English to USA Translations

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  • Jmollster1
    Jmollster1 Posts: 9 Member

    yeah, a guy i met on the first day of college was british, and at one point he goes to me "you want to go smoke a *kitten*?"

    i was like "uuuuh... you want to go... kill... a homosexual??? we uh, we uh, can't do that here..."



    I'm in hysterics... this thread is fab :laugh:
  • Jmollster1
    Jmollster1 Posts: 9 Member
    Another one I've run across here on MFP:

    US drive-through > UK Take-away

    I think in the US you call it "take out" in UK we call it take-away. We also have drive-thrus (McD's, BK)
  • Jmollster1
    Jmollster1 Posts: 9 Member

    UK: Plastic wrap/cling film USA: Saran wrap (I think!) NZ/AUS: Glad Wrap!!!

    Here in the Southeast US it's usually just plastic wrap, actually. Sometimes cling wrap. Saran wrap is a brand.

    From the west coast. To me it's all Saran Wrap, just like all soda is coke, and all facial tissues (had to think on that) are kleenex. :smile: Oh... and all sticky bandages are band-aids.

    In US.. band aid = Plasters (in the UK):smile:
  • Libby81
    Libby81 Posts: 734 Member
    I don't agree, then. Everyone I know says dinner or supper (usually supper) Tea is something you have between 4 and 5 pm, and involved the drink.

    That's what I thought, but I'm not a Brit, so I wasn't going to argue the point. Thanks for clearing it up!

    Typically a north/south UK divide and historically a class divide as well. In the north (historically-speaking more working-class) lunch = dinner, dinner/supper = tea. Pudding often = sweet.

    In the south, tea is a light meal somewhere between 3 and 5pm, involving the drink, and a selection of cakes, sandwiches, maybe muffins/crumpets (now mostly a function of smart hotels!)

    High Tea is slightly later and more substantial, including cold meats, maybe one hot dish, and things like hard-boiled eggs, pork pies etc. Typically a children's meal, or after a day's sport (hunting, shooting, fishing...), if dinner is not until quite late.

    Lunch(midday meal) is lunch/luncheon if one wants to be very smart (note 'smart' instead of 'posh' - no truly 'posh' person would ever describe themselves, or anything else, for that matter, as such) and the evening meal is either dinner (more formal) or supper (implies a more casual meal - just to confuse matters, supper can also happen after dinner, just before bed - a hot drink and a biscuit, for example), and is followed by pudding (and possibly a savoury), definitely not dessert or a 'sweet'.

    British English is still absolutely chockablock of these verbal distinguishers of origin and background - what you say often gives you away as much as how you say it! No wonder we confuse everyone!:laugh:

    From the working class north everyone I know calls pudding - afters, because it comes after tea :) clever eh lol We also use bait as packed lunch - "put your bait up" means make your packed lunch
  • castadiva
    castadiva Posts: 2,016 Member

    From the working class north everyone I know calls pudding - afters, because it comes after tea :) clever eh lol We also use bait as packed lunch - "put your bait up" means make your packed lunch

    Cunning! I've never heard 'bait' before. In Scotland, a packed lunch is a 'piece', and I know they have another word in Wales - just can't think what it is!
  • castadiva
    castadiva Posts: 2,016 Member
    http://septicscompanion.com/showcat.php?cat=food

    Someone clearly got tired of explaining... a few classics in here!
  • hennyben
    hennyben Posts: 313 Member
    I can't believe I'm only seeing this thread now. Somebody's probably put this up already, I don't have time to check but just in case they haven't, this is FUNNY (picture is bad quality but you can hear the joke)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNzuOxJ3iS8
  • Jain
    Jain Posts: 861 Member
    Potato chips = Crisps
    Candy (like hard candy & similar = Lollies

    JM

    Candy = boiled sweets. Lollies are boiled sweets with a stick to hold. I think you call then suckers?
  • ZombieSlayer
    ZombieSlayer Posts: 369 Member
    Candy = boiled sweets. Lollies are boiled sweets with a stick to hold. I think you call then suckers?

    Suckers or Lollipops.
  • thrld
    thrld Posts: 610 Member
    Do Brits think YouTube is a funny name? Or an apt one?
  • bio_fit
    bio_fit Posts: 307 Member
    Do Brits think YouTube is a funny name? Or an apt one?

    Personally no - it's just a name to me. I am trying to see why it would be funny or apt but am at a loss :embarassed: Does 'tube' mean something different in the USA?
  • runnercheryl
    runnercheryl Posts: 1,314 Member
    Love this thread. It's something I don't usually think about - I think I know US English pretty well, and I expect it to be the other way around, too. Some of the misconceptions in here are great.

    The one that confused me last time I was in Florida was the 'cilantro' one. Saw it on a few menus and was fishing through my food trying to decipher what the ingredient was. Only found out when I got home two weeks later.

    I'm BBC-English, though. Fairly posh, no accent. My fiance is a Geordie. I'm pretty good at working out what people in the US are saying, but my fiance's family still confuse me sometimes!
  • jaydubbayu
    jaydubbayu Posts: 456
    Come to Cincinnati, we'll mess you all up.
  • Suzieq5
    Suzieq5 Posts: 19
    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.
    [/quote

    We call them trollies.]
  • Suzieq5
    Suzieq5 Posts: 19
    Hee hee. An american friend says exactly the same about the Geordie language. I told him I would stop 'working my ticket', he nearly choked on his coffee. I meant I would stop mishbehaving and being cheeky and he thought I meant something else entirely! :laugh:
  • chinterman
    chinterman Posts: 6 Member
    Jello in Australia and NZ is Jelly, which makes a request for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich really amusing, or gross.
  • runnercheryl
    runnercheryl Posts: 1,314 Member
    Hee hee. An american friend says exactly the same about the Geordie language. I told him I would stop 'working my ticket', he nearly choked on his coffee. I meant I would stop mishbehaving and being cheeky and he thought I meant something else entirely! :laugh:

    Yep.

    "Went to the supermarket on the way home. There was a kid really working his ticket outside the shop. Funniest thing I've seen all week!"

    Took me a while to work out what it meant!
  • Kymmu
    Kymmu Posts: 1,650 Member
    In Australia cotton candy is fairy floss.
    smash repairs is where you take your car to get panels fixed after a traffic accident.
    Mozzies- mosquito
    thongs- flip flops.
    esky- it keeps your drinks cold with ice in it.
    Doing a U ee - perform a U-turn.
  • InstantSunshine
    InstantSunshine Posts: 355 Member
    trump - fart

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

    it also makes Ivana Trump the funniest name in the world.
  • mummma
    mummma Posts: 402 Member
    hahahaha love this thread.... im from just outside london, england and my brothers wife is from brooklyn so we have had to translate alot over the years....

    biscuits and gravy always confused me... haha, also biscuits and cookies, as a cookie to us is a specific type of biscuit. haha
  • bio_fit
    bio_fit Posts: 307 Member
    biscuits and gravy always confused me... haha, also biscuits and cookies, as a cookie to us is a specific type of biscuit. haha

    Haha yes!

    I went to the US when I was about 8 and I remember seeing a restaurant advertising 'Chicken and biscuits'. I was like WTF?! Why would you DO that?!
  • tracym17
    tracym17 Posts: 68 Member
    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.

    Or in Scotland, alcohol purchased from an off-license or other shop for consumption at home. Disclaimer:may only apply to Glasgow! Edinburgh likely has a completely different phrase :laugh:


    alcohol purchased from an off-licence is not a take-away in Glasgow, it's a kerry-oot (carry out). Which is also often what take away food is called.

    edited for spelling
  • BettyBlueEyes
    BettyBlueEyes Posts: 56 Member
    Whilst living with an American girl, she turned to me in a bar and said "woah, you're double fisting!" I nearly dropped the 2 drinks I was holding! Such a different meaning over here...
  • Arwhite1865
    Arwhite1865 Posts: 65 Member
    US "Knock on wood" - UK "Touch wood"
    US "period" - UK "full stop"
    US "math" - UK "maths"
    US "drug store" - UK "chemist"
  • Pebble321
    Pebble321 Posts: 6,423 Member
    US "Knock on wood" - UK "Touch wood"
    US "period" - UK "full stop"
    US "math" - UK "maths"
    US "drug store" - UK "chemist"

    Yup, period and drug store seem odd to me. In my part of the world (Australia) a period is something that women have each month, and you buy medicine at a pharmacy or a chemist - a drug store always seems as though it would be a stash of illegal substances.

    And like lots of other Aussies and UKers, I have a vivid memory of hearing a loud American tourist describe how she slipped over and fell right on her FANNY! (which is a much more personal part of a woman's anatomy for us, its not your backside).
  • rml_16
    rml_16 Posts: 16,414 Member
    Hahaha this thread is funny! Ok my favourites are the differences in insults.

    For example.... wanker & douche!

    I was working with a couple of Americans and they had gone out & somebody called one of them a wanker, they asked me what it means.. Wank = *kitten*.... so a wanker is somebody who masturbates. They laughed and told me it was a stupid insult!! This coming from a nation who uses douche for an insult!! Err hellooo... douche means shower! Lol!

    "Douche" in the US has a slightly different meaning ...
  • rml_16
    rml_16 Posts: 16,414 Member
    Candy = boiled sweets. Lollies are boiled sweets with a stick to hold. I think you call then suckers?

    Suckers or Lollipops.

    And we would call it "hard candy" instead if boiled sweets. And mostly old people talk about it. Incessantly. They like to offer you "a hard candy" a lot.
  • bdhoward87
    bdhoward87 Posts: 86 Member
    Not sure if this has been said or not but I've heard

    Shrapnel = Change (as in coins)
    Torch = Flashlight
  • GuruOnAMountain
    GuruOnAMountain Posts: 489 Member
    This is so great. Basically everything UK based sounds a gazillion times better than our US words. I love it. :D

    Hey I have a question. Is there a difference in what school levels are called? I heard that it was different. Sorry if this has already been addressed.

    In the US it goes: preschool (starting at age 5ish), then kindergarden (age 6ish), then elementary school (grade 1 through 6, about ages 7-13), then middle school or junior high (grade 7 and 8, about ages 14 through 15), then high school (grades 9 through 12, about ages 15 through 19) then we graduate high school and either go to college/university (but you have to pay for it), or go straight to work instead.

    So what are the parallels to these stages of school over in the UK? Same? Different?

    In Scotland, most kids go to nursery or playgroup (although nursery seems to be more common these days, although when I was a pipsqueak I went to playgroup) usually round about the age of 3. They then start primary school at 4 or 5 (depending on what date their birthday falls) and will stay there until they go to High School aged 11 or 12 (obviously, the kids that started school at 4 will be 11 when they start high school and the kids who started school at 5 will be 12).

    High school here is different from the states and from England. We don't graduate high school like you do in the states. Our system is similar to England but we earn different qualifications here. So you usually will spend a year or two just doing lots of different subjects and having your aptitude assessed, then will start your Standard Grades (usually in 8 subjects). When you have finished these you'll be old enough to leave school if you want (legally you have to be 16) but most students choose to at least stay on to do Highers (usually in 5 subjects). At this stage, you should have the grades to go on to college or University if you want but a lot of students stay on for a final year to do more Highers or Advanced Highers (Advanced Higher is usually roughly the equivalent level of studying a subject to first year University standard). All of this is changing, though, as they have brought in a new curriculum.

    Then kids can go on to college or University. As far as I know, college and University are almost interchangeable terms in the USA but here they are different things. Colleges are for more vocational training such as people who want to train to be chefs, beauty therapists, joiners, electricians, photographers etc. and courses there tend to be shorter (a year or two years). University, on the other hand, focuses mainly on academic subjects instead of practical subjects (although crossover is starting to appear where some colleges are now gaining University status - there is still a difference, though, between an 'old', traditional University and a 'new', ex-college University, though, and people tend to see the older institutions as far more academic and prestigious). University degrees in Scotland generally take four years and for college and University students, places are funded for up to four years (or sometimes longer in special circumstances/special courses).

    As someone else said, there's no Grad school. You go on to Postgraduate study and pursue a Masters or a PhD (funding for Postgraduate study is MUCH harder to get and isn't given to everyone as it is for Undergraduate study).
  • rml_16
    rml_16 Posts: 16,414 Member
    "University" and "college" in the US are kind of odd.

    We have the big universities (usually state schools) that have within them several "colleges." (The college of engineering, the college of architecture, whatever your major happens to be.) And the small, private schools are colleges, but not universities. But when you say someone is in college or went to college, you could mean a university.
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