[originaltext]M：Good morning，I’m doing a survey for the Department of Health an

M：Good morning，I’m doing a survey for the Department of Health and Social Security and I’d like to ask you a few questions if I may.
W: I suppose that’ll be OK.
M: The first question is what is your full name?
W: Louisa O’Leary.
M: And your age, Mrs. O’Leary?
W: Well ... it’s thirty-four.
M: Really? You don’t look it at all. Now how much does your husband earn?
W: That’s a personal question, but I suppose I should try and be as frank as I can with you--￡ 10,000 a year.
M: That isn’t much.
W: Yes.
M: Now what I’m really interested in is the way you spend your money. What about housiug, for example?
W: Well, our house costs us about ... er, ￡ 300 a month.
M: Oh, that must be difficult with ten thousand a year!
W: It certainly is. I was working before we had the baby, of course. That used to make things a lot easier. Now we’re much less well off.
M: Mm. Apart from the house, where does your money go?
W: Food is the biggest item. That’s about ￡ 240 a month for food and other small bits and pieces-cleaning materials and so on. For electricity, we only use it for lighting. That’s about ￡ 50 a year.

M: British English and American English are really about the same, aren’t they?
W: I don’t think so. It seems to the that some of the spellings are different. Words like theater and center end in r-e  in England instead of in e-r like we spell them. There are more, examples like the word color. In fact, many words which end in o-r in American English are spelled o - u - r in British English.
M: I’m still not convinced. I mean, if someone comes here from England, we can all understand what he’s saying. The spelling, doesn’t really matter that much.
W: Okay. Are we just talking about spelling? Arc there some differences in pronunciation and meaning too?
M: Well, in fact I remember seeing an English movie where the actors kept calling their apartment a flat. Half of the movie was over before I realized what they were talking about. So there are slight differences in spelling and some vocabulary.
W: And pronunciation, too. You aren’t going to tell me that you sound like Richard Burton.
M: Richard Barton isn’t English.
W: Okay. Anyway, the pronunciation is different. I think that what we are really disagreeing about is the extent of the difference．We all agree that British English and American English are different，right"
M：Sure．