英美两国英语用法不同之处

It may be common knowledge that what British people call “football” is known as “soccer” in the US, and “colour” in British English goes without the “u” in American English. But according to an infographic made recently by website Grammar Check, these are far from being the only differences between the two countries’ use of English.

英国人将美国人口中的“soccer”（足球）称为“football”，而英式英语中的“colour”（颜色）一词在美式英语的拼写中没有字母“u”。这些或许都是些常识。但据Grammer Check 网站近日制作的一幅图表显示，英美两国英语用法中的不同还绝不仅是这些而已。

Some of the vocabulary mismatches are so different that two people in a conversation may fail to understand each other. For example, the two countries have different names for certain food. “Biscuits” and “sweets” in Britain are known as “cookies” and “candy”, respectively, in the US.

一些词汇不对等大不相同，甚至会令谈话双方有可能无法理解彼此。比方说，英美两国对一些特定的食物都有着不同的说法。英国人所说的biscuits （饼干）和 sweets （糖果）在美国相对应的说法分别是 cookie 和 candy。

But while getting food names mixed up only causes confusion, some misunderstandings may even lead to embarrassment if you’re not careful. If a British man in the US is asked to show up to a party in “pants”, there’s a chance that he might get a lot of stares from other guests. “Pants” in the UK means underwear. “Trousers” are what you need to ask a British friend to wear if you don’t want them to cause a scene among your friends.

混淆了食物的名字仅仅会带来困惑，但如果你不够小心的话，一些误解或许还会导致尴尬。如果一位在美国的英国男士被要求在派对上穿“pants”（美式英语中意为“裤子”），那么他有可能（在派对上）会获得不少宾客的注意。（因为）“pants”在英国意为内裤。如果你不想在朋友当中制造麻烦，“Trousers”才是你想向英国朋友表达的那个词。

However, even if 63 is already a lot, there are still many differences that the infographic failed to cover.

然而，尽管63处不同已经很多了，但还有很多该图表未能涵盖的不同之处。

If a US girl walks into a UK hairsalon and says “I want to have my bangs fixed”, for example, it could take a while before the hairdresser realizes what she means is actually her “fringe”.

打个比方，如果一个美国女孩走进一家英国理发店并表示“我想要修修我的bangs （刘海，美式英语） ”，理发师可能要过一会儿才能明白，女孩想表达的其实是她的fringe（刘海，英式英语）。