American vs. British English | #1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5 | #6 | #7 | #8 |

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[American vs. British English #1]
FOCUS: Differences in spelling and wording between American and British English.
Use the corpus to solve the following exercises.

1) The verb "dive" is said to be regular in British English, but irregular in American English; do you find both past tense forms ("dived" and "dove") in the corpus?
No, only "dived"
No, only "dove"
Yes, both "dived" and "dove"

2) "wet" and "wetted" are both past tense forms "wet"; are both forms found in British texts in the corpus? (Search strings "wet his" / "wetted his")
Only "wetted" is found in British texts
Only (past tense) "wet" is found in British texts
Both "wet" and "wetted" are found in British texts

3) Search for the verb forms "smelt" and "smelled"; how many hits do you get in the corpus?
60 and 91
55 and 43
61 and 91

4) "Smelled" is often said to be the American spelling of the past tense form of "smell"; does the corpus support this statement?
Yes, all occurrences are found in American texts
No, no occurrences are found in American texts
Partly, some occurrences are found in American texts and others in British texts

5) Search for "gas" in the corpus, sorting the concordances by RIGHT word; in line 10 "gas" has which of the following meanings?
a substance in an air-like form that is neither solid nor liquid
petrol
the part of a car which you push with your foot to make it go faster

6) Search for "gas station"; in which variety of English is the expression most commonly found?
US
CAN
UK

7) Search for "petrol" in the corpus. Sort concordances by keyword and consider the first ten lines of hits; which of the following statements is true?
"petrol" only occurs in UK texts
"petrol" occurs in UK and US texts
"petrol" occurs in UK and AUS texts

8) Search for "tyre" in the corpus; in which variety of English is the expression most commonly found?
US
AUS
UK


Last updated 4 October 2023, SOE
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