In Modals^x, American English^x, British English^x

Balance: The simple explanation of Americanization also does not apply to all cases. Strangest of all is the observation that the semi-modals, which have been strongly associated with American English, are observed to less common in American than in British English in both sets of corpora. Hence...

Aside: Americans, does this comment vex you? "The 'Americanization' of British English is suggested by the modal auxiliary profiles: here British English appears to follow American English, where the decline of modals is further advanced both in the 1961 and the 1991 data. In...

1. Use of present perfect tense and simple past tense Speakers of American English generally use the present perfect tense (have/has + past participle) far less than speakers of British English. In spoken American English it is very common to use the simple past tense as an alternative in...

Re: The tenseless modals verbs of English Posted: 13/02/2005 09:52 PM JTT wrote: Every modal verb in English can operate in past, present and future situations. Modals carry modal meaning into sentences, they do not carry tense. "operate", yes. I agree. Both statements are true. I...

The idiom is "have got" in both American and British English. It is a purely idiomatic alternate for "have" and is not much used except in the present tense. That is, "have got" is the present tense of this idiom, even though "get" is the present tense form of "to get", and the past is "got"....