The Layperson’s Guide to American English

A lot of people have grammar anxiety so we’ll skip right over the part that explains how British English has twelve tenses and a subjunctive while US English has only three (simple past, simple present, simple future), hence common US phrases such as, “I didn’t do that yet.”

We’ll also skip over lexical richness so we won’t dwell on the fact that while educated US citizens employ an active vocabulary of around 500 words day in and day out, even an uneducated British person’s typical active vocabulary is 3,700 words.

What we will focus on is explaining common words and how they may not mean to foreigners what they mean to US citizens.

Because, c’mon, it’s fun.

So without further ado here’s a brief and very incomplete glossary of terms:

Unique = only 50,000,000 just like it

Secret = something everyone knows and that we’re going to tell you once again just in case you’ve forgotten

Miracle = a quotidian and very ordinary event or item such as shampoo

Must-Have = something you don’t need and won’t even remember after you’ve bought one

Astonishing = boring and obvious (see also Mind Bending)