Differences between USA and UK English.

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30 Jan 2014, 4:18 pm

A true conversation I had with someone when I was visiting Toronto many years ago.

Host: Please sit down over here. Sorry we don't have a chesterfield.
Me: You don't have a what?
Host: A chesterfield. We usually have a chesterfield sitting over there, but we had to get rid of it.
Me: You had to rid of what?:scratch:
Host: The chesterfield.
Me: You mean.. a couch?
Host: Couch?:scratch: No, the chesterfield.
Me Oh yeah, right… the chesterfield. :duh:

Okay, whatever. You can call your couch whatever you want to call it.

Max000
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30 Jan 2014, 4:40 pm

When I was in Japan I have to admit that I aways found this these signs to be rather rude: "お手洗い Toilet".

Oh yeah for Japanese people it was an Honorable Hand Washing Place. For us English speakers was just The Toilet. The sign might as well have said "お手洗い Shitter"

modernmax
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30 Jan 2014, 5:41 pm

That reminds me of when I was in Canada a couple of years ago, and they did call couches chesterfields or chesterchests. If I recall right, the places I ate at also asked what kind of soda I would like.

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jly88
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30 Jan 2014, 10:28 pm

Some of the ones I've learned from being an Anglophile and having an ex with a British family:

- soda/pop/Coke etc. vs fizzy drink
- meaning of "fanny" in American English vs. its meaning in British English (I can only imagine how much fun Brits must have with this one when oblivious Americans use it in the UK)
- truck vs. lorry
- bathrobe vs. dressing gown- learned this one from my ex one time when he was in the shower and asked me to grab his "dressing gown"- "gown" in American English typically conjures up the image of a fancy dress, at least for me, so needless to say confusion ensued. Not sure if "dressing gown" is an exclusively British term, but that was the first time as an American that I had ever encountered it.
- cookie vs. biscuit
- bathroom vs. toilet (my ex always says "going to the toilet" as opposed to "going to the bathroom")
- American usage of the word "bugger" vs. its British usage
- gas/gasoline vs. petrol
- zee (as in the letter) vs. zed
- traffic circle vs. roundabout (although roundabout is also sometimes used in American English)
- elevator vs. lift
- sweater vs. jumper
- mom vs. mum/mam
- American definition of "fag" vs. its British definition

Those are just a few off the top of my head, but I'm sure I know others...

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Murihiku
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31 Jan 2014, 5:14 am

A few more US/UK spelling differences that haven't been mentioned here:

Airplane vs Aeroplane (pronounced differently, but with the different accents they actually sound kinda the same)
Tire vs Tyre (for cars only; it's "tire" in all other cases)
Story vs Storey (levels of a building; it's "story" in all other cases)
Check vs cheque (anything to do with money)

I became fascinated with this in my high school Japanese class, when the teacher wrote the word 飛行機 on the board one day and translated it as "airplane", which no-one in our class had ever heard of. We assumed she meant "aeroplane", but she pointedly insisted otherwise. I later learned that it was a US/UK difference, and that they did mean the same thing. I've been interested in spelling differences ever since.

Of course, each English-speaking country has its own vocabulary. For example, "flip-flops" in the US and UK are called "thongs" in Australia and "jandals" in New Zealand. Other countries have their own words, too.

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31 Jan 2014, 7:35 am

Max000 wrote:

Okay, whatever. You can call your couch whatever you want to call it.

In the UK (and apparently Canada) a "Chesterfield" refers to a specific type of couch/sofa - it's not a general, equivalent term:

Quote:

In the United Kingdom, a Chesterfield is a deep buttoned sofa, with arms and back of the same height. It is usually made from leather and the term Chesterfield in British English is only applied to this type of sofa. The word chesterfield was used to describe a couch in the 1900s. The first leather chesterfield sofa, with its distinctive deep buttoned, quilted leather upholstery and lower seat base, was commissioned by Phillip Stanhope, the 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773). The word Chesterfield may now refer to any sofa, settee or couch with the button and quilting used on this particular sofa design.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesterfield_sofa#Types

Like this, more often in dark brown/red leather:

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Schneekugel
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31 Jan 2014, 8:12 am

Because of that many soda/pops tradition as well being used differently in other countries as well, that use english simply as general tourist language, I started to use the words "water with bubbles", when being in restaurants in foreign countries. XD

Anyway if france, hungary, italy, czechia, ..., everyone understands it. ^^ There are simply to many different traditions to translate it into english. Depending to the country, there are all kind of english terms used for a sparkling water. Some refer to it in english as Soda, some french waiter only understand it as "water with air" (because of the french term meaning exactly this and they translate it directly into english), for some countries out of the same cause its "mineral water".

If you think you UK and US people might have troubles using english, then I think you could do a comedy show, showing none native english speakers, having different mother languages, trying to communicate on english, while each of them messing the english with his own native language habbits. XD

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31 Jan 2014, 12:05 pm

Cornflake wrote:

Max000 wrote:

Okay, whatever. You can call your couch whatever you want to call it.

In the UK (and apparently Canada) a "Chesterfield" refers to a specific type of couch/sofa - it's not a general, equivalent term:

Quote:

That may be the UK definition of a chesterfield, but the Canadians I've talked to use the word to describe any and all couches, and it is the only word they use to describe it. Though I'm sure some Canadians probably are familiar with the US words for it.

ches•ter•field (ˈtʃɛs tərˌfild)

n.
1. (sometimes cap.) a single- or double-breasted coat with a velvet collar.
2. a large overstuffed sofa with high arms.
3.Chiefly Canadian. any sofa.
[1885–90; after an Earl of Chesterfield]

Chesterfield - definition

MadeUnderground
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31 Jan 2014, 12:49 pm

Max000 wrote:

MadeUnderground wrote:

I agree with the other poster about the soda/pop thing.

It really depends on where you go in the states. Everyone in my state calls it pop, unless you go out into rural areas, then it's refer to as soda.
I remember when I went to school in the east coast a lot of the students made fun of me for calling it pop instead of soda.
Then I went down south and everyone was referring to all soft drinks as "coke", that had me really confused.

Also, for folks who live out in the country in some parts of the Midwest don't use the word lunch at all.

Their meals are, breakfast, dinner and supper.

Yes, I grew up in the upper-midwest, and it was breakfast, dinner and supper, but not always.
Also people always called it "pop". But everybody knew it was short for soda-pop. So if somebody said "soda", everybody would understand it. They would also know right away, that the person was not a native of the area. From that point they would be considered an outsider.

Yes, this is why in my above post I said some people refer to it as breakfast, dinner and supper.

As for the soda thing, yes, I agree, I think everyone is aware that pop is short for soda pop. I think the kids on the east coast just enjoyed making fun of me for the same reason they enjoyed making fun of my pronunciation of the store Lowes.

I've noticed as of the last several years though, everyone has begun referring to it as soda in the areas they used to only call it pop. There are still a few people that call it pop but it's much less common now for some reason.

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31 Jan 2014, 1:18 pm

Max000 wrote:

That may be the UK definition of a chesterfield,

Of course - but that's the thread topic...

Quote:

but the Canadians I've talked to use the word to describe any and all couches, and it is the only word they use to describe it.

Except the person you spoke to in Toronto...

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31 Jan 2014, 4:45 pm

Cornflake wrote:

Max000 wrote:

That may be the UK definition of a chesterfield,

Of course - but that's the thread topic...

Quote:

but the Canadians I've talked to use the word to describe any and all couches, and it is the only word they use to describe it.

Except the person you spoke to in Toronto...

Sofa ... So good.

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Cornflake
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31 Jan 2014, 5:09 pm

*ba-dum-TISH*

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Misslizard
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31 Jan 2014, 5:13 pm

I've heard sofas referred to as divans,davenports and settes.

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02 Feb 2014, 3:19 pm

Having grown up down under, and crossed the pond (and the ditch) a few times, I've had exposure to several flavours of English.

-In Australia and NZ, "chips" can refer to either the American or British usage. In primary school, Mum might pack a bag of chips in my school lunch, or you could order chips and tomato sauce to go with your Kiwiburger at McDonalds.
-Growing up, I didn't like lemonade because it was fizzy. In the US I like lemonade because it isn't soda
-I once went to a large multi-storey shopping centre in Melbourne that had several inclined travellators. The car park was on the roof (although some centers have a garage underground instead), so after paying at the till, you would take your trolley up the travellator (instead of waiting for the lift) onto the roof, where you would load them in the boot of your car. Here in the US, people use shopping carts.
-In New Zealand, the bathroom is a room that contains a bath, a basin with hot and cold taps, and maybe a shower. The loo was usually in a separate room with its own entrance
-When I got off the aeroplane at Gatwick Airport, I was feeling a bit knackered
-When driving on the Interstate and other motorways, I sometimes wonder why other drivers don't use their indicators when changing lanes

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02 Feb 2014, 5:41 pm

Here is one of my favorites. UK "Half five", for US "Half past five" or 5:30. I guess half five is an abbreviation of half past five. But it has never made any sense to me. Shouldn't half five be 2:30? :chin:

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20 Mar 2014, 8:02 pm

I just learned that the definitions of Trapezoid and Trapezium are swapped in the US and the UK.
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Trapezium.html

Quote:

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the confusion of trapezium and trapezoid between the United States and Great Britain dates back to an error in Hutton's Mathematical Dictionary in 1795, the first work of its kind in the United States, which directly reversed the accepted meanings. Hutton assigned trapezium to "no sides parallel" and trapezoid to "two sides parallel" (Simpson and Weiner 1992, p. 2101).

After 1795 in the United States, the Hutton definitions became standard, while in the British empire, the Proclus definitions remained standard. Two hundred years later, the controversy remains. Country by country, region by region, and even teacher by teacher, the definitions of trapezoid and trapezium are commonly swapped.

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