‘Are there any ‘UK vs US’ differences where you feel America gets it right?’ – 23 ways they do it right across the pond

We have an interesting relationship with our transatlantic friends in the USA. In many respects they’re quite similar to us in terms of language and culture, and in others we look at each other with utter perplexity and incomprehension.

We also usually think we, the British, are correct about everything. But is that actually true? Over on the AskUK subreddit user Secure_Front_7766 asked this:

‘Are there any “UK vs US” differences where you feel America gets it right?’

And they had a few thoughts of their own to get things going.

‘Spellings, customs, the way they write the date… there are many curiosities about those strangers across the Atlantic that seem wrong us, or just leave us thinking why? But are there any definite occasions where you think “We’re wrong, they’re right”? For bonus points, which difference angers you the most?

‘I’ll go first. I prefer the American pronunciation of “lieutenant”. It more accurately represents the number of times the letter F appears. My biggest annoyance is that we caved in and adopted their spelling of “sulphur” and their definition of “billion” as 10⁹ rather than 10¹².’

And it turns out that plenty of people think they’re doing things better over there, like these…

1.

‘House size measured in square feet instead go ‘bedrooms’. It leads to this weird situation where people care more about having “rooms” than actual room for stuff in the UK, and not being able to easily compare size.

It also leads to sad outcomes, where owners don’t make rooms larger by combining them because it’ll lower their home value, because buyers irrationally put way too much weight into it (ie, knocking a wall through lowers value £15k, but would cost £3k to re-install).’
–WGSMA

2.

‘They sell houses a lot quicker. Then have a more mature housing retrofit industry for older housing, using 21st century technology.’
–MFA_Nay

3.

‘Diners, there’s something about them I just like.’
–yubnubster

4.

‘Dive bars too. Big massive (usually) square bar so you never not need to get up to get another drink, surprisingly decent food and bar snacks.’
–Sad-Nectarine-7855

5.

‘They are far less cynical than we are. Our own self-loathing can be really grating sometimes. It limits our own self-belief that we can improve ourselves and dampens our ambition. We have much to be proud of, and there’s no shame in that.’
–Trust_And_Fear_Not

6.

‘The modularity of their education system. We expect 16 year olds to choose a levels to meet course entry requirements at university. We expect 18 year olds to apply for the right course for them. It makes your 20s much harder if you went down the wrong path rather than being able to pivot.’
–NOFEETPLZXOXO

7.

‘Ambition. I feel like loads of Brits look down on ambition. Ambitious working class here are looked at as upstarts, people who do well for themselves are often criticised. We don’t do well at admiring success, and we don’t welcome “overly” ambitious behaviour.’
–EnjoysAGoodRead

8.

‘Porches.’
–Global-Grapefruit-79

9.

‘HVAC systems and forcing large stores to have public toilets in them by law.’
–Independent-Ad-3385

10.

‘This one may not be popular, but normalising going to therapy. (They do talk about their feelings way too much in general though!).’
–shnooqichoons

11.

‘The Americans with Disabilities Act has a lot more teeth than the Equality Act when it comes to making sure public life is accessible for disabled people. Part of that of course is our historic buildings that can’t as easily be adapted, and of course this current administration would probably like to get rid of it, but it’s a good bit of legislation.’
–crestfallen_castle

12.

‘Crabs in a bucket syndrome. The US generally has the belief that hard work and excelling is to be celebrated; in the UK – particularly in working class backgrounds there’s almost animosity toward people who better themselves.’
–Mav_Learns_CS