Two nations separated by a common language

Just wondering, as we have both UK and US bods on this board, are their any English terms we British people use or have used here which confuse you Americans? My guess is that's it's much less of a problem now than it used to be (certainly is the other way) but I'm just wondering.

What piqued my interest was catching an episode of that most middle of the road safe for your granny American TV series "Murder she wrote" which was shown mid afternoon here. In it a jovial old character had problems folding a map ad commented "oh this is all Bollocksed up".

Now here in the UK you would be very unlikely to usually hear the word Bollocks before the 9pm watershed. It seemed to me an American script writer might have nicked the phrase without realising what it meant. Ive recently heard Americans use Wanker in the same way. Not suggesting people here would, but just wondering if there are others out there.

Smoke a fag in England means 'consume a cigarette'. In America it means you're gonna kill a gay person!

Also I understand, the word 'coon' in America isn't as offensive as it is here. I guess that's why South Park had a few episodes featuring a masked Cartman as 'The Coon' superhero.

Never heard an American say wanker. I taught the word 'bollocks' & its many uses to some Brazilians & Argentinians while I was there, they'd never heard of it either (the English they learn is American-English).

julius seizure wrote:

Also I understand, the word 'coon' in America isn't as offensive as it is here. I guess that's why South Park had a few episodes featuring a masked Cartman as 'The Coon' superhero.

Actually it kinda is. In that episode they basically used it purposefully as Cartman's ignorance picking a term he thought referred to "raccoon", only to have him use the word over and over and over during the course of the episodes making him innocuously sound like a little asshole throughout. Although to be fair, America hasn't used "coon" since the 70's. But in the 70's it was used a lot. Particularly in exploitation films and of course... by racists.


I do have a few things to toss into the discussion, but i'd need to think about and rope together some of the examples I know of through the years.

One I know of is that American's basically know what it means when people from the UK call them "mate", but yet still tend to roll their eyes with the prospect that rather than referring to them as "buddy, chum, or friend", it makes it sound to us like they'd like to marry someone. "as in "mating" or "life mate" Especially when used towards someone in a sarcastic way during an insult like "fuck off, mate." :p

I also know of a heelarious mix-up between the end of the thing on a pencil that removes mistakes and a condom. Eraser vs Rubber.

Also, I've noticed that just the way American language seems to work, we tend to come off as uneducated, rude and crass with the way we talk, when in the UK, speech patterns and word choices tend to sound refined or at least selectivly proper.

But then again, I can't say that a big part of this isn't actually true. America is kind of a rude xenophobic culture and a bunch of flagwaving defensive redneck dipshits sometimes. :p I mean, after 9-11, one of the first reactions was for a dipshit country singer to make this irritating as fuck "we'll get i'm fer this hyuck" song capitalizing off the tragedy, just to get a #1 hit out of it. Not to mention the butt-hurt way our government and others reacts to a man like Julian Assage. I hate to agree with the stereotype, but eh...

Especially when us Americans tend to casually fuckin' swear a fucking lot an' shit like that and fuckin' shit like this all the fuckin' goddamn time an' dosn't fuckin' care if anyone fuckin' hears it, even shitty little mother fuckin' kids an' shit. :p (And even I do that.)

Think Jay from Jay and Silent Bob. Yes, a lot of us Americans are trapped in this fuckin' bubble of how we talk and can't seem to realize when we offend other fuckin' people around us in fuckin' public.

Maybe a good way to explain is is that it takes 4 chavs to equal one American redneck.

In South America they have issues with their various forms of Spanish. It seem to be mostly curse-words and really common verbs that switch places. Something like the word for 'have' in Chile means 'fuck' in Argentina, and 'have' in Argentina means 'fuck' in Bolivia. Argentine Spanish seems to have plenty of ways to call someone gay which, when spoken in a different Spanish speaking country, mean normal every day phrases.

In Spanish, if calling someone gay in an offensive manner they say 'he eats it'. One of the funnier phrases translates to 'he might not be gay but he walks around with a knife & fork in his pocket', which means 'he is gay as fuck'.

That's some wonderful stuff. :p

The Americanism which annoys me the most is the phrase "I could care less" when you mean that you don't care at all about something.

It should be "I COULDN'T care less" the way we say it in the UK. If you COULD care less then that means you care to some extent. Whereas our way you are saying it simply isn't possible for you to care less about the subject.

It just irritates the hell out of me.

Reaper wrote:

The Americanism which annoys me the most is the phrase "I could care less" when you mean that you don't care at all about something.

It should be "I COULDN'T care less" the way we say it in the UK. If you COULD care less then that means you care to some extent. Whereas our way you are saying it simply isn't possible for you to care less about the subject.

It just irritates the hell out of me.

I know, it's retarded.

I think it just comes from our obsession with simplifying slang into things that just sound like they were too lazy to add a contraction, and they don't care if it changes the whole meaning or inverses it to the opposite meaning. It'll still become part of the lexicon out of sheer laziness. Like ebonics. Most of it makes no sense, but we don't care. Compacting sentance'zkool. This is a nation in which de-evolving makes you awesome and it's the only way to fit in.

Also, double negatives. Those are very popular. Even though they make one sound like an imbicile.

"Ain't got no" "don't need no", "Ain't gonna not do dat"... ect.

Actually Mike double-negatives are a big thing in Bristolian English (if you can call it English). They also have numerous 'inbred-isms' in the regional dialect as I call them:

"Ar ma told I to put me jammers on"
(My mother told me to put on my pyjamas)

"Ar kid done a proper job on they kitchen like!"
(My friend installed my new kitchen)

"Ow bist me babbers?"
(Hi, how are you?)


For additional inbred-isms featuring other UK accents go on Youtube and type in 'Jeremy Kyle best of'

Yes...we don't all speak properly over here...me, I make the Queen sound common...

I'll clip they round that ear 'ole!

England really is quite remarkable for its regional accents and variations in dialect. You travel less than 50 miles in this country and you come across a different accent and some words or phrases which the rest of the country will never have heard of.

To some extent the edges are starting to blur now, thanks to faster communications and the media actually admitting that the North of England exists, and personally from having mates in Sheffield I've picked up a few Northern phrases I sometimes use, but the regional differences show no signs of going away, and I actually really like that. I don't want the whole place to sound the same.