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British English vs American English (1 Viewer)

I refuse to call them 'french' fries. If forced to chose between french fries and chips, I'll take chips. Stupid name.

 
cstu said:
I refuse to call them 'french' fries. If forced to chose between french fries and chips, I'll take chips. Stupid name.
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Then you will get a bag of the crunchy salty stuff in the US. English on either side isn't my first language, so having to deal with American because I live here and Brit because of some family over there gets very confusing. I've had to google some sayings before. Thank God for that!

I didn't get many right on this test..

http://www.5minuteenglish.com/mar25.htm

Here are some brit sayings I've heard and have had to google it..

http://www.bbcamerica.com/mind-the-gap/2013/12/03/10-common-british-expressions-baffle-americans/

 
Found a great site!

http://www.effingpot.com/slang.shtml

I have 2 weeks to freshen up on my brit vs american vocab as family are coming to visit.. Some of the terms are funny and should be noted if around elders, which I will be around some.. :o Otherwise it's fun with the younger generation.. :lol:

 
I saw an interview with Daniel Radcliff on line the other day. It was this rapid fire question type of thing where he gives the first answer that comes to mind as quickly as possible. When asked to name something uniquely American, his answer was the phrase "a whole nuther".

 
cstu said:
I refuse to call them 'french' fries. If forced to chose between french fries and chips, I'll take chips. Stupid name.
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I call them Belgian Fries because that's what they should be called considering they were invented there. Sometimes when I ask for Belgian fries at restaurants, the server will say something like "I'm sorry sir, we only have French fries", at which point I punch him/her in the face.

 
"Bloody" instead of damn.

As a English Premier Soccer fan, I have become familiar with the term "cracker". Used to describe something as being great or fantastic. "That was a cracker of a game."

 
i'm a fan of "sorted" and "holiday" and use both in everyday conversation.

"%^&*@!" is also a good one from the Brits.

 
butcher boy said:
cstu said:
I refuse to call them 'french' fries. If forced to chose between french fries and chips, I'll take chips. Stupid name.
Click to expand...
I call them Belgian Fries because that's what they should be called considering they were invented there. Sometimes when I ask for Belgian fries at restaurants, the server will say something like "I'm sorry sir, we only have French fries", at which point I punch him/her in the face.
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Good man.

 
Rodeojones said:
"Bloody" instead of damn.

As a English Premier Soccer fan, I have become familiar with the term "cracker". Used to describe something as being great or fantastic. "That was a cracker of a game."
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Agree with these. I've also become very familiar with the terms "####### Skrtel" and "Mignolet sucks #### through a straw."

 
There on a whole nuther level of swearing over there.

So I tell the swamp donkey to sock it before I give her a trunky in the tradesman's entrance and have her lick me yarbles!

 
Are you talking about upper class English? (the kind Mary speaks on Downton Abbey.)

Or Cockney?

Or Welsh accented English?

Or Irish accented English?

Or Scots accented English?

 
butcher boy said:
cstu said:
I refuse to call them 'french' fries. If forced to chose between french fries and chips, I'll take chips. Stupid name.
Click to expand...
I call them Belgian Fries because that's what they should be called considering they were invented there. Sometimes when I ask for Belgian fries at restaurants, the server will say something like "I'm sorry sir, we only have French fries", at which point I punch him/her in the face.
Click to expand...
Nobody claims they were invented in France. Frenched is a way of cutting. The original term is "frenched fried potatoes".

The more you know...

 
Here's one I didn't know until recently. Bung. Bung is apparently a British been meaning to send something, like bung me that document later and I'll take a look.

 
timschochet said:
Are you talking about upper class English? (the kind Mary speaks on Downton Abbey.)

Or Cockney?

Or Welsh accented English?

Or Irish accented English?

Or Scots accented English?
Click to expand...
And that only touches a small part of it. I do a lot of research on accents for voiceover work and it's amazing how the accents and dialects change from town to town. There's probably 20 varieties in England alone.

And the Queen's (upper class) English is called Received Pronunciation.

Two main sets of accents are spoken in the West Country: Cornish shows some internal variation and is spoken by locally born people who make up varying proportions of the population, while West Country is spoken primarily in the counties of Devon, Somerset, Gloucestershire, Bristol, Dorset (not as common in east Dorset), and Wiltshire (again, less common in eastern Wiltshire), as well as East Cornwall. However, a range of variations can be heard within different parts of the West Country; the Bristolian dialect is distinctive from the accent heard in Gloucestershire, for example.

The accents of Northern England are also distinctive, including a range of variations: Northumberland, County Durham, Teesside, Newcastle upon Tyne, Sunderland, Cumbria, and Lancashire, with regional variants in Bolton, Burnley, Blackburn, Manchester, Preston, Fylde, Liverpool and Wigan. Yorkshire is also distinctive, having variations between the three historic ridings (North Riding of Yorkshire, West Riding of Yorkshire and East Riding of Yorkshire).
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biscuits instead of cookies

hamper instead of basket

crackers instead of party poppers

still not sure what "sweatmeats" means.

I recently encountered these words when purchasing some products from a london company.

 
I post a lot on a British football board. I find myself typing in a British accent when I come back over to this board. Anyone else ever have that happen?

 
I always like when they say "Right!" before starting a sentence. And I always like when they use the word "lads" rather than boys. Also "tart" to describe a certain type of girl...

 
In American English, if you were to say "he just about escaped that zombie Grizzly Bear" it would mean "he almost escaped the bear."

In the Queen's English, it means "he barely escaped the bear."

A pretty significant difference.

 
I put it in my shed-yule to post in this thread, so I went up the apples and pears to grab my dog and bone, opened the FFA, and Bob's your uncle, I posted this.

 
Doug B said:
Brony said:
Brilliant
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Another word with huge range. I think this is used more these days in a negative sense than in a positive one.
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I briefly wrote a column for a UK photography magazine and the editor I sent the file to would always respond with "Brilliant!"

I was feeling pretty good about myself until I found out that's pretty much the equivalent of "thank you" in that context.

 
EYLive said:
butcher boy said:
cstu said:
I refuse to call them 'french' fries. If forced to chose between french fries and chips, I'll take chips. Stupid name.
Click to expand...
I call them Belgian Fries because that's what they should be called considering they were invented there. Sometimes when I ask for Belgian fries at restaurants, the server will say something like "I'm sorry sir, we only have French fries", at which point I punch him/her in the face.
Click to expand...
Nobody claims they were invented in France. Frenched is a way of cutting. The original term is "frenched fried potatoes".

The more you know...
Click to expand...
I bet if you asked the average person on the street where french fries come from they would incorrectly say France and as a Belgian, this offends me deeply. Just another instance of the French taking something inherently Belgian as their own.

 
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