鲜为人知的英美英语差异

dfbb

You could say that spelling is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many other hidden hazards:

Word order: in USE you might say \": The result will likely be announced tomorrow\". Not possible in UKE -- need something like \" The result is likely to be announced tomorrow\".

Capitalisation: whereas a headline in American newspaper might say \"Overhaul Plan for Vote System Will Be Delayed \" (today's New York Times), in UKE it would have less capitalisation, probably \"Overhaul plan for vote system will be delayed\" or perhaps \"Overhaul plan for Vote System will be delayed\".

Hyphenation: USE hyphenates words more by sound, UKE by morphology. So in USE \" triumphant\" would be hyphenated \"trium-phant\", UKE would be based on the structure of the word, therefore \"triumph-ant\".

Dates: USE uses mm/dd/yy, UKE uses dd/mm/yy. A dangerous source of confusion.

Telephone numbers may need to be changed. US texts often have just the US phone number without the international dialling code. Also, UKE numbers do not have hyphens, so they should be removed. Also US websites may give 800 numbers (no charge) but there may be a charge when dialling from outside the US, so that needs to be mentioned.

Addresses: USE often gives US states just as 2-letter abbreviations (MO for Missouri etc), and without mentioning the country. Should be expanded for the benefit of non-US postmen.

Punctuation: USE uses fullstops more, eg Mr. Smith, whereas in UKE just Mr Smith. USE might have 11:00 a.m., UKE nomally just 11 am or 11.00 am. But both use etc. with a period (I mean fullstop).

Quotation marks: If a whole sentence is in quotation marks, any punctuation stays inside in both USE and UKE, e.g. \"Have a nice day,\" said the bus driver. But if only part of the sentence, then in USE it says inside, but in UKE goes outside.

You may feel that some of these points are minor. True, but they immediately give away whether a text has been properly localised or not. People can easily take offence if they feel they are not being addressed in their native language. So localisation matters.