Daily inoculations of The Financial Times and a weekly dose of The Economist have furnished me with enough material to offer a bit of language arbitrage, as it were, between the American and English versions of the mother tongue.
Without further fanfare, then:
- donut = doughnut
soybean = soyabean
glitters = glisters
jewelry = jewellery
there it is = Bob's your uncle
math = maths
finish [first] = come [first]
blocked = furred-up
whine = whinge
disappear = go missing
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - DrPat
Missed a great one:
Knocked her up = knock on her door (on this side of the water)
2 - Eric Berlin
I'm an American who lived in the UK for six months once upon a time, and I never ceased to be fascinated by the differences in language.
For example:
truck = lorry
flashlight = torch
trunk (car) = boot
And a great one, culled today from a viewing of Lock, Stock, & Two Smoking Barrels:
pub = nuclear sub
I love that cockney rhyming stuff... it's great.
3 - Eric Berlin
Oh, and of course:
Z = "Zed"
As in, "Zed's dead, baby... Zed's dead."
4 - Angela Chen Shui
The language difference between the two is interesting in Jamaica.
We use the English version of spelling some words, eg. neighbour vs neighbor but in the case of your doughnut example, younger people, including current primary and secondary students would probably be using donut now.
I'm more familiar with some of the US words/phrases in your list than the British ones eg. glitters, there it is, math, whine. There are only two persons who I can think of that I've heard say 'Bob's your uncle' and they both received their officer training in Britain.
Younger Jamaicans are more aligned with US culture. Years ago there were more Jamaicans living in England, mow there are more in the US and vacation travel is skewed more towards the US than England. Our local stations hardly British tv anymore but carry a lot of US sitcoms and movies. Almost everyone has US cable tv.
Thanks for your post.
5 - RJ
lift = elevator
bad teeth = we don't have flouride in our water like you bloody Yanks!
;-)
6 - Temple Stark
Are you sure about glisters? I lived in England for 10 years through my teen years in the 80s and never heard that.
I'm not sure about maths either, unless you mean in the "maths department" sense. .. Which you do :-)
Occasionally my editor will stumble over something and I'll realize it's British - and realize I never thought of it as either British or American.
Another is verb "to mail - verb - to post"
behavior or behaviour ... is the one I'm stuck on lately. Which is funny because I didn't do a tremendous amount of typing in England.
7 - Eric Berlin
A few cool health-related ones:
got sick = taken ill
rushed to the hospital = rushed to hospital
I dig the dropped "the" a lot, though I can't really explain why.
8 - Angela Chen Shui
Got stumped by this one today...
pedaling = pedalling
9 - Goban
cookie = biscuit
candy = lolly
bathroom/washroom = toilet (you don't take a both or wash in there...)
bar = pub
cab = taxi
apartment = flat
There are soooo many.
Glad to see some British and Australian actors being allowed by producers/directors to use their native accents in US movies and TV shows - even if the script uses the American form of the language... This helps the American public become accustomed to hearing different accents within the English speaking global community and will aid commmunication, whether by business people or tourists alike.
10 - x
mom = mum
11 - Hannah
Attractive= fit
Peaky= Hungry
12 - ashwipe
lu - bathroom weewee - pee
13 - gse
bees and honey - money
tom - ass beating ass kick
ex: im gonna tom ya wanker
lies - balockes
14 - Lisa
Much of the things in Britian are the same in Canada, I've noticed, so it's not a big deal for me. Everything's spelt the same as well. And it's to that end I don't understand why anyone can still not distinguish us from you yanks :p
15 - Dr Dreadful
Are you sure about glisters? I lived in England for 10 years through my teen years in the 80s and never heard that.
I'm not sure about maths either, unless you mean in the "maths department" sense. .. Which you do :-)
'Glisters' is the proper word to use in the saying which is often misquoted as 'all that glitters is not gold'. It's from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. You're right: no-one says 'glisters'. It's an archaism.
'Maths' is universally used where Americans would say 'math'.
16 - Christopher Rose
And as the root word is mathematics not mathematic, surely that proves that Yanks
don'tcan't count! lol17 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Just sent the link to this article to an Aussie who left for the British Army thirty years ago, and transferred to the IDF in 1970 - just before his unit was sent to Northern Ireland. He had been spoinling for action, and missed out in the Australian Army, and the British Army. Burt he fought in the Yom Kippur War and served in the reserves for a gazillion years.... He should enjoy this and be able to contribute if he is of a mind to.
And yes, Chris, it is amusing to see ads for "tutors for maths" on the buy sell list I belong to. Brits can't speak their own language, don't you know....
18 - Major Bob Mountwitten
With all due respect: This should be called, "How to Speak English". What you unfortunate Colonials speak is "Americano".
Although I see that the "Yankee" accent comes from Ireland, it has become the norm, merely by weight of numbers. You no spreakee Ingrish!
What is the English for Allumanim? Aluminium.
How do you pronounce "Missile"? Mistle.
One therefore might assume that Mistle-tow,
is a shoulder launched holly!
And, where is Okinsaw? (Arkansas),
and, Kaneticut? (Conecticut).
I can't hear any difference between "box" and "bucks". For example, "put it in the baaks", and "gimme twenny baaks".
Well, really! Who spreakee Ingrish now??
19 - Scott Hicks
for Major Bob, post no. 18. no personal attack here, but a bit more comment.
It seems to me that the exposure you have to Americano is from people that are either east coast or "yankee" centric in their accent. I personally work in contact centers so I do get to hear it all. Our common mother tongue has a miraculous group of accents. your re-spellings are hilarious to read at times from some points of view. I did learn by reading though that yank accents are irish in origin possibly, I had no idea, I have been trying to wrap my noggin around different accents in the kingdom for years now. If you get the chance to listen to southern accents and Texan accents you will find a big difference in some of the things you have provided example of. While your Ah Loo Me Num for Aluminum is spot on the T that you are inferring in Missile is innacurate and should be dropped though I am familiar with the proper form of Miss Isle instead of Miss eel. Shoulder Launched Holly sounds wonderful, I should do up a monty python style comedy sketch for that at some point. Kind of fits in with beehive hairdo drag queens in drag race cars. I have never seen Arkansas referred to with an O.. The proper form from people living there or in Texas and Louisiana area would be Ahr Can Saw like Noah's Ark. I found similar confusion when I visited a University of Arkansas branch campus in Jonesboro which is the NE corner of the state far away from Texas.. They pronounced it Tex Azz with a softening on the S like in Ass. This is extremely wrong.. It's simply Tex Us or Tex uz with a soft S still, this is due to the original form of the name is not English or Spanish or even French it's Native American Tejas or Teh Hahs .. (Kind of like Hass Avocado). I do agree with your Connecticut however the reasoning from the natives on their pronounciation is the two N on Conn.. kind of Like Cahn or a Con Man.. reminds me of Conn brass instruments (brand name) like Conn French Horn. the second C is silent. The brit pronunciation is more eloquent in most cases of all of these examples however sometimes the deference is to the way a native of that locale says something due to external reasons such as it being a word of non-English origin, as the case is with Arkansas and Texas. I am very surprised of your inclusion of box and bucks, This is probably just me being west of the Mississippi river. a Box is a Bochs and Bucks are like deer to Tuck in a buck in my pocket. This of course is coming from a guy that had trouble figuring out that a quid was a pound as when dealing with most british, cornish, irish, reserved, and public/cockney styles Americanos tend to be more proper in their usage just from our unfamiliarity with slang terms.
FYI most of my spellings in this post will be american spellings as that's what my spell checker is set to. I cannot properly write something in british style because a spell checker is not all that is needed for it to come out right, especially in business.
My contribution to the list of things:
Resume = CV or Curriculum Vitae
In common form of usage in deference to vulgarity:
Bullshit or simply Shit as an explicative (shit of male cow) = Bollocks (Male balls).
Now there, don't we all feel better now?
20 - Matt Owen
Here in Canada we have British spellings for everything. We don´t have the same expressions though. A lot of american accents sound weird to me, but then theres some that sound more or less the same to us.
21 - paige
what is an assbelonker?
22 - STM
No idea to be honest, but I've never heard it ANY English-speaking country.
Perhaps it's Dutch or Afrikaans, and now in usage by English-speaking south africans.
I reckon you can work out what it means though just by the sound of it :)
23 - Donni
I think that what you mean by "assbelonker" is an "ass spelunker" in the US, spelunker meaning one who explores caves, and it is an impolite way to refer to homosexuals.
24 - Rob
Don't Brits say "a-loo-min-ey-um"?
25 - Dr Dreadful
Almost. It's "al-you-min-ee-um".