British English and American English language quirks

[bushidomosquito]

I think it's funny how the Brits drop the H whenever they like and then sometimes add them on where there hain't one.

But my favorite is when a word ends in a and the next word starts with a vowel so they change the a to an er like "Champagne supernover in the sky".

I do like to pronounce "aluminium" the correct British way because it sounds so much cooler like adamantium  but you blokes still usually drop the ball on saying "titanium" correctly.
 

[Farmman]

For all our languages are very close below are a few examples from my personal file of being a Brit married to an American.
While in America:
You will get very funny looks for going into a shop and asking for 'a packet of 20 fags please'.
Your mother in law will think it is a perfectly reasonable thing to ask 'if you would like to see her new waterproof pants?'
As for the wife's grandma well she just asked me 'had I seen her fanny pack?'

All of this happened within the space of a three week visit.

Ok and now for the answers:
I think most Americans (but not in Houston) know Brits sometimes call cigarettes, fags.
What you call pants we call trousers. Pants are undergarments. So in my Brit brain my mother in law was inviting me to see her incontinent knickers.
Fanny packs are called bumbags here. A fanny, packed or not I do not wish to see the wife's grandmas.

[Whoey]

Lots of quirks... my wife's English is primarily British (she's Spanish) and I'm Canadian. So we get a mix of everything.

Living in the UK for a few years took some adjustment... even for someone from one of "the colonies"

I find it terribly funny that "H" for some people is pronounced "haitch" I think this is valid for some aussies and new zealanders as well?

The wife has a bit of London drawl sometimes... she tends to pronounce the "er" on some words as "ah" like mother(mothah) brother(brothah) father(fathah)

When my sister visited us in London she couldn't get over the word "innit" which seems to be used a lot by some locals... she kept saying "I don't understand... there's nothing in it?" obviously it's colloquial for "isn't it"

Love the Brad Pitt pikey character in Snatch... that's epic English quirks at it's best!

(warning, some mature language, and this is also a hilarious spoof... just wait for it...)

[nuphoria]

Good subject and one I think we've ridiculed each other over before, however, it doesn't get old

I still love the difference and have had a lot of fun living in the US... you can ham up the Brit thing and be an instant celebrity!

[bushidomosquito]

Fanny packs are called bumbags here. A fanny, packed or not I do not wish to see the wife's grandmas.

  That one always cracks me up. It's funny because most girls here wear the fanny pack in the front so it would make sense except that here fanny means the backside.

I knew a British guy that worked on my Volvo that wore one. He said he didn't care that men here considered them to be like a women's purse so I told him we called them fanny packs and he looked concerned. Then I told him what fanny meant here and he looked a bit relieved. Then I told him that that generally referred only to a woman's backside or maybe a gay man and he told me he just didn't care anymore. It wasn't until he pulled his cigarettes out of it once and I explained why he should never mention that he keeps his fags in his fanny. He didn't get it until I explained the American meaning of fanny again and he took it off and threw it on his desk and said, "Alright fine mate, you win. You Yanks got this language so buggered up a bloke don't stand a chance over here!"

He did mention that he caught some flak for it back home but he thought it was fine here because he'd seen fat American tourists wearing them all the time.

[Logrus9]

My friend is from South Africa where they are taught British English. The two best ones I remember, shopping for school supplies for her grade school kids and asking for rubbers (erasers) and telling a co-worker that her mother spent the day working on her pot plants (potted).

[Zed]

A lot of it is due to different parts of the uk , i feel that some countries think we all speak posh or like dick van dyke in chitty chitty bang bang  i came from watford near london so dropped H's and T's a lot, but i lived in belgium for nearly 3 years so i had to try and speak clearer english, oddly these days i say Water instead of waer  and Harry instead of arry , the english language is a odd one 

[mvyrmnd]

Compare, if you will, the meaning of the word "root" as used by Australians and Americans...

[Zed]

Compare, if you will, the meaning of the word "root" as used by Australians and Americans...

isnt it the part of a plant that is in the ground   

[mvyrmnd]

It's what one does to ones wife, girlfriend or mistress...

[Zed]

It's what one does to ones wife, girlfriend or mistress...

isnt it rooting them    banging is another but a bit crude  making love is more PC 

[Grant Lamontagne]

My mother is from Glasgow (well known for butchering the language!) and my father is French Canadian- also known for butchering the language, so it's amazing I can speak at all!

My mother told me a story once of touring some famous caves (I've no idea which ones) with a tour group, and she could instantly tell who on the tour was from the US and who was from the UK.  As they entered an area with many low hanging obstructions the guide said "Watch yer nuts!"

All the Brits covered their heads while the Americans crossed their legs! 

As for the a/er things on the end of words, it's not just the Brits that do that.  My good buddy Inky in NYC, who sounds just like one of the Sopranos (so much so that I assumed he was putting me on the first time I spoke to him and I made him say "Hey, where to Mac?" since he sounded like every NYC cab driver in every movie ever made!) does the same thing.  When talking about SAKs he always said stuff about Hikah's, Campah's and Tinkah's.  We also used to play a lot of Unreal Tournament 2004 together and one of the bots (computer chracters) that used to give him a hard time was Tamika, or as he would say, Tamiker.  I used to laugh and he had no idea why until I explained it all to him and then it became a running joke.

Def

[Syph007]

I don't know if its a brit or aussie saying or both, but it always seems odd to me when people would say "How are you going?", when I'm used to people saying "How's it going?"... not a big deal but its odd how phrases develop differently.

I can't abide the brit pronunciation of aluminum though, it has now and always will only contain 4 syllables in my world!   I think in brit dictionaries though the spelling is different and actually has the extra i ?

[Zed]

Watch your nuts  nut head    not sure about how are you going  ive never used that one, 

[Ashley]

My mother told me a story once of touring some famous caves (I've no idea which ones) with a tour group, and she could instantly tell who on the tour was from the US and who was from the UK.  As they entered an area with many low hanging obstructions the guide said "Watch yer nuts!"

All the Brits covered their heads while the Americans crossed their legs! 

                

[Whoey]

yup, aussies do the "how you going" instead of "how are you doing"

[Zed]

yup, aussies do the "how you going" instead of "how are you doing"

ive never heard this one (how are you doing) in the uk unless its a northern thing 

[Syph007]

yup, aussies do the "how you going" instead of "how are you doing"

ive never heard this one (how are you doing) in the uk unless its a northern thing 

My wife has been watching australian shows too much I think, thats where I hear it.

[Zed]

yup, aussies do the "how you going" instead of "how are you doing"

ive never heard this one (how are you doing) in the uk unless its a northern thing 

My wife has been watching australian shows too much I think, thats where I hear it.

  They say good day alot   

[Beerplumber]

Dialects a fun! When I moved to Alberta and asked staff "where 'bouts is the bar?" I got a lot of "bear? There's no bear here...". Nobody replies to my greeting of "howryat'day" either. A running joke with other bluenosers and fellow fish out of water is "take the car to the bar it's not far". Apparently it sounds like "take the ker to the bear". My grandmother does the warsh and slippy IS a word. Take that auto-correct. 


Stay multi my friends

[Gareth]

yup, aussies do the "how you going" instead of "how are you doing"

ive never heard this one (how are you doing) in the uk unless its a northern thing 

Don't know about the rest of the country but here "how're you doin'" is a pretty standard greeting.

It's very hard to generalise about British English, there are so many reagonal saying's and accents.  The dropping of the 'h' at the start of a word is actually a very South East thing and most of the rest of us manage just fine.   In many parts of England they seem to think that Whales and Wales are pronounced exactly the same way, whereas in Scotland we distinctly use the 'wh' sound.

[Grant Lamontagne]

Dialects a fun! When I moved to Alberta and asked staff "where 'bouts is the bar?" I got a lot of "bear? There's no bear here...". Nobody replies to my greeting of "howryat'day" either. A running joke with other bluenosers and fellow fish out of water is "take the car to the bar it's not far". Apparently it sounds like "take the ker to the bear". My grandmother does the warsh and slippy IS a word. Take that auto-correct. 


Stay multi my friends

Or if you are from Cape Breton....

Sgoinonandatey?

Translation:  What's going on and that eh?  It's a typical greeting

Def

[jerseydevil]

As for the a/er things on the end of words, it's not just the Brits that do that.  My good buddy Inky in NYC, who sounds just like one of the Sopranos (so much so that I assumed he was putting me on the first time I spoke to him and I made him say "Hey, where to Mac?" since he sounded like every NYC cab driver in every movie ever made!) does the same thing.  When talking about SAKs he always said stuff about Hikah's, Campah's and Tinkah's.

Nobody on the Sopranos had an accent.   I suppose there might be a slight regional difference from the way I sound, since they were supposedly from North Caldwell and I grew up to the south of them in...Caldwell.   I went to college upstate New York, and man, let me tell ya, they ALL had accents.  "Slat Ruff" for slate roof, "Krick" for creek, etc.  And for the record, the proper pronunciation of coffee is "KAW-fee", and the word "route", as in Route 80, is "root".  That last one used to drive them insane......

[Singh]

Allow me to translate a few British words into American English:

car park = parking lot
boot = trunk
torch=flashlight
lorry = truck
plaster = band-aid
chips= French fries
nick = steal
dual carriageway = freeway
lift = elevator
marmite = inedible sludge. 

[Heinz Doofenshmirtz]

Even in America there's a lot of regionalism in various dialects.  The classic stereotype is the southern accent, as well as the Noo Yawk accent... but there are subtle but distinct differences between cities like Chicago and Milwaukee and Minneapolis.  You see the same kind of thing between Los Angeles and San Francisco in California.  The most obvious one is that people from L.A. use "the" when referring to highways and sometimes to streets or roads.  They say "The 10", or "The 405", and so on.  In the past, in the SF bay area, whenever you heard someone say that, you knew right away they were from La-la land, although it's becoming more common in SF now.  I tend to do it myself sometimes, because my wife is from Los Angeles and she still does it regularly, although she doesn't do it as much as she used to.

Another thing regional difference here is that in L.A. there's a new dialect emerging, mostly in the hispanic/latino communities, but it's also starting to spread some, that's being called "Spanglish", a blending of both English and Spanish.  It's mostly English words substituted into Spanish, but it goes both ways. 

My stint teaching here in Iowa is almost over, and I've noticed some definite differences here from California.  I got a lot of comments the first couple of months here about my "California accent".  One thing I noticed Californians do a fair amount, but not most of the time, is soften the "sh" sound in a lot of words, so that "shut" becomes close to "sut" and the like.  The vernacular here is also subtly different than in California; here, soft drinks are "pop" and California they're "soda".  They also tend to call pick-up trucks "cars" here (mostly the farmers), I guess because for a farmer a 'truck' is more than just a pick-up.

Anyway, wish I had some funny anecdotes to relate about this, but alas, I don't.    I do find any kind of British or Australian accent in a woman's voice to be incredibly sexy though... but that's just cause I'm a dyed in the wool laid-back Californian. 

[Syph007]

Wait, I knew Brits called a flashlight a torch, but then what do you call an actual torch, as in wood wrapped in combustible material set on fire? 

[mvyrmnd]

Wait, I knew Brits called a flashlight a torch, but then what do you call an actual torch, as in wood wrapped in combustible material set on fire?

A torch.

Oh, and when an Aussie asks "How's it going", the 'it' is referring to 'your day'.

[Lynn LeFey]

I can only help with some variants from the Mid-West U.S.

In Pittsburgh, the 'ow' is a soft 'o' sound, so 'downtown' sounds like 'donton'.

In south St. Louis, hard 'o' sounds like soft 'a'. so the highway 64/40 is 'sixty far farty'.

In Southern Ohio, where I grew up, 'jeet' is a contraction for 'did you eat'.

And, for the record, you need a map to plot where 'soda', 'pop', and 'coke' are used.
http://bigthink.com/ideas/21360

[Chako]

Syph007, I believe that is called a "smurf".

EDiT: smurf = f a g g o t.

 

Canada is a real dichotomy in terms of all of this. Big influences from both the US and Britain makes for some interesting and mixed up spelling, and sayings.

Def, sort of reminds me of this super old joke about two east coaster fishermen meeting.


"Hiyabuddy"
"Loskipper"
"Binearlong?"
"Coplours"
"Cetchanenny?"
"Goddafew"
"Kindarthay?"
"Muddenbron"
"Ennysizetoom?"
"Cuplapowns"
"Hittinhard?"
"Sordalike"
"Wahchoozin?"
"Gobbawurms"
"Fishanonaboddum?"
"Rydononaboddum"
"Whatchadrinkin?"
"Screachenpinki"
"Igoddago"
"Tubad"
"Seeyaroun"
"Yeahtakideezy"
"Guluk"

[Beerplumber]

Nice chako, I'm not gonna lie I may have had that conversation before.


Stay multi my friends