. ... Leinster House, 18th century Dublin townhouse of the Duke of Leinster. ... A split-level home is a style of house in which the floor level of one part of the house is about half way between a floor and its ceiling of the other part of the house. ... A modern double-wide manufactured home. ... Driveway to a farm A driveway is a type of private road for local access to one or a small group of structures, and maintained by an individual or group. ... This page may meet Wikipedias criteria for speedy deletion. ... Clapboard is a board used typically for exterior horizontal siding that has one edge thicker than the other and where the board above laps over the one below. ... Corrugated steel siding, for the side of a barn. ... A baseboard or skirting board is a wooden board, normally 75mm to 300mm deep, covering the lowest part of an interior wall. ... HVAC may also stand for High-voltage alternating current HVAC systems use ventilation air ducts installed throughout a building that supply conditioned air to a room through rectangular or round outlet vents, called diffusers; and ducts that remove air from return-air grilles Fire-resistance rated mechanical shaft with HVAC... Note: in the broadest sense, air conditioning can refer to any form of heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning. ...

Ever since the American Revolution, a great number of terms connected with the U.S. political institutions have entered the language; examples are run, gubernatorial, primary election, carpetbagger (after the Civil War), repeater, lame duck and pork barrel. Some of these are internationally used (e.g. caucus, gerrymander, filibuster, exit poll). John Trumbulls Declaration of Independence, showing the five-man committee in charge of drafting the Declaration in 1776 as it presents its work to the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia The American Revolution refers to the period during the last half of the 18th century in which the Thirteen... For other uses, see Primary. ... In United States history, carpetbaggers were Northerners who moved to the South during Reconstruction between 1865 and 1877. ... Combatants United States of America (Union) Confederate States of America (Confederacy) Commanders Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee Strength 2,200,000 1,064,000 Casualties 110,000 killed in action, 360,000 total dead, 275,200 wounded 93,000 killed in action, 258,000 total... A lame duck is an elected official who loses political power or is no longer responsive to the electorate as a result of a term limit which keeps him from running for that particular office again, losing an election, or the elimination of the officials office, but who continues... A pork barrel, literally, is a barrel in which pork is kept. ... A caucus is most generally defined as being a meeting of supporters or members of a political party or movement. ... Redrawing electoral districts in this example creates a guaranteed 3-to-1 advantage for Party 1. ... As a form of obstructionism in a legislature or other decision making body, a filibuster is an attempt to extend debate upon a proposal in order to delay or completely prevent a vote on its passage. ... An exit poll is a poll of voters taken immediately after they have exited the polling stations. ...

The rise of capitalism, the development of industry and material innovations throughout the 19th and 20th centuries were the source of a massive stock of distinctive new words, phrases and idioms. Typical examples are the vocabulary of railroading (see further at rail terminology) and transportation terminology, ranging from names of roads (from dirt roads and back roads to freeways and parkways) to road infrastructure (parking lot, overpass, rest area), and from automotive terminology to public transit (e.g. in the sentence "riding the subway downtown"); such American introductions as commuter (from commutation ticket), concourse, to board (a vehicle), to park, double-park and parallel park (a car), double decker or the noun terminal have long been used in all dialects of English.^[8] Trades of various kinds have endowed (American) English with household words describing jobs and occupations (bartender, longshoreman, patrolman, hobo, bouncer, bellhop, roustabout, white collar, blue collar, employee, boss [from Dutch], intern, busboy, mortician, senior citizen), businesses and workplaces (department store, supermarket, thrift store, gift shop, drugstore, motel, main street, gas station, hardware store, savings and loan, hock [also from Dutch]), as well as general concepts and innovations (automated teller machine, smart card, cash register, dishwasher, reservation [as at hotels], pay envelope, movie, mileage, shortage, outage, blood bank). This is the top-level page of WikiProject trains Rail tracks Rail transport refers to the land transport of passengers and goods along railways or railroads. ... Two rail welds in continuous welded rail in Wisconsin. ... For specific systems, such as the Autobahns of Germany, see list of highway systems with full control of access and no cross traffic. ... Harden Parkway in Salinas, CA. For other uses, see Parkway (disambiguation). ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Overpass in East Potomac Park, Washington, D.C. Flyover in Miami Beach, Florida An overpass (In UK, most Commonwealth countries flyover) is a bridge, road or similar structure that crosses over another road. ... Rest stop redirects here. ... The Terminology used to describe various automotive parts differs considerably between British English and American English This article identifies common terms used in the automotive industry to aid understanding of different terminology. ... A taxi serving as a bus Public transport comprises all transport systems in which the passengers do not travel in their own vehicles. ... For the skyscraper in Singapore, see The Concourse. ... A double decker is a bus, airplane, train, tram, ferry, or any public transit vehicle that has two levels for passengers, one deck above the other. ... For the song by Dave Matthews Band, see Bartender (song). ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... For other uses, see Bouncer (disambiguation). ... Roustabout is a 1964 musical movie starring Elvis Presley. ... White-collar workers perform tasks which are less laborious yet often more highly paid than blue-collar workers, who do manual work. ... A blue-collar worker is a working class employee who performs manual or technical labor, such as in a factory or in technical maintenance trades, in contrast to a white-collar worker, who does non-manual work generally at a desk. ... Employment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... This article is about the vocation of a mortician and the death metal band; for the World Wrestling Entertainment superstar, see The Undertaker. ... Old age consists of ages nearing the average lifespan of human beings, and thus the end of the human life cycle. ... The interior of a typical Macy*s department store. ... Packaged food aisles in a Fred Meyer store in Portland, Oregon A supermarket is a departmentalized self-service store offering a wide variety of food and household merchandise. ... A charity shop (UK), thrift store (US) or op shop (Australia/NZ, from opportunity shop) is a retail establishment operated by a charitable organization for the purpose of fundraising. ... A gift shop is a store primarily selling souvenirs relating to a particular topic, often to simply provide evidence that the consumer has visited that location. ... Pharmacy (from the Greek φάρμακον = drug) is the profession of compounding and dispensing medication. ... Holiday Inn Great Sign Exterior of a Howard Johnsons motor lodge. ... Main Street in Los Altos, California. ... Modern gas station A filling station, gas station or petrol station is a facility that sells fuel for road motor vehicles – usually petrol (US: gas/gasoline), diesel fuel and LPG. The term gas station is mostly particular to the United States of America and Canada, where petrol is known as... Hardware Store is also the title of a song by Weird Al Yankovic from his 2003 album Poodle Hat. Hardware stores sell hardware, tools, and building supplies; for instance: allen wrenches, gerbil feeders, toilet seats, electric heaters, trash compactors, juice extractor, shower rods and water meters, walkie-talkies, copper wires... A savings and loan association is a financial institution which specializes in accepting savings deposits and making mortgage loans. ... Cash machine redirects here. ... Smart card used for health insurance in France. ... Antique crank-operated cash register This article is about the cash register. ... A Dishwasher A two drawer DishDrawer dishwasher. ... For other uses see film (disambiguation) Film refers to the celluliod media on which movies are printed Film — also called movies, the cinema, the silver screen, moving pictures, photoplays, picture shows, flicks, or motion pictures, — is a field that encompasses motion pictures as an art form or as part of... A shortage is en economic term describing a disparity between the demand for a product or service (see labor shortage and its supply in a market. ... Tree limbs create a short circuit in electrical lines during a storm that spawned two tornadoes. ... A blood bank is a cache or bank of blood or blood components, gathered as a result of blood donation, stored and preserved for later use in blood transfusions. ...

Already existing English words —such as store, shop, dry goods, haberdashery, lumber— underwent shifts in meaning; some —such as mason, student, clerk, the verbs can (as in "canned goods"), ship, fix, carry, enroll (as in school), run (as in "run a business"), release and haul— were given new significations, while others (such as tradesman) have retained meanings that disappeared in England. From the world of business and finance came breakeven, merger, delisting, downsize, disintermediation, bottom line; from sports terminology came, jargon aside, Monday-morning quarterback, cheap shot, game plan (football); in the ballpark, out of left field, off base, hit and run, and many other idioms from baseball; gamblers coined bluff, blue chip, ante, bottom dollar, raw deal, pass the buck, ace in the hole, freeze-out, showdown; miners coined bedrock, bonanza, peter out, pan out and the verb prospect from the noun; and railroadmen are to be credited with make the grade, sidetrack, head-on, and the verb railroad. A number of Americanisms describing material innovations remained largely confined to North America: elevator, ground, gasoline; many automotive terms fall in this category, although many do not (hatchback, SUV, station wagon, tailgate, motorhome, truck, pickup truck, to exhaust). Smiths Gully General Store in Smiths Gully, Australia. ... Retail redirects here. ... A haberdasher is a person who sells small items via retail, commonly items used in clothing, such as ribbons and buttons, or completed accessories, such as hats or gloves. ... Timber in storage for later processing at a sawmill roni Lumber or timber is a term used to describe wood, either standing or that has been processed for use — from the time trees are felled, to its end product as a material suitable for industrial use — as structural material for... Look up mason in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... For other uses, see Clerk (disambiguation). ... A tradesman is a skilled manual worker in a particular trade or craft. ... The breakeven point in economics is the point at which cost or expenses and income are equal - there is no net loss or gain, one has broken even. The point at which a firm or other economic entity breaks even is equal to its fixed costs divided by its contribution... The phrase mergers and acquisitions or M&A refers to the aspect of corporate finance strategy and management dealing with the merging and acquiring of different companies as well as assets. ... Delisting is the term used in Canada when a province decides that a medical procedure will no longer be covered by Medicare in that province. ... Downsizing refers to layoffs initiated by a company in order to cut labor costs by reducing the size of the company. ... In economics, disintermediation is the removal of intermediaries in a supply chain: cutting out the middleman. Instead of going through traditional distribution channels, which had some type of intermediate (such as a distributor, wholesaler, broker, or agent), companies may now deal with every customer directly, for example via the Internet. ... For articles with similar names, see Bottom line (disambiguation). ... United States simply as football, is a competitive team sport that is both fast-paced and strategic. ... The Olympia Stadium: start and finish lines visible, defining the length of one stadium (in this case 192. ... The position of the left fielder A left fielder, abbreviated LF, is an outfielder in the sport of baseball who plays defense in left field. ... // ballpark: in the ballpark, ballpark figure, and out of the ballpark — Ballpark has been used to mean a broad area of approximation or similarity, or a range within which comparison is possible; this usage OED dates to 1960. ... This article is about the sport. ... // In the card game of poker, to bluff is to bet or raise with an inferior hand, or with a hand believed to be inferior. ... A blue chip stock is the stock of a well-established company having stable earnings and no extensive liabilities. ... The game of poker as played today requires that players agree before play on allowable amounts for betting (called limits), and the use and amount of forced bets. ... Bedrock is the native consolidated rock underlying the Earths surface. ... A grade (or gradient) is the pitch of a slope, and is often expressed as a percent tangent, or rise over run. It is used to express the steepness of slope on a hill, stream, roof, railroad, or road, where zero indicates level (with respect to gravity) and increasing numbers... For other uses, see Elevator (disambiguation). ... It has been suggested that Ground conductor be merged into this article or section. ... Petrol redirects here. ... Renault Megane hatchback, a proper hatchback which has shown huge success in Europe Peugeot 306 hatchback, with the hatch lifted and the parcel shelf tilted for access Hatchback is a term designating an automobile design, containing a passenger cabin with an integrated cargo space, accessed from behind the vehicle by... This article or section may be confusing or unclear for some readers, and should be edited to rectify this. ... Estate car body style (Saab 95) A station wagon (United States usage), wagon (Australian usage, though station wagon is widely used) or estate car (United Kingdom usage) is a car body style similar to a sedan car but with an extended rear cargo area. ... The tailgate is a door that can be moved up or down on a vehicle, such as a pick-up truck. ... Recreational Vehicle (RV) is a broad term used to describe a large enclosed piece of equipment with wheels designed to be moved from place to place for people to temporarily live in and be protected from the elements while away from their permanent domicile. ... For other uses, see Truck (disambiguation). ... The best selling North American pickup truck, the Ford F-Series. ...

In addition to the above-mentioned loans from French, Spanish, Mexican Spanish, Dutch, and Native American languages, other accretions from foreign languages came with 19th and early 20th century immigration; notably, from Yiddish (chutzpah, schmooze and such idioms as need something like a hole in the head) and German —hamburger and culinary terms like frankfurter/franks, liverwurst, sauerkraut, wiener, deli(catessen); scram, kindergarten, gesundheit;^[9] musical terminology (whole note, half note, etc.); and apparently cookbook, fresh ("impudent") and what gives? Such constructions as Are you coming with? and I like to dance (for "I like dancing") may also be the result of German or Yiddish influence.^[10] Yiddish ( yidish or idish, literally: Jewish) is a non-territorial Germanic language, spoken throughout the world and written with the Hebrew alphabet. ... Look up Chutzpah in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... This article is about the food item. ... Wiener (sometimes pronounced viener) can mean: Adjectival form of Vienna (Ger. ... This article is about food stores. ... A SCRAM is an emergency shutdown of a nuclear reactor - though the term has been extended to cover shutdowns of other complex operations, such as server farms and even large model railroads (see Tech Model Railroad Club). ... For other uses, see Kindergarten (disambiguation). ... Look up Gesundheit in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Figure 1. ... In music, a half note (American) or minim is a note played for one half the duration of a whole note, hence the name. ... For the 2005 Missy Elliott album, see The Cookbook. ...

Finally, a large number of English colloquialisms from various periods are American in origin; some have lost their American flavor (from OK and cool to nerd and 24/7), while others have not (have a nice day, sure);^[11] many are now distinctly old-fashioned (swell, groovy). Some English words now in general use, such as hijacking, disc jockey, boost, bulldoze and jazz, originated as American slang. Among the many English idioms of U.S. origin are get the hang of, take for a ride, bark up the wrong tree, keep tabs, run scared, take a backseat, have an edge over, stake a claim, take a shine to, in on the ground floor, bite off more than one can chew, off/on the wagon, stay put, inside track, stiff upper lip, bad hair day, throw a monkey wrench, under the weather, jump bail, come clean, come again?, it ain't over till it's over, what goes around comes around, and will the real x please stand up?^[12] Okay is an informal term of approval, assent, or acknowledgment, sometimes written as OK or O.K.. (See also A-OK.) When used to describe the quality of a thing, it denotes being fit for purpose (this is okay to send out) or of a quality which is acceptable but... For other uses, see Nerd (disambiguation). ... 24/7 is an abbreviation which stands for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, usually referring to the availability of a service. ... Have a nice day is commonly spoken valediction, typically spoken by retail employees or clerks to customers after a sale, particularly in North America. ... For other meanings of DJ, see DJ (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Jazz (disambiguation). ... Stiff Upper Lip is a 2000 hard rock album by Australian band AC/DC. The album was recorded at The Warehouse Studio in Vancouver, British Columbia and mastered at Sterling Sound in New York City. ... Monkeywrenching is economic warfare by sabotage, often by illegal means, used to slow down or halt an undesired government-sanctioned activity. ...

Morphology

American English has always shown a marked tendency to use substantives as verbs.^[13] Examples of verbed nouns are interview, advocate, vacuum, lobby, expense, room, pressure, rear-end, transition, feature, profile, buffalo, weasel, express (mail), belly-ache, spearhead, skyrocket, showcase, merchandise, service (as a car), corner, torch, exit (as in "exit the lobby"), factor (in mathematics), gun ("shoot"), author (which disappeared in English around 1630 and was revived in the U.S. three centuries later) and, out of American material, proposition, graft (bribery), bad-mouth, vacation, major, backpack, backtrack, intern, ticket (traffic violations), hassle, blacktop, peer-review, dope and OD. Functional shift is a term used in linguistics to refer to the way an existing word can take on a new syntactic function. ... For other uses, see Vacation (disambiguation). ... For the concept car, see Plymouth Backpack. ... Backtracking is a type of algorithm that is a refinement of brute force search. ... A Blacktop is a reference to surfaced roads in areas of the world where such infrastructure development is a luxury in comparison to the local standard of Graded road. ... The term drug overdose (or simply overdose) describes the ingestion or application of a drug or other substance in quantities greater than are recommended or generally practiced. ...

Compounds coined in the U.S. are for instance foothill, flatlands, badlands, landslide (in all senses), overview (the noun), backdrop, teenager, brainstorm, bandwagon, hitchhike, smalltime, deadbeat, frontman, lowbrow and highbrow, hell-bent, foolproof, nitpick, about-face (later verbed), upfront (in all senses), fixer-upper, no-show; many of these are phrases used as adverbs or (often) hyphenated attributive adjectives: