There are many small differences. Not grammatical but some off the top of my head:
* Quite means something different. In British "quite good" is similar to "particularly good". In American it's more like "OK",
* Spelling of -ing form of words ending in l. Br: travelling, Am: traveling,
* Placement of stress on multi-syllable words. It almost seems like anything British people do is the opposite in America. Br: 'adult, a'ddress, ice 'cream. Am: a'dult, 'address, 'ice cream.
> Quite means something different. In British "quite good" is similar to "particularly good". In American it's more like "OK",
I hear this quite a lot. In my experience we (Brits) use it mostly in your second sense, to moderate statements. We use it as an intensifier more rarely and usually in specific phrases: "quite right", "quite the ...". I believe the key difference is that we use the word with greater frequency than Americans. GLOWBE [1] is an excellent resource for checking such hunches if you are interested.
It depends how you say it. For me the default in British is still an intensifier, but you can signal that you're using the American way using context, tone, facial expression etc.
The more important thing, I think, is that Americans don't understand the first sense at all. You have to say "pretty good" or something to have the same effect.
GLOWBE (which I linked above) has Americans in the wild using both senses of quite. If anything it looks like they use it as an intensifier more often than we do.
Wikipedia seems to be more in line with my experience, too:
> In AmE the word quite used as a qualifier is generally a reinforcement, though it is somewhat uncommon in actual colloquial American use today and carries an air of formality: for example, "I'm quite hungry" is a very polite way to say "I'm very hungry". In BrE quite (which is much more common in conversation) may have this meaning, as in "quite right" or "quite mad", but it more commonly means "somewhat", so that in BrE "I'm quite hungry" can mean "I'm somewhat hungry".
GLOWBE seems to be stuff scraped from forums. Unless I'm missing something. I think there's a huge difference with how "quite" is used in written and spoken contexts.
The more I think about it, I think the word can mean quite a lot of things and it's mostly driven by context and non-verbal cues.
Brits often understate, so it's arguable if "quite" means something different (as words are defined by usage) - or if the words mean the same, but are commonly used in understated terms in Britain.
And if you preface it with 'really', it doesn't mean you're not lying, it makes it more like 'bloody' good. (With possible implication that this was unexpected, again depending on intonation.)
> We have some flexibility on our American usage of "quite" but it means "nearly" or "almost completely", unless it means "totally!" So to say "that's not quite right" means you're close but something is off.
I don't think this is illustrating two different uses. Note that "not completely right" means the same thing as "not quite right", but this is meant to illustrate that "quite" doesn't always mean "completely".
That's quite fair! I can't quite put my finger on how we have quite a few ways of using "quite" to mean quite different things. In all my examples, the meaning is quite similar. Quite the challenge, really.
> In British "quite good" is similar to "particularly good"
If you're very posh then yes, but everyone else now uses the American sense. If you asked me what I thought of a TV show, "quite good" means I enjoyed it but I'm not that fussed if I don't happen to watch any more of it.
Is Jeremy Clarkson "very posh"? Just one example off the top of my head of someone who would use "quite good" in the British way.
I think there is possibly a big difference between spoken and written language here. Would you really use "quite good" in that sense while speaking? I don't think so. I think British people would "meh, it's OK".
Humour aside, I don't think he's posh enough to use it in the intensifier sense. If he says something is "quite good" on TV I'd expect it to mean "good" but not necessarily "better than good". Would be interested to see your counter example if you do remember it.
Where in America have you heard "quite good" used as "Ok?" I've only ever heard it used in an imitation British way, usually of the quality that includes "Tip tip cheerio" or "Guvn'r."
American speaker here, for me the accent falls in address according to which form the word takes; such that a'ddress is the noun while address' is the verb.
That's a good point. For some reason we don't adjust the pronunciation on that one, but we do on other words like "contract": 'contract (noun), con'tract (verb).
The word "research" is an odd one as it's pronounced as re'search as both verb and noun in BrE but 'research as both verb and noun in AmE.
But, of course, many British speakers now use the American way without realising (as evidenced by replies to my original comment).
> In British "quite good" is similar to "particularly good". In American it's more like "OK"
Something similar happened between Spanish Spanish and Argentinian Spanish.
I once used the phrase "a veces" in South America and I was corrected to "de vez en cuando". Both phrases mean "occasionally", but the first seems to me to be unfamiliar to South Americans. Maybe someone else can clarify exactly.
* Quite means something different. In British "quite good" is similar to "particularly good". In American it's more like "OK",
* Spelling of -ing form of words ending in l. Br: travelling, Am: traveling,
* Placement of stress on multi-syllable words. It almost seems like anything British people do is the opposite in America. Br: 'adult, a'ddress, ice 'cream. Am: a'dult, 'address, 'ice cream.