English vs English

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Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2009 7:52 am

Quote:

The powered thingamajig you cut the lawn edges with is a whipper-snipper (nah, not a whipper snapper!)
...
Police are cops

We call that a weed-whacker here in the US

and the police(we call 'em cops here as well) have been renamed the 'po-po' (said like the last name of Edgar Allan Poe) in the latest slang.

Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2009 8:12 am

If memory serves me the whipper-snipper is a 'strimmer' in UK.
Where do we come up with these nutty names I wonder?
Love the po po, ya gotta larf

Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2009 9:42 am

I'm a Mackem, not a Geordie a Mackem, so most people even here in the UK can't understand what I'm on about half the time Laughing

Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2009 9:56 am

Star A Star wrote:

I'm a Mackem, not a Geordie a Mackem

Similar accent, but with Premiership soccer. Smile

(Brit joke, don't worry about it rest of the world)

Quote:

In the UK the subway is a sort of tunnel

It's now also International for an overpriced sandwich.

Baiting Guru Joined: 19 Mar 2007 Posts: 2628

^^
Yes regional varations can be confusing in the UK.
Woder if its the same in USA/Canada/Antipodes.

From my area of Scotland

Rubbers are gym shoes
Police are polis
Getting the shopping ( groceries ) is doing the messages
We buy half loafs, plain or pan ( thats bread )
Brown sauce is a must on chips ( daughter 1 had to export some to Stirling when she went up there )
A lookout is keeping shoaty
Football was a disappointing game played on a sloping pitch with possibly many pints of beer and a fight afterwards.
Dreich describes the weather ( wet, misty )
or smirr ( wet drizzle)
unless its summer time when its haar ( wet misty, comes in off the sea after a warm day )
And anything nice is pure dead brilliant.

Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2009 10:24 am

@Casual Occurance, it is "Snips." Embarassed

Must have had dogs on the mind. Laughing

I'll get me a soda pop. Wink

Baiting Guru Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 3193

Yard -- Garden

In the UK the area of land around the house is the garden, whether or not it has flowers, grass or anything else. A yard is a paved area within the garden. The only time we would use "yard" in the same sense as Americans would be when the whole lot was paved. (Quite common in Victorian terraced houses with very small rear "gardens" and high walls.)

"Yard Sale" becomes "Garage Sale"

Once a garden is huge, like acres, it becomes "grounds". Big houses have a garden in the grounds. I think this is the same sense that Americans use the term.

Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2009 10:33 am

Roycropper wrote:

soccer.

Grrr

it's footy

Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2009 12:17 pm

Ms Mockinatrix wrote:

Custard does not go on desert ie ice cream

Yes it does. Pudding/dessert/afters* is not a pudding/dessert/after* without it.

Favourite at Christmas:
Christmas pudding, scoop of ice-cream, spoonfull of Clotted Cream (Cornish) and a pint of Custard.

*delete as applicable.

419Eater is my life Joined: 08 Aug 2008 Posts: 475

A non native speaker thanks for this thread. It confuses me a bit, because of randomness of terms they pop up here, but I love language and dialects and the use of it in general.
And still are on my way to try to understand post on Eater in the cultural context, which I don't have. So, often I do not get the catch.
And have my difficulties to express what i would like to express ( if I know what I want )

Roycropper wrote on page 1

Quote:

Quote:
England and America are two countries separated by a common language.

the situation of .... beeing divided by a common language ... is also with Austria / Germany, and the german version of this saying, which we Austrians really love to use, is credited to Karl Kraus, a man with a sharp tongue. I guess, the other gentlemen mentioned there are also known for a sharp tongue.

Karl Kraus - 28.04.1874 bis 12.06.1936.
George Bernard Shaw - 26.07.1856 bis 02.11.1950.
Oscar Wilde - 16.10.1854 bis 30.11.1900

I found above listing, on a (german) site about austrian language. ( http://www.etymologie.info/~e/a_/at-sprach.html )

Master of Master Baiters Joined: 21 Nov 2008 Posts: 619

In the US where I'm from anyway, a paved area within the yard (usually the backyard) is the patio.

Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2009 2:04 pm

^^ and in the UK the patio is the same, its a paved (or decked, or gravelled ) area within the garden.

Question for you guys in the US:
Do your newspaper delivery boys really throw the papers onto the porch while cycling past?

Elite Baiter Joined: 16 Jul 2008 Posts: 1407

They sure do! Sometimes they even whistle while they work. And mom meets dad at the door after work with a drink! And belive it or not, all of the USA is actually in black and white.

No. Usually they just put it in the "newspaper" slot under the mailbox.

Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2009 3:10 pm

I lived in Boston for a while, and learned a few new words.

If you want a proper milk shake - made with ice cream - you have to go to one of the national chains or, in a locally-owned restaurant, order a frappe - not pronounced "fra-PAY" but simply "frap." If you order a milkshake you'll get just that - milk shaken up with flavoring. And if you pronounce frappe the French way, the waitress will correct you: "You mean you wanna frap?"

In Boston a carbonated soft drink is a tonic, pronounced "TAW-nic."

I've also lived in other areas of the US, and I have learned that what one eats in the middle of the day can be either lunch or dinner, and what one eats in the evening is either dinner or supper. I was confused the first time someone at work asked me what I had brought for dinner.

Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2009 3:25 pm

HitchHiker wrote:

^^ Question for you guys in the US:
Do your newspaper delivery boys really throw the papers onto the porch while cycling past?

Not like we used to. You can still get your newspapers delivered to your house each morning but nowadays the person delivering your newspaper is probably driving a van. Well, one person driving and one throwing. Adults discovered that you can use a car to deliver to more people and make decent money. I know several married couples who supplement their income by starting the day delivering newspapers.

It’s sad, we’ve lost an American icon, the paperboy but there are added bonuses. Like it’s possible to get 2 or more different papers delivered to your house. I can have 3 different newspapers from 3 different cities delivered each morning if I want.

But, there are still many small towns that use kids to deliver the papers on bicycles

Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2009 5:33 pm

A question for Americans.

I'm a fan of your Big Brother (I can't stand the British version!) and I was amazed when, in whatever series it was, Evel Dick was forever saying, 'Who would have thunk it?'

My (born in England) mother used to use 'thunk' as a past tense of 'think' (like drink - drunk ... she also said hice for plural of house .. think mice - mouse), just because she thought she was hilarious. I'd never before or since heard anyone else saying it.

Is 'thunk' as a past tense of 'think' usual/normal in the States? Is it trying over-hard to be funny? Is it funny?

Juan's stalker Joined: 28 Aug 2008 Posts: 1423

You have it right Branwen. "thunk it" is "who would have thought it" just like thinking about it. Very Happy

Master of Master Baiters Joined: 21 Nov 2008 Posts: 619

In my experience, thunk is never used in the USA as past tense of think except for the 'who would have thunk it" phrase which I have heard used in recent years.

Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2009 6:57 pm

It's usually said as, "Who'd-a thunk it?" It was probably a running gag-line from some radio show in the 1930s. A lot of those seem to have worked their way into American slang - and then out again as new generations crop up.

"Who's on first?" is an example of such a gag line (although only used in one episode) that has stuck around.

Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2009 7:10 pm

a bird in the US poops on your windshield (windscreen) while flying above. a bird in the UK, might have a tough time climbing onto the bonnet to complete such an act. Laughing

septic tank, wooden plank Wink

policeman = Bobby

one of my favorite UK terms, Norks... Very Happy

Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2009 7:13 pm

Titania wrote:

It's usually said as, "Who'd-a thunk it?"

Yeah, I guess Evel Dick may have said it that way. But, being English, I felt compelled to change it into Correct English Speak.

I am resisiting (with effort) the temptation to go back and listen.

Master of Master Baiters Joined: 05 Mar 2009 Posts: 582

I have heard of a drinking fountain called a bubbler.
Around here we drink pop and bake with soda (baking soda).

I do have a question about a semi-detached house. Does that mean it is a duplex, a free standing 2 family home? Or could it also be a 4-family building, 2 units up, 2 down? We call a 4-unit a quad. What is it called if several narrow homes are all attached in a row?

Elite Baiter Joined: 16 Jul 2008 Posts: 1407

A duplex is 2 homes that are attached on a common lot. Each person "owns" their portion and is responsible for the upkeep, mowing etc.

A Quad is the same, ie 4 homes attached.

A row of houses is called a 'Rowhouse'. Common in big cities especially in Boston/Philly.

Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2009 7:56 pm

A duplex is what in the UK we would call a Masionette. One property Up, One Property Down.

A Semi-Detached is two houses attached side by side.

A row of attached houses is called a Terrace and the houses at each end of the terrace is called a....yes you've guessed it.....an end of terrace.

A bungalow is a one story property (taken from the Raj)

Master of Master Baiters Joined: 05 Mar 2009 Posts: 582

Thanks. Just returned form viewing the pictures thread a noticed another language quirk. Nappies vs diapers.