Uk Vs. USA
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Staceym2112 wrote: »The one that always got me is calling a Trunk (the back portion of your car that carries things; in the USA) a boot.
A boot in the USA is a shoe that you wear on your feet, often thicker than a tennis shoe and can be steel toed.
Just to confuse everything a boot in the UK is also a shoe.0 -
blues4miles wrote: »Haven't been watching enough British TV lately to notice all the differences, but for those in the US this is a pretty fascinating quiz...
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/12/20/sunday-review/dialect-quiz-map.html?_r=0
Do you call it a crawdad / crayfish?
Firefly? Moon bug? Glow bug/worm?
How about crane flies, mosquito eater / mosquito hawk?
I tried taking the test just for a laugh, and my "similar areas" were all over the map! (If they showed up at all.) I don't know what a crayfish actually is, although I have heard the term! And fireflies are fireflies, I'm not familiar with the other terms.
Crane flies are known to me as "Daddy Long Legs".
And yeah, salad cream is nothing like mayonnaise - hard to describe but more tangy in taste and much runnier. I can buy it here in Canada, although what's sold as "Heinz Salad Cream" isn't exactly the same as the UK version. Good enough for me, though, I'm not a salad cream snob like my friend's dad!0 -
My favourite 'home alone in front of the TV' dinner! What my lovely MIL (RIP) would have called a 'nursery tea'. Also, in North America people don't do the 'things on toast' the same way the Brits do. My kids have grown up making themselves beans on toast but their friends think it's weird.What about dippy egg and soldiers? I don't think that translates but it is an essential of life!
Are you kidding? As a kid I loved beans on toast, it was my favorite snack! I don't know if I did it the way the Brits do because I used baked beans, but nom nom nom!0 -
ModernRock wrote: »
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?
Correct. Electric kettles are becoming more popular in the US, but are not the common appliance like they are in the UK. (I've considered getting one.) It wouldn't be weird to not have either kind of kettle, particularly if you don't regularly drink hot tea or instant coffee. (Hot tea isn't nearly as popular and instant coffee is generally looked down upon. Drip coffee is by far the most common method to make coffee at home.) I have a metal kettle on my stove top right now. I use it to make coffee using the pour over method and occasionally to make hot tea. Without a kettle, people just use the microwave or even a small pan on the stove. Electric kettles aren't hard to find in stores in the US; every major household retail store has a few models. My grandmother-in-law has one because she drinks instant coffee all day long and the electric kettle is safer for her to operate compared to the stove.
Do it. I have an electric kettle and I don't know what I did without it. It heats the water to boiling quickly and cuts off long before the kettle can boil dry.
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Staceym2112 wrote: »The one that always got me is calling a Trunk (the back portion of your car that carries things; in the USA) a boot.
A boot in the USA is a shoe that you wear on your feet, often thicker than a tennis shoe and can be steel toed.
Just to confuse everything a boot in the UK is also a shoe.
I've no idea why that part of a car is called a boot, but I do know I really confused a couple of Canadians by asking about "car boot sales"! I later learned those are "tailgate sales" here. Trunk is actually a more sensible name, since that's a piece of luggage similar to the ones attached to the rear of very early cars for storage, so maybe we Brits just wanted to be weird!
Another bit of confusion I caused was a few days after we moved, when I realised I needed a torch. Off I went to WalMart and asked a couple of nice ladies where to find said torch. Cue some very confused looks, and me trying to explain what I actually wanted. Turns out I was looking for a "flashlight". They thought I meant the kind of torch that's usually associated with pitchforks in certain movies.
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Staceym2112 wrote: »The one that always got me is calling a Trunk (the back portion of your car that carries things; in the USA) a boot.
A boot in the USA is a shoe that you wear on your feet, often thicker than a tennis shoe and can be steel toed.
Just to confuse everything a boot in the UK is also a shoe.
I've no idea why that part of a car is called a boot, but I do know I really confused a couple of Canadians by asking about "car boot sales"! I later learned those are "tailgate sales" here. Trunk is actually a more sensible name, since that's a piece of luggage similar to the ones attached to the rear of very early cars for storage, so maybe we Brits just wanted to be weird!
Another bit of confusion I caused was a few days after we moved, when I realised I needed a torch. Off I went to WalMart and asked a couple of nice ladies where to find said torch. Cue some very confused looks, and me trying to explain what I actually wanted. Turns out I was looking for a "flashlight". They thought I meant the kind of torch that's usually associated with pitchforks in certain movies.
Ahh, that reminds me of the day I went to Home Depot because I wanted a bathplug. Turns out I should have asked for a tub-stopper.0 -
positivepowers wrote: »The word *kitten* (fagots?) also refers to cigarettes, right? Or is that just "*kitten*"? Also aren't fagots bundles of sticks, like kindling?
The shortened version of the word is cigarettes, yes, and I do believe the full word can also refer to firewood/kindling although I've never personally known anyone who used it. That could cause some confusion if one suggested throwing some on the fire...!0 -
BruinsGal_91 wrote: »Ahh, that reminds me of the day I went to Home Depot because I wanted a bathplug. Turns out I should have asked for a tub-stopper.
Home Depot is really B&Q under another name, isn't it? Same colours and everything! 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!
Oh man, I love egg and soldiers! I've always called them that (not sure why, no one I know is from the UK) but, I think most people just say soft eggs with toast sticks.0 -
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Staceym2112 wrote: »The one that always got me is calling a Trunk (the back portion of your car that carries things; in the USA) a boot.
A boot in the USA is a shoe that you wear on your feet, often thicker than a tennis shoe and can be steel toed.
Just to confuse everything a boot in the UK is also a shoe.
And Boots is a drugstore!0 -
Bum bag.mdrichardsons wrote: »
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A "fanny pack" (US) is what I would call a "bum bag" in Australia. The little waist pack you see people wearing when they want to be easily identified as a tourist for the benefit of pickpockets the world over.
F**** over here (and I'm pretty sure in the UK too) is a private part of the female anatomy. Not something to be talked about in public (she says to that elderly american lady on a tourist coach who announced loudly that she had just fallen on her f****, to horrified faces all round!)0 -
pebble4321 wrote: »F**** over here (and I'm pretty sure in the UK too) is a private part of the female anatomy. Not something to be talked about in public (she says to that elderly american lady on a tourist coach who announced loudly that she had just fallen on her f****, to horrified faces all round!)
Hah!
But yeah, to watchers of Top Gear, this particular F-word in the UK is what Jeremy carefully refers to as a "lady garden". 0 -
Chips in the US -- often thinly sliced potatoes fried. Crunchy.
Chips in the UK?
And then you get South Africa... Chips are crisps (thin, crunchy, come in a packet from a chip factory), while the deep fried kind you get with your burger meal at a drive through are also chips, they're just call slap chips (not slap as in across the face, but the Afrikaans slap which means floppy)0 -
pebble4321 wrote: »F**** over here (and I'm pretty sure in the UK too) is a private part of the female anatomy. Not something to be talked about in public (she says to that elderly american lady on a tourist coach who announced loudly that she had just fallen on her f****, to horrified faces all round!)
Hah!
But yeah, to watchers of Top Gear, this particular F-word in the UK is what Jeremy carefully refers to as a "lady garden".
Not sure that it's quite the same thing, but we are in the right general area! Near enough to get you in trouble in Aus/UK if you aren't careful 0 -
I am English and one time I was on an American flight from Birmingham, England to New York when I was offered some "chips" by the air stewardess. Now, I was fully aware that in America "chips" are what I would know as "crisps". however, the "chips" that I had been offered were in a cardboard box so I was SURE that they must be what I would know as "chips" as in "fries". Very happy about this I said yes, only to be horrendously disappointed when I opened the box to find inside the box was just a packet of "crisps"!!!!0
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Fanny and lady garden are indeed one and the same thing.
Cigarettes are "f@gs", and if you want one from someone else you would ask if you could "bum a *kitten*, please?". That's the the real icing on the cake if you travel to the US and yet no one would bat an eyelid in the UK. "To bum" is to cadge/borrow/cheekily as for. You might also "bum a lift" in someone else's car, for example.
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"To bum" is to cadge/borrow/cheekily as for. You might also "bum a lift" in someone else's car, for example.
To "bum" something is basically the same in the US, although you might be seen as insensitive in more politically correct crowds. "Bum" is a derogatory word for a homeless person or more generally a person too lazy to work for what they want. Still, it wouldn't be uncommon at all for a smoker in the US to be asked by a friend or random stranger if they can "bum a smoke" or "bum a cigarette".
A "square" is a lesser known slang term for a cigarette. For example, "Can you spare a square?" or "Pick me up a pack of squares at the store." Not sure if that's unique to the US.
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