UK BritishTerminology

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Fascinated by languages and cultural differences!

I like how in the UK collective nouns can be singular or plural but in America they are only singular.

Example:
'England are great at football'
'America is great at football'

I've always found the term "lorry," for truck, to be funny.

But don't you call lorries trucks, too?

Your "goods train" is our "freight train."

I also believe a person on your side of the Pond could be "knackered," whereas we can be "drunk."

Knackered also means f****d, but i think that's more of an old fashioned view and hardly anyone is offended by the word 'knackerd' anymore.

Knackered generally means tired rather than drunk.

I was thinking more of ways of talking when I started this ratger tgan words.

I can tell when an American writer writes an article for The Guardian for example because of the sentence structure and ways of wording things. Occasionally I need to re-read sentences in the NY Times because the syntax is so weird to a British English speaker.

Dinner, to us in NYC, was always the main meal, taken at 6 PM.

The noon meal was always "lunch." Then, in the 1970s, "Brunch" became a word, since people in those days used to wake up late, right before lunch--but actually wanted breakfast because they had just woken up.

In the old days, "supper" was actually sometimes a light meal taken before bedtime. Elegant people, especially in literature, used to "sup."

In the US (at least in the North), most kids in public school don't wear a uniform to school, though kids in Catholic School do. In some "inner city" areas, some schools (especially "charter schools") require uniforms.

I wanted, also, to give some of my experiences, of living in the U.K., and the differences in the languages:

I said something about "bangs" (short hair over forehead - "fringe" to a Brit), and my friend said "Oh, don't say that"----cuz, over there (at least where *I* lived, that means what our "knocked up" means, over here: "pregnant").

Also, I went to a shoe store, over there, and asked them if them had any slides, and they had no idea what I was talking-about, so I just had to wander-around the store, 'til I found what I wanted: "mules", to y'all. Now, that word is used over here, as well----and, quite frankly, I HATE it (I'm not really sure, WHY).

I remember when I first got my orders to the U.K., my aunt said: "Oh, THAT'S good, cuz they speak English, TOO, so I'll be able to come, visit you!!", and my friend said: "Oh, I've got NEWS for YOU----when I was over there, I asked a cop (bobby) where Piccadilly Circus was, and all I understood, was "left"! !". LOL My first major lesson, during the years that I lived there, was that y'all speak English, and WE speak American!! That was an eye-opener, I tell ya!! LOL

Maybe my WORST experience----and, I really shouldn't be telling this (LOL)----was in the airport, when I first arrived..... I was trying to figure-out how to get out of the airport, so I wandered around and around..... and around, and..... I'm thinking it was a half-hour..... Then, maybe, after the HUNDREDTH time (not literal), of passing the sign that said "Way Out", I stopped and said to myself "Way out, WHERE?", and then it hit me: "Oh----the way out of this fakakta airport!!". LOL

After I had lived there, awhile, and had bought a car, I had car trouble, and stopped along the road, to see if someone could help me (it's still like that, here, in the South - practically anybody will help you out), and a man did..... The first thing he said, though, was that he would have to go get a torch----and, I thought: "OMG, what's he gonna do, blow-up my car?"----what y'all call a torch, we call a flashlight, over here.

Your "give way" (road sign), is what we call "yield", over here.

Other interesting things, of note, between the languages, is often a Brit will pronounce something that ends-in an "a", like it ends in an "r" (ie, "America" is pronounced by some Brits: "Americur")----and, things that end-in an "r", are pronounced, by some, like they end in an "a" (ie, "daughter" = "daughta"). Also, often, accents are just put on different parts of a word (I can't remember, now - but, there was a word I heard on a British TV show, and it took me FOREVER to figure-out what they were saying - then, when I put the accent on a different part of the word, I finally figured-it-out - I WISH I could remember what it was, now)----or, if we pronounce something with a long vowel, for instance, many Brits, it seems, will pronounce it, with a SHORT vowel (ie, yogurt has a long "o", over here).

Almost nobody has an accent, when they sing, and you can't tell where they're from, until they speak----SOME do, like Country singers, but.....

Never heard "slide" used in that context.

I guess it's because I'm a man.