As a middle school student in McLean, Va., Alex Porter was working on a drawing on the first day of class. When he made a mistake, he raised his hand to ask the teacher a question.

“Excuse me ma’am, can I have a rubber, please?” Porter said.

The teacher’s face went bright red at his request.

“It wasn’t for another four years that I realized what I said,” Porter said.

Born in London, Porter was referring to what we know as erasers. Differences in dialect are just one of many things that separate Americans from our counterparts across the pond.

Porter, 19, grew up in London, and moved to the United States when he was 12. Porter’s parents, both former employees of the global confectionery manufacturer Mars, Inc., relocated to Virginia.

“It was an upside-down sort of feeling,” Porter said. “Everyone was very friendly, and it was sort of overwhelming.”

But Porter found that he liked the U.S. and said he developed an appreciation for the American education system. He decided to stay in the states when his parents retired to the Bahamas. He attended Suffield Academy, a boarding school in Suffield, Conn.

Today he is a sophomore marketing major at SMU and an active member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity.

Porter said he came to SMU because the concept of the American university was more appealing. Porter said that universities in England generally mirror the workload and class load of high school in the United States.

“SMU sets itself apart from any colleges in England,” Porter said.

Max Pakzad, a sophomore and fellow member of Beta Theta Pi, discovered a major cultural difference while planning an event for Memorial Day weekend.

“He [Porter] had no idea when Memorial Day was or that it was even a holiday,” Pakzad said.

Spencer Forrest, also a sophomore and member of the fraternity, struggled to understand Porter in conversations.

“Sometimes when he says words like vitamins or aluminum, it takes a while to understand what he’s actually saying because of the accent,” Forrest said.