Active communication in English vs American

Larissa   Sat Mar 18, 2006 8:35 am GMT
Hey all,
I've found in the library, a great book named "Active communication in English" but the problem is that all the terms used in this book are 100% British and me, I'm very interested in American English. So, I'd like to have the American equivalents of the terms used in this book. Me too, I'm gonna write the American equivalent when I know it but there are lots of American words that I still don't know and that I'd love to learn. Thanks for helping and for signaling if there are several equivalents in AmE and of course for correcting me if my AmE equivalent is wrong!


LITERARY APPRECIATION :

literary appreciation
a maverick author
a playwright
a philosopher
a comic strip
an extract, an excerpt
the plot
a riddle
the climax
a soliloquy
a speech balloon
a caption
the prologue (GB), prolog (US)?
the epilogue (GB), epilog (US)?
to analyse (GB), analyze (US)
to render an atmosphere
to be wittya metaphor
question mark
hyphen
full stop (GB), period (US)
semi colon
comma
exclamation mark (GB), exclamation point (US)
colon
in brackets
in inverted commas (GB), in quotation marks (US)?
burlesque
concise (GB), concize (US)?
far-fetched
intricate
irksome
irrelevant
mock-heroic
unobtrusive
vague
vivid

That'll be all at the moment, but the list will be continued!
Thanks again for helping!
Larissa   Sat Mar 18, 2006 1:45 pm GMT
Help me!
Laura Braun   Sat Mar 18, 2006 4:12 pm GMT
May be it could be helpful http://dictionary.cambridge.org/Default.asp?dict=A. There is American dictionary too.
Laura Braun   Sat Mar 18, 2006 4:14 pm GMT
American english for the first word : http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=literary*1+0&dict=A
Lazar   Sat Mar 18, 2006 5:26 pm GMT
<<literary appreciation
a maverick author
a playwright
a philosopher
a comic strip
an extract, an excerpt
the plot
a riddle
the climax
a soliloquy
a caption>>

^The above words are all the same in American English.

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<<speech balloon>>

^In American English you can say "speech balloon", or you could also say "speech bubble".

---------

<<the prologue (GB), prolog (US)
the epilogue (GB), epilog (US)?>>

^The spellings "prolog" and "epilog" are allowable in American English, but you don't see them too often. Most of the time they're still spelled "prologue" and "epilogue".

---------

<<to analyse (GB), analyze (US)
full stop (GB), period (US)
exclamation mark (GB), exclamation point (US)
in inverted commas (GB), in quotation marks (US)>>

^Yep, these are all points of difference.

---------

<<concise (GB), concize (US)>>

^No, in American English it's "concise" as well. The "ise/ize" things only applies to verbs (and verb-derived nouns), and "concise" is an adjective. ("Concise" is stressed on the "cise" syllable, and the S is pronounced unvoiced, not as a Z.)

---------

<<to render an atmosphere
to be witty metaphor
question mark
hyphen
semi colon
comma
colon
in brackets
burlesque
far-fetched
intricate
irksome
irrelevant
mock-heroic
unobtrusive
vague
vivid>>

^These terms are all the same in American and British English.

---------

I hope I've been of help.
Larissa   Sat Mar 18, 2006 6:19 pm GMT
Laura Braun thank you for that site address!
Lazar thank you so much for analyzing my vocabulary list!
Larissa   Sun Mar 19, 2006 10:16 am GMT
Hey,
Here's the next vocabulary list :

SEEING,HEARING,MOVING :
SIGHT AND LIGHT :

to have good/poor eyesight
to be short-/long-sighted (GB), to be near-/far-sighted (US)?
to have impaired vision
blurred
out of/within sight
at the sight of
to have a squint
bulging/sunken eyes
one-eyed
a blank look
to have a look at, to glance at
to look round (GB), look around (US)
to make out
to catch a glimpse of
to gaze at
to peep at
to scrutinize
to scowl at
a streak of light
to scan
to gleam
to glint
to glow
to glisten
to glitter
to glimmer
to blaze
to shimmer
to twinkle, to sparkle
to flicker

HEARING AND NOISE :
to have good hearing
a piercing noise
shrill
deafening
a shriek
an uproar
to make a din
to strain one's ears
to eavesdrop
stone-deaf
a creaking door
a crackling fire
cracking whips
the chink of glasses
a thumping heart
smacking kisses
pattering rain
a purring engine
rustling leaves
screeching tyres(GB)/tires(US)
a muffled sound
to utter a word
a drawling/hoarse voice
a toneless/dry voice
to mumble, to mutter
to stammer
low-/high-pitched
Uriel   Sun Mar 19, 2006 5:57 pm GMT
Sorry to disappoint you, but those are all the same in the US, Larissa.
Lazar   Sun Mar 19, 2006 7:10 pm GMT
I second Uriel. Apart from the three differences that you noted, those are all the same on both sides of the Atlantic.
Damian-in-Edinburgh   Mon Mar 20, 2006 8:27 am GMT
Compound place names in the UK are also hyphenated: Grantown-on-Spey, Bexhill-on-Sea, Stow-on-the-Wold, Moreton-in-Marsh, Widdecombe-on-the-Moor, St Mary-le-Strand, Weston-under-Lizard (yes, honestly!)

I don't say that tongue-in-cheek - it's fact, from the-bottom-of-my-heart. Maybe we have an unhealthy interest in hyphens.
Uriel   Mon Mar 20, 2006 4:01 pm GMT
We would have to hyphenate mock-heroic, Brennus, since that's an uncommon compound. And I see far-fetched much more often than farfetched.
Guest   Tue Mar 21, 2006 10:17 am GMT
There are virtually no hits on the web with "mockheroic".
Uriel   Tue Mar 21, 2006 12:31 pm GMT
I've never, ever seen "mockheroic".

Lots of people are lousy spellers and typists, especially on the internet. That doesn't make whatever you find on google automatically the gold standard. I don't know why people have started using "numbers of google hits" as some kind of statistical barometer -- there's nothing remotely scientifically accurate about that!

Same goes for Wikipedia quotes -- Wikipedia is fun to read, and the idea of a completely democratic online publication is interesting, but if anyone can submit or edit the articles, who's to say how accurate the information always is? But people act like it's the Encyclopedia Britannica, and it's not. Which is not to say that the E. B. is entirely free of any errors -- that would probably be impossible -- but its editors are a little more accountable for its content.
Guest   Wed Mar 22, 2006 2:40 am GMT
>>I don't know why people have started using "numbers of google hits" as some kind of statistical barometer -- there's nothing remotely scientifically accurate about that!<<

Yes it is. On the contrary, the science of langauge is in the numbers. The people who use their language are the ones to establish the conventions and precedents. Italian would still be some form of Latin if that wasn't the case.
Uriel   Wed Mar 22, 2006 4:10 am GMT
Google will hit the same sites, or copies from the same sites, over and over. Its counts are not accurate. Statistics themselves are a valid tool, but google is not an accurate gatherer of numbers.