Words across the sea

[moose]

Michael's Russell Crowe story got me thinking about the odd little differences of usage that have sprung up between British and American English. Not so much different words for the same thing (pavement/sidewalk) or orthographic variations (colour/color) but the tiny and hard-to-explain variations in usage, the things that would make somebody sound completely foreign to your ears.

For example what we in Britain would call a sports (note the final s) jacket in the USA would be a sport (no final s) coat. But somebody in the USA whose first interest in the newspaper would be the golf news, baseball scores and how the Dallas Cowboys are doing would be described as being interested in sports whereas his British equivalent would be interested in sport. In neither case could the usages be described as wrong yet they would instantly jar on the ear if heard the "wrong" way round.

Anyone have an explanation to offer?

[Razor]

Good Morning Moose,

Yes I see your point, There is a quite a difference between the Queen's english and Yankee english. To start with, most people from England speak at a much greater speed, then us rebel colonists. At times, a simple american will have some trouble understanding an Englishman/woman who resides in Northern England. The Northern accent...seems to have quite a bit more slang to it and the verbal speed is even greater than say that of a London accent. I lived with and still keep up with a girl that is from the North. Most of the time, I could understand her, but when she was excited, upset, or had 1 too many to drink, her verbalization would double. When I ask her to slow down abit, she exclaimes that, if You Steupid, Retauded, Yanks could speak propporly, then we wouldn't have this problom now would we?
That always got a laugh out of me.


Aside from greater verbal speed, there are also suttleties in nouns/pronouns too. A policeman is a bobby, A truck or van is a Lorrie, a candy store is a sweat shop, a bar is a pub, an elevator is a lift, a pharmacist is a chemist, a bathroom is a watercloset or lou, a dude is a bloke, to make a mistake is to bolix, a phone is a tele, a cell phone is a mobile. We say Fuckin' A , You say Bloody O. The list of differences is endless. I won't even start on the differences on how we pronounce some words that are spelled the same way. One tiny one would include the word herb. We leave the H silent, and you pronouce the H because yes there is an H in it.

Maybe, some of this could be considered part of an explanation.


Thanks, Razor

[MartinB]

Razorstrapp

I found what you wrote very interesting.

Its not only Americans who have trouble understanding people from the North of England and Scotland. There are so many words used from local dialects, on top of the strong accents. Sandra demonstrated this a while ago in a similar thread.

I'm surprised by what you said about speed of speaking - I think that the younger people are the faster they speak, whichever side of the Atlantic they live. American films are sometimes very hard for us simple Brits to understand because of the speed of the talking

The language difference can cause smiles at times. I have a friend who works for an American firm here. When she joined, the staff rule book, straight from the States, said that women were not allowed to wear pants at work.

Little did they know that British pants = American panties.

Regards

Martin

PS Was "sweat shop" a typo? I think you meant "sweet shop", a sweat shop is something entirely different!

[moose]

And it's a while since anyone in the UK outside a 1950s tv show called a policeman a bobby... Filth, fuzz, pigs, bizzies (confined to Liverpool I think)...

Accents indeed can make a big difference although in my experience many Americans cannot detect the differences in British regional accents (and of course the reverse is true with regard to American regional accents). Speed of speech is I suspect more to do with the urban/rural divide. Glaswegians, Berliners, New Yorkers tend to speak fast - those from rural Somerset, Bavaria, your far South-West tend to slowness of utterance.

Of course that's a big generalisation but I think it has some substance.

Originally posted by moose
differences of usage that have sprung up between British and American English.

Anyone have an explanation to offer?

George Bernard Shaw, the esteemed Irish playwright, once wrote in his play "Pygmalion", "England and America are two countries divided by a common language".

There are numerous terms, from food, clothes, shoes, slang that are different, even to the point of being grossly inaccurate, between the two variations of English.

This is not un-common. There is even a difference in the English spoken in Great Brittan. Gaelic and Welsh are totally different than Scottish which is different from "the Queen's English", which has numerous differences to the English spoken on the streets of some places in England (Soho, Glouster, etc.)

If you are curious, there are even books which treat the two as "foreign" languages and have a language dictionary. See Divided by a Common Language.

So, don't get "pissed" (irate in American; drunk in England) about these small items. We still put an "i" before "e" except after "c" even if you call a wrench a "spanner".

My coworker Bob, who is quite athletic, visited our company facility across the pond.

Can you imagine the faces when he cheerfully invited the whole staff to "come on out and shag some balls with me"...

Originally posted by cinnimini
Can you imagine the faces when he cheerfully invited the whole staff to "come on out and shag some balls with me"...

Your co-worked could get "nabbed" ("nicked", "pinched", "touched", "detailed", or in American "arrested") for being a "pimp" (it is the same meaning to both countries).

Of course, that is not saying very nice about an Irish girl.

[moose]

Shaw's "Two nations divided by a common language" quotation is well-known but fairly certainly not from Pygmalion (I don't have the play to hand at the moment). It was I think from a magazine article he wrote during the Second World War...

My original point was not so much about different rather archaic usages - you would spend a long time in the British criminal fraternity waiting to hear somebody say they had been nabbed, pinched or touched - that last one is I think confined to the 19th century - although nicked survives. In fact they would be much more likely to use an Americanism like busted such is the influence of American television. Now there's another thread...

I was wondering more about the way tiny idiomatic differences identify us so clearly. In my original example the presence or absence of one final letter "s" instantly and incontrovertibly identifies somebody as coming from one side of the Atlantic or the other... What else defines us so clearly and with such economy of means?

And on the subject of idioms - Australians are really terrible at them. Constantly get them mixed up...

Oh Honey, are you out there...?

Originally posted by brianj
Of course, that is not saying very nice about an Irish girl.

How'd you know I am Irish?

[Razor]

Yes Martin, that was a typo, Sweet shop would be prefered. Sweat shop would be most disagreeable. As for Panties, I thought those were Nikkers. For actual verbal commands that a Top would issue to a Sub...An english Top will say: Hold your position, a Yank would say: Hold still. Plus what is it about that Damned cane that Her majesty's subjects like so much?, I hate the cane.



Love & Spank Razor