BABY STEPS TO BRITISH ACCENT British English is the standard dialect of the English language as spoken and written in the United Kingdom . [5] Variations exist in formal, written English in the United Kingdom. For example, the adjective wee is almost exclusively used in parts of Scotland , North East England , Ireland , and occasionally Yorkshire , whereas little is predominant elsewhere. Nevertheless, there is a meaningful degree of uniformity in written English within the United Kingdom, and this could be described by the term British English. The forms of spoken English, however, vary considerably more than in most other areas of the world where English is spoken, [6] so a uniform concept of British English is more difficult to apply to the spoken language. According to Tom McArthur in the Oxford Guide to World English, British English shares "all the ambiguities and tensions in the word ' British ' and as a result can be used and interpreted in two ways,