system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
EPLI5: Why is the shape called a trapezoid in the US and Trapezium in the UK?

I never quite understood why it needed two different names.
gpt
back in the day american english deliberately tried to make itself more standardized and recognized (or standardised and recognised, heh) to distinguish themselves from the english. a big part of this was releasing new 'standard american' dictionaries. 

trapezium and trapezoid were already two different definitions for a similar (nearly interchangeable) thing. but then when an american mathematical dictionary was released, and it quickly became a standard work, it wasn't realized that there was a mistake in there. they'd been reversed. the reverse definition stuck in america, while the british empire stuck to the other definition.