211–220 of 255 posts
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I'm not sure about other Americans, but I'll sometimes say "swim[ming] trunks" if I'm specifically referring to male swimming attire. Otherwise, yeah, it's often "swim[ming] suit" or "bathing suit" here.
The Australian term "budgie smugglers" is really the best to use in this specific situation.
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.
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Rubbish / nonsense / drivel / twaddle / claptrap etc. Virtually unknown outside the UK.
I would say nonsense was quite common in the US. Otherwise agree (although I would get the meaning).
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Interestingly, both twat and cunt are far more severe (and aimed at women) in US English than they are in UK/Aus/NZ English.
'The c word' is still pretty offensive in the UK. Except, perhaps, in places like Glasgow. Interestingly c*t and quaint have the same etymological roots.
that is bizarre, if true, since my internal monologue cant chose the q word to replace the c
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Interestingly, both twat and cunt are far more severe (and aimed at women) in US English than they are in UK/Aus/NZ English.
'The c word' is still pretty offensive in the UK. Except, perhaps, in places like Glasgow. Interestingly c*t and quaint have the same etymological roots.
In British English the pronunciation is swapped. A "rooter" is the network device, and the "rahowter" is the woodworking machine.
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I think native speakers of a language have a more visceral reaction to things being spelled wrong or the wrong word order. So in Germany, people may not care so much. I grew up in the US but near Canada so I have maybe more exposure to written British English than most in the US (center vs centre). And I lived in Tanzania where I myself became very confused on how to spell words (grey vs gray?). But there are probabl…
As a Brit, I resent the "authorized_keys" in my .ssh directory. Due to the large number of U.S. internet residents, I don't tend to really notice many "Americanisms", though one thing that bugs me is when the U.S. doesn't seem to recognise that "America" is a a large continent and only one area is the U.S. However, even Canadians will refuse to admit that they are American, as in living within the american continent.
Perhaps the solution is to just unite all of the states of America, because I at least think the original idea was that the USA was a supranational government uniting little nation-states (precursor to the EU?), but maybe these more established nation-states won't want to join the union and become a "state" (even though I think political science would already refer to them as states).
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Rubbish / nonsense / drivel / twaddle / claptrap etc. Virtually unknown outside the UK.
twaddle is word I haven't heard for a long time (I moved from the UK to Australia 27 years ago). It's a great word!
I find myself using it nowadays rather sparingly and mostly in just one phrase (and its semantic derivatives): «all that twaddle […]».
As a Brit, I feel the cultural traffic is more from the US to the UK. But that is hardly surprising given the larger American population and outsize influence of Hollywood. Ps/ Americans, please keep saying "bummed". It is a constant source of amusement for immature Brits like myself.
I've heard a few Americans say "wanker" recently. It just doesn't sound right in their accent.
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Interestingly, both twat and cunt are far more severe (and aimed at women) in US English than they are in UK/Aus/NZ English.
Southern England seems to have more American sensibilities with respect to those words - but in Scotland "cunt" is pretty common and 99% of the time not gendered.