Gemma wrote some time ago to ask about jail and prison, starting with:
There is indeed a US-UK difference here, almost as Gemma has stated it.
In the US, jails are where people are taken when they are arrested, and it may be where they stay for a very light sentence. The jail will be run by the county or municipality. If, after sentencing, the person is to be incarcerated for any significant amount of time, they will be sent to prison.
An American prison is not necessarily federal, there are state prisons as well. Which one you go to depends on whether you committed a federal offen{c/s}e or broke a state law. (This is complicated by the fact that many crimes are both. So, probably the more relevant issue is whether you were tried in a federal court or not.) Personal note: I'm originally from the town whose name is synonymous with 'deadly prison riot', Attica. My grandmother (long before the rioting) had been the warden's secretary.
In the UK, as Gemma noted, people tend to use the two words interchangeably, though the actual places today are called prisons, since they are part of Her Majesty's Prison System. The things I know of that are called gaols are no longer in use. If you're arrested, you'll be held in police custody--in a cell at the police station or a central remand centre, run by the police, not the prison service.
As for the spelling: the two spellings go way back. Gaol came into Middle English from Old Northern French gaiole (or gayolle or gaole) and jail came into Middle English from Old French jaiole (or jaole or jeole). They're ultimately related and they're (now) pronounced the same, but English was lucky(?) enough to get both. The OED says the Old Northern French version
Of course, there are lots of other terms. On the formal side, we have penitentiary and correctional facility. Penitentiary comes from ecclesiastical practice, but these days it means a non-religious prison, and the OED marks it as 'originally and chiefly North American'. American facilities are more likely to have words like these in their names because the names can vary by state. In the UK, the official names are all "HM Prison [place name]", e.g. HM Prison Manchester, or HMP Manchester. (That's a gratuitous, if indirect, Smiths reference.)
Much slang regarding prisons is going to be different in the two countries. Given that I'm working from dictionaries, these are going to be rather dated, but...
American-origin slang for jails/prisons includes: the pokey, the big house, the cooler, and others.
In the UK you're in the nick, choky (from Indian English), quod, the glasshouse and others. Or you might be at her Majesty's pleasure or doing porridge.
I'm just going to go ahead and assume that you can google those if you want more information about them.
I would (as a British person) use them interchangeably (is this the norm in the UK, or is it just me?) but I've had the impression on several occasions that an American author has expected me to understand that one (jail?) is used for a regional facility for lesser offenders, and the other for a federal facility. Or perhaps you can set me straight? And who (if anyone) uses the spelling "gaol"?
There is indeed a US-UK difference here, almost as Gemma has stated it.
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| Attica Correctional Facility (Wikipedia) |
An American prison is not necessarily federal, there are state prisons as well. Which one you go to depends on whether you committed a federal offen{c/s}e or broke a state law. (This is complicated by the fact that many crimes are both. So, probably the more relevant issue is whether you were tried in a federal court or not.) Personal note: I'm originally from the town whose name is synonymous with 'deadly prison riot', Attica. My grandmother (long before the rioting) had been the warden's secretary.
In the UK, as Gemma noted, people tend to use the two words interchangeably, though the actual places today are called prisons, since they are part of Her Majesty's Prison System. The things I know of that are called gaols are no longer in use. If you're arrested, you'll be held in police custody--in a cell at the police station or a central remand centre, run by the police, not the prison service.
As for the spelling: the two spellings go way back. Gaol came into Middle English from Old Northern French gaiole (or gayolle or gaole) and jail came into Middle English from Old French jaiole (or jaole or jeole). They're ultimately related and they're (now) pronounced the same, but English was lucky(?) enough to get both. The OED says the Old Northern French version
remains as a written form in the archaic spelling gaol (chiefly due to statutory and official tradition); but this is obsolete in the spoken language, where the surviving word is jail, repr. Old Parisian French and Middle English jaiole, jaile. Hence though both forms gaol, jail, are still written, only the latter is spoken. In U.S. jail is the official spelling.Looking on the GloWBE corpus, it seems Australia is very fond of the gaol spelling, even using it as a verb in significant numbers (though still only about 10% of the rate of jail as a verb).
Of course, there are lots of other terms. On the formal side, we have penitentiary and correctional facility. Penitentiary comes from ecclesiastical practice, but these days it means a non-religious prison, and the OED marks it as 'originally and chiefly North American'. American facilities are more likely to have words like these in their names because the names can vary by state. In the UK, the official names are all "HM Prison [place name]", e.g. HM Prison Manchester, or HMP Manchester. (That's a gratuitous, if indirect, Smiths reference.)
Much slang regarding prisons is going to be different in the two countries. Given that I'm working from dictionaries, these are going to be rather dated, but...
American-origin slang for jails/prisons includes: the pokey, the big house, the cooler, and others.
In the UK you're in the nick, choky (from Indian English), quod, the glasshouse and others. Or you might be at her Majesty's pleasure or doing porridge.
I'm just going to go ahead and assume that you can google those if you want more information about them.
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