Strange American sayings from an English Perspective

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  • ImSoOTired
    ImSoOTired Posts: 186 Member
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    And I call 'athletic shoes' sneakers and the roundabout downtown is called the square. I say breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
  • andiechick
    andiechick Posts: 916 Member
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    why is it wrong to say you need to go to the toilet in America

    It isn't wrong. It just isn't how we say it.

    As for potty, it's how we talk to young children, basically. So it's kind of the same as what you described.

    The kid was 7 and my 6yr old actually thought he was going to use a potty rather than a toilet.

    Mind, am still hoping to move to the states to confuse you all with my lingo, haha!!
    I have an unhealthy obsession with the UK and watch more of your TV shows and movies than my own country's. I would never be confused! lol

    I watch a lot of American so know a lot of the 'phrases' but I recently spent a month living in Virginia (hubby is working there) and I think its completely different when you're 'living' there rather than in a tourist destination where you have a lot of different nationalities, and I love the southern drawl!!!
  • parys1
    parys1 Posts: 2,072 Member
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    We call roundabouts, traffic circles.
  • beekay70
    beekay70 Posts: 214 Member
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    And I call 'athletic shoes' sneakers and the roundabout downtown is called the square.

    I call sneakers "trainers", but in Newcastle, trainers are formal wear. Geordies love their trainers and track pants. A lot like New Jersey.
  • SpeSHul_SnoflEHk
    SpeSHul_SnoflEHk Posts: 6,256 Member
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    There is no pizza in Chicago . . .
    I know! What is up with that four miles of crust they got goin' on?!

    OK. That is Chicago Style Pizza, That is not the same as pizza in Chicago. We have some pretty good stuff there if you didn't want to eat a literal pizza pie as well. There are some great places there. I don't really evere order the "Chicago Style" myself.
  • rml_16
    rml_16 Posts: 16,414 Member
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    Why do a lot of the septics on here WRITE insignificant words in capital letters or *put* them in asterisks. It doesn't add any emphasis, it takes it away.
    Why do they describe losing weight as a journey? When you were putting on weight was that a journey too?
    Why do some of them boast about being sarcastic?
    Why have they replaced thank you very much with thank you so much?
    Why did that woman from North Carolina that I was sitting next to on a plane tell me I was going to burn in hell and that my cat didn't go to heaven? I loved that bloody cat.
    "Septics"????
  • SpeSHul_SnoflEHk
    SpeSHul_SnoflEHk Posts: 6,256 Member
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    And speaking of roads: what do you call that circular road which has multiple entrances and exits going into it?

    On Cape Cod, Massachusetts, we call them rotaries. I've also heard turnabouts, but I'm not sure where that term is used.

    We have them as turnabouts.

    ETA: There was one near where I grew up that had a six way intersection with a circle. We called that one "Suicide circle."
  • jadethief
    jadethief Posts: 266 Member
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    Here's another one. The road next to the highway/interstate, do you call it: 1) access road 2)feeder road 3) service road or 4)something completely different?

    It's an off ramp =]

    Access road... and the off ramp is only part if it as there is a road that parallels the highway.

    It's all the same to me... off ramp.

    Another incosistency for me. Some days it's an exit, some days it's an offramp, or on ramp if you are getting on.

    The road that parallels the highway is called a Frontage Road. It's generally named "Frontage Road." At least according to the Federal Highway Administration.

    I had a total nerd-out moment. Carry on.

    Where I live, if there is a road running parallel to the interstate, that's because it was there before the interstate was built. So it's called "the old road." As in, "Let's get off at this exit and take the old road."
  • SpeSHul_SnoflEHk
    SpeSHul_SnoflEHk Posts: 6,256 Member
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    The funniest one for me was when I said to an English co-worker that someone was dogging on another coworker. For me, it meant he was saying something bad about the other person. Apparently in England it means something TOTALLY different LOL!

    Hahaha, you do NOT want to tell an English person that you've been 'dogging' :laugh:

    Or maybe you do.... :wink:
  • Alluminati
    Alluminati Posts: 6,208 Member
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    Why do a lot of the septics on here WRITE insignificant words in capital letters or *put* them in asterisks. It doesn't add any emphasis, it takes it away.
    Why do they describe losing weight as a journey? When you were putting on weight was that a journey too?
    Why do some of them boast about being sarcastic?
    Why have they replaced thank you very much with thank you so much?
    Why did that woman from North Carolina that I was sitting next to on a plane tell me I was going to burn in hell and that my cat didn't go to heaven? I loved that bloody cat.
    "Septics"????

    Looked it up on urban dictionary. Yikes!
  • Fullsterkur_woman
    Fullsterkur_woman Posts: 2,712 Member
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    Why do a lot of the septics on here WRITE insignificant words in capital letters or *put* them in asterisks. It doesn't add any emphasis, it takes it away.
    Why do they describe losing weight as a journey? When you were putting on weight was that a journey too?
    Why do some of them boast about being sarcastic?
    Why have they replaced thank you very much with thank you so much?
    Why did that woman from North Carolina that I was sitting next to on a plane tell me I was going to burn in hell and that my cat didn't go to heaven? I loved that bloody cat.
    "Septics"????
    I know, right?

    And what is this, the end of an episode of "Soap"?! :laugh: (really dating myself now!)
  • rml_16
    rml_16 Posts: 16,414 Member
    Options
    Why do a lot of the septics on here WRITE insignificant words in capital letters or *put* them in asterisks. It doesn't add any emphasis, it takes it away.
    Why do they describe losing weight as a journey? When you were putting on weight was that a journey too?
    Why do some of them boast about being sarcastic?
    Why have they replaced thank you very much with thank you so much?
    Why did that woman from North Carolina that I was sitting next to on a plane tell me I was going to burn in hell and that my cat didn't go to heaven? I loved that bloody cat.
    "Septics"????

    rml_16: I just looked at your profile and all I needed to read was "I'm a lacto-ovo vegetarian". This confirmed that you're a septic.
    The only "septic" I know is a tank and I guarantee I do not eat what goes into that.
  • Kimdbro
    Kimdbro Posts: 922 Member
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    I forgot about that one being used down here! Which part of Texas are you in? I'm originally from the Lubbock area, but I live around Austin now. My husband, from Seattle, calls it an access road, but he always looks at me puzzled whenever I say service road. And I've heard a very few people from the midwest call it a feeder road.
    Austin too. I've said access, feeder, frontage and service road. I'd never call it an off-ramp though. That's only the part that connects the highway with the frontage road.

    I personally call it a 'Pony Road'... this is only me, lol, being in Canada with so very many different cultural backgrounds being represented including the Eastern Canadians that have their own way of calling everything, I got too confused, I have heard 'access road','side road' 'side access', 'service road', 'trunk road', 'feeder road' - never in my life heard 'frontage road' so that's one to add to the list. I suppose I went with 'pony' because I was a child and it represented a small path as they are usually dirt roads that are smaller than the highway that they are running along. Hence I dubbed it a "Pony Road" - it looked like the type of road a pony would take. lol. People seem to know what I'm talking about when I say it tho' - so I guess it works.
  • ImSoOTired
    ImSoOTired Posts: 186 Member
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    Why do a lot of the septics on here WRITE insignificant words in capital letters or *put* them in asterisks. It doesn't add any emphasis, it takes it away.
    Why do they describe losing weight as a journey? When you were putting on weight was that a journey too?
    Why do some of them boast about being sarcastic?
    Why have they replaced thank you very much with thank you so much?
    Why did that woman from North Carolina that I was sitting next to on a plane tell me I was going to burn in hell and that my cat didn't go to heaven? I loved that bloody cat.

    1) I've never seen a septic on MFP, generally, they are large tanks of excrement below ground.
    2) Maybe the woman from NC met your cat and your cat did a lot of things that would not warrant it's entry to heaven? Just a thought...
  • Alluminati
    Alluminati Posts: 6,208 Member
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    Hodor!
  • Fullsterkur_woman
    Fullsterkur_woman Posts: 2,712 Member
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    rml_16: I just looked at your profile and all I needed to read was "I'm a lacto-ovo vegetarian". This confirmed that you're a septic.
    FFS, if you're going to use rhyming slang, you should at least warn us! We're not clever enough to get it from context!
    And what's so septic about lacto-ovo-vegetarian?
  • SpeSHul_SnoflEHk
    SpeSHul_SnoflEHk Posts: 6,256 Member
    Options
    Why do a lot of the septics on here WRITE insignificant words in capital letters or *put* them in asterisks. It doesn't add any emphasis, it takes it away.
    Why do they describe losing weight as a journey? When you were putting on weight was that a journey too?
    Why do some of them boast about being sarcastic?
    Why have they replaced thank you very much with thank you so much?
    Why did that woman from North Carolina that I was sitting next to on a plane tell me I was going to burn in hell and that my cat didn't go to heaven? I loved that bloody cat.
    "Septics"????
    I know, right?

    And what is this, the end of an episode of "Soap"?! :laugh: (really dating myself now!)

    You can always claim you saw it on syndication. I saw the originals. I loved that show.
  • ImSoOTired
    ImSoOTired Posts: 186 Member
    Options
    Why do a lot of the septics on here WRITE insignificant words in capital letters or *put* them in asterisks. It doesn't add any emphasis, it takes it away.
    Why do they describe losing weight as a journey? When you were putting on weight was that a journey too?
    Why do some of them boast about being sarcastic?
    Why have they replaced thank you very much with thank you so much?
    Why did that woman from North Carolina that I was sitting next to on a plane tell me I was going to burn in hell and that my cat didn't go to heaven? I loved that bloody cat.
    "Septics"????

    Looked it up on urban dictionary. Yikes!

    same. wow...
  • andiechick
    andiechick Posts: 916 Member
    Options
    The funniest one for me was when I said to an English co-worker that someone was dogging on another coworker. For me, it meant he was saying something bad about the other person. Apparently in England it means something TOTALLY different LOL!

    Hahaha, you do NOT want to tell an English person that you've been 'dogging' :laugh:

    Or maybe you do.... :wink:

    Hahahahaha maybe. That tells me a lot about the kind of person you are lol!!!
  • Fullsterkur_woman
    Fullsterkur_woman Posts: 2,712 Member
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    I move that we ignore Hodor there and his American-bashing and keep having fun with our thread.

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