Theme 8: American English

1.Comment on the terms:

Variant, dialect, Americanisms (historical, proper), borrowings, American shortenings, grammatical differences of American English.

2.Find:

a) a full Briticism: fortnight; ship; country; window.

b) a full Americanism: drug-store; childhood; friendship; cinema.

c)the word the spelling of which in the USA differs from that in Britain: standard; national; labor; language.

d) the American form of Participle II: written; proven; spoken; taken.

e) the word which is obsolete in Britain but modern in the USA: building, to pronounce, fall (season), to ask.

f)a dialectal word: village, city, town, burgh.

g)the word formed with the help of a dialectal suffix: doggy, dogeen, Charley, antie.

h)which of the dialects became the national language of Britain: Lowland, Northern, Western, Midland.

3.Explain the differences in the meanings of the following words in American and British English:

Corn, apartment, homely, guess, lunch.

4.Identify the etymology of the following words:

Ohio, ranch, squash, mosquito, banjo, toboggan, pickaninny, Mississippi, sombrero, prairie, wigwam.

5.Say which of the two words is American and which is British. Translate the sentences into Russian:

1. We’ve decided to take our vacation in the autumn/ fall this year. 2. At my son’s new school the new semester/ term starts next week. 3. I never eat biscuits or sweets/ candy. 4. Put that garbage in the dustbin/ trashcan. 5. The trousers look nice with that waistcoat/ vest. 6. The lorry/ track came past us on the highway. 7. My apartment is on the fifth floor but I’m afraid there’s no lift/ elevator. 8. The people next door are on holiday/ vacation. 9. We left the car in the car park/ parking lot and took the subway. 10. My dress is in the wardrobe/ closet.

6.Translate into English giving two variants – British and American:

Тротуар, осень, консервная банка, каникулы, бензин, штора, ящик для мусора, лифт, конфета, грузовик, товарный поезд, багаж, метро, подтяжки, брюки, кран, почтовый ящик, бумажник, визитная карточка, стюардесса, банкнота, свекла, ж.д. касса, багажник, ж.д. вагон, банкомат, кассир, центр города, аптека, компания, переезд, смокинг, район города, врач, правительство, первый этаж, ООО, ж.д. дорога, шпалы, кольцевая дорога, магазин, подземный переход, трамвай;

Надоесть, быть уволенным, на всей скорости, короче говоря, время до рассвета, трудолюбивый человек, встать с левой ноги.

7. Translate the following sentences:

1. The clause was stricken out.

2. I visited with my parents after doing all the errands in the West.

3. The University faculty were invited to attend a meeting with the delegation of the Detroit’s sister-city.

4. This offer will sure be of interest to career officers.

5. The baggage claim area was right under the main hall of the airport.

6. The performance lasted for two hours without intermission.

7. He got the extension of his program through March 1^st.

8. Hope you’ll be able to let up after everybody fills out their forms and leaves.

9. The frontier days attract a lot of visitors in Wyoming and Colorado.

10. Boning up on foreign languages is inevitable at the initial stage of studies.

11. He updated me on the recent events.

12. The unemployment has sky-rocketed in the country due to recession.

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