The other British invasion: how UK lingo conquered the US

Post by rprwhite » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 7:19 AM UTC

rgblambda wrote: post #92

dekhn wrote: post #3

I once was talking wit some british people whilst in california and said "oh you can throw that garbage in the trash". They laughed and said it sounded really coarse, what did you do with it after? "It goes into a truck which takes it to the dump. Why, what do you say?" "We say you put your rubbish in the bin and the lorry takes it to the tip" which did sound more pleasant.

I'm fairly certain "dump" is the more commonly used word in the UK. There's the classic children's novel "Stig of the Dump" published in 1963. There's definitely cases where UK English has adopted a new word but American English hasn't. I was surprised to see the word "coupon" used in old UK literature. "Voucher" is the more common word nowadays. People would accuse you of being Americanised if you said coupon.

Post by rikroots » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 7:24 AM UTC

tbrownaw wrote: post #121

rikroots wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Note that my HN name is the same as my real name, without the space). On my first (and only) visit to Australia I got stopped at passport control. The security bloke took my passport and looked at it. Then kept looking at it, in silence. His face was straight and sour, but his shoulders were ... twitching. This went on for more than a couple of minutes until, finally, he looked up from the passport, stared into my e…

> the Wombat Joke The search engines tell me that there are lots of wombat jokes, but don't seem to know any that stand out enough to deserve a "the" in front.

Post by rprwhite » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 7:27 AM UTC

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #71

The article didn't mention what is by far my favorite British lingo: "faffing about". It's just so damn useful! I know that there are other phrases which work, but for whatever reason none of them really hit for me like "faffing about" does.

Post by yesco » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 7:31 AM UTC

o11c wrote: post #124

yesco wrote: post #27

Having grown up in the US with what I would consider a higher than average exposure to the early 2000s internet, at least compared to other peers my age, much of my ability to read and write actually came directly from social media, instant messengers and online games rather than books. This meant I often found myself struggling with spelling errors in English class which sadly resulted in deducted points from my ess…

Don't blame Webster. For a lot of the well-known differences, he actually preserved the original. In particular, the British added the "u" when French was in fashion, and likewise for "-ise" (in fact, "-ize" dates all the way back to Ancient Greek!) One thing that Americans do get wrong is misspelling "-lyse" which comes from a different Greek root, so should not follow the same pattern as "-ize". But even then, Webs…

Post by Ylpertnodi » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 7:43 AM UTC

fsckboy wrote: post #112

kragen wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, the word is generally "asshole", although not, for example, in my grandfather's rural West Texas dialect.

but, in certain quarters in Great Britain, arse is pronounced as if it had no R