American English

There are about four times as many speakers of American English as there are of British English. The differences between the two include vocabulary and idiomatic phrases but the most obvious and easily noticeable is probably in the accents. As a result of overwhelming numbers of American English speakers and the economical and political importance of the US, forms of English used in Britain, Australia, Canada etc. have become less distinct.
Historical background In the 17th century British people went to the US. They spoke a variety of different dialects but after they reached their destination, their language started to develop independently and began to have less and less to do with British English. A lot of new words were added to their vocabulary, often borrowed from Native Americans. Later on, in the 19th and 20th centuries, the language they spoke was affected by French and Dutch settlers along with various other immigrants coming to the US.
Dialects and regional differences The main differences between regional dialects are based on accent but also vocabulary used. General American English (GAE), derived from the Midland dialect group, it’s the dialect closest to standard, spoken widely in the Midwest but used in different parts of the country too. Similar but not quite the same, the Midwestern accent is common across the northern states. Northern dialects spread west from New York while New England has its own accent. The Bostonian accent is rather distinctive and spoken by rich families from the Boston area. The influence of Mexican Spanish on south-western dialects can be seen. African Americans still live in the US and their accent seems to have a lot in common with southern accents. I also found this video with an adorable British boy trying to put on American accent and it really made me laugh although he mostly tends to imitate southern accents more than anything else. These are most distinctive and often work as a stereotypical American accent. It is by no means a reliable sample of American English; however, it is really pretty funny and sweet how he tries to do it. I just love the way he says “squirrel” and “how are you doing?”!

Written American English
There is also a distinctive way in which Americans spell which British people seem to consider wrong. As long as they may accept –z- for –s- in words such as realise (realize) and –t for –d in past tense of certain verbs such as learned (learnt) they often frown upon –or- for –our e.g. colour (color), -x- for –ct- e.g. connection (connexion).There is a war over past participle of a verb ‘to get’. Americans say it’s gotten and British say it’s got. Also, American English seems to be much more direct and polite forms used commonly in British English, decorated with pleases and thank yous as well as polite questions such as would you mind if… are very unnatural to Americans. It is basically a very British phenomenon as these over-polite forms seem very fake for native Polish speakers as well.

Class wars

We can't open our mouths without revealing the social class we come from. England is no exception here, possibly even the worst case of a class-obsessed society where everyone is able to tell exactly which social class somebody else belongs to. The lower class call the upper class posh, the upper class call the lower class plebs and the war never ends. It's one of the reasons I'm quite happy to have a foreign accent as at least I don't get involved in the battles between the two which, although petty, provide real entertainment to impartial observers like me...

• Battle 1. Vowels. The upper class seem to forget vowels exist at all and drop them whenever possible. Suddenly handkerchief becomes a hnkchf almost as if they couldn't be bothered to open their mouths any more than necessary. What's amusing is that they love to refer to themselves as one. As one prefers to avoid personal pronouns. Conversely middle and lower classes in the North seem to stretch vowels and where are you going turns into where are you gooooooing. In particular, they seem to elongate the a sounds and sometimes change them for long i sounds. There was a chef, at my last job in Cumbria, called Dave and certain people would refer to him as Dive. This is especially noticeable in the Brummie and Geordie accents spoken by middle and lower class people from Birmingham and Newcastle respectively. Similarly, they would say me mam, me dog, me car rather than my mum, my dog and my car.
• Battle 2. Consonants. The upper class might drop their vowels but lower classes drop their consonants in return. This is linguistically called glottal stop and I explained this term in some of my previous articles. Basically, they would rather say be'er and wha'ever rather than better and whatever and this can be heard in some of the songs by Kate Nash where the artist purposely adopts this style in order to mimic a certain part of society. In the middle and lower classes th often turns into f and g turns into k. They even tend to write it this way too and we refer to it as text-speak. For example, I fink.
• Battle 3. Foreign words. I've had numerous arguments in the past over the pronunciation of foreign words in English i.e. usually names or places. Nevertheless, I keep stating as follows. If the word is commonly used in English and has an English version of pronunciation that differs from its original just use the English version, you are English, you speak English, you live in England. Showing you know how to pronounce given words in the source language does not make you any better, it does however make you sound like a pretentious prick. There's no need to try hard and pronounce French words rolling your r badly anyway, neither is there any need to exhibit to everyone that you a member of the middle or lower classes. I'm a native speaker of Polish but refer to places that are in Poland using their English names when speaking English i.e. Warsaw instead of Warszawa and Cracow instead of Kraków.
• Battle 4. Certain words. Sometimes it's enough to say just one word and it instantly gives away your social background. We said before that foreign words should be pronounced in the way that is easiest for English speakers. There are also foreign words in common use that should really be completely omitted and changed for their English equivalents. The upper class seem to grasp this concept quite well and avoid saying settee for sofa or lounge for sitting room. This works the other way round in lower classes. The way people refer to meals can also be confusing to foreigners. When I first moved to Cambridge I happened to stay with an upper-middle class family. They would talk of lunch as a midday meal, dinner or supper as the evening meal. Dinner would usually indicate that there are guests invited, whereas supper was a family-only evening meal, usually served in the kitchen. In time as I socialised more with English people from various social groups I wondered how one can eat tea until I was surprised to find out this was what they call their supper. If you are invited for dinner make sure what time you are supposed to turn up as some refer to lunch as dinner - I learnt this after I moved to Cumbria.

The class system in England has very little to do with money or occupation, a bit more to do with education and a lot to do with which social class you were born into and grew up in. There are, of course, other class indicators such as hobbies, drink, food and clothing, however, speech gives it all away immediately and definitively. It's yet another wonder of language.