Americanisms and British...isms?

[DoW Lowen]

Fag = Cigarette
Pussy = A sweet person

 

[Lord George]

I still find it hilarious when Americans use the term fanny. The meaning of the word is quite literally the opposite in the UK. Tee hee.

 

[sirpwnsalot65]

truck=lorry
also there's all of the brand names and such

 

[ad5x5]

'bugger' in the U.S. is a very inoffensive term used to describe something or someone small and perhaps annoying. For example, if you were chasing a little cousin around the house, you might say "I'll get you, you little bugger!"
In the UK, the verb 'to bugger' means 'to have anal sex with'. 'Bugger!' can also be exclaimed at times of frustration (like 'Fuck!').

however in Yorkshire, bugger is also an inoffensive term as described above.
This has led to some awkward situations when I've been talking to Southerners, to whom it is a much more offensive term - as a Yorkshireman it can be used anywhere without causing offence.

 

[Dahni]

I was lying in my bed thinking "I really want some chips". Then I got thinking about how if I said that to American, they'd assume I meant these:

Spoiler: crisps!

Because they're known as chips in America, if I'm not mistaken?

& what I know as chips, are fries in America, I believe, though perhaps not quite the fries they're used to.

I can't think of any more examples of words like this though, and I'm quite curious to see how many different words there are that are used by Brits and taken to mean something else by Americans & vice-versa.

It should be noted that American Chips - UK crisps, American fries while some people believe that is what the British think of as chips are so totally not.

Chips are big thick cut, fries as small pencil thin. They dont taste the same, they are not the same.

Did i say they were the same?
I "so totally" did not.

Thing is, everyone here uses chips as a general term for fries & the thick cut chips.

So McDonalds fries are chips to me, and the ones out of the takeaway down the road also get called chips.

Learn to read, aye?

 

[Camembert]

It should be noted that American Chips - UK crisps, American fries while some people believe that is what the British think of as chips are so totally not.

Chips are big thick cut, fries as small pencil thin. They dont taste the same, they are not the same.

Did i say they were the same?
I "so totally" did not.

Thing is, everyone here uses chips as a general term for fries & the thick cut chips.

So McDonalds fries are chips to me, and the ones out of the takeaway down the road also get called chips.

Learn to read, aye?

You are very defensive, aren't you? He said 'it should be noted' as an extra piece of info, not 'you are wrong they ain't the same'.

 

[sirdanrhodes]

Mobile phone - Cell phone.
Loft - Attic.

 

[CK76]

I still find it hilarious when Americans use the term fanny. The meaning of the word is quite literally the opposite in the UK. Tee hee.

Not best quality, but made me think of this (especially at the end)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCDeC4O7xac

 

[manaman]

I am an American and I agree. I see peoples names and places every day that are obviously spelled incorrectly from a proper word 100 years ago or more, when the average American was about as literate as a one year old. Hell the term OK was created by an American GENERAL in the army that thought it was an acronym for "All Correct" because he spelled it "Oll Korect".\

WOAH.
Seriously? "Oll Korect"? Are you being serious?

That has actually shocked me into submission. That puts a whole new argument forward for why (most, but not all) Americans seem a bit dim to Brits...

Except that it is bullshit. The etemology of OK is disputed, but the most likly is:

<quote=Online Etymology Dictionary>1839, only survivor of a slang fad in Boston and New York c.1838-9 for abbreviations of common phrases with deliberate, jocular misspellings (cf. K.G. for "no go," as if spelled "know go"); in this case, "oll korrect." Further popularized by use as an election slogan by the O.K. Club, New York boosters of Democratic president Martin Van Buren's 1840 re-election bid, in allusion to his nickname Old Kinderhook, from his birth in the N.Y. village of Kinderhook. Van Buren lost, the word stuck, in part because it filled a need for a quick way to write an approval on a document, bill, etc. The noun is first attested 1841; the verb 1888. Spelled out as okeh, 1919, by Woodrow Wilson, on assumption that it represented Choctaw okeh "it is so" (a theory which lacks historical documentation); this was ousted quickly by okay after the appearance of that form in 1929. Okey-doke is student slang first attested 1932. Greek immigrants to America who returned home early 20c. having picked up U.S. speech mannerisms were known in Greece as okay-boys, among other things.

 

[Agent_Jayden]

The pulled things are specifically Christmas Crackers, and have a small firework inside that is supposed to go crack when they're pulled.

A cracker here can also be a particularly fine example, often of womanhood.

In food terms, a cracker is an incredibly dry and brittle sort of baked flour item, eaten with cheese by some people. It's a bit like flaky pastry without the softness, moisture or sweetness. You probably think that sounds rather dull. You're right. They really are rather dull.

We also have biscuits, which tend to be crumbly or crunchy and sweet. The two best examples are McVities HobNobs and the loaf-section-shaped Hovis biscuits that are always the first to go when people are having cheese.

Then there are cookies, which are more moist and chewy than biscuits and often sweeter.

Then there is the rather curious object called a Jaffa cake.

Then there are brownies, which is definitely an imported term. The British Brownie is to Girl Guides what a Cub Scout is the Scouts, i.e. a small girl in a yellow and brown uniform.

Then there is cake.

Then someone says the cake is a lie.

Thank you for the very thorough explanation of all the different variations crackers, biscuits, cookies, and cakes! (Your post made me miss Jammie Dodgers and Spotted Dicks...)

Growing up we called the female scouts 'Brownies' here, too. Nowadays, we call them 'the Girl Scouts'... (When did this change occur? I have no idea).

And you are correct, the cake is a lie...

Btw, I won the game.

 

[Agent_Jayden]

Cracker can be the bready thing you speak of or the pully-explody things (They're actually 'Christmas Crackers'). It can also mean a white person but I'm pretty sure that's just an Americanism from the cinema we get drenched with seeping back into the UK.

Thank you for that information! And, sorry about that meaning seeping back...

 

[Agent_Jayden]

Heres a good one, not American-English though. More Australia-Everywhere else i think. Maybe not New Zealand.

We call these thongs, you don't make that mistake twice overseas.

Here in the U.S. we usually call them "sandals" or "flip-flops". Typically flip-flops is reserved for the cheap beach sandals like you've pictured here, and sandals is for open-toed regular footwear. Believe me, plenty of the people on the beach who wear thongs (Austrailian meaning) aren't the kind of people you want to see wearing thongs (American meaning).

I wouldn't mind it if an Aussie explained to me where the expression "Bob's your uncle" came from.

In my neck of the woods (of the U.S.), we call them 'slippers' (have called them that for several decades), although some use the term 'flip-flops' now. 'Sandals' tended to have a strap that hold your foot in in the back...

 

[Agent_Jayden]

On subject, but a side note... A gentleman walked up and asked my friend for directions to where he might find, "torch batteries". My friend was at a lost for words. (The store that we were in sold 'torches' in the garden department, and 'batteries' in the hardware department). Luckily, I knew what he was referring to "flashlight batteries", and sent him to hardware department. LOL!!!

 

[maddawg IAJI]

There are quite a few words that differ between the two countries...unfortunatly every one that I knew was already mentioned.

All I can think of are a few common diffrences, like how an American might say Windshield while a British person might say Windscreen.

That's the only example I can think of that isn't painstakingly obvious.

 

[ugeine]

I knew someone would say this. And that's the exact same thing I said. I won't get into a major argument here, but I'll give you this basic idea. Before the 1700's, England was greatly influenced by a multitude of different languages. what I'm referring to happened well after this, thus your points about all those other languages are null. I am not disputing that "fact", it simply irrelevant to the time table I established.

Next, you're absolutely right about the standardized english, but from my research, during the 1800's when this occurred in England, it started with the elites of society to "franconize" England.

But as I said, this didn't stop with language. It went from everything, including archetecture, clothing, philosophy, etc.

Even many of England's modern political ideologies have roots in French society (it's ok, so does America's).

Does that make a bit more sense?

Oh, and the reason why America has the more pure form is because America existed away from the influence of other European nations. Although all languages have changed radically over the last one-hundred years, America is more rooted in original, non-elitist english.

Mate, the language was heavily influenced by French culture as early as the 1200s. My own surname, 'Marshall' comes from the old French for servant and came into the language around the same time of the Norman invasion.

Samuel Johnson and the standardisation of the English language in the 1800s had absolutely nothing to do with wanting to seem more French. I'm not sure if you know your French / English history to well, but during this period (from about 1750 - 1850) The French Revolutions were under way and British aristocracy and nobility were fearful of the French, and scared that a similar thing could have happened over here.

It would have been the Chartists who would have been influenced by France, and more their politics then anything.

And how can a language that's made up of several different European languages become 'less pure' when it is influenced by a European language?

 

[ugeine]

And that bit in arrested development about 'pussy' meaning a sweet person is a complete joke. It's only ever had the connotation of 'coward' or 'cat'.

 

[thylasos]

And that bit in arrested development about 'pussy' meaning a sweet person is a complete joke. It's only ever had the connotation of 'coward' or 'cat'.

You can say of someone, affectionately, and probably not directly, that they're a pussycat, which does mean they're sweet, ish. Generally used in terms of
"God almighty, he's a bit stand-offish..."
"Ah, wait 'til you get to know him, he's a pussycat, really."

And that sort of thing. Incredibly seldom used, mind.