Uk Vs. USA
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Took me a while being here to learn that porridge is "oatmeal".0
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Ah yes. There is a big regional / class divide over what you call your meals and when they are taken in the UK.
Breakfast / brekkie - self explanatory
Elevenses - a mid morning snack
Lunch / Dinner - your mid day meal. If you call it lunch, then your evening meal is likely dinner, but you may have tea if it is earlier, if you call it dinner you probably call it tea no matter what time you take it. If it is a packed lunch (prepared and taken with you) it might also be referred to by a regional name such as "snap" or "croust".
Tea - a light meal taken mid to late afternoon or your evening meal (see above).
High Tea - a somewhat ceremonial tea of small sandwiches, cakes and the like. Usually with a pot of tea to drink.
Dinner - your main meal taken early evening
Supper - a light meal taken in the late evening
Simple really
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Ah yes. There is a big regional / class divide over what you call your meals and when they are taken in the UK.
Breakfast / brekkie - self explanatory
Elevenses - a mid morning snack
Lunch / Dinner - your mid day meal. If you call it lunch, then your evening meal is likely dinner, but you may have tea if it is earlier, if you call it dinner you probably call it tea no matter what time you take it. If it is a packed lunch (prepared and taken with you) it might also be referred to by a regional name such as "snap" or "croust".
Tea - a light meal taken mid to late afternoon or your evening meal (see above).
High Tea - a somewhat ceremonial tea of small sandwiches, cakes and the like. Usually with a pot of tea to drink.
Dinner - your main meal taken early evening
Supper - a light meal taken in the late evening
Simple really
In the US, everybody is on the same page with the meaning of breakfast (morning meal) and lunch (a meal close too noon). The difference between dinner and supper has lost its meaning in most places and are used by different people to mean the same thing or the term supper isn't used at all. For many, their late evening meal is their main meal, so that might explain part of it. "Supper" has a certain connection to rural/agricultural areas because it used to have a specific meaning (same as the British) in places where life revolved around farming activities. I think I use both because I grew up hearing my parents refer to dinner as supper and they still do. Many people don't use the word "supper" but they know it generally means a meal you eat in the evening. The map below shows the regional differences if people are asked to make a distinction between them.
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Interestingly, a lot of people in the US eat their main meal on our Thanksgiving Day in the early afternoon and refer to it as "Thanksgiving dinner" and not "Thanksgiving lunch". That shows some recognition that dinner is (or used to be) a more formal meal and/or the largest meal eaten earlier in the day. Somebody somewhere might say "Thanksgiving supper" but it sounds odd to my ears and I'm used to hearing the word supper.0
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Ah yes. There is a big regional / class divide over what you call your meals and when they are taken in the UK.
Breakfast / brekkie - self explanatory
Elevenses - a mid morning snack
Lunch / Dinner - your mid day meal. If you call it lunch, then your evening meal is likely dinner, but you may have tea if it is earlier, if you call it dinner you probably call it tea no matter what time you take it. If it is a packed lunch (prepared and taken with you) it might also be referred to by a regional name such as "snap" or "croust".
Tea - a light meal taken mid to late afternoon or your evening meal (see above).
High Tea - a somewhat ceremonial tea of small sandwiches, cakes and the like. Usually with a pot of tea to drink.
Dinner - your main meal taken early evening
Supper - a light meal taken in the late evening
Simple really
Thanks to all who explained tea and the other meals of the day so thoroughly.
Do you ever get confused when someone says these things?
Do you ever have brunch?
I remember my dad telling a story about going to someone's house for dinner at the completely wrong time of day because to him it meant something different and they didn't give a specific time. I don't think people use supper much where I Iive anymore but lunch can be dinner if it is a big fancy meal like on a holiday or to celebrate something.0 -
Ah the US and Great Britain, as some one once said, two nations seperated by a common language0
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As a digression, my wife earlier today, noticing the latest primary results became confused so asked me to explain the US presidential election procedures. I was just warming up on the difference between a caucus and a primary and a winner takes all delegates state when her eyes glazed over and she walked off. Roll on November.0
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Mince pies are just Christmas, thank heavens!
As to the Christmas cake - oh, yes! Marzipan, then royal icing (usually rough iced) and your preference of decoration. The fruit cake is dark, moist and made about 2-3 months in advance to allow it to "drink" a good deal of navy rum and brandy before Christmas. Yum!
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UK slang for cigarettes my cause offense in the US.
Oh gosh, yes... I had to warn my brother, who's a heavy smoker, about that before he came to visit us! (And to definitely be certain not to ask for a pack of them!
) I also had to make sure my son knew that if he made a mistake at school he was to ask for "an eraser", rather than the term he was used to.
I never knew a jumper was a pinafore dress, so I've learned something else there!Mince pies are just Christmas, thank heavens!
Not according to my husband - I had to make him some for his birthday a couple of weeks ago. Yuk. (I can't stand dried fruit.)
As for the meal name things - growing up in a working class household, my family always referred to the main meals of the day as dinner and tea, with supper as something you had before bed. Usually a cup of tea and a couple of slices of toast, in my dad's case. (With dripping, not butter - some Brits will know what I mean by that, and people who aren't familiar with it probably wouldn't really want it explained! )
At some point, not sure if it was when I met my hubby or a few years later, I started using 'lunch' for the midday meal and 'supper' for the evening one. I'm pretty sure I was doing that for a while before we moved to Canada, but I don't recall exactly when or why I changed! I do sometimes use 'dinner' for the evening meal, but usually to refer to going out to a restaurant rather than an informal meal at home. I did know what brunch was before moving, but it wasn't something I ever had experience of. We knew of "elevenses" as well!
Chips, in the UK sense, is used here to refer to "fish and chips", which baffles me since they use the term "fries" for pretty much everything else! Although "fish and fries" would just sound weird...
I remember an American friend years ago telling me how confused he was when he first realised that Brits referred to their rear ends as their "bum", since that was his term for a tramp (down-and-out, hobo, panhandler, whatever you want to call it - not a woman of dubious virtue! ), and had thought it odd to hear that British people sit on their bums!
"Putting the bins (or rubbish) out" is taking out the garbage for collection. "Doing (or emptying) the bins" is either the same thing or emptying out the smaller waste baskets around the house. And "the bin men" or "dustmen" are the municipal garbage collectors, who come round in the "dustcart" or "bin lorry" to collect it.
I get the impression that waste is usually called garbage in Canada but trash in the US - is that right? Or do both countries use both words?
Petrol is gas, but the natural gas used for heating your home is also gas. Not at all confusing! "Eat here and get gas" isn't such a good joke for the UK...
Oh, and apparently in some Canadian provinces electricity is called "hydro" after the main method of producing it!
What else did I think of when I was trying to fall asleep...
A garden is called a yard here, but a part of your yard dedicated to growing flowers is a garden - and if you're growing vegetables instead, it's a vegetable garden. So you can have several gardens within your yard! As far as I can tell, "gardening" is planting, trimming flowers, weeding etc., but if you're mowing the lawn or raking leaves it's "yard work".
A bathroom washbasin is called a vanity, which also refers to the counter/cupboard it's housed in. And a "powder room" is a half-bath.
A larder is a pantry. Kitchen worktops are counters or countertops. A cooker is a stove or an oven, depending on which bit you're talking about! I think a stove refers to a free-standing device with burners/rings and an oven, whereas an oven would be the built-in kind with no "stove top" (sometimes also called a cooktop). You would cook things ON the stove or IN the oven.
When cooking, unless the word has taken off in the NA sense now, "grilling" is what Brits do under the top heating element in an oven - which is referred to as "broiling" here. That one confused the heck out of me to start with, as the word is so similar to "boiling"! Grilling in NA is barbecuing. A frying pan is often a "skillet" but is used to make a 'grilled' cheese sandwich, rather than doing it under the grill/broiler like a Brit would make a 'toasted' cheese sandwich (which is pretty much the same thing! Confused yet?).
A wardrobe is still a wardrobe if it's free-standing, but a walk-in or built-in wardrobe is a closet. Although I never heard the phrases "skeleton in your wardrobe" or "come out of the wardrobe" in the UK, it was always closet in those cases!
A few more food things that came to mind...
Courgettes = zucchini.
Aubergine = eggplant.
Spring onions = green onions or scallions.
Coriander = cilantro (although I think the dried and powdered version of the herb is still called coriander here).
I tried to explain the concept of "toad in the hole" to a Canadian friend once, and had to give up since she didn't know what Yorkshire pudding was and I couldn't find the right words to describe it!
I'm sure there are a ton of other things I can't think of right now - I know there was a lot I had to look up to find out exactly what it was I needed for a recipe!
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ModernRock wrote: »Jelly... = jam? (As in strawberry jam spread on toast. not jelly & ice cream)
In the US we have jelly, jam and preserves. The difference is in the amount of fruit solids left in the final product. Jelly has no fruit solids, so it is essentially cooked fruit juice and sugar mixed with pectin to turn it into a gel. Jam still has some pureed fruit left in it, and preserves should have chunks of fruit solids. Many kids grow up eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. (Usually either grape or strawberry jelly.)
Most people in the US know about marmalade, but it isn't common in household pantries. Even fewer people could define compote.
Thanks. In uk jelly is the wibbly wobbly kind, usually served with ice cream to kids at parties.
We call that Jell-O.0 -
@SueSueDio
I had to Google broiling a while ago (watching a US TV show) - for me broiling is a sort of boiling, thinking of broilers (chickens). It had me confused!
Another one I had to Google was arugula (sp?) - turns out that is rocket for us Brits.
Shrimps are tiny little things, cold water and used in potted shrimp etc. Prawns are the big foreign things.
One thing I have noticed is it is easier here in the UK to "pop the kettle on" thanks to almost universal electric kettles, whereas in the US whistling kettle still seem normal? Is that because the kettle use is less frequent with more coffee makers and less instant coffee?
What about dippy egg and soldiers? I don't think that translates but it is an essential of life! 0 -
Good thread - now try being a New Zealander living in Australia. Both countries have predominantly British names but things do vary, even between the two. In Australia thongs go on your feet, in NZ we would call those jandals and thongs go between cheeks!
It took me ages to work out that what we call Swede (both NZ and Aus) is Rutabaga in the US. I'm not sure about the UK for that one.
And Sweet Potato (called Kumara in New Zealand) is not something that is eaten sweetened!
I also had an American friend on here query my "Afternoon Tea" meal category. I don't know what else it would be called? A snack sometime in the afternoon between lunch and the main evening meal (I'd say dinner, but that could get confusing!)0 -
ModernRock wrote: »Interestingly, a lot of people in the US eat their main meal on our Thanksgiving Day in the early afternoon and refer to it as "Thanksgiving dinner" and not "Thanksgiving lunch". That shows some recognition that dinner is (or used to be) a more formal meal and/or the largest meal eaten earlier in the day. Somebody somewhere might say "Thanksgiving supper" but it sounds odd to my ears and I'm used to hearing the word supper.
Most likely, we are only taking two meals that day. (Skipping lunch). Cooking a huge meal all morning and missing lunch combined with a bunch of hungry kids running around, inspires us to eat early, and that's an early dinner with more food than you would normally eat in one meal.
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In the UK, one wears a swimming costume. In the US, a bathing suit or swimsuit. I was highly amused by envisioing a "swimming costume" but a minute later realized jumping into the water in a "suit" is just as funny.
I noticed the list above with the French terms aubergine and courgette; in the UK they also refer to a serviette, while in the US we use a napkin, which I believe is a baby diaper in the UK (or nappie). I thought the use of French was interesting because traditionally many Brits are not fans of "the Frogs". I suspect aubergine, rocket (roquette) and courgettes were introduced to British cuisine at a late date via French culinary influences, while Americans were introduced to arugula and zucchini with the large waves of Italian immigration starting in the 1800s. And an eggplant just looks like a plant with a bunch of eggs stuck to it. 0
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