# Americans help foreign writers!



## 91831 (Jul 18, 2016)

So I'm British and we have a lot of sayings. Often times I feel that these sayings are known the world over, then someone says - WTF does that mean!? And I sigh, and I realise that I've been colloquialism-blind again. I know that I'm probably not the only one here who does that (we had damp squib in another thread earlier).

Now I don't write particularly for the American market. As I said, I'm British and I either write characters who are also British, have British influences, or live in a world that is connected to the UK in someway. But at the same time, I don't want to put off non-Brit readers, so I don't want to pepper my work with phrases that those across the pond will have the scratch their head over. So I propose, should someone have a phrase they want to use, but suddenly get that little niggle in the back of their mind, that we have a thread for it!

Anyone who has a niggle like this, feel free to post here and hopefully a friendly yank will come and correct us!

I'll start us off:

*Chomping at the bit -- meaning eager to get on / started.
Jam packed -- meaning you can't move, there are people / cars (etc) everywhere and you can't move for trying.
Who's the Jolly Green Giant? -- meaning who's the tall guy?*

Thanks, American Cousins!


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## D. Zollicoffer (May 14, 2014)

Cool thread idea. I'll pitch in. Most Americans will understand your last two references. I understood the first one too, but only because I've encountered it in fiction before. I've never heard anyone here say it. Jam packed is pretty common though. And The Jolly Green Giant obviously refers to a tall person


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## 91831 (Jul 18, 2016)

Excellent!  Ta!

I think with the advent of the internet, language has crossed over, but there are times when I'm writing that I just think... wait... is this something only Brits would get. 

As it is, often times there are things I'll say to some one from the South of England that they wouldn't have a clue what I was talking about:

Case in point: What's a Bap? Or a Barm?  A Cob?  How about a Batch?  (they all pretty much mean the same thing, a bread roll, but ask for the wrong thing in the wrong part of England and you'll be looked at funny!)


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## Flay Otters (Jul 29, 2014)

A lot of older English expressions (Coals to Newcastle, chief cook and bottle washer, fit as a fiddle, scarce as hen's teeth, been through the mill, played out) came to the USA in the 19th century, and also qualify as cowboy (or colonial) slang.
And I find newer vocabulary (the awful "gobsmacked" for example) seeps across the Internet like a foul leakage.
None of your expressions are confusing to an American ear (that has any depth). Champing (chomping) at the bit, for example, is transatlantic (from early 19th C). Along with "back in the days" and "come a cropper".
And the Jolly Green Giant can be intuited since he is featured still on the niblets bag.

You'd have to find something really modern and English, or something that references a particular English (vs American) experience (football - soccer - for example, or many of the words for policemen. Americans think they're called bobbies, not 'the filth' or 'the bill' or such like) to truly confuse.
"I was fitted up by the bill and did a stretch of porridge," might sound odd.


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

This is the only British thing that really cracks me up:

https://static.hotukdeals.com/images/threads/high-res/1117793_1.jpg


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## Flay Otters (Jul 29, 2014)

paranormal_kitty said:


> This is the only British thing that really cracks me up:
> 
> https://static.hotukdeals.com/images/threads/high-res/1117793_1.jpg


Damn, girl.
I read: "Mr Brains porks four *******."
Clearly that's not what it says.


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Two terms that always give away a writer as being from the UK are Paracetamol instead of Tylenol, and 'a flannel' instead of what I assume should be a facecloth.


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

ShayneRutherford said:


> Two terms that always give away a writer as being from the UK are Paracetamol instead of Tylenol, and 'a flannel' instead of what I assume should be a facecloth.


Do UK readers know that flannel can refer to a shirt? I have a sentence that describes my character wearing a flannel...do I need to qualify with shirt?



Flay Otters said:


> Damn, girl.
> I read: "Mr Brains porks four *******."
> Clearly that's not what it says.


May be a good erotica title?


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## Colin (Aug 6, 2011)

The best thing about the English language, is that it means so much to so many people. It is also the worst thing about it ...


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

paranormal_kitty said:


> Do UK readers know that flannel can refer to a shirt? I have a sentence that describes my character wearing a flannel...do I need to qualify with shirt?


I would find that an odd phrasing myself, and I definitely know about flannel shirts.


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## C. Gold (Jun 12, 2017)

Flay Otters said:


> Damn, girl.
> I read: "Mr Brains porks four *******."
> Clearly that's not what it says.


          

From Doctor Who -

Torch = flashlight
Gob = mouth
Quite right, too -used to say that one thinks someone did the right thing ·"After I was treated so rudely, I complained to the management." "And quite right, too!"

Although I'm still not sure that's quite right for 'quite right, too' since where it happens:

Rose Tyler: "I... I love you!"
The Doctor: "And quite right, too."

Left me thinking, huh? There are others I've had to look up but don't recall off the top of my mind. This one stuck out because it's an emotional scene and because I never felt I understood it even after looking it up.


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

ShayneRutherford said:


> I would find that an odd phrasing myself, and I definitely know about flannel shirts.


Well, this is the exact phrasing:



> He watched Lily as she tied her hair up and took off her button-up flannel, revealing a black tank top with the bottom hem cut off.


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## C. Gold (Jun 12, 2017)

paranormal_kitty said:


> Well, this is the exact phrasing:


No doubt you mean flannel shirt there so it's probably ok. Flannel is a face cloth?


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

paranormal_kitty said:


> Well, this is the exact phrasing: "He watched Lily as she tied her hair up and took off her button-up flannel, revealing a black tank top with the bottom hem cut off. "


I think it's clear what you mean to say, but I would still find the phrasing odd. Like, for example, if the shirt were to be cotton instead of flannel, I would never dream of saying 'she took off her button-up cotton'. It sounds wrong to my ear, but maybe that's just me.


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## 91831 (Jul 18, 2016)

paranormal_kitty said:


> Do UK readers know that flannel can refer to a shirt? I have a sentence that describes my character wearing a flannel...do I need to qualify with shirt?


We wouldn't say wearing *a* flannel, we'd say a flannel shirt.


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

C. Gold said:


> No doubt you mean flannel shirt there so it's probably ok. Flannel is a face cloth?


That's what I assume from the context in which it was used. I didn't go an look it up.


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## 91831 (Jul 18, 2016)

What about 

Getting a leg up  --  helping to get a promotion (or higher position)  The woman who wrote obits finally had a chance to get a leg up to reporter with this article.
Get your leg over  -- meaning having a quickie with someone.  He's out back, getting his leg over.
On a promise -- meaning you're getting sex tonight --- nah, can't come out tonight lads, I'm on a promise.


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## 91831 (Jul 18, 2016)

ShayneRutherford said:


> Two terms that always give away a writer as being from the UK are Paracetamol instead of Tylenol, and 'a flannel' instead of what I assume should be a facecloth.


But Tylenol is a brand right? Paracetamol is the generic name for the pain killer... it can also be in other medication -- don't take anything that's got paracetamol in if you take these, as there's an overdose risk. Would the pack ingredients list Tylenol or paracetamol or something else in the states?


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## Colin (Aug 6, 2011)

evdarcy said:


> But Tylenol is a brand right? Paracetamol is the generic name for the pain killer... it can also be in other medication -- don't take anything that's got paracetamol in if you take these, as there's an overdose risk. Would the pack ingredients list Tylenol or paracetamol or something else in the states?


The English language is a constant - trans-atlantic - headache. Take whatever you can to relieve it.

:--)


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

ShayneRutherford said:


> I think it's clear what you mean to say, but I would still find the phrasing odd. Like, for example, if the shirt were to be cotton instead of flannel, I would never dream of saying 'she took off her button-up cotton'. It sounds wrong to my ear, but maybe that's just me.


Oh, I see you're from Canada. We phrase it that way where I grew up, but I'm assuming now that it's probably slang. Since enough people think it sounds weird, I should probably add "shirt" to it.


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

evdarcy said:


> But Tylenol is a brand right? Paracetamol is the generic name for the pain killer... it can also be in other medication -- don't take anything that's got paracetamol in if you take these, as there's an overdose risk. Would the pack ingredients list Tylenol or paracetamol or something else in the states?


Acetaminophen (thank god for spell check!) is the generic name in the US.


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

evdarcy said:


> But Tylenol is a brand right? Paracetamol is the generic name for the pain killer... it can also be in other medication -- don't take anything that's got paracetamol in if you take these, as there's an overdose risk. Would the pack ingredients list Tylenol or paracetamol or something else in the states?


Tylenol is the brand name, acetaminophen is the generic name here. But acetaminophen and paracetamol are the same thing.


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

Okay, so I'm probably subverting the purpose of this thread being an American and asking about what readers in other countries will know, but I have another question now that I'm thinking about it. Are people in the UK and Australia familiar with mate - as in tea? Should I put the affected accent on the e to show how it's pronounced?


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## C. Gold (Jun 12, 2017)

evdarcy said:


> What about
> 
> Getting a leg up -- helping to get a promotion (or higher position) The woman who wrote obits finally had a chance to get a leg up to reporter with this article.
> Get your leg over -- meaning having a quickie with someone. He's out back, getting his leg over.
> On a promise -- meaning you're getting sex tonight --- nah, can't come out tonight lads, I'm on a promise.


Getting a leg up - known. The other two I didn't know.



ShayneRutherford said:


> Tylenol is the brand name, acetaminophen is the generic name here. But acetaminophen and paracetamol are the same thing.


Tylenol is well known. The generic terms... nope. Plus they are harder to spell or remember.


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## C. Gold (Jun 12, 2017)

paranormal_kitty said:


> Okay, so I'm probably subverting the purpose of this thread being an American and asking about what readers in other countries will know, but I have another question now that I'm thinking about it. Are people in the UK and Australia familiar with mate - as in tea? Should I put the affected accent on the e to show how it's pronounced?


Hey, I'm from the US and I never heard of mate used for tea.


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

C. Gold said:


> Hey, I'm from the US and I never heard of mate used for tea.


Really? I thought it was common enough. So should I add the affected accent to guide the pronunciation then? I'm sure someone will come along and say it doesn't have an accent though, so can't win either way lol.

Oh, here if you didn't know what it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mate_(beverage) If you look in the tea section of a decent sized grocery, you will probably see it in tea bag form.


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## 91831 (Jul 18, 2016)

paranormal_kitty said:


> Okay, so I'm probably subverting the purpose of this thread being an American and asking about what readers in other countries will know, but I have another question now that I'm thinking about it. Are people in the UK and Australia familiar with mate - as in tea? Should I put the affected accent on the e to show how it's pronounced?


Mate in the UK means friends (informal), partner (scientific ha!). It would never be referred to for tea! A cuppa would, tea itself, a brew...

That is if you're referring to the drink and not the evening mean! (sometimes referred to a dinner in the UK, but dinner could also be lunch pending on where you're from! Aren't we a funny lot!)


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

evdarcy said:


> Mate in the UK means friends (informal), partner (scientific ha!). It would never be referred to for tea! A cuppa would, tea itself, a brew...
> 
> That is if you're referring to the drink and not the evening mean! (sometimes referred to a dinner in the UK, but dinner could also be lunch pending on where you're from! Aren't we a funny lot!)


It's pronounced mah-tay. It's a specific type of tea (see my reply to C. Gold). It's obvious from context:



> "Since when do you drink tea?"
> "I used to drink tea all the time. Mate, not this stuff with the ice that you're so fond of."


Sometimes in English they spell it with an accent on the e to guide pronunciation, although that's technically not correct. So I'm guessing this may confuse pretty much everyone?


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## Mercedes Vox (Jul 22, 2014)

paranormal_kitty said:


> Okay, so I'm probably subverting the purpose of this thread being an American and asking about what readers in other countries will know, but I have another question now that I'm thinking about it. Are people in the UK and Australia familiar with mate - as in tea? Should I put the affected accent on the e to show how it's pronounced?


Not if it's not actually spelled/spelt with an accent mark.

Context is everything. If you lift a metal thing to look at a car engine, I'm gonna understand what that thing is regardless of whether you call it a hood or a bonnet. If you have a hot athlete in a locker room putting his regulation clothing on before a game (or taking it off after the game, rawr), I'm gonna understand that they are garments related to his sport whether you call them his uniform or his kit.


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

Mercedes Vox said:


> Not if it's not actually spelled/spelt with an accent mark.
> 
> Context is everything. If you lift a metal thing to look at a car engine, I'm gonna understand what that thing is regardless of whether you call it a hood or a bonnet. If you have a hot athlete in a locker room putting his regulation clothing on before a game (or taking it off after the game, rawr), I'm gonna understand that they are garments related to his sport whether you call them his uniform or his kit.


It is sometimes spelled that way in English, but it's not technically correct. It's obvious from the context -- I think -- but does it matter if readers don't know how to pronounce it?


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## Flay Otters (Jul 29, 2014)

paranormal_kitty said:


> It is sometimes spelled that way in English, but it's not technically correct. It's obvious from the context -- I think -- but does it matter if readers don't know how to pronounce it?


It's not an English word.
It's a Spanish/Amerindian word, so accent on the last e.
If you have ever read Graham Greene, or if you have watched Mozart in the Jungle you'll know what mate (may-tay) is.

And flannel also means nonsense as in: "That idiot talks a lot of flannel."
As well as washcloth in England (I wiped my face with a wet flannel).


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

Flay Otters said:


> It's not an English word.
> It's a Spanish/Amerindian word, so accent on the last e.
> If you have ever read Graham Greene, or if you have watched Mozart in the Jungle you'll know what mate (may-tay) is.
> 
> ...


There's no accent on the e in Spanish. It just keeps English speakers from saying it with a silent e. Come to think of it, I probably shouldn't perpetuate the misspelling anyway. I was thinking it was reasonably common in the US, but apparently a lot of people never heard of it. Several places in Austin had it. There's a relative of it that grows wild in Texas. Oh, well...probably stressing too much over the little details yet again.


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## Spin52 (Sep 6, 2015)

I knew I'd been in the UK too long when 'dual carriageway' sounded normal rather than quaint. I've got 30 years on each side of the Atlantic under my belt, so am available to translate.


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## telracs (Jul 12, 2009)

evdarcy said:


> But Tylenol is a brand right? Paracetamol is the generic name for the pain killer... it can also be in other medication -- don't take anything that's got paracetamol in if you take these, as there's an overdose risk. Would the pack ingredients list Tylenol or paracetamol or something else in the states?


don't know if anyone answered this, so if it's a duplicate, sorry.

tylenol is a brand. however, the generic in the US is acetaminophen, NOT paracetamol. So using that generic name is not something most Americans would not recognize.


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

ParkerAvrile said:


> The Spanish and English spelling is not required by law to be the same. It does have an accent mark in English... I saw it in Argentina like that so if anybody complains, tell em to fly down and see for themselves. A Spanish menu and an English menu will look different for all kinds of things. If you retain the Spanish spelling, you will have to use italics to make it clear it's a foreign word. Which is fine too.


I'm thinking I should keep the Spanish spelling in this book since it's not the only Spanish that is used (the English spelling in Spanish means something different). And I don't do the italic thing. For another book, it might be more appropriate to spell it the English way though...which I read actually derived from the Oxford dictionary?


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

Spin52 said:


> I knew I'd been in the UK too long when 'dual carriageway' sounded normal rather than quaint. I've got 30 years on each side of the Atlantic under my belt, so am available to translate.


I had to look that up. When I read it, I was thinking of horses and buggies haha.


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## crebel (Jan 15, 2009)

paranormal_kitty said:


> I'm thinking I should keep the Spanish spelling in this book since it's not the only Spanish that is used (the English spelling in Spanish means something different). And I don't do the italic thing. For another book, it might be more appropriate to spell it the English way though...which I read actually derived from the Oxford dictionary?


Go for the whole name and call it Yerba Mate. They even serve it in Starbucks! I'm surprised so many don't recognize it.


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## Flay Otters (Jul 29, 2014)

Acheknia said:


> I was messaging my brother this morning & told him that I'd been expecting to hear from someone but that I hadn't heard a dicky bird (Word). So this thread makes me think that Cockney rhyming slang might be a problem for some
> SNIP


Lock Stock etc. has an excellent CRS scene, delivered by the inimitable Danny John-Jules (Red Dwarf, Death in Paradise):

"A few nights ago Rory's Roger iron rusted, so he has gone to the 
battle-cruiser to watch the end of a football game. Nobody is watching 
the custard so he has turned the channel over. A fat man's north opens 
and he wanders up and turns the Liza over. `Now f*** off and watch it 
somewhere else.' Rory knows claret is imminent, but he doesn't want to 
miss the end of the game; so, calm as a coma, he stands and picks up a 
fire extinguisher and he walks straight past the jam rolls who are 
ready for action, then he plonks it outside the entrance. He then 
orders an Aristotle of the most ping pong oddly in the nuclear sub and 
switches back to his footer. `That's f***ing it,' says the man. Rory 
gobs out a mouthful of booze covering fatty; he flicks a flaming match 
into his bird's nest and the man lit up like a leaking gas pipe. Rory, 
unfazed, turned back to watch his game. The flaming man and his chinos 
ran outside to extinguish the flames, and Rory cheered on. His team won 
too, four-nil."


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

evdarcy said:


> But Tylenol is a brand right? Paracetamol is the generic name for the pain killer... it can also be in other medication -- don't take anything that's got paracetamol in if you take these, as there's an overdose risk. Would the pack ingredients list Tylenol or paracetamol or something else in the states?


Paracetamol, if it's equivalent to Tylenol, even has a different generic name. Here it would be acetaminophen.


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

crebel said:


> Go for the whole name and call it Yerba Mate. They even serve it in Starbucks! I'm surprised so many don't recognize it.


And in Iowa nonetheless! This would probably be more clear, but I was thinking the character wouldn't call it that. I think I can work a little explanation into the dialogue though. I'm glad I asked since apparently it would have confused some people.


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## Vale (Jul 19, 2017)

I think in the US we say champing at the bit instead of chomping at the bit. Champ and chomp are synonyms and both get the point across, though, so I'm not sure anyone would call it wrong over here unless they were being pedantic.


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## Joseph M. Erhardt (Oct 31, 2016)

I think we desperately need to _table_ this discussion.


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## C. Gold (Jun 12, 2017)

paranormal_kitty said:


> It's pronounced mah-tay. It's a specific type of tea (see my reply to C. Gold). It's obvious from context:
> 
> Sometimes in English they spell it with an accent on the e to guide pronunciation, although that's technically not correct. So I'm guessing this may confuse pretty much everyone?


If you are saying:

"Since when do you drink tea?"
"I used to drink tea all the time. Mate, not this stuff with the ice that you're so fond of."

I'm reading that as:

"I used to drink tea all the time. Friend, not this stuff with the ice that you're so fond of."

And I would just think it's a period-comma problem. It would never cross my mind to equate MATE and TEA. I'm with the British here - Mate = friend because I've heard that far more often than mah-tay.


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

Fancy dress party  - costume party.

single-story building - single-storey building = storey not in any US dictionary.

The FBI is here  - the FBI are here = singular v plural

Rest area - layby

Ramp -  slip road

Panties - knickers


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## C. Gold (Jun 12, 2017)

Decon said:


> Fancy dress party - costume party.
> 
> single-story building - single-storey building = storey not in any US dictionary.
> 
> ...


Oh another one I remembered...

Maths is called Math in the US. We don't do plurals of that one. We also don't have A levels and don't say 'I'm going to uni' though I know what that means.


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## Word Fan (Apr 15, 2015)

evdarcy said:


> *Chomping at the bit---meaning eager to get on / started.
> *


*

Well, it does mean that, but it's champing, not chomping.

Chomping means to chew one's food in a somewhat uncouth way.

Champing is what horses do. It is that rattling of the bit against their teeth and the flicking of it with their tongue that indicates that they are "eager to get on and get started."*


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## C. Gold (Jun 12, 2017)

Word Fan said:


> Well, it does mean that, but it's *champing*, not chomping.
> 
> _Chomping_ means to chew one's food in a somewhat uncouth way.
> 
> _Champing_ is what horses do. It is that rattling of the bit against their teeth and the flicking of it with their tongue that indicates that they are "eager to get on and get started."


I've never heard of 'champing' but have used and heard 'chomping at the bit' all the time. Here's a web article explaining why:
http://grammarist.com/usage/champing-chomping-at-the-bit/

_One definition of bit is a metal mouthpiece used for controlling a horse, and one definition of champ is to bite or chew noisily. These are the senses meant in the idiom champing at the bit, which refers to the tendency of some horses to chew on the bit when impatient or eager. In its figurative sense, it means to show impatience while delayed, or just to be eager to start.

The idiom is usually written chomping at the bit, and some people consider this spelling wrong. But chomp can also mean to bite or chew noisily (though chomped things are often eaten, while champed things are not), so chomp at the bit means roughly the same as champ at the bit.

In fact, chomp, which began as a variant of champ, is alive in English while the biting-related sense of champ is dead outside this idiom, so it's no wonder that chomping at the bit is about 20 times as common as champing at the bit on the web. Champing at the bit can sound funny to people who aren't familiar with the idiom or the obsolete sense of champ, while most English speakers can infer the meaning of chomping at the bit.

Still, if you're writing for school or for readers who are versed in English, champing at the bit is probably the safer choice.
_


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

C. Gold said:


> If you are saying:
> 
> "Since when do you drink tea?"
> "I used to drink tea all the time. Mate, not this stuff with the ice that you're so fond of."
> ...


This is the mistake I was afraid Aussies would make since they use "mate" to mean friend, but I actually never heard anyone use the word that way anywhere I've lived. It's usually buddy/dude or girl/girlfriend/chica for females. I'll say again I'm glad I asked about this...never assume things lol.


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## Vale (Jul 19, 2017)

C. Gold said:


> Maths is called Math in the US. We don't do plurals of that one. We also don't have A levels and don't say 'I'm going to uni' though I know what that means.


Yeah, though if you do the full "mathematics" you can expect the -s at the end in the US, too. "Math professor, math class, I have math after school, I haven't finished my math homework" versus "He earned his doctorate in mathematics and will be an assistant professor in the mathematics department of..."

Though it's probably closer to how we use money. "I'm taking Differential Equations, Logic, and The History of Mathematics this semester. How many maths are you taking?" sounds perfectly normal to me, though it might get phrased "sheesh, how much math do you have this semester?" Contrasted with "monies" ("moneys?"), where you'd only use it to refer to different types of currencies all lumped together.


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## C. Gold (Jun 12, 2017)

Vale said:


> Yeah, though if you do the full "mathematics" you can expect the -s at the end in the US, too. "Math professor, math class, I have math after school, I haven't finished my math homework" versus "He earned his doctorate in mathematics and will be an assistant professor in the mathematics department of..."
> 
> Though it's probably closer to how we use money. "I'm taking Differential Equations, Logic, and The History of Mathematics this semester. How many maths are you taking?" sounds perfectly normal to me, though it might get phrased "sheesh, how much math do you have this semester?" Contrasted with "monies" ("moneys?"), where you'd only use it to refer to different types of currencies all lumped together.


I would have asked how many math courses are you taking?


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## SerenityEditing (May 3, 2016)

Can't remember who said it originally, but one of my favorite sayings is that the US and UK are "two nations forever divided by a common language." I'm still trying to figure out what a biscuit (in the American "sausage biscuit, biscuits and gravy" sense) is called in the UK. Most people say "scone" but I'd always heard that scones were sweetened.

One of the funniest "that's a different English" moments I've ever encountered involved the word "taint." The author intended it in the sense of "stain, lingering bad mark" but it was positioned in the sentence and phrased so that my first interpretation was for the more vulgar meaning of the term (a body part/region, synonymous with perineum). I explained as clinically and maturely as I could that this particular phrasing was likely to raise eyebrows. The author responded to thank me, and mentioned that on his side of the pond, that same body part/region is referred to as the "tisn't" - same exact etymology as the US version but for some reason the quaint sound of it just sent me right off the deep end and left me giggling like a 12-year-old boy for about an hour.


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

SerenityEditing said:


> I'm still trying to figure out what a biscuit (in the American "sausage biscuit, biscuits and gravy" sense) is called in the UK. Most people say "scone" but I'd always heard that scones were sweetened.


AFAIK, there is no equivalent. A scone would be the closest thing, but it's not exactly the same. If they served it there, it would probably be called like an American biscuit or something. Kind of like American football.


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## Guest (Sep 18, 2017)

Here's a few I used in my speech at my daughter's wedding ...

"American's say _side-walk_; we say _crabbing_."

"American's say _icebox_; we say _guest bedroom_."

"American's say gas; we say _sorry about that!_."


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

paranormal_kitty said:


> Well, this is the exact phrasing:
> 
> He watched Lily as she tied her hair up and took off her button-up flannel, revealing a black tank top with the bottom hem cut off.


Another problem I have with this sentence as a Brit is that it would be extremely weird to wear a tank top under a flannel shirt, because here a tank top is a woolly sweater with no sleeves, which would be worn _over_ a shirt. What you are referring to we call a vest, which is obviously what you call a waistcoat, which is what we call a rare, small furry mammal which lives in trees and weaves nests out of shredded tank tops.


----------



## alawston (Jun 3, 2012)

Will Edwards said:


> Here's a few I used in my speech at my daughter's wedding ...
> 
> "American's say _side-walk_; we say _crabbing_."
> 
> ...


Brilliant!


----------



## H.C. (Jul 28, 2016)

Several years ago, one of my Australian colleagues was gossiping about one of our co-workers and called him either effected or affected. I can't remember which one he used but I was totally clueless what he meant saying "He's affected/effected, isn't he?" His meaning was that the guy was a bit crazy. He swore this was an American English phrase and I told him I had never heard this once in my thirty+ years as an American living in America to which he got a little angry.

Do people in the UK or Australia use this "someone is effected" phrase?


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## Abderian (Apr 5, 2012)

Herefortheride said:


> Several years ago, one of my Australian colleagues was gossiping about one of our co-workers and called him either effected or affected. I can't remember which one he used but I was totally clueless what he meant saying "He's affected/effected, isn't he?" His meaning was that the guy was a bit crazy. He swore this was an American English phrase and I told him I had never heard this once in my thirty+ years as an American living in America to which he got a little angry.
> 
> Do people in the UK or Australia use this "someone is effected" phrase?


As a British Australian  I've never heard that phrase used in that way. You could say someone's behaviour was affected to mean it was an assumed behaviour not natural to them. As in an affectation.

One for the Americans: is it correct that you don't use the phrase 'dawn chorus'? In the UK it means the birds starting up their songs at dawn.


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## Forgettable (Oct 16, 2015)

.


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

Lydniz said:


> Another problem I have with this sentence as a Brit is that it would be extremely weird to wear a tank top under a flannel shirt, because here a tank top is a woolly sweater with no sleeves, which would be worn _over_ a shirt. What you are referring to we call a vest, which is obviously what you call a waistcoat, which is what we call a rare, small furry mammal which lives in trees and weaves nests out of shredded tank tops.


Originally I called it a wife beater, but my editor told me to change it because it might offend some people. I would guess you wouldn't cut the bottom out of a woolly sweater to show off your stomach, and your male companion wouldn't be getting hot and bothered by seeing you in it lol? A vest in the US is a sleeveless garment worn over another shirt...or in the case of a life vest something to keep you from drowning on the water.



LMareeApps said:


> In Australia we wouldn't wear a flannel shirt, we'd wear a flanno. It'd be worn over a singlet (of the Chesty Bonds style) or a t-shirt. Of course the plural, flannos, refers to winter pyjamas.
> The flannel used on your face would be a washer - and probably not flannel, but rather towelling.


You would know what a flannel shirt is if you read it though, right? There is too much English in this book lol...I should put it all in italics 



Abderian said:


> One for the Americans: is it correct that you don't use the phrase 'dawn chorus'? In the UK it means the birds starting up their songs at dawn.


No, but if you said it was the birds singing it, it would be understood. Otherwise, we'd picture a bunch of random people singing in the morning.



Herefortheride said:


> Several years ago, one of my Australian colleagues was gossiping about one of our co-workers and called him either effected or affected. I can't remember which one he used but I was totally clueless what he meant saying "He's affected/effected, isn't he?" His meaning was that the guy was a bit crazy. He swore this was an American English phrase and I told him I had never heard this once in my thirty+ years as an American living in America to which he got a little angry.


Maybe the guy was thinking about "he's a little touched"? I've heard that to mean crazy.


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## Guest (Sep 18, 2017)

alawston said:


> Brilliant!


Thank you! The rest of my speech was quite dull as I recall


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## Forgettable (Oct 16, 2015)

.


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## cecilia_writer (Dec 28, 2010)

paranormal_kitty said:


> AFAIK, there is no equivalent. A scone would be the closest thing, but it's not exactly the same. If they served it there, it would probably be called like an American biscuit or something. Kind of like American football.


As far as I can recall it from past visits to the USA an American biscuit is somewhere between a scone and a dumpling. You do get savoury scones here as well as sweet ones. Only last week I was laughing with a colleague at work about the scone of the day in our organisation's cafe - beetroot, dill and goat's cheese flavour.

I looked for mate tea in the supermarket today but there was no sign of it, by the way, although there was a multiplicity of tea flavours and brands taking up about half an aisle.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Re "champing at the bit" / "chomping at the bit"....

I do believe that champing is technically correct, as WordFan noted, but _chomping_ is used just as often and has likely become equally accepted.

As for math/maths..... someone once argued that the full word is mathematic*S*, with an "S," hence the word maths. My response is that the word is mathematics, not math*S*ematics. So yeah, math.


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## jamieandrews (Sep 18, 2017)

zzz said:


> The first two are used frequently in the U.S. I'd never guess they started out as British.
> 
> I haven't seen the third very often, but I get it immediately.


Absolutely! I have seen these phrases in usual communication of US guys and you're absolutely right. I have worked with many writers from US and UK. It is obvious for us how different the usage of words or phrases when they write as first person.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

paranormal_kitty said:


> Do UK readers know that flannel can refer to a shirt? I have a sentence that describes my character wearing a flannel...do I need to qualify with shirt?
> 
> May be a good erotica title?


We have flannel trousers (pants) because flannel is also a heavyweight material used for making winter clothing.

One of my books concerns a cockney lady and her language is appropriate to her, but I've never had any queries. Would Americans know what 'blacking my nose' meant?


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

Flay Otters said:


> It's not an English word.
> It's a Spanish/Amerindian word, so accent on the last e.
> If you have ever read Graham Greene, or if you have watched Mozart in the Jungle you'll know what mate (may-tay) is.
> 
> ...


Flannel also means flattery, as in 'he gave me a load of flannel'.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

Decon said:


> Fancy dress party - costume party.
> 
> single-story building - single-storey building = storey not in any US dictionary.
> 
> ...


Our ground floor is the American first floor, which I find very confusing.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

paranormal_kitty said:


> This is the mistake I was afraid Aussies would make since they use "mate" to mean friend, but I actually never heard anyone use the word that way anywhere I've lived. It's usually buddy/dude or girl/girlfriend/chica for females. I'll say again I'm glad I asked about this...never assume things lol.


We use mate all the time to me friend, or even just someone we're talking to. 'Ok, mate, off you go' could well be said to a total stranger in a shop. Also mate can be a verb, mean to mate i.e. to procreate. It is certainly not an Australian word in either context.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

Word Fan said:


> Well, it does mean that, but it's *champing*, not chomping.
> 
> _Chomping_ means to chew one's food in a somewhat uncouth way.
> 
> _Champing_ is what horses do. It is that rattling of the bit against their teeth and the flicking of it with their tongue that indicates that they are "eager to get on and get started."


I've heard both words used in this context. Often people say chomping to mean that the horse is chewing on the bit as he is so eager to get going. That seems to make more sense that champing at the bit to me. What does champing mean on its own anyway?


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## C. Gold (Jun 12, 2017)

Jeff Tanyard said:


> Sounds like frostbite to me.


LOL, I was thinking maybe it was like brown nosing, sucking up to someone, flattering them to get in their good graces, to win brownie points.


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## RRodriguez (Jan 8, 2017)

Decon said:


> Fancy dress party - costume party.


I'm just curious, then what is it called when people have a party for dressing up in actual costumes?


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## jdcore (Jul 2, 2013)

I remember reading A Clockwork Orange and by the end of the book, not only did i know all of the slang, but I caught myself using it. Same with when I was a kid watching Monty Python's Flying Circus and Benny Hill. Context clues informed me of the meaning, and when they didn't I just let it marinate until I heard it used again and was able to suss it out. 

Now, the money I never did get the hang of. If something cost a couple quid, I had absolutely no frame of reference.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Doglover said:


> Would Americans know what 'blacking my nose' meant?


Probably not automatically. Could be picked up in context, though. Without any other context, sounds like it might be someone punching you in the nose. (Black and blue, etc.)

One of my fave authors has low-level characters who use Cockney rhyming slang. I don't think too many of the phrases are in the general lexicon


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## 91831 (Jul 18, 2016)

RRodriguez said:


> I'm just curious, then what is it called when people have a party for dressing up in actual costumes?


'Fancy dress party' is for costumes.

Formal is what we call black tie, I suppose.


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## 91831 (Jul 18, 2016)

jdcore said:


> Now, the money I never did get the hang of. If something cost a couple quid, I had absolutely no frame of reference.


A couple of quid means it was inexpensive. 
If I bought someone a box of chocolates and they gushed, I'd be like, awww, nah, it was only a few quid, stop it!

ETA: Quid being slang for a pound (1GBP)


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

Acheknia said:


> Or a poorly octopus if it was six quid = sick squid


Are squid and octopus the same thing in the UK?


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## SerenityEditing (May 3, 2016)

Herefortheride said:


> Several years ago, one of my Australian colleagues was gossiping about one of our co-workers and called him either effected or affected. I can't remember which one he used but I was totally clueless what he meant saying "He's affected/effected, isn't he?" His meaning was that the guy was a bit crazy. He swore this was an American English phrase and I told him I had never heard this once in my thirty+ years as an American living in America to which he got a little angry.
> 
> Do people in the UK or Australia use this "someone is effected" phrase?


American here, and I've heard and used 'affected' (and it is with the A) regularly. It's fallen out of use for a lot of people but has the same meaning as 'touched,' 'tetched,' or 'disturbed.' I don't know if there's a direct link to the medical/psychological term 'affect,' which is related to a person's display of emotional state. (Someone speaking in a monotone with an expressionless face is said to have a 'flat affect,' for instance.) Etymonline also indicates there might be a link to 'afflicted.'

I'm also familiar with 'dawn chorus,' but have always seen it in the context of actual birds - 'she rose with the dawn chorus' or similar.


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## SerenityEditing (May 3, 2016)

Jena H said:


> Re "champing at the bit" / "chomping at the bit"....
> 
> I do believe that champing is technically correct, as WordFan noted, but _chomping_ is used just as often and has likely become equally accepted.
> 
> As for math/maths..... someone once argued that the full word is mathematic*S*, with an "S," hence the word maths. My response is that the word is mathematics, not math*S*ematics. So yeah, math.


Yeah, but then that would mean we'd have to keep food in 'refrigserators' and attend concerts if we're 'fansatics' of the musician and use programs to block all the 'adsvertisements.'  (Boy, it was hard to type those 'words'!)

'Champing at the bit' and 'chomping at the bit' mean the exact same thing, as 'chomp' is simply an American/dialect version of 'champ' (dating from the mid 1600s).


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

C. Gold said:


> LOL, I was thinking maybe it was like brown nosing, sucking up to someone, flattering them to get in their good graces, to win brownie points.


Actually, it means being nosy. My mum used to see someone looking out of their window and say: 'she's blacking her nose again'.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

RRodriguez said:


> I'm just curious, then what is it called when people have a party for dressing up in actual costumes?


The upper classes call it a costume party; the middle and lower classes would call it a fancy dress party. A black tie do, on the other hand, is dress suits (tuxedo) and evening dress.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

Herefortheride said:


> Several years ago, one of my Australian colleagues was gossiping about one of our co-workers and called him either effected or affected. I can't remember which one he used but I was totally clueless what he meant saying "He's affected/effected, isn't he?" His meaning was that the guy was a bit crazy. He swore this was an American English phrase and I told him I had never heard this once in my thirty+ years as an American living in America to which he got a little angry.
> 
> Do people in the UK or Australia use this "someone is effected" phrase?


In the UK when someone is said to be affected, it means they are putting on an act for people, pretending to be something they are not. I have a cousin in law like that, always putting on an obvious act for people. On the other hand, if someone is affected by something, like affected by mental illness, that's something else again.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

evdarcy said:


> A couple of quid means it was inexpensive.
> If I bought someone a box of chocolates and they gushed, I'd be like, awww, nah, it was only a few quid, stop it!
> 
> ETA: Quid being slang for a pound (1GBP)


I would have thought a few quid a lot to pay for a box of chocolates!

I nearly got in trouble in Florida when I said I was going outside for a ***.


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## LadyG (Sep 3, 2015)

evdarcy said:


> Who's the Jolly Green Giant? -- meaning who's the tall guy?[/b]


The Jolly Green Giant was part of an advertising slogan for a brand of vegetables called Green Giant. I don't remember much about the commercials beyond the song: "Ho ho ho, GREEN Giant!"


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

LadyG said:


> The Jolly Green Giant was part of an advertising slogan for a brand of vegetables called Green Giant. I don't remember much about the commercials beyond the song: "Ho ho ho, GREEN Giant!"


He was on British tv advertising tinned sweet corn but I don't think I've heard him used to describe a tall person.


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## Guest (Sep 19, 2017)

jdcore said:


> Now, the money I never did get the hang of. If something cost a couple quid, I had absolutely no frame of reference.


Quid = the pound sterling.

P.S. I see my comment was not required. Too quick _off the mark_ it seems.


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## Colin (Aug 6, 2011)

Acheknia said:


> Or a poorly octopus if it was six quid = sick squid


You paid sick squid?

You woz robbed!


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## Colin (Aug 6, 2011)

Acheknia said:


> Nah mate, I didn't pay that much, it fell off the back of a lorry


Nah, it must 'ave bin a truck. I ain't really from the smoke but I do a bit of mockney to confuse the punters.


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## Guest (Sep 19, 2017)

C. Gold said:


> LOL, I was thinking maybe it was like brown nosing, sucking up to someone, flattering them to get in their good graces, to win brownie points.


Erm ... I'm pretty sure that's not the correct derivation of the term 'brown nosing' but it's a lot cuter


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## Flay Otters (Jul 29, 2014)

Doglover said:


> He was on British tv advertising tinned sweet corn but I don't think I've heard him used to describe a tall person.


Green Giant was an advertising slogan for a new variety of really big peas, in 1925.
The peas were big but apparently tasted great.
The big guy himself debuted in 1928.
The company (Minnesota Valley Canning Company) changed name to Green Giant Company in 1950.
The rest is history.



Doglover said:


> My mum used to see someone looking out of their window and say: 'she's blacking her nose again'.


Sounds North Country to me. I can imagine someone with a Yorkshire accent saying it.


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## 91831 (Jul 18, 2016)

Here's one I've just caught myself writing:

A different kettle of fish...

Understandable across the pond?


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## Flay Otters (Jul 29, 2014)

evdarcy said:


> Here's one I've just caught myself writing:
> 
> A different kettle of fish...
> 
> Understandable across the pond?


A fine kettle of fish, yes.
It's an old expression so would have come across with the settlers in the 18th C.
Laurel and Hardy from Thicker Than Water, 1935: Ollie tells Stan that "here is another nice kettle of fish you've pickled me in".

Not sure about different kettle of fish. That's one of those damn north country expressions, so as a southerner (English) I didn't even know it.


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## jdcore (Jul 2, 2013)

Acheknia said:


> No but they have similarities, so the phrase can be understood in a fun way
> 
> A poorly squid would also work but octopus is used more often, more fun if people don't understand & you then say six quid or sick squid


I do a similar joke when the change for something comes to six cents. "I have the six cents," says the customer. "So you see dead people?" says I.


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## SerenityEditing (May 3, 2016)

Doglover said:


> Actually, it means being nosy. My mum used to see someone looking out of their window and say: 'she's blacking her nose again'.


Did you ever point out that your mum was 'blacking her own nose' by watching the neighbors black (blacken?) theirs?


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## SerenityEditing (May 3, 2016)

evdarcy said:


> Here's one I've just caught myself writing:
> 
> A different kettle of fish...
> 
> Understandable across the pond?


I'm familiar with it, and it should be understandable in context.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

Will Edwards said:


> Erm ... I'm pretty sure that's not the correct derivation of the term 'brown nosing' but it's a lot cuter


Brown nosing means a-hole crawling, sycophancy, empty flattering. What do you think it means?


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

Flay Otters said:


> Green Giant was an advertising slogan for a new variety of really big peas, in 1925.
> The peas were big but apparently tasted great.
> The big guy himself debuted in 1928.
> The company (Minnesota Valley Canning Company) changed name to Green Giant Company in 1950.
> ...


Don't let me mother hear you say that; she'll come back to haunt you! She was cockney, through and through and going back several generations. It's not a saying you hear much any more. In fact, when I visited my cousin in her new house and she asked me: 'do you want to black your nose' i.e. look round the house, it was quite a jolt. It had been so long since I heard it.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

SerenityEditing said:


> Did you ever point out that your mum was 'blacking her own nose' by watching the neighbors black (blacken?) theirs?


I expect she knew that! She had another saying when insulting someone. She would saying he was 'fornicating so-and-so'. I grew up with this, so never thought anything of it, then I realised what the word meant and asked her if she knew. Yes, she says' it means the same, starts with the same letter, but it's not swearing!


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## Ted Cross (Aug 30, 2012)

I'm usually fine with most British English, and I absolutely love traveling there. The one bit I've never been able to stand, however, is the word 'whinge'. I cringe inside every time I see it.


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## Flay Otters (Jul 29, 2014)

Ted Cross said:


> I'm usually fine with most British English, and I absolutely love traveling there. The one bit I've never been able to stand, however, is the word 'whinge'. I cringe inside every time I see it.


The Australians used to use that against the British: "Whingeing Poms."


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## Flay Otters (Jul 29, 2014)

Doglover said:


> Don't let me mother hear you say that; she'll come back to haunt you! She was cockney, through and through and going back several generations.


Cor blimey missus. Dint mean nuffin by it. Your mum's all right in my book.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Flay Otters said:


> Cor blimey missus. Dint mean nuffin by it. Your mum's all right in my book.


I think you meant "a bit of all right."


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## Flay Otters (Jul 29, 2014)

Jena H said:


> I think you meant "a bit of all right."


Now you're getting' fresh darlin'.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

Jena H said:


> I think you meant "a bit of all right."


A bit of all right means a man or woman who is nice looking or sexy. My mother was 4 ft 10 in both ways, a little round lady who was grossly overweight.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

Ted Cross said:


> I'm usually fine with most British English, and I absolutely love traveling there. The one bit I've never been able to stand, however, is the word 'whinge'. I cringe inside every time I see it.


How odd. Lovely word, whinge. I think it was originally a sort of cross between whine and cringe, i.e. when someone whined so much it made everyone cringe.


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## Guest (Sep 21, 2017)

Doglover said:


> Brown nosing means a-hole crawling, sycophancy, empty flattering. What do you think it means?


Correct: I didn't comment about its meaning.


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## Guest (Sep 21, 2017)

Flay Otters said:


> Not sure about different kettle of fish. That's one of those damn north country expressions, so as a southerner (English) I didn't even know it.


Same as 'horse of a different colour.'


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

Will Edwards said:


> Erm ... I'm pretty sure that's not the correct derivation of the term 'brown nosing' but it's a lot cuter





Will Edwards said:


> Correct: I didn't comment about its meaning.


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## Anita Chance (Sep 7, 2017)

evdarcy said:


> So I'm British and we have a lot of sayings. Often times I feel that these sayings are known the world over, then someone says - WTF does that mean!? And I sigh, and I realise that I've been colloquialism-blind again. I know that I'm probably not the only one here who does that (we had damp squib in another thread earlier).
> 
> Now I don't write particularly for the American market. As I said, I'm British and I either write characters who are also British, have British influences, or live in a world that is connected to the UK in someway. But at the same time, I don't want to put off non-Brit readers, so I don't want to pepper my work with phrases that those across the pond will have the scratch their head over. So I propose, should someone have a phrase they want to use, but suddenly get that little niggle in the back of their mind, that we have a thread for it!
> 
> ...


Great idea!! I spend a lot of time researching for this very reason. I have a similar issue being Australian. It's not just colloquialisms either. I am constantly checking words, and have a checklist (that keeps getting longer) that I double check before publishing.

Where I can I try to use more generic words. For example, instead of tap/faucet I'll say a character turned the water on and got into the shower, or something like that.


----------



## Anita Chance (Sep 7, 2017)

Colin said:


> The best thing about the English language, is that it means so much to so many people. It is also the worst thing about it ...


Nicely said!!


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## Guest (Sep 21, 2017)

Will Edwards said:


> Correct: I didn't comment about its meaning.


My original comment was about the 'derivation' not the meaning of the phrase. Perhaps I mistook the post, but it appeared to suggest the phrase 'brown-nosing' was _derived _from the idea of 'Brownie points' which, as I said, is quite sweet.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Doglover said:


> A bit of all right means a man or woman who is nice looking or sexy. My mother was 4 ft 10 in both ways, a little round lady who was grossly overweight.


I've read or heard "a bit of all right" (or perhaps "a bit of orl right"  ) so many different places I don't recall if it was ever used to describe a nice-looking person.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

Jena H said:


> I've read or heard "a bit of all right" (or perhaps "a bit of orl right"  ) so many different places I don't recall if it was ever used to describe a nice-looking person.


Well, that's definitely what it means in the UK. It could also mean a good deal or something like that, but not so common. When I was young, if I overheard a young man saying 'she's a bit of all right' it was flattering. Nowadays, I suppose it would be politically incorrect.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Doglover said:


> Well, that's definitely what it means in the UK. It could also mean a good deal or something like that, but not so common. When I was young, if I overheard a young man saying 'she's a bit of all right' it was flattering. Nowadays, I suppose it would be politically incorrect.


I have no doubt that the phrase "bit of all right" has been used (overused?) and adopted, adapted, and re-purposed to mean a generic "pretty darn good."


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## 91831 (Jul 18, 2016)

Jena H said:


> I have no doubt that the phrase "bit of all right" has been used (overused?) and adopted, adapted, and re-purposed to mean a generic "pretty darn good."


hahaha, not where I'm from! 'It's alright' is vastly different to 'bit of alright'

She's alright, would mean that she good to get along with, not a bad person.
She's a bit of alright, means you find her attractive (to some) or you'd give her one (to others!) 
It's alright, means it's acceptable, but not by much.


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

Is zap/sap a British/American thing or am I just confused? Like to zap/sap all the energy from the room? It's not in my book; I just heard someone say it and I'm pretty sure it was the "z" sound like zebra, but I think I've seen it spelled with an "s."


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

paranormal_kitty said:


> Is zap/sap a British/American thing or am I just confused? Like to zap/sap all the energy from the room? It's not in my book; I just heard someone say it and I'm pretty sure it was the "z" sound like zebra, but I think I've seen it spelled with an "s."


SAP
verb (used with object), sapped, sapping.
... to drain the sap from.
... to undermine; weaken or destroy insidiously.

I'm sure some people mis-hear or mis-use the word as zap. Ironically, one of the definitions of zap that I found is the complete opposite of the above: "to add a sudden infusion of energy, verve, color, attractiveness, or the like (often followed by up)"


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

paranormal_kitty said:


> Is zap/sap a British/American thing or am I just confused? Like to zap/sap all the energy from the room? It's not in my book; I just heard someone say it and I'm pretty sure it was the "z" sound like zebra, but I think I've seen it spelled with an "s."


I have seen 'zap' used in comic strips meaning to hit or punch. Sap means to drain the energy from. It is also the stuff in trees which is called 'sap'.


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## Vale (Jul 19, 2017)

I'd go with sap. Though, now that you've said zap, I could imagine hearing a sudden "bzzzzzzt!" noise and then every becoming lethargic like a loafy cat in the afternoon sun.

"The Saturn cat pulled out her freeze gun and zapped the energy from the room, leaving us unable to act as the moon beasts crawled out of their dens and slithered towards us."
(I don't write science fiction except in response to grammar/terminology questions.)


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## Dana L. (Sep 15, 2017)

Jumper is a word I've found in books I otherwise wouldn't have known were by British authors. The first time I was puzzled by the context (a guy wearing a jumper dress?  If you use sweater instead, does it sound strange to your UK audience, or do British readers have all-inclusive vocabularies?


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

I think sweater is fine.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

_Put on your pants.

She has a nice fanny._

Depending on where you are, those are quite different.


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

Monique said:


> _Put on your pants.
> 
> She has a nice fanny._
> 
> Depending on where you are, those are quite different.


Does anyone in the US even say fanny? Pants are underwear in the UK, right?


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Fanny is a little old fashioned. People still say/use fanny-packs, though. Not as much, but it still makes me giggle.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

Dana L. said:


> Jumper is a word I've found in books I otherwise wouldn't have known were by British authors. The first time I was puzzled by the context (a guy wearing a jumper dress?  If you use sweater instead, does it sound strange to your UK audience, or do British readers have all-inclusive vocabularies?


Jumper and sweater and interchangeable in the UK.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

paranormal_kitty said:


> Does anyone in the US even say fanny? Pants are underwear in the UK, right?


US:
Fanny is the derriere, or backside. Not too many people use that word, though. Now and then someone will use the phrase Aunt Fanny in the spirit of a sarcastic "yeah, right." As in, "You had to work late again? My aunt fanny!"

Pants are.... pants. The two-legged garment worn below the waist. OUTER garment, to be precise. Pants can be of any material, but usually not denim (those are jeans). Underwear is called underwear--briefs or boxers for men, underwear or panties for women.


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

Jena H said:


> US:
> Fanny is the derriere, or backside. Not too many people use that word, though. Now and then someone will use the phrase Aunt Fanny in the spirit of a sarcastic "yeah, right." As in, "You had to work late again? My aunt fanny!"


Aunt Fanny? I never heard that one -- must be a regionalism.


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## Anita Chance (Sep 7, 2017)

Monique said:


> _She has a nice fanny._


In Australia - when I was a kid - fanny meant your girl parts  I always seems strange when I read that word!


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

paranormal_kitty said:


> Aunt Fanny? I never heard that one -- must be a regionalism.


Nope, not really. Unless you consider the US to be a region. 



Anita Chance said:


> In Australia - when I was a kid - fanny meant your girl parts  I always seems strange when I read that word!


YEah, I think that's still the case.

Click the arrows to see full explanation: http://www.answers.com/Q/Where_did_the_saying_'my_aunt_fanny'_come_from?#slide=2


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

Jena H said:


> Nope, not really. Unless you consider the US to be a region.


I'm American and I never heard it lol.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

paranormal_kitty said:


> I'm American and I never heard it lol.


Oh, haha.  But googling the phrase brings up numerous examples on Urban Dictionary, Wiktionary, etc. Maybe nobody you know says it because they skipped right over the "quaint, inoffensive" phrase and go right to the hard stuff.


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

Jena H said:


> Oh, haha.  But googling the phrase brings up numerous examples on Urban Dictionary, Wiktionary, etc. Maybe nobody you know says it because they skipped right over the "quaint, inoffensive" phrase and go right to the hard stuff.


Yeah, that sounds about right. Everyone I know talks like a trucker.


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## Anita Chance (Sep 7, 2017)

Jena H said:


> Nope, not really. Unless you consider the US to be a region.
> 
> YEah, I think that's still the case.
> 
> Click the arrows to see full explanation: http://www.answers.com/Q/Where_did_the_saying_'my_aunt_fanny'_come_from?#slide=2


Thanks for the link. It's funny the different meanings the same word can have!! Also shows how careful we have to be when we are writing. Like if I write 'xyz squeezed x's fanny' the context would be completely different and change the whole tone of a scene!!


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## RRodriguez (Jan 8, 2017)

How have some of ya'll never heard of Aunt Fanny? Didn't you watch that movie Robots


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

In the UK, pants are underpants. What the Americans call pants are trousers or, disused word, slacks. Nobody says slacks any more, but they used to in the 1960s. A fanny in the UK is a lady's intimate regions, not her backside. We often say, my sweet Aunt Fanny, when we don't believe something, or think someone is trying to scam us.


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## Nicholas Andrews (Sep 8, 2011)

evdarcy said:


> *Chomping at the bit -- meaning eager to get on / started.
> Jam packed -- meaning you can't move, there are people / cars (etc) everywhere and you can't move for trying.
> Who's the Jolly Green Giant? -- meaning who's the tall guy?*
> 
> Thanks, American Cousins!


Any wrestling fan is going to remember Gorilla Monsoon often ecxlaiming that "this place is jam packed to the rafters!"


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

Acheknia said:


> A guy wearing a jumper dress would be transgender, in drag etc
> Sweater is fine for a jumper, a different jumper might be someone committing suicide from a bridge or tall building etc.


I was thinking that about the suicide, but I didn't want to say it.


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

Is the phrase "you clean up" something that everyone understands -- or at least doesn't have a double meaning in another country? Like if there's someone that usually looks casual/sloppy and you see them all dressed up, you might say "Wow, you clean up!"


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

paranormal_kitty said:


> Is the phrase "you clean up" something that everyone understands -- or at least doesn't have a double meaning in another country? Like if there's someone that usually looks casual/sloppy and you see them all dressed up, you might say "Wow, you clean up!"


I've never heard it used without something like nicely/well/good at the end.


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## Flay Otters (Jul 29, 2014)

Monique said:


> I've never heard it used without something like nicely/well/good at the end.


This.


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## Spin52 (Sep 6, 2015)

paranormal_kitty said:


> Is the phrase "you clean up" something that everyone understands -- or at least doesn't have a double meaning in another country? Like if there's someone that usually looks casual/sloppy and you see them all dressed up, you might say "Wow, you clean up!"


What I've heard in the UK is 'doesn't he/she scrub up well?' when they're dressed smartly. If you 'clean up', you're either doing the housework or coming into a substantial amount of money.


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## lsj says no to tos (Jan 9, 2016)

Along the lines of "You clean up," one of my favorite sayings on the other side of the pond is "all fur coat and no knickers".  

I am also very fond of The Office's description of the fanny pack thing (the UK version). "It means your a--e, not your m---e."

As far as US stuff goes, I've never seen "champing at the bit," only "chomping". I think there's an awful lot of stuff over here that's regional. Think of, for instance, sprinkles/jimmies, heroes/subs. And regional can sometimes be UK/Aussie stuff lingering here ... I'm pretty sure that Stephen King uses "preggers" in his books, something I've only otherwise heard/seen in the UK. 

Wasn't David Prowse the Green Giant in the UK? There's a transatlantic crossover for you.

Oh, and this was a new one, courtesy of a distant relative from Scotland: "D'you think we're zipped up the back?" I desperately want to work that into a story, but trying to create enough context for US readers is gonna be tricky ...


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## Sam Kates (Aug 28, 2012)

lsjohnson said:


> Wasn't David Prowse the Green Giant in the UK? There's a transatlantic crossover for you.


Don't know if he was the Green Giant, but I remember him as the Green Cross Code man. The green cross code was a safety message to teach children to cross roads safely. The government ran a safety campaign (in the 70s?) on TV using the Green Cross Code man, who'd appear like magic whenever a child tried to cross the road away from a pedestrian crossing. He'd take them by the hand, lead them to the crossing and show them how to press the button and wait for the green man to show. And that was David Prowse in his pre-Star Wars days.

Don't know whether it's urban legend, but I seem to recall hearing that the ads were taken off the air when British children started deliberately trying to cross the road when not safe to do so in hope that the Green Cross Code man would appear. (I don't think that a stranger dressed in tights and a cape leading children away by the hand had anything to do with it...)


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## cecilia_writer (Dec 28, 2010)

It's more usually (in Scotland anyway) heard as 'Do you think my head zips up the back?'

Going back a few posts, I've never heard the jolly green giant used to refer to someone very tall - maybe that's a regional thing. I think writers from elsewhere could have a problem if they think of the UK as homogenous, even though it's small in area.


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

cecilia_writer said:


> It's more usually (in Scotland anyway) heard as 'Do you think my head zips up the back?


If someone asked me that, I'd think they had a serious medical problem.


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## C. Gold (Jun 12, 2017)

Oh speaking of regional. Depending on what area of the US you are in, those syrup sweetened beverages can be referred to as soda, pop, or Coke (yes, Coke to indicate any of them, not just Coke, rather like using Kleenix to refer to any facial tissue).

Also, if you want to write about rain in Seattle, don't make it out to be like extreme thunder and torrential rain blowing sideways in the wind - that's Midwest rain. It's rare to get lightning/thunder here and it's rare to look out the window and see the rain because it's these skinny little anemic streaks that are more like a heavy mist than real rain most of the time. When it does unleash its full force, the rain streaks are still so skinny compared to the fat drops you see in the Midwest. This area is a rainforest and gets a lot of moisture, but it is a steady, calm rain usually devoid of any wind. If we do have wind storms, those usually aren't accompanied by rain. Weird for me coming from the Midwest where it rains so hard you may as well give up with the raincoat and umbrella because you are getting drenched. Also, July and August are pretty dry and sunny. This year we went over 50 days without any rain. I only mention this because I've read several books now where they talk about the rain in Seattle and it's just so funny because they are clearly writing about rain they experienced elsewhere, not here.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

paranormal_kitty said:


> Is the phrase "you clean up" something that everyone understands -- or at least doesn't have a double meaning in another country? Like if there's someone that usually looks casual/sloppy and you see them all dressed up, you might say "Wow, you clean up!"


Yeah, I think everyone understands "you clean up nicely" or something like that. I know I've heard it all my life.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

lsjohnson said:


> Along the lines of "You clean up," one of my favorite sayings on the other side of the pond is "all fur coat and no knickers".
> 
> I am also very fond of The Office's description of the fanny pack thing (the UK version). "It means your a--e, not your m---e."
> 
> ...


Fur coat and no knickers is a great saying. I rented a house, short term, which was exactly that - loads of luxury fittings, but not installed properly so they fell apart.

I was very annoyed recently when watching an episode of Major Crimes where Captain Raydor said that a bus is called a coach in England. It isn't; a bus is a bus, a coach is a coach. A bus would be something passengers wait for at the bus stop, pay their money on the way in and they used to be double decker everywhere, but now they have single deckers as well. A coach, on the other hand, is a vehicle that you book in advance and it is much more comfortable and looked after than a bus. We also call our railway carriages coaches sometimes.


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## kathrynoh (Oct 17, 2012)

Doglover said:


> In the UK, pants are underpants. What the Americans call pants are trousers or, disused word, slacks. Nobody says slacks any more, but they used to in the 1960s. A fanny in the UK is a lady's intimate regions, not her backside. We often say, my sweet Aunt Fanny, when we don't believe something, or think someone is trying to scam us.


I don't know about the UK but I've always considered fanny as a really gross term. It's not just referring to lady parts but it's the kind of word that a dirty old man would use. I'd never use it and I have no qualms about dropping a c-bomb.

"You clean up" I'd take as meaning a huge win, like in poker but used in other contexts as well, say after a successful negotiation. Otherwise I'd use something like you scrub up well.

There are a couple of words i use constantly and I've been told Americans wouldn't understand. Dodgy and manky. Dodgy as in not quite right and manky as in dirty. It's frustrating because those words are a huge part of my vocabulary. I was also told people i the US wouldn't understand 'twee" there is really no good substitute.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

kathrynoh said:


> I don't know about the UK but I've always considered fanny as a really gross term. It's not just referring to lady parts but it's the kind of word that a dirty old man would use. I'd never use it and I have no qualms about dropping a c-bomb.
> 
> "You clean up" I'd take as meaning a huge win, like in poker but used in other contexts as well, say after a successful negotiation. Otherwise I'd use something like you scrub up well.
> 
> There are a couple of words i use constantly and I've been told Americans wouldn't understand. Dodgy and manky. Dodgy as in not quite right and manky as in dirty. It's frustrating because those words are a huge part of my vocabulary. I was also told people i the US wouldn't understand 'twee" there is really no good substitute.


I feel the same about Fanny, yet I know a couple of posh people who have named their daughters 'Fanny'. It can also be used as a derivative of Frances. Do Americans know what posh means? I say dodgy all the time, manky not so much and I agree with your interpretation of clean up. Otherwise it's 'she scrubs up well' or similar.

Strange how some words just make us feel yuk. The one I hate is lavatory. God knows why. Probably because when I was little, that was the word engraved up public toilets. Another phrase that really makes me queasey is 'pick your brains'. I have a vision of someone with a crochet hook


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## Evenstar (Jan 26, 2013)

kathrynoh said:


> I was also told people i the US wouldn't understand 'twee" there is really no good substitute.


Chintzy? Would they understand that?

Though, thinking about it, I think American's think chintzy means a cheapskate rather than a house covered in doilies and net curtains and little bowls of lavender potpourri.

But this is exactly why I use an American editor. He finds stuff that makes no sense to him and recommends the appropriate alternative.

For example: He searched the cupboards. "Is it too much to expect some bloody aspirin around here?"
Changed to: He irritably searched the cupboards. "Is it too much to expect some pain killers around here?"

But the one that sticks in my craw every time and throws me out of a story is when a US writer says "I really lucked out". In the UK _to luck out _would mean_ to be out of luck_. When apparently it means the exact opposite. I am totally unable to get my head around it.

I even heard it on a podcast the other day: "I really lucked out when I met my wife," and I was thinking "What a horrible thing to say ... oh wait."


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

Evenstar said:


> Chintzy? Would they understand that?
> 
> Though, thinking about it, I think American's think chintzy means a cheapskate rather than a house covered in doilies and net curtains and little bowls of lavender potpourri.
> 
> ...


The one I don't like is the American momentarily. It means in a moment; in the UK it means for a moment. Therefore 'I'll do that momentarily' makes no sense whatsoever.


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## Forgettable (Oct 16, 2015)

.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

While we're on the subject, and while I know most American words, what the hell does 'bite me' mean? I hear it all the time in tv programmes and I have often wondered. Even in context it makes no sense.


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## Forgettable (Oct 16, 2015)

.


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## cecilia_writer (Dec 28, 2010)

Doglover said:


> While we're on the subject, and while I know most American words, what the hell does 'bite me' mean? I hear it all the time in tv programmes and I have often wondered. Even in context it makes no sense.


I thought it was the modern equivalent of 'Whatever'.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

cecilia_writer said:


> I thought it was the modern equivalent of 'Whatever'.


Ok, but where did it come from? It seems an odd sort of retort to me.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

lsjohnson said:


> As far as US stuff goes, I've never seen "champing at the bit," only "chomping". I think there's an awful lot of stuff over here that's regional. Think of, for instance, sprinkles/jimmies, heroes/subs. And regional can sometimes be UK/Aussie stuff lingering here ... I'm pretty sure that Stephen King uses *"preggers" in his books, something I've only otherwise heard/seen in the UK. *


I grew up in the US northeast, and preggers was relatively common.

Ditto with the whole soda/pop thing and sprinkles/jimmies, hero/sub, etc., which is very indicative of various places in the US. Also don't forget that a car has either a license plate or a tag. When I was old enough to go to bars, we might get _proofed_ to see if we were indeed old enough, but in other parts of the country you get _carded._ Not to mention when I moved away from my home state I had to get used to the word _barbecue_ being a noun instead of simply a verb. (THAT was a weird conversation.)



Doglover said:


> While we're on the subject, and while I know most American words, what the hell does 'bite me' mean? I hear it all the time in tv programmes and I have often wondered. Even in context it makes no sense.


It's a snide, often nasty remark with the context of "Go to hell." Similar to "Kiss my a$$." I believe the suggestion in "Bite me" refers to biting the person's backside, so both that and the Kiss comment put the other person's mouth near the speaker's butt.


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

Doglover said:


> While we're on the subject, and while I know most American words, what the hell does 'bite me' mean? I hear it all the time in tv programmes and I have often wondered. Even in context it makes no sense.


Basically you'd say it to dismiss someone who says something you don't want to hear.

"Are you going to clean your room today?"
"Bite me, Mom!"

It's kind of like f-off, screw you or whatever. The origin? No idea. Maybe it might be related to "this bites" to say that something is bad or it sucks?


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## Flay Otters (Jul 29, 2014)

Doglover said:


> Fur coat and no knickers is a great saying. I rented a house, short term, which was exactly that - loads of luxury fittings, but not installed properly so they fell apart.
> 
> I was very annoyed recently when watching an episode of Major Crimes where Captain Raydor said that a bus is called a coach in England. It isn't; a bus is a bus, a coach is a coach. A bus would be something passengers wait for at the bus stop, pay their money on the way in and they used to be double decker everywhere, but now they have single deckers as well. A coach, on the other hand, is a vehicle that you book in advance and it is much more comfortable and looked after than a bus. We also call our railway carriages coaches sometimes.


The fur coat/knickers thing seems to be a modern version of the classic trope: "All X but/and (no) Y."
As in the American: "All hat and no cattle." And the English: "All mouth and trousers." (Orl mahf an trahsers)

As far as the fair Captain Rayder is concerned, perhaps she meant a "Bus" in the US is called a "Coach" in the UK. Rather than all busses are called coaches.
In the US, local busses are busses and Greyhound busses are also busses. In the UK it is as you state: local bus vs long distance coach.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

Flay Otters said:


> The fur coat/knickers thing seems to be a modern version of the classic trope: "All X but/and (no) Y."
> As in the American: "All hat and no cattle." And the English: "All mouth and trousers." (Orl mahf an trahsers)
> 
> As far as the fair Captain Rayder is concerned, perhaps she meant a "Bus" in the US is called a "Coach" in the UK. Rather than all busses are called coaches.
> In the US, local busses are busses and Greyhound busses are also busses. In the UK it is as you state: local bus vs long distance coach.


She was referring to the saying to throw one under the bus, which we also use. Throwing someone under the coach doesn't have the same ring to it at all. All mouth and trousers usually means someone who'll brag about what they're going to do but it's all talk.


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## C. Gold (Jun 12, 2017)

Bite me is a snarky response that probably is more like shove it or F.U. but meant in a friendly way. This is said a lot when friends tease each other.
Chintzy = cheap or tacky. I think there is a word for the doily house thing, but I can't think of it and I rarely see it anyway.
Clean house is what we would use for winning big at poker. Cleaning the house (house being the casino and cleaning meaning taking their money).
Clean up well as others have said already is what I've seen.
Posh = richly dressed or furnished, perhaps with a snobby undertone
Dodgy = sketchy, of dubious intent, shady looking. I think this one has crossed the pond enough to keep.
Preggers = pregnant, seen that before
Twee = no clue, never heard this one before
Bloody = Another one that crossed the pond enough times to keep in text where the person is angry and cussing.


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

C. Gold said:


> Twee = no clue, never heard this one before


You mean there are no hipsters where you live?


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## C. Gold (Jun 12, 2017)

paranormal_kitty said:


> You mean there are no hipsters where you live?


Um probably? But I've never seen this in writing.


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## Evenstar (Jan 26, 2013)

paranormal_kitty said:


> You mean there are no hipsters where you live?


What does twee have to do with hipsters? Maybe something different than the British 'twee' which basically means a place or object that's 'a bit old fashioned'.


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## Evenstar (Jan 26, 2013)

And I've never ever heard it said as "all mouth and trousers", that might be regional? In the South of England we say it as "All mouth and NO trousers" to mean you can talk the talk but not walk the walk.


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

Evenstar said:


> What does twee have to do with hipsters? Maybe something different than the British 'twee' which basically means a place or object that's 'a bit old fashioned'.


Someone actually wrote a whole book about twee: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18635058-twee

The first two paragraphs of the description pretty much sum it up. Basically hipsters (assuming that means the same in the US and UK?).


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## Evenstar (Jan 26, 2013)

paranormal_kitty said:


> Someone actually wrote a whole book about twee: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18635058-twee
> 
> The first two paragraphs of the description pretty much sum it up. Basically hipsters (assuming that means the same in the US and UK?).


So I checked the link and yes, this quote below does sum up "twee", but I still don't get why on earth Spitz would think it's something the modern generation would embrace. I mean, I would call my grandmothers house "twee" and no hipster would want to keep it that way, that's for sure!

_According to the OED, this primarily British slang word connotes "excessively affected, quaint, pretty, or sentimental" and is "chiefly derogatory."_


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

I think I've heard/seen "twee" mentioned a couple of times, but can't recall.  Seems to me it might have been similar to "precious," as in cloyingly sweet.  Sort of like the sarcastic "isn't that special?"


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

Evenstar said:


> So I checked the link and yes, this quote below does sum up "twee", but I still don't get why on earth Spitz would think it's something the modern generation would embrace. I mean, I would call my grandmothers house "twee" and no hipster would want to keep it that way, that's for sure!
> 
> _According to the OED, this primarily British slang word connotes "excessively affected, quaint, pretty, or sentimental" and is "chiefly derogatory."_


Yeah, it's not derogatory in the US. Basically think of it as a synonym for Zooey Deschanel lol. The people you see at a coffee shop with a typewriter. Well...maybe it could be derogatory depending on who's saying it


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## Evenstar (Jan 26, 2013)

Another one.

I've always assumed that getting your panties in a bunch means the same thing as getting your knickers in a twist? i.e. slang for being annoyed about something inconsequential.


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

Evenstar said:


> Another one.
> 
> I've always assumed that getting your panties in a bunch means the same thing as getting your knickers in a twist? i.e. slang for being annoyed about something inconsequential.


Yeah, panties in a bunch/panties in a wad (how it's usually said where I'm from)...means the same thing as knickers in a twist.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Doglover said:


> In the UK when someone is said to be affected, it means they are putting on an act for people, pretending to be something they are not. I have a cousin in law like that, always putting on an obvious act for people.


Yes, this is the way I know and use the phrase also -- as in, they have a lot of _affectations_.



kathrynoh said:


> I don't know about the UK but I've always considered fanny as a really gross term. It's not just referring to lady parts but it's the kind of word that a dirty old man would use. I'd never use it and I have no qualms about dropping a c-bomb.


Such a major difference. In the U.S., "fanny" is what your 97-year-old no-drinking, no-swearing, church-every-Sunday grandma would call your buttocks -- totally innocuous. But the c-word is probably the most offensive one we have (not counting racial slurs).

I do think of "twee" as critical: fake in a saccharine kind of way, precious. Like an old village that's been restored just so, as a tourist trap -- flowers in every window box, a cat on every doorstep, the scent of fresh-baked cookies everywhere. It's not really a word I'd think of applying to a person, though the phenomenon of Zooey Deschanel might be enough to prompt linguistic change. 

One of the best UK/U.S. English mix-ups I've personally encountered is "knocked up." I heard this the last time I was over there: "I knocked her up, but she wasn't home." I guess it meant "dropped by for an unannounced visit"? Entirely different meaning over here! But that trip to the UK was quite a while ago. Perhaps the Seth Rogen-Katherine Heigl film has now killed all other meanings of the expression.


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## Ted Cross (Aug 30, 2012)

Jena H said:


> Nope, not really. Unless you consider the US to be a region.


I agree with regionalism, as I never heard this before.


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## kathrynoh (Oct 17, 2012)

I'd associate twee with hipsters. Maybe ironic twee. Like when you go to a cafe and there are little owl ornaments everywhere or crocheted granny squares.

One Americanism that always throws me is biweekly. Is that twice a week or fortnightly? I always have to look it up.

And I hadn't realised until my editor said that Americans don't use the sentence structure - "I'd not washed the dishes" vs "I hadn't washed the dishes". I'd use both and feel like they have a slight difference in meaning although I wouldn't be able to say what it is


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## Flay Otters (Jul 29, 2014)

kathrynoh said:


> I'd associate twee with hipsters. Maybe ironic twee. Like when you go to a cafe and there are little owl ornaments everywhere or crocheted granny squares.
> 
> One Americanism that always throws me is biweekly. Is that twice a week or fortnightly? I always have to look it up.
> 
> And I hadn't realised until my editor said that Americans don't use the sentence structure - "I'd not washed the dishes" vs "I hadn't washed the dishes". I'd use both and feel like they have a slight difference in meaning although I wouldn't be able to say what it is


It's the other way around. Hipsters have become associated with twee (as in horribly cute faux antique). My mother used that term way back in the distant past, way before there were such things as "hipsters".

Biweekly is easy because it's biweekly not bimonthly. Duh. 

I'd say the two dishes sentences were equal. Rather than "I'd've not washed the dishes".


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## Joseph M. Erhardt (Oct 31, 2016)

Doglover said:


> While we're on the subject, and while I know most American words, what the hell does 'bite me' mean? I hear it all the time in tv programmes and I have often wondered. Even in context it makes no sense.


I believe it's a shortening of "bite my a$$," an alternative to "kiss my a$$."

As for "twee," I think a sort-of Am-English equiv. might be, "It's a bit much, isn't it?"

Or perhaps, "It's a bit _too_."

BTW, does anyone take cream in their twee? 

And, I didn't see any responses, so I'm assuming that everyone here fully understood my earlier reference to _tabling_ this topic?


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Joseph M. Erhardt said:


> I think we desperately need to _table_ this discussion.





Joseph M. Erhardt said:


> BTW, does anyone take cream in their twee?
> 
> And, I didn't see any responses, so I'm assuming that everyone here fully understood my earlier reference to _tabling_ this topic?


Were you wondering if people get the reference to _tabling,_ or to _table_ the discussion? I would think that anyone who's ever been in a business meeting or club meeting would know what that is. Or at least maybe if they're over 40 years old....?? 

(And the cream in their twee thing is totally foreign to me.)


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

Jena H said:


> Were you wondering if people get the reference to _tabling,_ or to _table_ the discussion? I would think that anyone who's ever been in a business meeting or club meeting would know what that is. Or at least maybe if they're over 40 years old....??


I think it's because table in some countries means to bring something up to discuss, but in others it means the opposite - to pause the discussion.


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## Flay Otters (Jul 29, 2014)

Joseph M. Erhardt said:


> I believe it's a shortening of "bite my a$$," an alternative to "kiss my a$$."
> SNIP
> BTW, does anyone take cream in their twee?
> SNIP


Yes, bite my asp.
And don't you mean "cweam in their twee"?


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## SerenityEditing (May 3, 2016)

Becca Mills said:


> Such a major difference. In the U.S., "fanny" is what your 97-year-old no-drinking, no-swearing, church-every-Sunday grandma would call your buttocks -- totally innocuous. But the c-word is probably the most offensive one we have (not counting racial slurs).
> 
> ...
> One of the best UK/U.S. English mix-ups I've personally encountered is "knocked up." I heard this the last time I was over there: "I knocked her up, but she wasn't home." I guess it meant "dropped by for an unannounced visit"? Entirely different meaning over here! But that trip to the UK was quite a while ago. Perhaps the Seth Rogen-Katherine Heigl film has now killed all other meanings of the expression.


I took kathrynoh's comment about fanny vs c-word to be a personal preference type of thing. Like, I'd personally rather include an f-bomb or c-bomb in every single sentence I utter (anywhere/everywhere) for a month than to, even once, utter the word 'panties' or 'hubby.' It's not that there's anything _wrong_ with those words and they're certainly not offensive to the community at large, they just set my particular teeth on edge. (I'm not a huge fan of 'nipple' either, but I guess I've edited enough e-roms to develop a bit of immunity to it. 'Panties' is going to take a lot more, though.)

I think 'knocked up' in the British sense just means 'dropped by,' not necessarily 'unannounced.' A friend of mine from the UK took a trip to Vegas a while back, and joked that he'd knock me up while he was in the US. I knew what he meant, but it was still funny. I also know the difference between US 'p!ssed' and UK 'p!ssed,' but get confused with him because he spends more time getting a good buzz on than anyone I've ever met. It's unusual to me to think of something drinking that much/that often, so my brain often jolts to, 'No, it's barely 11am where he is, he can't mean buzzed, he must be angry about something this time.'


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

I've never heard twee used in any positive way. It's always been a vaguely dismissive insult.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

There's a Texan (?) equivalent to all talk and no trousers - all hat and no cattle.


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## SerenityEditing (May 3, 2016)

Doglover said:


> I was very annoyed recently when watching an episode of Major Crimes where Captain Raydor said that a bus is called a coach in England. It isn't; a bus is a bus, a coach is a coach. A bus would be something passengers wait for at the bus stop, pay their money on the way in and they used to be double decker everywhere, but now they have single deckers as well. A coach, on the other hand, is a vehicle that you book in advance and it is much more comfortable and looked after than a bus. We also call our railway carriages coaches sometimes.


But in the US, "a vehicle that you book in advance [which] is much more comfortable and looked after than a bus" is *also* a bus. Reading further I see she was using it in a particular idiom that only really works in the city-bus sense, but I can see where an American who, perhaps, took a 'coach tour' of England but never experienced the day-to-day city living might assume that y'all have the same one-term-fits-both structure.

My research into the origins of 'bite me' indicate that it's not one's posterior that's in question. Anecdotally, it seems to have originated (and, in its early days, been understood) as a variation of 'blow me' or 'eat me,' in the sense of claiming dominance/superiority. Regardless, as used today, it's virtually synonymous with 'kiss my *ss.'


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Was watching a rerun of an earlier season episode of The Big Bang Theory, and within about five minutes heard one character say "bite me!" and another say something was "chintzy."


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

paranormal_kitty said:


> You mean there are no hipsters where you live?


Hipsters are a design in trousers (or pants) or jeans where the waistband is dropped so that it comes up to the hips, not the waist. I hate them; uncomfortable rotten things. Nothing to do with twee, so what hipsters are you talking about?


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## Rose Andrews (Jun 1, 2017)

Doglover said:


> Hipsters are a design in trousers (or pants) or jeans where the waistband is dropped so that it comes up to the hips, not the waist. I hate them; uncomfortable rotten things. Nothing to do with twee, so what hipsters are you talking about?


Hipsters are fake/wannabe hippies. Granolas...who wear tight clothing, flannels, shop at REI but aren't really hippies. (hippies are from the 60s and 70s)

At least that is how we use the term hipster over here in the northern wasteland of USA. West Coast represent!


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

Rosie A. said:


> Hipsters are fake/wannabe hippies. Granolas...who wear tight clothing, flannels, shop at REI but aren't really hippies. (hippies are from the 60s and 70s)
> 
> At least that is how we use the term hipster over here in the northern wasteland of USA. West Coast represent!


Not a word to use for a UK audience then. This thread is informative and fun.


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## Evenstar (Jan 26, 2013)

Rosie A. said:


> Hipsters are fake/wannabe hippies. Granolas...who wear tight clothing, flannels, shop at REI but aren't really hippies. (hippies are from the 60s and 70s)
> 
> At least that is how we use the term hipster over here in the northern wasteland of USA. West Coast represent!





Doglover said:


> Not a word to use for a UK audience then. This thread is informative and fun.


Actually I use "hipster" fairly often. But in my city it means young and happening, but a certain demographic. Now I think about it, they aren't that young. Kind of late twenties to early thirties. For example this current beard trend is being lead by the hipsters. Also gross orange trousers seem to be all the rage with the hipsters. Basically they think they are cool but don't seem to realise that there are so many of them in my area that they are all totally generic.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

Hipsters are definitely a thing in the uk. Man buns a gogo.


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## 91831 (Jul 18, 2016)

Evenstar said:


> But the one that sticks in my craw every time and throws me out of a story is when a US writer says "I really lucked out". In the UK _to luck out _would mean_ to be out of luck_. When apparently it means the exact opposite. I am totally unable to get my head around it.
> 
> I even heard it on a podcast the other day: "I really lucked out when I met my wife," and I was thinking "What a horrible thing to say ... oh wait."


Ahhh, see, I read that as he used all his luck when he met his wife because she's that awesome... so he's now out of luck because it's all used up, so he lucked out?

But as a Brit the word 'Lucked' just annoys me anyway! ha!


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## 91831 (Jul 18, 2016)

Becca Mills said:


> One of the best UK/U.S. English mix-ups I've personally encountered is "knocked up." I heard this the last time I was over there: "I knocked her up, but she wasn't home." I guess it meant "dropped by for an unannounced visit"? Entirely different meaning over here! But that trip to the UK was quite a while ago. Perhaps the Seth Rogen-Katherine Heigl film has now killed all other meanings of the expression.


When I was 17 I was on a trip to the states with my family. We were in Idaho, staying with a mormon family, and we were talking about when we were going back to the UK. I groaned, as I remembered I had a driving lesson the day we got back and said, My driving instructor is going to have to knock me up I guess. I remember it so well. The whole family we were staying with froze as my mum and I carried on talking. My dad nudged my arm and said, you need to rephrase that, over here it doesn't mean what we mean it to. 
I looked around and everyone was staring at me with eyes agog! The eldest boy said, almost a whisper, are you sleeping with your driving instructor? 
It was hilarious! We had to explain that Knocked up means, banging hell out of the door to get someone out of bed. We were getting back early hours, I'd have had time for a couple of hours of sleep but I was going to be so tired, he was probably going to have to knock me out of bed. 
Still makes me laugh that memory 18 years later!


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

YEah, in the US, to "luck out" means that _luck falls your way_ in an advantageous fashion. So if someone says, "I really lucked out on my courses this semester," it means that s/he got all the classes he wanted (or didn't get any 8am classes, lol).


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## kathrynoh (Oct 17, 2012)

Lydniz said:


> Hipsters are definitely a thing in the uk. Man buns a gogo.


Yeah, I was wondering about that since I was in London recently and there was no shortage of hipsters


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## Evenstar (Jan 26, 2013)

Lydniz said:


> Hipsters are definitely a thing in the uk. Man buns a gogo.


Urgh, yeah, the "Mun" (man bun).

My husband grew a beard this year, and threatened to plat it. I swore I'd snip it off when he was sleeping if he did such a thing. Thankfully though he looks more like Captain Haddock than a hipster.


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## Flay Otters (Jul 29, 2014)

Evenstar said:


> Urgh, yeah, the "Mun" (man bun).
> 
> My husband grew a beard this year, and threatened to plat it. I swore I'd snip it off when he was sleeping if he did such a thing. Thankfully though he looks more like Captain Haddock than a hipster.


Yeah, I tried my hair in a man bun (in the privacy of my own home) but I didn't think it was for me. Back in the day, sure.
Can't believe your husband was planning to draw a map of his beard.
Plait is called braid in the USA.
And Capt Haddock... I was never a huge Tintin fan. More of a Captain Pugwash fan, although they were all strangely beardless.
Except Cut-Throat Jake!


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## Evenstar (Jan 26, 2013)

Ah yes, the plait / braid thing is a hassle for me because I write teenagers and they do occasionally do this to their hair. Brits don't use braid and US don't use plait. Same issue with fringe / bangs.  No obvious solution that I've come up with as yet.


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

"He's got it bad" meaning to be in love is something that's universally understood, right? This thread's making me think about this stuff as I'm doing the final read-through and now I'm questioning everything lol.


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## Flay Otters (Jul 29, 2014)

Evenstar said:


> Ah yes, the plait / braid thing is a hassle for me because I write teenagers and they do occasionally do this to their hair. Brits don't use braid and US don't use plait. Same issue with fringe / bangs. No obvious solution that I've come up with as yet.


You can put a lampshade on it.
I have had characters have arguments about what something is called, or the true meaning of something.
Like French windows and French doors. They are French windows (because they come all the way down and open, like in France), but for some reason Americans call them French doors (doors in France are substantially the same as anywhere else).
Perfect for an argument.
Likewise bangs vs fringe


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

Flay Otters said:


> You can put a lampshade on it.
> I have had characters have arguments about what something is called, or the true meaning of something.
> Like French windows and French doors. They are French windows (because they come all the way down and open, like in France), but for some reason Americans call them French doors (doors in France are substantially the same as anywhere else).
> Perfect for an argument.
> Likewise bangs vs fringe


It's called doors because you walk through them. I don't like the word bangs though because it makes me think of the disease that cows get. I'd rather we called it fringe.


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## Flay Otters (Jul 29, 2014)

paranormal_kitty said:


> It's called doors because you walk through them. I don't like the word bangs though because it makes me think of the disease that cows get. I'd rather we called it fringe.


Kitty for the win 
Yes, they're doors, but they're actually windows that open like doors (like in France). So: French windows - because you can walk through them unlike domestic windows. But I've stopped yelling it at the TV along with "me"when they incorrectly use "I".
Fringe is cuter, and I've no idea what bangs even means, and less inclination to look it up. 
But now fringe makes me think of hippies and Roger Daltry at Woodstock.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Here's one that trips me up: chaise lounge vs. chaise longue

Yes, *I KNOW WHY* it's sometimes spelled _longue. _ But even so, it LOOKS wrong, it always looks like a weird typo.

Also, speaking of the word french... people who think french fries are from France.  Like a decade or so ago when some crazy nut-wingoes wanted to call them "freedom fries." French fries have absolutely _nothing_ to do with France. The word "french" relates to the way potatoes are sliced to make into fries: they're frenched. "Frenching ... refers to a method of preparing vegetables, such as beans, peppers or potatoes, by cutting them into long thin strips for even cooking..."


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

Jena H said:


> Here's one that trips me up: chaise lounge vs. chaise longue


It's really spelled "longue" sometimes? Makes me think it rhymes with "tongue" lol. I hate any sort of French loan word. Only recently did I learn that the word I was spelling "orderb" is actually spelled "hors d'oeuvre" (and yes I had to google, copy and paste that!). I thought it was a different word when I read it in print, thinking it was pronounced like "horse de ovary." Now I just say appetizers.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

paranormal_kitty said:


> It's really spelled "longue" sometimes? Makes me think it rhymes with "tongue" lol. I hate any sort of French loan word. Only recently did I learn that the word I was spelling "orderb" is actually spelled "hors d'oeuvre" (and yes I had to google, copy and paste that!). I thought it was a different word when I read it in print, thinking it was pronounced like "horse de ovary." Now I just say appetizers.


Yes, _chaise longue_ is french for _long chair._ But it does look wrong. And besides, what does one do on a chaise? One LOUNGES.


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## rockondon (Aug 2, 2016)

I had dinner with a german coworker once. We were at a pub and the food was pretty terrible and he said something in german.

Me: What did that mean?
Him: It's a german expression that means- this food was crap _before _we ate it.

I immediately decided that was an english expression too, and used it whenever possible.


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## Spin52 (Sep 6, 2015)

paranormal_kitty said:


> It's really spelled "longue" sometimes? Makes me think it rhymes with "tongue" lol. I hate any sort of French loan word. Only recently did I learn that the word I was spelling "orderb" is actually spelled "hors d'oeuvre" (and yes I had to google, copy and paste that!). I thought it was a different word when I read it in print, thinking it was pronounced like "horse de ovary." Now I just say appetizers.


Reminds me of a reporter on a paper where I worked, who quoted someone in print as saying "Comb see, comb saw". (Comme ci, comme ca).


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Spin52 said:


> Reminds me of a reporter on a paper where I worked, who quoted someone in print as saying "Comb see, comb saw". (Comme ci, comme ca).


And "walla!" (viola)


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## SerenityEditing (May 3, 2016)

Monique said:


> And "walla!" (viola)


*Voila
Sorry, can't help it.  Viola is a musical instrument, or maybe a woman's name. I've also seen "wa la" and, for the more sophisticated and refined, 'wahlah.'

There is a running joke in my family about hors d'oeuvres (which I copied from Kitty's post because life's too short), and my Uncle Calvin hollering at someone about 'getting doovers off of some' lady of the evening *koffkoff*.

I learned that what's called an appetizer in US English can sometimes be called an entree in UK English, which is the main course in US English. And the same client and I learned quite a bit about shoewear in the US vs UK - she had a character wearing, IIRC, 'flat pumps.' I said (paraphrasing/simplifying the entire exchange, and to the best of my memory) those would just be flats, because pumps have a heel. She said pumps don't have a heel, _court shoes_ have a heel. I said I thought court shoes were what you play racquetball or tennis in. We finally figured it out, but it was all very educational.


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## SerenityEditing (May 3, 2016)

Doglover said:


> Hipsters are a design in trousers (or pants) or jeans where the waistband is dropped so that it comes up to the hips, not the waist. I hate them; uncomfortable rotten things. Nothing to do with twee, so what hipsters are you talking about?


In the US those are hiphuggers. (Didn't see anyone mention that, apologies if it's a duplicate.)


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

SerenityEditing said:


> In the US those are hiphuggers. (Didn't see anyone mention that, apologies if it's a duplicate.)


Now two English people have said that hipster is used in the American way as well, but I've never heard of it. However, hipsters or hiphuggers, I call them bloody uncomfortable!


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Monique said:


> And "walla!" (viola)


Yeah, walla... I can't believe people spell it that way-- in print!! And not just in casual, 'lazy' media like text (_u r_ for _you are_, etc. bleah!).

Another one is _per say,_ instead of _per se._ To me, you shouldn't use a 'foreign' word or phrase unless A) you know the meaning, and B) you know the origin, which would mean C) you know how to spell it.


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## Flay Otters (Jul 29, 2014)

Jena H said:


> Yeah, walla... I can't believe people spell it that way-- in print!! And not just in casual, 'lazy' media like text (_u r_ for _you are_, etc. bleah!).
> 
> Another one is _per say,_ instead of _per se._ To me, you shouldn't use a 'foreign' word or phrase unless A) you know the meaning, and B) you know the origin, which would mean C) you know how to spell it.


QED


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## Flay Otters (Jul 29, 2014)

Jena H said:


> SNIP: "Frenching ... refers to a method of preparing vegetables, such as beans, peppers or potatoes, by cutting them into long thin strips for even cooking..."


Now that's one of the few uses for "frenching" that I was not aware of. 
I think it's called julienning in the non-frenching world.


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## 91831 (Jul 18, 2016)

Ahhh, we do use braid over here in the UK, but it is not the same as a plat.










whereas this is a plait










Braid is a fancy plait over here... a plait is just a simple thing.


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## Nikkira (May 19, 2016)

I'm from the Seattle area and used to work for a large software company in the area. One of my co-workers was from the UK and my other co-worker told him, "she got rear-ended over the weekend." He looked at me with his eyes so huge that I'm pretty sure it doesn't mean the same thing in the UK as it does around here -- as in, my car was hit on the rear bumper at a stoplight, I got rear-ended. It was pretty funny.


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## smw (Mar 9, 2015)

Nikkira said:


> I'm from the Seattle area and used to work for a large software company in the area. One of my co-workers was from the UK and my other co-worker told him, "she got rear-ended over the weekend." He looked at me with his eyes so huge that I'm pretty sure it doesn't mean the same thing in the UK as it does around here -- as in, my car was hit on the rear bumper at a stoplight, I got rear-ended. It was pretty funny.


I haven't run into (!) that one before. That's hilarious.


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## kathrynoh (Oct 17, 2012)

I've got a couple of questions about word usage/understanding.

Beer garden - is that used outside of Australia? 
Also, some of my scenes are set in a pub but I'm worried that Americans have a different concept of what a pub is  I'd say a bar is a smaller drinking place with one room/bar while a pub is bigger with multiple rooms/bars. Traditional pubs in Australia used to have hotel rooms upstairs and a few bars downstairs.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

kathrynoh said:


> I've got a couple of questions about word usage/understanding.
> 
> Beer garden - is that used outside of Australia?
> Also, some of my scenes are set in a pub but I'm worried that Americans have a different concept of what a pub is  I'd say a bar is a smaller drinking place with one room/bar while a pub is bigger with multiple rooms/bars. Traditional pubs in Australia used to have hotel rooms upstairs and a few bars downstairs.


Both pubs and beer gardens are known in the US, but we have weird Americanized versions.


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## kathrynoh (Oct 17, 2012)

Thanks Cherise


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

kathrynoh said:


> I've got a couple of questions about word usage/understanding.
> 
> Beer garden - is that used outside of Australia?
> Also, some of my scenes are set in a pub but I'm worried that Americans have a different concept of what a pub is  I'd say a bar is a smaller drinking place with one room/bar while a pub is bigger with multiple rooms/bars. Traditional pubs in Australia used to have hotel rooms upstairs and a few bars downstairs.


We have pubs as you describe in the UK and if there are gardens attached, they are often labelled 'beer garden'.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

evdarcy said:


> Ahhh, we do use braid over here in the UK, but it is not the same as a plat.


I think we call this a French braid. Though actually, I'm not sure if there are separate names for when the braid's on top, as here, and when it's underneath.

Speaking of French, some of those misheard/misspelled French words people mentioned are just priceless. 



SerenityEditing said:


> I took kathrynoh's comment about fanny vs c-word to be a personal preference type of thing. Like, I'd personally rather include an f-bomb or c-bomb in every single sentence I utter (anywhere/everywhere) for a month than to, even once, utter the word 'panties' or 'hubby.' It's not that there's anything _wrong_ with those words and they're certainly not offensive to the community at large, they just set my particular teeth on edge. (I'm not a huge fan of 'nipple' either, but I guess I've edited enough e-roms to develop a bit of immunity to it. 'Panties' is going to take a lot more, though.)


Oh, I totally missed Kathryn's meaning. Sorry Kathryn!

I do have the impression that the c-word isn't nearly so big a deal in the UK as it is here, at least among younger people. Is that wrong?

Also ... "panties"? Really? Seems like such an innocuous word. I mean ... it's not MOIST, that's for sure.



evdarcy said:


> When I was 17 I was on a trip to the states with my family. We were in Idaho, staying with a mormon family, and we were talking about when we were going back to the UK. I groaned, as I remembered I had a driving lesson the day we got back and said, My driving instructor is going to have to knock me up I guess. I remember it so well. The whole family we were staying with froze as my mum and I carried on talking. My dad nudged my arm and said, you need to rephrase that, over here it doesn't mean what we mean it to.
> I looked around and everyone was staring at me with eyes agog! The eldest boy said, almost a whisper, are you sleeping with your driving instructor?


That is priceless.

I would've been all like ...


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## Forgettable (Oct 16, 2015)

.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Yay THANK YOU, THANK YOU. Someone killed the errant apostrophe.

Anyone mentioned the verb "root" yet?

*ducks*

Ditto on panties. One stops wearing them when one's age is in the double digits.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

I had no idea you could call a chaise longue a chaise lounge, but I see apparently you can.

Also, I would call that French plait above a French plait, not a braid. Braid to me is an American word for plait. Which just goes to show you will never get agreement even among people of the same nationality about the use of language.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

Lydniz said:


> I had no idea you could call a chaise longue a chaise lounge, but I see apparently you can.
> 
> Also, I would call that French plait above a French plait, not a braid. Braid to me is an American word for plait. Which just goes to show you will never get agreement even among people of the same nationality about the use of language.


You can call anything whatever you like, but it doesn't make it right. A lounge is a living room, not something you sit on. I would also call that picture a French plait and a braid is something that you sometimes see woken through a plait or twisted around the hair with beads at the end.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

Doglover said:


> You can call anything whatever you like, but it doesn't make it right. A lounge is a living room, not something you sit on.


I would have agreed with you except I went and looked it up in the OED and chaise lounge has been in use since 1807, presumably by people who got it mixed up with chaise longue.


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## Forgettable (Oct 16, 2015)

.


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## Evenstar (Jan 26, 2013)

Jena H said:


> French fries have absolutely _nothing_ to do with France. The word "french" relates to the way potatoes are sliced to make into fries: they're frenched. "Frenching ... refers to a method of preparing vegetables, such as beans, peppers or potatoes, by cutting them into long thin strips for even cooking..."


I'm enjoying all the new things in this thread. "Frenching vegetables", that's a new one on me. I asked my husband (who is a classically trained chef, including two years training in France) if he had ever heard of "frenching" the way you describe but he hadn't. He said that cut is called Julienne. So I'm going to assume this is an American term. But I think French Fries are American anyway? We have them here (usually frozen from the supermarket) but I'd guess they are an import from your culture as we have traditionally always gone with the chip, which is much fatter and shorter than french fries (or maybe our potatoes are a lot more dumpy?)

My teenage characters use "frenching" in a whole different way!

I too would have called the first picture a French Plait. We don't use braid at all in the UK except to braid something into your hair like a ribbon.


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## SerenityEditing (May 3, 2016)

Becca Mills said:


> I think we call this a French braid. Though actually, I'm not sure if there are separate names for when the braid's on top, as here, and when it's underneath.
> 
> ... Also ... "panties"? Really? Seems like such an innocuous word. I mean ... it's not MOIST, that's for sure.


I've heard it called a Dutch braid, but I've also seen 'Dutch braid' used to refer to a braid where you flip your head upside down and start braiding from the nape of the neck, so idk.

Oddly I have no problem with moist, or any of the other words most people usually list as their shudder-inducing words. But 'panties' will get me every time. I can't even type it without distancing myself from it with scare-quotes. And 'hubby' is even worse than 'panties' - I have been known to get a physical full-body shudder upon hearing that word. No idea why, other that I do not, in general, like shortened words. 'Veggies' drives me right up a wall, as does 'brekkers' (breakfast) and 'email addy.' Perhaps a lingering effect of having a given name that doesn't lend itself to nicknames? Idk. (Yet I'm fine with abbreviations/web-speak [lol, idk, idec, fwiw], made-up words, and lolspeak - the 'you can has cheesburgr'/bork-doge-birb type stuff, which drives most of my friends right off the deep end.) But, back to 'panties,' the association with childhood definitely plays a role in that for me. I know it's not in the minds of, like, 99% of people who use it, but I always get a creepy-old-man vibe from it.



Lydniz said:


> Which just goes to show you will never get agreement even among people of the same nationality about the use of language.


I think we like to think of language as having borders/boundaries, but really it bleeds around the edges very much, and you get speckles all over the place where you don't expect it. Even within my family there are words that don't mean the same from one person to the next, or are pronounced differently. If my mother asks for a slice of chocolate cake, and you bring her a slice of devil's food cake or German chocolate cake, she will be upset, because that's not chocolate cake. Chocolate cake is yellow cake with chocolate frosting. (Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting is double-chocolate cake, and chocolate cake with white frosting is 'Elayne's birthday cake' because that's the only time she'll make it.) It's practically Scripture for several members of her family, to the extent that at a family gathering I've heard people ask, 'Now, do you want chocolate cake, or do you want what YOU call chocolate cake?'

I was thinking about pronunciation differences and thought about the word 'toilet,' which still shocks me when I hear it used casually by my UK acquaintances. I was editing a MS where a woman on a first date asked where the toilet was and I was like 'OMG NO WHO SAYS THA--oh, right, they're in the UK, never mind.' I would have to be _so drunk_ to ask someone where the toilet was, lol! Bathroom, restroom, ladies room, washroom.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

SerenityEditing said:


> I was thinking about pronunciation differences and thought about the word 'toilet,' which still shocks me when I hear it used casually by my UK acquaintances. I was editing a MS where a woman on a first date asked where the toilet was and I was like 'OMG NO WHO SAYS THA--oh, right, they're in the UK, never mind.' I would have to be _so drunk_ to ask someone where the toilet was, lol! Bathroom, restroom, ladies room, washroom.


That's interesting, because all those room names sound very coy to me. A toilet is what it is.


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## SerenityEditing (May 3, 2016)

LMareeApps said:


> I was just typing a sentence in my WIP and used the term 'kitchen bench'. As I was typing I realised that would probably be called a 'counter' elsewhere in the world.


Yeah, I'd see a 'kitchen bench' as something like this:










which is the type of table/'chairs' my mother has in her kitchen.


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## SerenityEditing (May 3, 2016)

Lydniz said:


> That's interesting, because all those room names sound very coy to me. A toilet is what it is.


To us, the toilet is specifically the porcelain seat upon which we do our business. The room itself usually has a different name. I always liked 'water closet' when I lived in Germany.

The US in general (and perhaps US women in particular) has (have) weird attitudes toward bodily functions. A British friend of mine mentioned very casually one day, 'Be right back, I need to have a poo,' and I thought I was going to combust with second-hand embarrassment. And I do not consider myself a prude in general. I'll discuss all sorts of things very frankly and in excruciating detail with complete strangers, but bathroom business is not among them.


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## Forgettable (Oct 16, 2015)

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## Pandorra (Aug 22, 2017)

LMareeApps said:


> That's really cute! But I'd call it a table and chairs...


Hey I have an espresso one. lol


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## thesmallprint (May 25, 2012)

First page reminds me of why there are no aspirin in the jungle - parrots eat 'em all


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## SerenityEditing (May 3, 2016)

LMareeApps said:


> That's really cute! But I'd call it a table and chairs...
> 
> ETA - but if you asked me about the chairs I'd call them bench seats.


Same. But if I heard/saw 'kitchen bench,' that's what would pop into my mind.



> This whole language thing gets so confusing. Sometimes I get myself confused enough that I can't remember which word I'd normally use. This has become more a problem with increased social media use - as now I regularly converse with people from other countries, and their language bleeds into mine.


I read a book set in the UK several years ago that was a really immersive experience. A day or so after I finished, my son (who is very tall) and I were walking in to a place that had a low doorway. I turned to him and said, "Mind how you go." He stared at me for about two seconds, then turned around and went back out to wait in the car. He said he was afraid I was going to start talking like that to everyone and embarrass him. I wasn't even thinking about it, it just crept in!

I've also picked up 'soz' for 'sorry,' which I only use when I'm not really sorry. And if I could ever learn to cuss like British/Scottish/Irish/Welsh people, man, I'd die happy.


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## Forgettable (Oct 16, 2015)

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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

SerenityEditing said:


> I was thinking about pronunciation differences and thought about the word 'toilet,' which still shocks me when I hear it used casually by my UK acquaintances. I was editing a MS where a woman on a first date asked where the toilet was and I was like 'OMG NO WHO SAYS THA--oh, right, they're in the UK, never mind.' I would have to be _so drunk_ to ask someone where the toilet was, lol! Bathroom, restroom, ladies room, washroom.


But why would you call it a bathroom unless you are planning to have a bath in there?


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## Forgettable (Oct 16, 2015)

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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

LMareeApps said:


> I watch those House Hunter shows, and one big difference I've noticed is that the toilet is often in the same room as the bath/shower. So asking for the bathroom will still get you to the toilet. Not so much in any of the houses I've lived in. Same with showers over baths. That seems to be a common thing, with a separate shower being a big deal. Here a shower over bath only really happens in really old houses, or where they're trying to fit it all into a really small space.


In the UK, houses are usually built now with the toilet in the same room. Older houses that had them separate, often get the wall knocked down to make a bigger bathroom.

What confused us the first time we visited Florida was that customers of theme parks were called 'guests'. I got in the lane marked MGM guests only and my husband started freaking out about being in the wrong lane! He wouldn't drive on the right himself, but didn't mind interfering with me. Here the sign would have said patrons or customers.


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## Forgettable (Oct 16, 2015)

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## SerenityEditing (May 3, 2016)

Doglover said:


> But why would you call it a bathroom unless you are planning to have a bath in there?


Because in a private home, the room where the toilet is also contains the bathtub. It is the room where you have a bath. Also the room where you do other things, but some of us don't like to discuss those other things so we use 'bathroom' as a catch-all term. (Same way we use 'kitchen' for a room that usually includes not only a kitchen, but also a dining area and a pantry.)

Obviously that's not the case for public facilities (there might rarely be showers in public restrooms, but not bathtubs) but words used in one context often carry over to another - same way I will excuse myself in a friend's house to go to the 'ladies' room' even though they clearly don't have gender-based bathrooms. I typically use 'bathroom' in my own home or my parents' home, and 'ladies'/mens' room' anywhere else, even in other private homes, with 'restroom' making an occasional appearance.

I've wondered if the US preference for toilets and bathtubs/showers being in the same room has any link to our lack of bidets.

When I was a kid, a lot of the houses had bathrooms where the sink/s, counter, and bathtub were in the 'front' part of the bathroom, with the toilet in a tiny, cramped nook at the very back of the room, with a wall and a door that could close it off from the rest of the bathroom. They were invariably creepy; it felt like navigating a maze or playing a game of hide and seek just to go pee.


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## thesmallprint (May 25, 2012)

It's worth remembering that some of the words/phrases being nominated from the UK are definitely regional. Don't assume you could use them and be understood across the country (small as it is).

And if you'd like some Scottish regional dialect:

We do use manky for dirty but more often 'mingin(g)' or 'clatty'

'Stoat the ba'!'  Bounce the ball

A 'wean' is a child - some families still call their youngest child 'the wean' (pronounced  wane) as a term of endearment, even when said wean is in mid-forties.

The older Americans among you will have seen Billy Connolly on TV. In a Glasgow theatre you'd be lucky to understand 10% of what he says.

And, talking of small countries, a friend of mine moved recently to Arizona. Wikipedia tells me you could fit three Scotlands comfortably into one Arizona.


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## Evenstar (Jan 26, 2013)

thesmallprint said:


> It's worth remembering that some of the words/phrases being nominated from the UK are definitely regional. Don't assume you could use them and be understood across the country (small as it is).


Yes, I was just thinking it's quite regional. For a tiny country we are very divided by region. For example I was surprised to see a couple of my fellow Brits advocating "toilet". Where I live it's a very working class term, we say "loo".



SerenityEditing said:


> A British friend of mine mentioned very casually one day, 'Be right back, I need to have a poo,' and I thought I was going to combust with second-hand embarrassment. And I do not consider myself a prude in general. I'll discuss all sorts of things very frankly and in excruciating detail with complete strangers, but bathroom business is not among them.


I'm British and I'd be pretty stunned by someone casually announcing they were off for a poo! Believe me, that's not normal British behaviour.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

Evenstar said:


> Yes, I was just thinking it's quite regional. For a tiny country we are very divided by region. For example I was surprised to see a couple of my fellow Brits advocating "toilet". Where I live it's a very working class term, we say "loo".
> 
> I'm British and I'd be pretty stunned by someone casually announcing they were off for a poo! Believe me, that's not normal British behaviour.


Loo is just a polite word for toilet. You don't see the word 'loo' on a sign above the public toilets, do you? You see the word 'toilets'. There's nothing working class about it. Upper class people often use the word 'lavatory' which I detest, or they say 'the little girls/boys room'.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

My mum used to tell us off for using loo instead of toilet as she thought it was common and toilet was the polite word. Not sure where she got that from.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

Lydniz said:


> My mum used to tell us off for using loo instead of toilet as she thought it was common and toilet was the polite word. Not sure where she got that from.


Well, my dad always called it the carsey (not sure about the spelling), which is hardly used at all now. Then there is the bog, the throne, the wotsit; in the book The Collector, it is referred to as 'the Place'.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

kathrynoh said:


> I've got a couple of questions about word usage/understanding.
> 
> *Beer garden - is that used outside of Australia? *
> Also, some of my scenes are set in a pub but I'm worried that Americans have a different concept of what a pub is  I'd say a bar is a smaller drinking place with one room/bar while a pub is bigger with multiple rooms/bars. Traditional pubs in Australia used to have hotel rooms upstairs and a few bars downstairs.


Um, considering the beer garden (_biergarten_) has its origins in Germany, I'm sure the term is familiar outside of Australia.  I've seen it used some in the US, but not much. Maybe it's a hipster, trendy term that people are using more these days. I can understand the difference between bar & pub, but a lot of Americans might not differentiate between them-- a place to drink is a place to drink.

As for "frenching" vegetables... even grocery stores and corporate food distributors are familiar with the term. In the canned vegetable aisle of the grocery store you'll find French-Cut Green Beans.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Regarding the bathroom/loo/toilet thing, yes, in the US there are different words for it. In a private home it's the bathroom; bathtub and toilet are in the same room, and many consider it a little gauche to say the word _toilet._ And some people (mainly women) may try to be delicate and refer to it as the "facilities." (For realz!) In public buildings, that room is usually referred to as a restroom. Signage will usually refer to both the men's and women's rooms as restrooms.

This used to puzzle me-- why call it a restroom. Does anyone actually _rest_ in there?? But then I realized, back 100 years ago or so, there probably were lounge chairs (dare I say chaise longue? lol) in the women's retiring room of public buildings where women actually could _rest._ Fancy places used to also have attendants in these rooms, to give fresh towels, help a woman fix a fallen hem, etc. (Yes, those were probably only in really fancy, hoity-toity places, but still. It was probably the origin of the term _rest_ room.)


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## SerenityEditing (May 3, 2016)

Doglover said:


> Well, my dad always called it the carsey (not sure about the spelling), which is hardly used at all now. Then there is the bog, the throne, the wotsit; in the book The Collector, it is referred to as 'the Place'.


A lot of Americans call it 'the john.' When I was about 3 or 4 someone from my dad's work (military) called the house looking for him while he was in the bathroom, and I answered the phone. I proudly announced 'He's in the jack right now' then ran off down the hallway yelling, 'Daddy, someone's on the phone but I told them you were in the jack' at the top of my lungs. My mother says she was torn between correcting me to 'john' and praising me so I'd shut up. That was also when she decided it was no longer cute to let the little kid answer the phone, haha.

My family (perhaps others) also call it 'the Golden Reading Room.'


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## SerenityEditing (May 3, 2016)

Jena H said:


> back 100 years ago or so, there probably were lounge chairs (dare I say chaise longue? lol) in the women's retiring room of public buildings where women actually could _rest._ Fancy places used to also have attendants in these rooms, to give fresh towels, help a woman fix a fallen hem, etc. (Yes, those were probably only in really fancy, hoity-toity places, but still. It was probably the origin of the term _rest_ room.)


I'm not sure if it's a recent revival or if I'm just finally getting to a point where I can frequent these sorts of places, but I'm noticing a lot of places these days that have the actual _rest room_ - with couches, chairs, end tables, soft lighting, even occasionally coffee/water - adjacent to the room with the stalls for the toilets and the sinks. Usually in hotels, nicer nightclubs, and other events venues. Still rare to see an attendant, though I have come across a few - and not just a housekeeping staff member who happened to be in the restroom.

The french-cut green beans always taste weird to me.


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

Jena H said:


> This used to puzzle me-- why call it a restroom. Does anyone actually _rest_ in there??


There was a guy where I used to work who would sleep in the bathroom pretty often.


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## Evenstar (Jan 26, 2013)

Lydniz said:


> My mum used to tell us off for using loo instead of toilet as she thought it was common and toilet was the polite word. Not sure where she got that from.


Ha ha, I tell my children the exact opposite.

My great grandparents who were aristos used to call it "the smallest room", but in our house that would be my office, and I don't allow anyone to pee in it!


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## kathrynoh (Oct 17, 2012)

It's weird. I'd consider loo as being more slangy than toilet. I'd say toilet, sometimes bathroom although sometimes in Australia if you ask for the bathroom you get directed to a bathroom with no toilet.

I'm not sure if it's a usual thing in the US, but i remember an American friend in Japan being horrified because a Japanese student cancelled a lesson, saying she had diarrhea. From my friend's shock, I figured the student had gone into graphic detail but no, the shock was because she'd used the word 'diarrhea.'



Jena H said:


> Um, considering the beer garden (_biergarten_) has its origins in Germany, I'm sure the term is familiar outside of Australia.  I've seen it used some in the US, but not much. Maybe it's a hipster, trendy term that people are using more these days. I can understand the difference between bar & pub, but a lot of Americans might not differentiate between them-- a place to drink is a place to drink.


It's not really a hipster term in Aus, just a general term for an outside area where you drink  The pub thing is difficult but hopefully readers will pick it up from the context. The main thing in terms of the story is that it's a huge place, not just a tiny room.


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## Spin52 (Sep 6, 2015)

Doglover said:


> Loo is just a polite word for toilet. You don't see the word 'loo' on a sign above the public toilets, do you? You see the word 'toilets'. There's nothing working class about it. Upper class people often use the word 'lavatory' which I detest, or they say 'the little girls/boys room'.


Our local garden center, which is very posh (David and Samantha Cameron shop there, so it must be), recently remodeled its conveniences/toilets/restrooms, then spoiled the effect by labeling them 'LOOS' in large letters on the wall above the door.


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## Flay Otters (Jul 29, 2014)

Evenstar said:


> SNIP
> I'm British and I'd be pretty stunned by someone casually announcing they were off for a poo! Believe me, that's not normal British behaviour.


I _was_ British and have been known to announce: Just gotta take a quick slash.
Not the poo thing. That sounds like a four-year-old.
Use the facilities maybe.


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## C. Gold (Jun 12, 2017)

LilyBLily said:


> Thank you for fixing this thread title. Bothered me every time my nitpicky eyes came across it.


Haha, I know right? Like a hang nail that snags every time you run across it.


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

Seems like maybe this was discussed previously, but I can't find it. What about tennis shoes vs. sneakers? Which is the more understandable term?


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

paranormal_kitty said:


> Seems like maybe this was discussed previously, but I can't find it. What about tennis shoes vs. sneakers? Which is the more understandable term?


As far as I know, in the US the two terms are more or less interchangeable. When / where I grew up, we called them sneakers, but now a lot of people call them tennis shoes. There is an actual difference, because tennis shoes are more specific in design. Basically, all tennis shoes are sneakers, but not all sneakers are tennis shoes.


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

Jena H said:


> As far as I know, in the US the two terms are more or less interchangeable. When / where I grew up, we called them sneakers, but now a lot of people call them tennis shoes. There is an actual difference, because tennis shoes are more specific in design. Basically, all tennis shoes are sneakers, but not all sneakers are tennis shoes.


Which term would best apply to chucks?


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

paranormal_kitty said:


> Which term would best apply to chucks?


Sneakers.

ETA: Chuck Taylors were originally designed for basketball players, so they'd hardly be wearing "tennis" shoes.


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

Jena H said:


> Sneakers.
> 
> ETA: Chuck Taylors were originally designed for basketball players, so they'd hardly be wearing "tennis" shoes.


Yeah, that's a good point. I originally used sneakers, but then I realized people where the MC is from tend to say tennis shoes. I always hear chucks just called chucks, but I wasn't sure how many people would get that if I didn't clarify.


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## Forgettable (Oct 16, 2015)

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## ShaneCarrow (Jul 26, 2017)

Interesting thread. My books are full of Aussie-isms, not in an over-the-top way, but it was only when I started writing (aware that my audience is 95% American) that I realised how many words I take for granted are purely Australian: ute, bonnet, doona, fossicking, occy strap, suss, stickybeak... So I ended up putting a glossary in which now runs to three pages!

And I've actually had a few reviews mention that they liked the exotic flavour of it. (Though I do write in a genre which is overwhelmingly American.) I think you can usually judge words from context anyway. I mean, the rest of us are expected to learn Americanisms...


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## cecilia_writer (Dec 28, 2010)

LMareeApps said:


> Joggers and sandshoes are commonly used here, along with sneakers. Not so much tennis shoes though.


When I was growing up we had sandshoes, which were soft and had no laces, and tennis shoes (a bit more sturdy, white, with laces - specifically for playing tennis in.) After that trainers came along as well. Now I think the soft kind are usually gym shoes, although in our part of Edinburgh and apparently also in the part of Fife where my mother grew up, some people call them gym rubbers.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

paranormal_kitty said:


> Seems like maybe this was discussed previously, but I can't find it. What about tennis shoes vs. sneakers? Which is the more understandable term?


In England, we call them plimsolls. Or at least we used to, but I'm a bit out of date. Tennis shoes are plimsolls; running shoes are trainers; I've never been sure what sneakers are.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

I'd tend to use "trainers" as a generic term for sports shoes.


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## kathrynoh (Oct 17, 2012)

I think most people would understand Chucks, assuming you're writing for a younger audience. It's a pretty well known brand. 

To me, runners or trainers would be specific types of sports shoes, like the more clunky style you'd wear to the gym while sneakers would be a lighter weight casual shoe.


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## 91831 (Jul 18, 2016)

SerenityEditing said:


> And if I could ever learn to cuss like British/Scottish/Irish/Welsh people, man, I'd die happy.


Scottish, and Welsh ARE British. I think the British in your sentence mean to say English. Please, (please!) never only refer to the English as British, that's really not how it is, or how it should be.

Great Britain = England + Wales + Scotland. (ALL British)
United Kingdom = England + Wales + Scotland + Northern Ireland (again all British).
British Isles = England + Wales + Scotland + Northern Ireland + Channel Islands (Finally, all British).

I once read a book - can't remember the title - where they described two characters. One was 'British' the other from 'Scotland'. I put it down without reading on.

We do like our own identities - even the English!


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

evdarcy said:


> Scottish, and Welsh ARE British. I think the British in your sentence mean to say English. Please, (please!) never only refer to the English as British, that's really not how it is, or how it should be.
> 
> Great Britain = England + Wales + Scotland. (ALL British)
> United Kingdom = England + Wales + Scotland + Northern Ireland (again all British).
> ...


Don't you consider Northern Ireland to be part of Great Britain?


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## 91831 (Jul 18, 2016)

Becca Mills said:


> That is priceless.
> 
> I would've been all like ...


Yup! Pretty much... Total breath between the teeth moment!


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## 91831 (Jul 18, 2016)

Patty Jansen said:


> Yay THANK YOU, THANK YOU. Someone killed the errant apostrophe.
> 
> Anyone mentioned the verb "root" yet?
> 
> *ducks*


HEY! This is WHY I pay people to edit...


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## 91831 (Jul 18, 2016)

Evenstar said:


> Yes, I was just thinking it's quite regional. For a tiny country we are very divided by region. For example I was surprised to see a couple of my fellow Brits advocating "toilet". Where I live it's a very working class term, we say "loo".
> 
> I'm British and I'd be pretty stunned by someone casually announcing they were off for a poo! Believe me, that's not normal British behaviour.


I also say 'loo', but can say a myriad of other things -- toilet, bathroom, lav... (although tbh, I think I have used 'lav' once in my life and I shuddered afterwards!).

And while I've never said off for a poo - except to my husband to forewarn him (HA!) - I'm quite open about going for a wee/pee!


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## 91831 (Jul 18, 2016)

Doglover said:


> Don't you consider Northern Ireland to be part of Great Britain?


Nope. Under the official definition of the terms, Great Britain doesn't include Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom does.

https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/blog/2011/08/whats-the-difference-between-uk-britain-and-british-isles/
http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/The-UK-Great-Britain-Whats-the-Difference/










In the 1800s Ireland joined Great Britain and we became the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. 
In 1922 (a very famous year!) Ireland split and we became the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

I'm a stickler for this as it's winds me up.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

As I understand it, Great Britain is the geographical name of the island on which England, Scotland and Wales are situated. The one that looks like a man riding a runaway pig.


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## Sam Kates (Aug 28, 2012)

Doglover said:


> Don't you consider Northern Ireland to be part of Great Britain?


It isn't. That's why our Olympic team represents Great Britain and Northern Ireland; and why in rugby it's the British and Irish Lions, although some of the Irish players hail from NI.

Back to gym/sport footwear, I have never heard of them being called 'Chucks'. In my neck of the woods, we call those black rubber plimsolls we used to have to wear in the gym as kids 'daps'.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

kathrynoh said:


> I think most people would understand Chucks, assuming you're writing for a younger audience. It's a pretty well known brand.
> 
> To me, runners or trainers would be specific types of sports shoes, like the more clunky style you'd wear to the gym while sneakers would be a lighter weight casual shoe.


Yes, for Chucks, I would probably capitalize it. They're officially called Chuck Taylors, so Chucks for short. And they're a very specific type of sneaker; not every pair can be called Chucks.

In the US, readers might understand what _runners_ or _trainers_ are, although to many, the word _trainer_ is possibly better known as a person (as in personal trainer) rather than footwear, so context would be key.

In the '70s when jogging became popular in the US, they were called running shoes (they had a wide base). So running shoes joined tennis shoes and trainers and sneakers as a term for casual or athletic footwear. In other words, specific types of shoes for specific types of athletic activity. Yes, it's confusing. That's probably why some people just use the word _sneakers_ as a general descriptor.


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

Going back to the toilet bathroom/restroom thingy, perhaps the younger generation from the UK forget and those from the US don't realize, that terraced houses and cottages are very small compared to the average US house and they used to have outside toilets with no other facilities to wash hands, hence it is referred to as a toilet. In fact many are still in situ but not used. What they did when modernisation came along, was to say chop something off one of the bedrooms to make bathrooms with a small washbasin, toilet, and bathtub. Very rarely do they have room for a separate shower cubicles, simply a shower over the bathtub and you have to stand in the bath. So that's why "toilet" has stuck in the lingo, although with bathtubs now standard, more of the new generations call them bathrooms.

The trend now with new houses is to also have an additonal downstairs "Toilet/washroom" that only has a toilet and a very small wash basin.

One thing you hardly ever find is a house with a walk-in closet in the UK. Instead they have stand alone or fitted wardrobes, a term derived from gaurdian of the robes,


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

"Don't wind me up."

I would have thought that those in the US would understand the term to "wind someone up", as in a prank or teasing someone to the point of them snapping in anger, as a metaphor for as if tension is built in someone as it would if you wound up a spring coil, ready for it to release the tension, but apparently not according to my beta readers.

Same with car windows. I'm sure at one time they would have wind-up windows with a handle, which is how to describe the mechanical process of an internal cable winding up on a cog, whereas they use the term roll up and roll down. Although I suppose part of the mechanical process is that something has to rotate for the window to wind up and down. One thing is true, what the window doesn't do is to roll as a ball would. But then they coined "Rock and roll" I still haven't figured out the roll part.


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

Decon said:


> "Don't wind me up."
> 
> I would have thought that those in the US would understand the term to "wind someone up", as in a prank or teasing someone to the point of them snapping in anger, as a metaphor for as if tension is built in someone as it would if you wound up a spring coil, ready for it to release the tension, but apparently not according to my beta readers.


I would say "wind me up" has a sexual connotation, but maybe that's just me.



Decon said:


> Same with car windows. I'm sure at one time they would have wind-up windows with a handle, which is how to describe the mechanical process of an internal cable wining up on a cog, whereas they use the term roll up and roll down. Although I suppose part of the mechanical process is that something has to rotate for the wildow to wind up and down. One thing is true, what the window doesn't do is to roll as a ball would.


At one time? I still drive a car with mechanical windows.


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## SerenityEditing (May 3, 2016)

evdarcy said:


> Scottish, and Welsh ARE British. I think the British in your sentence mean to say English. Please, (please!) never only refer to the English as British, that's really not how it is, or how it should be.
> 
> Great Britain = England + Wales + Scotland. (ALL British)
> United Kingdom = England + Wales + Scotland + Northern Ireland (again all British).
> ...


Gah! Yes. I know enough to know that some Irish and Scottish people don't like being lumped in with "the English" so in my attempts (at 3 AM) to make sure I didn't offend... I offended! My apologies. Basically all y'all over there have a magical way with cussing. Is there a single catchall phrase for everyone in that specific geographic region (ie, not including mainland Europe)? If I'd said British/Irish people would that have included everyone?

Decon's posts back to back about the toilet convo and then 'don't wind me up' reminded me of one that I've FINALLY come to understand at first pass when I hear it, but I can't think about it too much or it really confuses me: 'Taking the p!ss' or 'taking the p!ss out of [him/her/me].' To us it sounds like 'taking A p!ss' which is what you do in the bathroom!  Does anyone know offhand how that idiom came into being? Wikipedia has an... interesting take on it, but I'm interested if there are other versions.

As far as car windows, even back when electric windows were something to ooh and aah over and dream of one day being rich enough to experience for oneself, we still used the term 'roll up/down.' This might be just me, but when I use the term 'winding' it usually has a criss-cross meaning, like in figure-eights or a serpentine pattern. Anything that's just a circle is 'rolling.'

We do use the term 'wound up' to mean unreasonably excited or angry about something; I'm surprised people wouldn't be able to parse it by context.


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## SerenityEditing (May 3, 2016)

Lydniz said:


> As I understand it, Great Britain is the geographical name of the island on which England, Scotland and Wales are situated. The one that looks like a man riding a runaway pig.


I'm gonna need help with this visual...


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

"Don't take the  p*ss  out of me", or shortened to "don't take the  p*ss ", in the context it is usually used simply means don't make fun of me at the expense of my embarrassment. Or it could be termed as "Taking the  p*ss " by stating something that it is apparent  the person saying it that it is meant to call into question the person's intelligence to make them look silly/stupid with an embarrassing home truth, or fabrication, in public, though it could be said in private if it's meant to embarrass. 

At a guess I'd say it derives from the image of someone "taking a pee" in public, and realising they have been seen  by the person deriding them and so feel embarrassed.

Or it could be just a "wind up" as a  "p*ss  take", now that I've explained what wind up means if what is said is embelished or fabricated.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

Decon said:


> "Don't take the p*ss out of me", or shortened to "don't take the p*ss ", in the context it is usually used simply means don't make fun of me at the expense of my embarrassment. Or it could be termed as "Taking the p*ss " by stating something that it is apparent the person saying it that it is meant to call into question the person's intelligence to make them look silly/stupid with an embarrassing home truth, or fabrication, in public, though it could be said in private if it's meant to embarrass.
> 
> At a guess I'd say it derives from the image of someone "taking a pee" in public, and realising they have been seen by the person deriding them and so feel embarrassed.
> 
> Or it could be just a "wind up" as a "p*ss take", now that I've explained what wind up means if what is said is embelished or fabricated.


I always assumed it came from "taking the mickey," in the way that many common idioms have a swearier version (see also Murphy's/sod's law, for God's sake/FFS etc).


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## Sam Kates (Aug 28, 2012)

SerenityEditing said:


> Gah! Yes. I know enough to know that some Irish and Scottish people don't like being lumped in with "the English"


Nor, indeed, we Welsh people. Saying 'England' to mean England is fine. Saying 'England' to mean Great Britain will greatly annoy the Welsh and Scots. Saying 'England' to mean the entire UK will also annoy the Northern Irish.

On the other hand, lumping the English, Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish in together as British is usually acceptable to all.

Sheesh - makes us sound like a touchy lot. We're not always.


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

Lydniz said:


> I always assumed it came from "taking the mickey," in the way that many common idioms have a swearier version (see also Murphy's/sod's law, for God's sake/FFS etc).


I've heard it's the other way around, in that Mickey Bliss is cockney rhyming slang for p*ss as in I'm going for a Mickey Bliss, which was shortened to I'm going for a Mickey.


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## Sam Kates (Aug 28, 2012)

Jeff Tanyard said:


> Your byline takes on a new meaning for me now.


Ha! I sometimes wonder if anyone ever gets that.


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## Joseph M. Erhardt (Oct 31, 2016)

Evenstar said:


> Ha ha, I tell my children the exact opposite.
> 
> My great grandparents who were aristos used to call it "the smallest room", but in our house that would be my office, and I don't allow anyone to pee in it!


I've seen it referenced as "the necessary room."


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## C. Gold (Jun 12, 2017)

Lydniz said:


> As I understand it, Great Britain is the geographical name of the island on which England, Scotland and Wales are situated. The one that looks like a man riding a runaway pig.


Now I can't unsee that image! It's more like a rat man with two moles on his head riding a runaway pig.


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## Evenstar (Jan 26, 2013)

C. Gold said:


> Now I can't unsee that image! It's more like a rat man with two moles on his head riding a runaway pig.


I see a reindeer riding a pig


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