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50 free British vs American trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Two countries divided by a common language, and the divide is stranger than lift versus elevator. A British 'public school' costs money, an American 'entrée' is the big plate, and the word Britons mock as the ugliest Americanism was coined by English schoolboys. These 50 questions cover the everyday words that mean different things on each side of the Atlantic, the spellings Webster did and did not manage to change, the measures and dates that still trip up travellers, school years, driving rules, tipping and tax, and the sitcoms and game shows that were remade for the other audience. It suits a pub quiz, an English lesson with a transatlantic twist, or anyone who has ever been handed the wrong kind of chips. Play it on your phone with instant answers and explanations, or print it for the table.
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Q 01'Soccer', mocked in Britain as an Americanism, first appeared as slang in English public schools in which decade?
The 1880s
The 1880s produced 'soccer' as public-school slang, a clipping of 'associationer' used to tell association football from other codes, and only later did it come to sound American to British ears.
Q 02Which garment does a Briton mean by 'pants', the word Americans use for trousers?
Underpants
Underpants are what most British speakers picture when they hear 'pants', so an American complaining of muddy pants sounds oddly intimate in London.
Q 03In Britain, what kind of institution is a 'public school' such as Eton, the reverse of the American meaning?
Fee-charging and private
Fee-charging and private describes an English 'public school', a usage formalised by the Public Schools Act 1868, while Americans use the phrase for the free state system.
Q 04Which Commonwealth country sides with the Americans in saying 'elevator' rather than the British 'lift'?
Canada
Canada is the lone Commonwealth exception: 'lift' is Commonwealth English everywhere else, while 'elevator' is North American and Philippine usage.
Q 05A British pint is roughly how much bigger than an American one, thanks to the imperial system of 1824?
About 20%
About 20% bigger is right: the imperial pint is 568 ml against the US liquid pint's 473 ml, because Britain redefined its measures in 1824 while America kept the older ones.
Q 06In which decade did Britain's government officially adopt the American 'billion' of a thousand million?
The 1970s
The 1970s ended the old British billion of a million million, the government adopting the short scale in 1974 for all official purposes.
Q 07Britain charges a 20% VAT nationwide; how many US states charge no general sales tax at all?
Five
Five states, namely Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon, levy no general sales tax, whereas Britain's VAT has stood at 20% everywhere since 2011.
Q 08On an American menu, what does 'entrée' mean, the opposite of its sense in Britain and France?
The main dish
The main dish is the American entrée, whereas in France and most of the English-speaking world the word means a dish served before it, a starter.
Q 09'Eggplant', the US name for what Britons call an aubergine, was first applied in 1763 to fruit of which colour?
White
White cultivars that look like hen's eggs earned the name, which only later stretched to the glossy purple kind most shoppers know.
Q 10An American 'biscuit', a soft bready side rather than a sweet snack, is closest to which British bake?
A scone
A scone is the nearest British match for the American biscuit, a word that in Britain covers both the dessert biscuit and what Americans call cookies.
Q 11What do Britons call the thin fried potato slices that Americans sell in bags as 'chips'?
Crisps
Crisps is the word in the UK, Ireland and South Africa, and British 'chips' are the thick-cut fried potatoes that Americans would call fries.
Q 12Which word do Australians and New Zealanders use for what Britons call the pavement and Americans the sidewalk?
Footpath
Footpath is the Australian, Indian, Irish and New Zealand term, a third option beside the British pavement and the North American sidewalk.
Q 13The British 'nappy', for what Americans call a diaper, is thought to be a diminutive of which word?
Napkin
Napkin is the likely parent of 'nappy', and napkin was itself originally a diminutive, making the baby's garment a pet-name of a pet-name.
Q 21Humphry Davy's first proposed name, in 1808, for the metal Britons call aluminium and Americans aluminum was what?
Alumium
Alumium was Davy's 1808 coinage; 'aluminium' followed once critics wanted an -ium ending with a more classical sound, and the American Chemical Society settled on 'aluminum' only in 1925.
Q 22Noah Webster tried and failed to get Americans to respell 'tongue' as what, reviving an older form?
Tung
Tung was Webster's revival of an older spelling, one reform that never caught on even in America, unlike his successes with color and center.
Q 23The British spelling 'storey' for a building level was among the first used by which American novelist, in 1852?
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Q 14The British 'boot' of a car, America's trunk, takes its name from a compartment on what earlier vehicle?
A horse-drawn coach
A horse-drawn coach had a built-in 'boot', first a seat for the coachman and later a luggage space, while 'trunk' recalls the travelling chests strapped to the back of early cars.
Q 15Which verb means 'discuss now' in Britain but 'shelve' in America, a clash Churchill saw muddle an Allied meeting?
To table
To table an item opens it for discussion in Britain and removes it from discussion in America, a reversal Winston Churchill chronicled causing real confusion between the wartime Allies.
Q 16Which British city's underground railway was the first anywhere to be called a 'subway', a word now heard as American?
Glasgow
Glasgow's small Subway was the first system to carry that name, even though Britons now treat 'subway' as the American word and 'underground' as their own.
Q 17Samuel Johnson's 1755 dictionary, which fixed colour and honour, spelled the head of a colony how?
Governour
Governour sat beside ambassadour, emperour and errour in Johnson, spellings whose u Britain quietly shed while keeping it in colour and honour.
Q 18Which '-our' word do Americans usually keep the 'u' in, because it comes from Scots rather than Latin?
Glamour
Glamour keeps its u in most American usage, a Scots word that escaped the Latin-root logic behind color, honor and labor.
Q 19The z-spelling house style used by the United Nations and the journal Nature is named after which British publisher?
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press gives its name to Oxford spelling, which prefers -ize on Greek-etymology grounds, so 'organize' is not the Americanism many Britons assume.
Q 20American 'defense' and 'offense' keep spellings inherited from which language, rather than being Webster's inventions?
Anglo-French
Anglo-French is where defense and offense come from, spellings America kept while Britain settled on defence and offence; the derivatives defensive and offensive take an s everywhere.
Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote 'storey' in Uncle Tom's Cabin, one of the earliest uses of a spelling that is now British while Americans write 'story' for buildings too.
Q 24America's 231-cubic-inch liquid measure, adopted as its legal standard in 1836, was known in old England as what?
The wine gallon
The wine gallon, also called Queen Anne's gallon, became the standard US gallon in 1836, while Britain had replaced it in 1824 with an imperial gallon based on ten pounds of water.
Q 25Which US president switched the federal government onto Letter-size paper, America's answer to Britain's A4?
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan moved Washington onto the regular 8.5 by 11 inch Letter sheet, half an inch longer and wider than the government's old size, while British offices use A4 at 210 by 297 mm.
Q 26Read by British day-first convention, the figures '9/11' point to which date, rather than 11 September?
9 November
9 November is what a Briton reads, because the UK writes day, month, year, so 31/12/99 is New Year's Eve and the American 9/11 would be written 11/9.
Q 27A Briton who says 'half four' means which time, an abbreviation of a longer, more formal phrase?
4:30
4:30 is 'half four', the clipped British form of 'half past four', which keeps the hour and drops the 'past'.
Q 28'Cilantro', the American name for the leaves Britons call coriander, is borrowed from which language?
Spanish
Spanish gave America 'cilantro', itself from the Latin coriandrum, for a herb that a variant of the gene OR6A2 makes taste of soap to some people.
Q 29At a Burns supper, the root Britons call a swede and Americans a rutabaga is mashed and served as what?
Neeps
Neeps are the mashed swede served with tatties (potatoes) beside the haggis, and the American 'rutabaga' comes from a Swedish dialect word meaning 'root lump'.
Q 30The Popsicle, an ice lolly to Britons, was by its inventor's own account first made in 1905 by a boy aged what?
11
11-year-old Frank Epperson said he left a glass of powdered lemonade soda with a stirring stick on his porch on a cold night, a tale still printed on the back of Popsicle boxes.