ABSTRACT
This chapter compares the two main varieties of English dealt with in this book, American and British English. These two are set side-by-side in reference to vocabulary (focusing on the terminology of higher education and the language of cricket and baseball), pronunciation (with a systematic observation of phonetic, phonological, phonotactic, and lexical-set differences between RP and GenAm), grammar (especially noting differences in the rate of change in the British Isles and North America in the frequency of the use of various constructions), the usual differences in spelling and reasons behind these differences, and, finally, punctuation.
