Diff names for the same thing....

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misskerouac
misskerouac Posts: 2,242 Member
in Chit-Chat
So my husband is from California and I'm from B.C. (he moved to Canada shortly before we got married).
Now even though we've been married over 3 years sometimes there are still moments where one of us says something and the other has that blank look on thier face.

Otter pops (in Canada Freezies)
Smarties (in Canada these are Rockets, Smarties are something else entirely)
Spa (it's a frigging Hot Tub)

There was also an awkward moment when I asked his sister where the washroom was and she had no clue what I was talking about, I was like "ummm restroom? Bathroom? I have to pee?"

Also there was quite a fiasco with there being a "z" in my last name. He kept spelling the z "zed".
Silly American!

Oh and Mountain Dew in Canada has no caffiene which his friend found out after drinking a ton and wondering why he was still so sluggish, I told him it was not caffeinated and he was like "well what the hell is the point of it then!" lol

Thank goodness we are both west coast! I can't imagine if I was from Newfoundland, we'd be speaking COMPLETELY different versions of English.

Now our differences are tame, he went to Disneyland a million times as a kid & I went camping lol, but I'd like to hear other peoples cute little moments of WTF when it comes to marrying someone from a different country, culture, or whatever!

Replies

  • FitnessDoll87
    FitnessDoll87 Posts: 45 Member
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    Funny and cute! My patents are actually from completely different cultures. My dad is from Hong Kong and my mom I'd from El Salvador (Central America, just south of Guatemala). There were so many differences in there languages that they just made there own language to understand each other. For example "takah" means to fall, fall down, fell. So "the candle takah" means the candle fell....
  • grumpytroll
    grumpytroll Posts: 48 Member
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    What do you call the ' ends ' of the bread ? I was always brought up calling it a heel or a 'heeley' So I gave my husband a funny look when he called it the ' outsider ' :noway: Eh??? An outsider ?? What in gods name is that?? Lol. We're both Scottish and I had no idea there was more than one way to name the end of your loaf of bread :smile:
  • Musikelektronik
    Musikelektronik Posts: 739 Member
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    Don't get me started. My wife is French. She sometimes translates something literally from French and then says it to me in English, and it often doesn't make sense in English.

    As just one of many examples, she once told me that "tomatoes are forbidden for [her]." Apparently, in French, that's how you say that eating something is bad for you, or will have an adverse affect on you.

    Or she'll call a paper napkin a "towel," because in French, "serviette" means both napkin and towel, I guess, depending on the context.

    The other day, she referred to someone on TV as a "country pumpkin" (she meant "bumpkin," of course). :smile:
  • misskerouac
    misskerouac Posts: 2,242 Member
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    Country pumpkin is super cute lol

    I don't think I've ever called the end piece of bread anything other than "the end piece" lol
  • fitterpam
    fitterpam Posts: 3,086 Member
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    What do you call the ' ends ' of the bread ? I was always brought up calling it a heel or a 'heeley' So I gave my husband a funny look when he called it the ' outsider ' :noway: Eh??? An outsider ?? What in gods name is that?? Lol. We're both Scottish and I had no idea there was more than one way to name the end of your loaf of bread :smile:

    We call it the butt......LOL There were always fights in my family for the butt.....I'm sure people not in our family would be quite confused!!! LOL

    As for differences between me and hubbie were things like the remote control for the television (my family called it the clicker, and they were the remote -- although apparently his grandmother called it the clicker too) and my ventolin inhaler for my asthma was an inhaler in his family and in mine the spray. The first time I had an asthma attack and was asking him to grab my spray out of my purse, there was a lot of confusion. After 10 years of marriage though, we've found that we can translate anything between any of the families pretty much overall even "chocolate milk rose" which is his families term for strawberry milk.....(they're Francophones hence the part English, part French)

    LOL MissKerouac - I'm in Ontario so when you said smarties I was like, aren't smarties smarties????? I had no idea they could be rockets...... Also, did you know that Kinder Surprises are one of the most confiscated items at the US/Canada border - they're illegal in the US :noway:
  • mixedfeelings
    mixedfeelings Posts: 904 Member
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    I'm from the UK, When I went to Florida for the first time I was in a department store and just asked them where the toilet was (I was 7 at the time) they ended up taking me to the department where they sold toilets, I was very confused but fortunately didn't try to use the display models. I think I just looked a bit upset and said "I need a wee".

    Anyway my partner and I grew up just miles apart yet we disagree on what to call a bread roll, I tend to call them baps and he calls them barm cakes!

    I always refer to the end pieces of a bread loaf as the crust.
  • coachblt
    coachblt Posts: 1,090
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    Don't come to Texas, y'all. Their twang slang is ridiculously confusing.
  • ashhhhole
    ashhhhole Posts: 74
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    My favorite word confusion happened when I moved to Boston. Apparently there a drinking fountain is a bubbler. But this is coming from people who pronounce Worcester as "wooster."
  • Buddhasmiracle
    Buddhasmiracle Posts: 925 Member
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    This is a fun Sat. morning thread!

    I have some slight variations on the same theme.

    I am originally from New England (Conn) and always referred to a "sub" as a "grinder" I pronounce "orange" "ahrange," and "idea" "idearah." Or "cahfeh" for coffee.

    Like the poster's spouse who is French, I have had something got lost in the translation moments with my husband, who is Puerto Rican, and whose first language is Spanish. (He came to live stateside when he was 10). Aside from having a respectable "Bronx" accent, he'll say the chicken is "soft," meaning it's cooked tender or just right; or (and this one required more explanation on his part!!), he referred to a mutual female friend as "servicable," i.e., she was very helpful. Glad we got that one straightened out quickly!
  • TrainingWithTonya
    TrainingWithTonya Posts: 1,741 Member
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    I'm from Oklahoma and in the mid-west we were taught proper enunciation and pronunciation of Native American words. My husband is from South Georgia where we currently live. They are obviously not taught either of those things. I tell my husband all the time that he needs to slow down and enunciate because he sounds like he has marbles in his mouth. While I tell my DH that, I often think it about a lot of the people here. They have a couple of places here that should be common enough, that they pronounce them correctly, but they don't. Omega (You know as in Alpha and Omega) is a town that they pronounce Oh-ME-Ga and Houston (As in the major city in Texas that has a bigger population then half the state of Georgia) is a county that they pronounce House-Ton. It's hilarious to listen to him try to read an Oklahoma map!

    As for items that we have completely different words for, all soft drinks are called Coke down here. Doesn't matter if you want Pepsi or root beer or Sprite, they call it Coke. When you go to a restaurant, all tea is iced and sweet. They look at you like you're from another planet if you ask for hot or unsweetened. I'm honestly afraid of what I'd get if I were to ask for green tea. They also confuse me when it comes to the names of meals. I was brought up eating Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner. Here it is Breakfast, Dinner, and Supper. So, lunch is called dinner and dinner is called supper, but Sunday Supper can be at lunch time after church. I confused the heck out of his family when I said I wanted to host Sunday Brunch.
  • bregalad5
    bregalad5 Posts: 3,965 Member
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    Also there was quite a fiasco with there being a "z" in my last name. He kept spelling the z "zed".
    Silly American!

    Erm, we say "zee" here. I grew up really close to the boarder and the Canadians I met that lived in my area always said "zed". Of course, that's east coast (Niagara Falls/Buffalo), so maybe that's why. But honestly, I've never met an American that says "zed"...

    My bf (New Zealand) teases me for saying "mom" instead of "mum", and sometimes we have odd misunderstandings. Nothing major, one of us will just say "huh?" and the other will back up and explain. But, I've traveled a ton (13 countries so far), so I have a pretty good understanding of different cultures and ways of speaking. I'm able to understand most anyone.
  • brittanyjeanxo
    brittanyjeanxo Posts: 1,831 Member
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    Oh gee, where should I start! And we're both from America! lol

    I grew up in the south, where any kind of soda is Coke. I remember the first time I asked my fiance to get me a Coke out of the fridge...there was mass confusion (he is from Connecticut, where they call it soda). He said there wasn't any Coke, I was like, are you kidding? It's right in front of your face! lol. It ended up being Dr. Pepper or something, hence the confusion!

    Then there was the first time after I moved up here to the northeast when Nick said something about going to the package store. Silly me, I thought he meant a UPS or something, haha. He then explained that a package store or a "packie" sells liquor and beer. Uhm, you mean a friggin' LIQUOR store?! "Oh well they sell more than liquor, that's why it's a package store." This one still does not make any sense to me.

    Then of course, there's the sub/grinder confusion. Down south, it's a sub., a hero, or even a po' boy. When he asked me if I wanted a grinder, I was like, "What is that? Is that like a calzone or something?" (Up here, every pizza place seems to sell "hot oven grinders," hence why I thought it was some sort of pizza.) Now, of course, I've gotten used to calling it a grinder.
  • misskerouac
    misskerouac Posts: 2,242 Member
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    Also there was quite a fiasco with there being a "z" in my last name. He kept spelling the z "zed".
    Silly American!

    Erm, we say "zee" here. I grew up really close to the boarder and the Canadians I met that lived in my area always said "zed". Of course, that's east coast (Niagara Falls/Buffalo), so maybe that's why. But honestly, I've never met an American that says "zed"...

    Yes, that was the issue, I kept pronouncing it "zed" but he had never heard that so he kept ACTUALLY spelling out z-e-d, lol, he was adding an extra 2 letters to my name
  • misskerouac
    misskerouac Posts: 2,242 Member
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    Oh gee, where should I start! And we're both from America! lol

    I grew up in the south, where any kind of soda is Coke. I remember the first time I asked my fiance to get me a Coke out of the fridge...there was mass confusion (he is from Connecticut, where they call it soda). He said there wasn't any Coke, I was like, are you kidding? It's right in front of your face! lol. It ended up being Dr. Pepper or something, hence the confusion!

    Then there was the first time after I moved up here to the northeast when Nick said something about going to the package store. Silly me, I thought he meant a UPS or something, haha. He then explained that a package store or a "packie" sells liquor and beer. Uhm, you mean a friggin' LIQUOR store?! "Oh well they sell more than liquor, that's why it's a package store." This one still does not make any sense to me.

    Then of course, there's the sub/grinder confusion. Down south, it's a sub., a hero, or even a po' boy. When he asked me if I wanted a grinder, I was like, "What is that? Is that like a calzone or something?" (Up here, every pizza place seems to sell "hot oven grinders," hence why I thought it was some sort of pizza.) Now, of course, I've gotten used to calling it a grinder.

    Yeah i would have been WAY lost on the "grinder" thing.

    Also the whole concept of milk gravy really freaks me out.
    i mean, i'm not a gravy person to begin with, but his mom made fried chicken, biscuits and milk gravy and he made me try it and it totally freaked me out.
  • _Christine_
    _Christine_ Posts: 1,388 Member
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    We had a French exchange student stay with us over 3 summers.
    First laugh was him wanting to douche... thank god for intro to French. I pointed out the shower.
    Second, he needed a rubber to finish his paper. A few giggles and I realized he needed an erasure.
    My favorite was the 'Coming in the pool'. I explained that going to the pool was a safer bet.

    With the UK folks I had to learn that pants were not jeans, but underwear. I made the mistake of asking about someone’s pants and ended up getting a stalker in exchange. Oops!
    As mentioned before in Texas all soft drinks/pops/carbonate whatever is a coke. Not Coca-Cola, but just coke. In my neck of the woods that usually means a Dr Pepper.
    …and yes, we say Y’all a lot. It’s usually the first thing folks notice. I’ve tried saying you all, but I’m a 6th generation Texan… I think my ancestor would turn in their graves if I said yous guys. ;)
  • misskerouac
    misskerouac Posts: 2,242 Member
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    That totally reminds me of when my husband says "slacks"

    I tell him "No one in BC under the age of 70 calls dress pants slacks "
  • bregalad5
    bregalad5 Posts: 3,965 Member
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    Also there was quite a fiasco with there being a "z" in my last name. He kept spelling the z "zed".
    Silly American!

    Erm, we say "zee" here. I grew up really close to the boarder and the Canadians I met that lived in my area always said "zed". Of course, that's east coast (Niagara Falls/Buffalo), so maybe that's why. But honestly, I've never met an American that says "zed"...

    Yes, that was the issue, I kept pronouncing it "zed" but he had never heard that so he kept ACTUALLY spelling out z-e-d, lol, he was adding an extra 2 letters to my name

    Ahh ok I guess I read it wrong. Seemed like you were saying he says "zed" not he was spelling it z-e-d :tongue: NOW it makes complete sense! Yeah, the "zee" vs "zed" thing is not something you come across a lot unless you're really either teaching english to foreigners, or have lived abroad.
  • misskerouac
    misskerouac Posts: 2,242 Member
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    It was so cute though. He sent me a package in the mail and my last name was spelt P***zed instead of P***z I laughed so hard but it was more like a "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH awwwwww silly american"
  • Musikelektronik
    Musikelektronik Posts: 739 Member
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    Country pumpkin is super cute lol

    I know, right? That's why I haven't corrected her. :D
  • jaydubbayu
    jaydubbayu Posts: 456
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    I'm from Cincinnati, and everyone makes fun of our dialect.
    Do you wash something? We WARSH it.
    Go to Meijer? We go to Meijer's.. We put the 's on the end of everything!
    Want a Pepsi? Give me a POP.
    Just a few examples!

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