Back to US/UK Englishes

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all."
—Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass

Languages are alive. The use of language rules, as Ferdinand De Saussure, the Daddy of Modern Linguistics, stated, which means, for instance, that a word from American English or one from British English may end up being chosen by the international community of speakers communicating so-to-say, thus becoming the option in what is called International English, or even of native speakers who didn't use it before. Check this: in UK English, the word "aeroplane" is what in the USA people name "airplane". Which of these appears in British textbooks for EFL learners?

There's something called International English which is kind of made up with the easiest options and US English Spelling is closer to how the word is pronounced, so that explains why it is so popular worldwide.

You have probably heard about US American General/Standard English versus British General/Standard English, but the truth is that each English-speaking community develops its own language tools to describe the world, and because of geography (proximity) or former invasions (colonizations) its own set of borrowings,too. In the USA it is common to find borrowings from American Indian communities and languages and from (American) Spanish. In the UK there are more words from Hindi, for instance. The words someone living in the deserts of Australia needs won't be the exact replica of what someone living in Dublin needs. So — don't get too nationalistic about languages. Let's just respect collective identities! Languages, including the varieties of a same language, are connected to culture, to how a community understands the world and their relationships. If you have traveled, you probably know that what is good for a certain community, like kissing total strangers to say hello, can be aggressive or offensive for another (Thai people, for instance), or like offering a cigarrette (again, in Spain), can be generally unwelcomed (they feel obliged /obláigd/ en deuda or offended) in England!