[Theodores]

British people can understand American variations, e.g. 'sidewalk', the pronunciation of the last letter in the alphabet and 'candy'. But there are a surprising amount of Americans that simply do not understand the original British English variants, e.g. 'pavement', 'zed', 'sweets'.

This even applies to those few Americans that have passports and travel to the UK. This lack of initiative when it comes to understanding language is possibly due to how American words have to be spelt out and explained. In original British English context is good enough. So a 'bin' will suffice for a receptacle to place your rubbish in, whereas, in America, you have to have a 'waste paper basket'.

This latter point is something that British people do laugh about, e.g.:

Americans Don't Understand English - The Jonathan Ross Show

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wSw3IWRJa0&vl=en-GB