There is a difference between American English and regular english though, mainly we don't use ridiculous, non-sensical slang for words.
Example:
In America we call the rear storage hatch of a car a trunk. This makes prefect sense as the first cars literally had a storage trunk strapped to the back. In England they call it a boot. Huh? Explain that to me.
In America we call chips chips and fries fries. This is because all fries are well-fried, and chips are shaped like a chip (token, poker chip, take your pick) and they are very small/thin pieces of the potatoe (like a wood chip). In England fries are called chips and chips are called crisps. Now crisps I can see, but chips for fries? They are neither chip shaped or small/thin enough to be considered a chip.
I could go on...
Anyway, I'm just ranting a little so don't take it any other way but there is a subtle diference between "American" vs English. Over the past few hundred years us Yanks have made it a point to remove slang that doesn't make any sense and replace it with slang that does. The poor Brits/Australians on the other hand have made it a point to make up as many confusing slang terms as possible so nobody can understand what the heck they are talking about.
Am I just kidding? Of course, but afterall, you did bash poor Matt for putting up an American flag when the majority of the members are American and associate this flag with the english speaking world (so it makes sense) and complained about replacing it with the Union Jack (which, while an acceptable choice makes less sense in this case). So basically you sorta proved my point.