English to USA Translations

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  • rml_16
    rml_16 Posts: 16,414 Member
    UK Roundabout = US Rotary
    I've only heard them called roundabouts in the US. Rotary is a club (Rotary International).
    we just call them traffic circles
    This is what I've always called them. And they're not very common in my area of the US. We have ONE near my house. A lot of people don't know how to navigate them and stop and try to yield to me when I'm waiting to merge on.

    They've started building more and more of them all over the place. They put a bunch in near my grandmother's apartment in Buffalo a few years ago and here they have put in three and plan a fourth soon. They're popping up everywhere!
  • foodfight247
    foodfight247 Posts: 767 Member
    UK Roundabout = US Rotary

    I've only heard them called roundabouts in the US. Rotary is a club (Rotary International).

    we just call them traffic circles

    I just call it the circle of death/confusion. :smile:


    I too, call it the circle of death/confusion! Lol! I do now anyways after I once zig zagged round the roundabout on a wet rainy day! My tyres were long overdue being replaced....certainly got done within a few days of that hair raising roundabout of death! Lol.
    On a serious note, it was quite scary at the time - lesson learned - always check your tyres!
  • rml_16
    rml_16 Posts: 16,414 Member
    entirely possible lol....Boston has so many dialects lol. She is from South Boston.

    Southy! That's a tough area.

    Yeah, that is why I am trying to get in shape. Need to defend myself =P

    Southy isn't quite so bad anymore. Hell, Fort Point is even down right nice.

    :-)

    I'm mostly teasing. My ex lived in Boston when we were dating and a college friend (chum for the Brits!) lived in Southy. The outside of the building looked kind of like a warehouse, but their apartment was really beautiful.
  • jcpmoore
    jcpmoore Posts: 796 Member
    UK Roundabout = US Rotary
    I've only heard them called roundabouts in the US. Rotary is a club (Rotary International).
    we just call them traffic circles
    This is what I've always called them. And they're not very common in my area of the US. We have ONE near my house. A lot of people don't know how to navigate them and stop and try to yield to me when I'm waiting to merge on.

    What we should call them is circles of death. Around here no one really knows how they are suppose to work.
  • steph124ny
    steph124ny Posts: 238 Member
    I love the word "whilst" and think it should be adopted in the US....
  • jcpmoore
    jcpmoore Posts: 796 Member
    Another one I've run across here on MFP:

    US drive-through > UK Take-away
  • doorki
    doorki Posts: 2,576 Member
    entirely possible lol....Boston has so many dialects lol. She is from South Boston.

    Southy! That's a tough area.

    Yeah, that is why I am trying to get in shape. Need to defend myself =P

    Southy isn't quite so bad anymore. Hell, Fort Point is even down right nice.

    :-)

    I'm mostly teasing. My ex lived in Boston when we were dating and a college friend (chum for the Brits!) lived in Southy. The outside of the building looked kind of like a warehouse, but their apartment was really beautiful.

    Yeah, Southy is where all the hipsters and yuppies are moving to now lol.
  • rml_16
    rml_16 Posts: 16,414 Member
    Another one I've run across here on MFP:

    US drive-through > UK Take-away

    Doesn't the UK refer to all food taken out of the restaurant (drive-through or just pickup) as take-away? Or am I misunderstanding that one?

    In the US, if we pick up food from a restaurant and bring it home, we call it take-out, but a drive through is a specific thing. You drive up, order and pick it up at a window and is pretty much only for fast food.
  • castadiva
    castadiva Posts: 2,016 Member
    UK USA
    film = movie
    Films has a more high-brow connotation, I think. You wouldn't really call GI Joe a film, but The King's Speech, sure.

    Interesting... In the UK, they're all films - one of the linguistic shifts I had to make when I first moved here from the Antipodes!

    UK: Plastic wrap/cling film USA: Saran wrap (I think!) NZ/AUS: Glad Wrap!!!
  • TeachTheGirl
    TeachTheGirl Posts: 2,091 Member
    That's mainly because the UK doesn't have a lot of drive-thru options.

    I'm British, living in America with my American husband. He always recalls the time my friends back home were getting him to say words they thought sounded funny because they're pronounced differently; like 'garage' and 'aluminum'.

    My husband laughed the other day because he'd never heard the term 'throwing a wobbly' before. XD
  • BigAardvaark
    BigAardvaark Posts: 43
    Another one I've run across here on MFP:

    US drive-through > UK Take-away

    A take-away here just means food to eat at home from a Chinese/Indian/Italian, etc, restaurant. We get them delivered too. We have drive-through McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, etc, just the same as the US.
  • yoovie
    yoovie Posts: 17,121 Member
    My favorite will always be that they call a chick a bird.

    First time a British man said 'toodle pip, pretty bird' to me, I almost had a stroke.
  • devonette
    devonette Posts: 263 Member
    UK Roundabout = US Rotary

    I've only heard them called roundabouts in the US. Rotary is a club (Rotary International).

    Depends on the location in the US -- here in New Jersey they're called Circles.


    a few more:
    profiterole = cream puff
    bum = bottom, rear end
    on the dole = on unemployment compensation
    custard = pudding
    pudding = dessert (various)
    tea (not the beverage) = lunch or supper
    dust bin = trash can
    rubbish bin = garbage can (although not too many towns have you separate the two anymore)
    bin diving = dumpster diving
  • Siannah
    Siannah Posts: 456 Member
    Has fanny been mentioned yet? Means something different here in Ireland than in the US.

    Oh and thongs in Oz are something different than here too :laugh:
  • Pengi81
    Pengi81 Posts: 336 Member

    My husband laughed the other day because he'd never heard the term 'throwing a wobbly' before. XD

    I love that expression!

    My American friend found it a bit strange when I told her me and my ex "had a Barney"

    She wanted to know what we were doing to the purple Dinosaur!
  • 10acity
    10acity Posts: 798 Member
    UK Roundabout = US Rotary

    I've only heard them called roundabouts in the US. Rotary is a club (Rotary International).

    I know they are Rotaries in the Northeast. My wife is from Boston and I grew up in the UK so we argue all the time about it.

    Weird, I'm from the NE and we don't even have roundabouts (which is what they'd be called if we did). Of course, Boston is a bit of an aberration... :tongue:
  • rossi02
    rossi02 Posts: 549 Member
    I have to book meetings all the time with our UK counterparts and this is my favorite.

    US: Calendar = UK: Diary

    I love how it sounds in a british accent, and it makes me giggle and think back when I was 10 and would write in my diary evening before bed.
  • Ejwelton
    Ejwelton Posts: 331 Member
    If someone is taking a long time to tell a short story we say they're going "round the houses"
  • saturnine15
    saturnine15 Posts: 140
    I am from Connecticut and my side of the family calls them rotaries. My husband's family calls them traffic circles.
  • ambitious01
    ambitious01 Posts: 209 Member
    Well, I'm from Alabama so I don't want to play. :laugh:
  • LondonEliza
    LondonEliza Posts: 456 Member
    Well, I'm from Alabama so I don't want to play. :laugh:

    In the UK, we call that sulking :)
  • rml_16
    rml_16 Posts: 16,414 Member
    Well, I'm from Alabama so I don't want to play. :laugh:

    In the UK, we call that sulking :)

    Here, too. Or pouting. Interchangeable. :-)
  • saturnine15
    saturnine15 Posts: 140
    Question for the British: What do you call the cart you put your groceries in while shopping? We have a few variations between northern and southern US. In the north, it is either carriage or shopping cart. In the south I have heard people call them buggies.
  • cdpm
    cdpm Posts: 297 Member
    In my old job, had to work with a few Americans and I found the way they said 'Niche' quite odd. Took me a while to figure out what they were saying as they seemed to add a t into the word so it sounded like nitche.
  • rml_16
    rml_16 Posts: 16,414 Member
    In my old job, had to work with a few Americans and I found the way they said 'Niche' quite odd. Took me a while to figure out what they were saying as they seemed to add a t into the word so it sounded like nitche.

    That's regional. I say neesh. It's French, after all. But I have heard it pronounced nitch.
  • castadiva
    castadiva Posts: 2,016 Member
    Question for the British: What do you call the cart you put your groceries in while shopping? We have a few variations between northern and southern US. In the north, it is either carriage or shopping cart. In the south I have heard people call them buggies.

    Shopping trolley. Generally-speaking.
  • roslynds9
    roslynds9 Posts: 139 Member
    I remember being in Florida for a holiday when I was about 6. I was in a shop with my parents and I'd been allowed a lollipop and had just unwrapped it. Being a good little girl I knew not to litter so I went up to the checkout and asked the lady if there was a bin I could put the paper in. I Had absolutely no idea why this lady though that was a confusing question but she had no idea what I meant until my mum came over and explained that I was looking for a "trash can". That was the first time in my life I discovered that American's had different words for things than we do in the UK even though we both speak English lol.
  • WTJoyce
    WTJoyce Posts: 86
    trump - fart

    That brings a whole new meaning to my old Top Trump card sets.

    Or Donald Trump, I think it fits him though.
  • 10acity
    10acity Posts: 798 Member
    Question for the British: What do you call the cart you put your groceries in while shopping? We have a few variations between northern and southern US. In the north, it is either carriage or shopping cart. In the south I have heard people call them buggies.

    I'm from NY, so they're carts. But some people here in VA call them buggies. Also, they put my groceries in bags, but Southerners' in sacks.

    What about when something is on the opposite corner from another thing? Where I'm from, that's "kitty corner" (and I have no idea why) but here in the South they say "caddy corner".
  • rml_16
    rml_16 Posts: 16,414 Member
    I remember being in Florida for a holiday when I was about 6. I was in a shop with my parents and I'd been allowed a lollipop and had just unwrapped it. Being a good little girl I knew not to litter so I went up to the checkout and asked the lady if there was a bin I could put the paper in. I Had absolutely no idea why this lady though that was a confusing question but she had no idea what I meant until my mum came over and explained that I was looking for a "trash can". That was the first time in my life I discovered that American's had different words for things than we do in the UK even though we both speak English lol.

    Now, see, in context she should have been able to figure that one out. Some people aren't quite as quick on the uptake as others.
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