Tell me more ×
English Language & Usage Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for linguists, etymologists, and serious English language enthusiasts. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 11 down vote favorite
4

Does one fill out a form or does one fill in a form? I've gotten different answers from the people I've asked.

Google search results:

  • fill in a form — 14,200,000
  • fill out a form — 7,000,000
share|improve this question
1  
To me as a German this is very interesting. Seems to me that there must have been some strong influence of German speakers in forming American English. In German you would lterally "fill out" a form ("ein Formular ausfüllen"). So that might explain the difference between British and American English. – user15507 Dec 2 '11 at 14:14
Someone in EL&U recently wrote "fill up a form" and then I knew he wasn't an American. From "fill out" or "fill in" I would not draw that conclusion. – GEdgar Mar 9 '12 at 13:47
related – NewAlexandria Oct 24 '12 at 16:52

4 Answers

up vote 17 down vote accepted

It appears that this is a British/American distinction. The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) reports 92 incidences of “fill out a/the/this form” and just 2 of “fill in a/the/this form”, clearly establishing “fill out” as the standard idiom in American English. I haven’t worked out how to search the British National Corpus yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the results were reversed there.

Edit:

OK, I got the BNC to respond to queries—although it sure takes its sweet time—and I got 19+7=26 results for “fill in a/the form”, and 5+1=6 for “fill out a/the form”. So it does appear that British English favors fill in over fill out, although not to the degree to which American English favors fill out over fill in.

share|improve this answer
up vote 4 down vote

Both are perfectly acceptable.

share|improve this answer
1  
Equally acceptable? – aviraldg Aug 20 '10 at 16:10
1  
I would say so, yes. – Noldorin Aug 20 '10 at 16:11
2  
And the answer is to pick whichever sounds better to your ear. Both are equally acceptable. – J.T. Grimes Aug 20 '10 at 16:30
4  
youtube.com/watch?v=k6CkltzGAxY (2:10) Hugh Laurie - "Fill out a form? We've become American now, have we?" – aviraldg Aug 20 '10 at 16:58
1  
@Aviral +1 for the little bit of Fry & Laurie – ukayer Feb 13 '11 at 7:34
show 2 more comments
up vote 1 down vote

As an Englishman living in the US for almost 20 years, "fill out" still sounds jarring to my ears. I had never heard it used before I came to America.

I rarely hear "fill in" on this side of the Atlantic.

share|improve this answer
up vote 0 down vote

The Americanism follows in line with other usages:

  • Knock out (to complete, slang, verb)
  • Round out (add more in order to ensure a broad range, slang)
  • fill out (no form-based, as in "why don't you use the rest of those flowers to fill out this basket")
share|improve this answer

protected by Community♦ Mar 9 '12 at 19:06

This question is protected to prevent "thanks!", "me too!", or spam answers by new users. To answer it, you must have earned at least 10 reputation on this site.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.