The word 'beetle'... Is it more commonly used in the UK? Is the word 'bug' used in the USA more? ...for this creature: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Beetle-Bessbug.jpg
I'm not from the UK but my husband is. I showed him the picture and said he'd call it a beetle and not a bug.
I'm from the US, and I use both. I would call that picture a beetle, but it's still a bug... just a subdivision of bug. Like there are flies, mosquitoes, gnats, cockroaches, beetles, and a million other different types of small invertebrate creatures that belong to the insect and arachnid families. The blanket term for all of them, that I use anyway, is "Bug". Beetle is a more specific way to call a certain bug. Now, if you're talking about volkswagons, I call them bugs... lol, but that may be a more british thing, not sure.