[HN Gopher] The other British invasion: how UK lingo conquered t...
___________________________________________________________________
The other British invasion: how UK lingo conquered the US
Author : n1b0m
Score : 118 points
Date : 2024-10-01 23:54 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| richliss wrote:
| The first non-shite thing I've seen from the Graun in years.
| dekhn wrote:
| 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.
| WrongAssumption wrote:
| Hmm, lorry takes it to the tip sounds dirty to me.
| benoau wrote:
| It is very dirty, and they just dump load after load right on
| the tip.
| rconti wrote:
| That reminds me of a phrase I've seen on signs in both the UK
| and in Aus/NZ (IIRC): "No fly tipping".
|
| I'm not sure if this is actually correct usage in those
| countries, or slang, but it certainly feels much more like
| slang, and felt virtually impenetrable, even to someone who's
| been exposed to a fair but of UK-isms in his life.
| Latty wrote:
| I wouldn't call it slang, it is the common way to refer to
| the act in media, and the government uses it, e.g:
| https://www.gov.uk/report-flytipping (they do define it,
| however, as you say, it would be unclear if you aren't
| familiar).
| rprwhite wrote:
| I don't think Aus/NZ would use it in this manner. It would be
| more likely to see "no dumping".
| klondike_klive wrote:
| I remember going on a walk in London with my dad when I was
| little and we ended up in Hyde Park (this is late 1970s).
| There was a sign that said 'no dumping" which he chuckled
| at and explained to me the slang term 'dump', as in 'to
| defecate'.
| mattlondon wrote:
| I don't think it is slang. I think it is a tad old fashioned,
| but any native speaker would understand it.
| rgblambda wrote:
| 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.
| stephenjt wrote:
| I've never met a fellow Brit who would say 'dump' instead of
| 'tip' in this context.
|
| I also call my discount-loving fellow Brit friend 'coupon
| boy' rather than 'voucher boy'!
| kitd wrote:
| I use both. I believe "dump" was more common but, for some
| reason, has been superseded by "tip". Or it may be
| regional.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > I've never met a fellow Brit who would say 'dump' instead
| of 'tip' in this context.
|
| It was always the dump when I was growing up (mid 70s,
| northwest.)
| Latty wrote:
| Tip is definitely more common everywhere I've lived in the
| UK.
|
| Stig of the Dump is set in an informal place people dump
| rubbish, if I remember correctly, which is where people are
| more likely to use the term (e.g: "what a dump"), but if you
| are talking about a managed place it is taken to be disposed
| of properly, tip is _by far_ the more common term I hear
| used.
| filterfish wrote:
| I _love_ Stig of the Dump. I read it at school and whilst I
| have very memories of my childhood I do remember reading it.
| I can quite imagine living in a dump /tip with old jam jars
| as my window!
| rprwhite wrote:
| Dump and tip have different connotations. The tip is where
| one deposits refuse/rubbish. Whilst a dump and is a
| pile/collection of unwanted things, not necessarily rubbish.
| It's a small but often important distinction.
| Lio wrote:
| Not always. Fly tipping is an unwanted problem. Most people
| would prefer you take it to the dump.
|
| I suspect might be one of those regional things like
| scone/scone[1].
|
| 1. It's pronounced "scone" and I will fight anyone that
| says otherwise!
| rprwhite wrote:
| Challenge accepted - "scon" is the only way! Why?
| Absolutely no logical reason, but it is, how it is.
| Lio wrote:
| "Scon" is, _of course_ , how "scone" is pronounced by all
| right thinking people but it does somewhat ruin the joke.
| ;)
| rprwhite wrote:
| As a less confrontational reply: from my point of view
| "unwanted fly tipping" is talking about rubbish. The
| concept of depositing unwanted, yet usable, not rubbish,
| things somewhere is not something that would happen
| (outside of the rather recent disposable culture
| context). As to your sentence (which is perfectly fine),
| the use of words avoids possibly confusing repetition.
| Atypical use would be preferred to "no fly tipping, take
| it to the tip".
| flumpcakes wrote:
| I consume a lot of American media and say "garbage" and "trash"
| often. My wife constantly chastises me for it and says I should
| say "rubbish"!
| Scoundreller wrote:
| iunno, the last time I asked if I could bum a fag, it was made
| very clear to me that UK lingo has NOT conquered the US
| throwup238 wrote:
| Same when I asked my neighbor to "knock me up in the morning."
|
| That was a very weird morning...
| dekhn wrote:
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knocker-up)
| OJFord wrote:
| Word of warning then -
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LDsfzJXGAo8
| card_zero wrote:
| > It was early in April in the year '83 that I woke one
| morning to find Sherlock Holmes standing, fully dressed, by
| the side of my bed. "Very sorry to knock you up, Watson,"
| said he, "but it's the common lot this morning. Mrs. Hudson
| has been knocked up, she retorted upon me, and I on you."
| ccppurcell wrote:
| See also: "ejaculation" used to be synonymous with
| "exclamation" and it's used heavily all across the Sherlock
| stories eg
|
| "The ejaculation had been drawn from my companion by the
| fact that our door had been suddenly dashed open, and that
| a huge man had framed himself in the aperture."
|
| For a list see
| https://thetaleofsirbob.blogspot.com/2013/07/watson-and-
| othe...
|
| If you mentally insert some commas some of them are really
| funny.
| 1659447091 wrote:
| > "The ejaculation had been drawn from my companion by
| the fact that our door had been suddenly dashed open, and
| that a huge man had framed himself in the aperture."
|
| Makes the "romance" books my grandmother would read sound
| like they were lifted from the Sherlock stories
| nprateem wrote:
| Whenever I read Dickens or whatever and there's a
| sentence like:
|
| "Stop!" he ejaculated
|
| I can't help adding a mental full stop to make 2
| sentences. Childish I know :D Makes for some strange
| additions to the story
| OJFord wrote:
| > "In the future" refers to a general or specific time that has
| yet to occur, and "in future" is used to mean "from now on". (The
| recent business jargon, on both sides of the Atlantic, is "going
| forward".)
|
| Funnily enough, I think 'going forward'/'going forward _s_ ' is a
| transatlantic difference?
| throw0101b wrote:
| How about the spelling of the word aluminium?
| defrost wrote:
| Can you say that out loud in a sentence please?
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Yeah, they at least pronounce aluminium like they spell it.
| It's not a "Leicester" piss take.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > It's not a "Leicester" piss take.
|
| It's a funny example but to be fair to the British that
| also happens in other Germanic languages and it also
| happens a hell of a lot more in Romance languages.
| happymellon wrote:
| Hopefully Map Men might help with this.
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uYNzqgU7na4
|
| TLDW; We have multiple different root languages in English
| city names, and you are only thinking one dimensionally,
| with the Roman Latin root. Cirencester is a good example,
| pronounced how you might expect while further north the
| town names get more germanic, and eventually Scandinavian.
|
| The video helps it makes sense.
| ClassyJacket wrote:
| We say it how we spell it and so do americans.
| swores wrote:
| Officially we do, but lots of people make it sound more
| like 'aluminyum", still distinctly British rather than
| American, but not said in a way that someone unfamiliar
| with the spelling could guess it was 'ium' at the end.
|
| I've got a fairly plain accent, fairly close to Received
| Pronunciation or BBC/Oxford English, Americans never have a
| hard time understanding my pronunciation, and even I sound
| closer to 'aluminyum' or maybe 'aluminiyum' more than a
| clean 'aluminium', though it still sounds much closer to
| correctly pronounced British word than to the American
| version.
| nullhole wrote:
| Spell it however you like, just don't make your tyres out of
| it.
| sbuk wrote:
| Fascinating story behind the origins of the naming of that
| element. Davey, the British scientist who first isolated it,
| originally suggested it be called _alumium_. Somewhat
| ironically, he referred to it as _aluminum_ in his papers,
| while it was a Swede writing in a French journal that spelled
| it _aluminium_.
| cardamomo wrote:
| How curious! (I feel that I've observed the Britishization of the
| word "curious" in my lifetime. As a child, it meant only
| interested, intrigued. Now it also means strange or bizarre.)
| pdpi wrote:
| Huh. Curiouser and curiouser.
| authorfly wrote:
| The meaning of strange-comedic-unusual-interested is...
| curiously... conflated in several languages (even being a false
| friend in some to others).
| madaxe_again wrote:
| This might be my fault. I was in Charlottesville for a few
| months about 16 years ago doing some work for a startup,
| hanging out in my off hours with a group of sorority girls who
| had worked for me in London when I'd been an impresario.
|
| I say (or rather, said, as this episode made me very conscious
| of it) "hmm, curious" almost reflexively when working on
| something. They aped me. They partied, they spread the meme.
| Within a week I was suddenly overhearing people in cafes and
| gas stations going "hmm, curious" and by the time I left town I
| felt like I was living in a poorly written Monty Python sketch
| (or perhaps a Lovecraft bit), as an epidemic of "mmm, curious"
| had taken over the townspeople and the UVA student body. The
| latter all then went home at the end of the year, towards the
| end of my stay there, and spread it to every corner of the U.S.
|
| When I went back a year later, they were all still at it.
|
| I guess this ties in with the whole "teenage girls introduce
| new language" piece a few weeks back.
| physicsguy wrote:
| I think the default understanding here (UK) would still be the
| same. I wonder if it's Sherlock making the other understanding
| more popular.
| carlmr wrote:
| Could it be due to "The curious case of Benjamin Button"?
| SturgeonsLaw wrote:
| As an Aussie I get a kick out of seeing Australianisms get picked
| up in the global vernacular. No worries seems to be increasing
| common outside of Australia, and cooked (to describe something
| that's fucked up) also seems to be prolific on social media these
| days.
| defrost wrote:
| No wuckers, coming soon?
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| I'm finna grab that phrase with glee, and stow it in my
| tucker bag.
| bigger_cheese wrote:
| I think more Aussie way to say that would be:
|
| 'I'm heaps keen to chuck that saying into the old tucker
| bag'...
| CTDOCodebases wrote:
| Yeah nah.
| psd1 wrote:
| That's heaps more Aussie, eh
| hi-v-rocknroll wrote:
| As an American, I always find it kind of ironic that Aussie
| colloquialisms and colloquialisms my Texan grandparents used
| overlap, likely because of being drawn from a similar pool of
| British & Irish expats some 100-150 years ago. "I reckon" is
| one that comes to mind first.
| TheBruceHimself wrote:
| Somehow the fact you chose word "vernacular" comes across as
| amazingly Australian to me. It's like Australians instinctively
| know that you need to sprinkle your sentences with some
| interesting vocabulary every so often. I'm probably making no
| sense to anyone but myself but I find the Australian manner of
| speaking to be sharp swings between the most basic brutish,
| often vulgar, english to the complete opposite. Like, you'll
| hear someone blurt out "Slow down you cunt, These pills they've
| got me taking take are praying bloody murder on my fucking
| knees" and then effortlessly it just flows into something like
| "That said it's not worth grieving or shedding too many a tear
| over. They've done a marvelous job at alleviating my various
| ailments. My wife's taking them to and it's all but cured her
| rheumatism".
| brailsafe wrote:
| It's not occurred to me in ages that "no worries" could be
| Aussie in origin, thought it was just a degradation of "don't
| worry about it" here in Canada, or picked up from the Lion
| King, but we do have a ton of aussies here, at least on the
| West Coast, so it seems plausible enough. I guess we just don't
| add "mate" as commonly.
| ajb wrote:
| I would guess it was popularised by "Crocodile Dundee" in the
| 80s, so that's long enough to feel native to a lot of people.
| brailsafe wrote:
| Yep, that could very well have been my first exposure to
| that saying.
| mikestew wrote:
| On top of Outback Steakhouse's (fake-Australian U.S.
| restaurant chain) old tag line: "no worries, just right."
| pimlottc wrote:
| It was actually "no rules, just right"
| mikestew wrote:
| Yeah, I sure got that one wrong. I blame a lack of
| watching commercial television these past few years.
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| For real life?
|
| (Bluey. The single greatest contribution to exporting
| Australian culture.)
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Juice Media's "honest government ads" are a goldmine for
| Aussie-speak, "colossal shitfuckery" so perfectly nails the
| dank machinations of Australian tech and politics.
| defrost wrote:
| Now with added US colossal shitfuckery:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHuMjIhS6t0
| bitwize wrote:
| "No worries" is _the_ main phrase I brought back from visiting
| Australia in 2013. "no worries m8" is a common response from
| me on $CORPORATE_CHAT when a coworker thanks me. The other one
| I use occasionally is "yonks".
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Unfortunately "not here to fuck spiders" hasn't really caught
| on, despite my best efforts.
| malshe wrote:
| The article starts off with "run-up." What's the origin of that?
| I have heard of run-up in cricket.
| defrost wrote:
| According to the O.E.D. it's been used in the US in a stock
| market context since 1935.
|
| As an example of how seriously the British take their language,
| here's a _shortened_ entry for the phrase "run-up".
| 1.The act of running up to a certain point; esp.
| 1.a Coursing. The race between two greyhounds up to the first
| turn or wrench of the hare. 1834 Thacker
| Courser's Comp. I. 134 One dog is sometimes behind the other in
| the first run up to the hare 1.b The act of taking
| or sending a ball up to the goal or into a position for final
| play. Also attrib. Chiefly in Golf. 1897
| Outing XXX. 484/1 Foster.., after a clean run from 'way down
| the field, puts the ball through the uprights... The excitement
| of the run-up has been intense. 1.c A run made in
| preparation for jumping, throwing, etc., in Athletics; in
| Cricket, the bowler's approach to the bowling crease before
| delivery. 1897 Encycl. Sport I. 52/2 Pace in
| the run-up supplies the impetus; spring enables the jumper to
| lift himself into the air. 1.d = run-in | RAF
| lingo. 1942 R.A.F. Jrnl. 27 June 8 Another
| Stirling and a Wellington adopted almost identically the same
| run-up as ourselves. 1.e A period of time or
| series of occurrences leading up to some important (freq.
| political) event; an action which prepares the way for one on a
| larger scale. 1966 Sunday Times 20 Nov. 48/2
| The Petit Palais show offers, also, invaluable evidence in its
| drawing section of the ways in which Picasso manoeuvred during
| the crucial run-up to the 'Demoiselles d'Avignon'.
| 1968 Listener 5 Dec. 761/1 The run-up to the election of
| Oxford's new Poetry Professor has aroused a good deal of
| mirthful interest 2 Bookbinding. (See
| quot. 1875.) Also attrib. 1875 Knight Dict.
| Mech. 2004/2 Run-up, a fillet-mark which runs from head to tail
| on the back, without mitering with the horizontal cross fillets
| on the panels. 1880 J. W. Zaehnsdorf Bookbinding
| 131 With a 'run-up' back, the edge of the leather round the end
| papers is to..have a roll run round it in gold.
| 3 On the U.S. Stock Market, a rapid increase in the price or
| value of a commodity. Now also in gen. use.
| 1935 Sun (Baltimore) 13 Apr. 17/8 Corn advanced to 1 to 13/4
| cents a bushel, but cotton was reactionary after Thursday's
| run-up. 1942 Ibid. 1 Oct. 21 Laclede gas preferred
| had a runup of 61/2 points.
| bigger_cheese wrote:
| As an Aussie cricket comes to mind, you run-up from a standing
| start before releasing the ball.
|
| I think equivalent for US would be "Wind-up" (at least I think
| pitchers in Baseball performs a wind-up before releasing the
| ball)
| wiredfool wrote:
| It's when you put your bike on your shoulder and run up the too
| steep/muddy to ride hill/stairs/obstacle.
| zdw wrote:
| I've never been so chuffed to read an article...
| silisili wrote:
| There's two I like in particular as an American, but mostly
| because their counterparts are ruined.
|
| 'Good on you' is the biggest one. 'Good for you', especially in
| text, to me comes across as bitter or sarcastic because of how
| often it's used that way, whereas the other doesn't.
|
| 'Mate', while I don't use it, is a solid word. We have buddy,
| pal, guy, etc, but again, they can each have their own negative
| connotation. Maybe 'mate' does too, but it always seemed like a
| neutral, friendly word.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > Maybe 'mate' does too, but it always seemed like a neutral,
| friendly word.
|
| It can be negative, definitely, if said with the right
| intonation.
| twic wrote:
| I think in both British and Australian English, it's what you
| call someone when you are a hair's breadth away from
| walloping them.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Mate can be used in the same negative diminutive way "buddy" or
| "pal" might be used in the US.
| TheBruceHimself wrote:
| Brit living in the US here. Despite being here 7 years now i'll
| every so often have an American point out how odd something I say
| is. Recently it was me saying "I'll need to head home and get my
| swimming costume before heading to the pool". To which the
| response was "wow wow wow, "swimming costume"? Really? A costume.
| Not a uniform but a costume; something you wear for halloween?
| OMG that's adorable" Turns out Americans say "swim suite" :).
| ta1243 wrote:
| I was disappointed that your friend wasn't assuming skinny
| dipping to be honest
|
| Personally I hate swimming wearing clothes, feels so unnatural,
| and then you're dripping wet when you get out
| anthomtb wrote:
| On holiday in Whistler back in 2019, I had a brief conversation
| with an Englishman in the hotel elevator.
|
| A few days later, he recognizes me outside the hotel but I am
| noticeably slow to recognize back and he mentions "we chatted
| on the lift". I fake remembering while desperately searching my
| memory for the event of riding the chairlift with this English
| guy.
|
| An hour later I remember that in the UK, "lift" == "elevator".
| Me, being North American and having spent plenty of time in ski
| towns, always associates "lift" with "chairlift".
| asr wrote:
| Hah! But if you say "on holiday," I would have expected you
| to know "lift."
|
| (or is there a region in the US where this is common?
| Everyone I know would say "on vacation," but the US is very
| regional.)
| rconti wrote:
| Yeah, but in a ski town I could see making the same
| mistake.
| fsckboy wrote:
| in warehouse/trucking situations, lift is pretty common in
| the US
| penneyd wrote:
| Turns out they actually say swim suit ;)
| robinsonrc wrote:
| A swim suite sounds even more fancy than a costume
| a_e_k wrote:
| 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.
| inkyoto wrote:
| Since male swimming attire comes in different shapes ( _ahem_
| designs), I hear people use <<swimmers>> more and more.
|
| Save for one singular design which, it would seem,
| distinguishes itself with such remarkable uniqueness as to
| warrant the bestowal of its very own appellation: <<budgie
| smugglers>> (AusE).
| a_e_k wrote:
| Okay, now that last one is just hilarious.
| noelwelsh wrote:
| The Australian term "budgie smugglers" is really the best to
| use in this specific situation.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| Surely that refers specifically to the "brief" style,
| whereas I'd expect "trunks" to have a bit of thigh
| coverage.
| noelwelsh wrote:
| Budgie smugglers does indeed only apply to the brief
| style, but those who like banter and wordplay will try to
| work it into any conversation involving male swimwear.
| E.g. "Fetch your budgie smugglers fellas, we're going to
| the beach", or "sorry ladies, my budgie smuggling days
| are over. It's boardies for me."
| farrelle25 wrote:
| Ireland: Swimming togs (!)
| Lio wrote:
| Yeah that works in the UK too, although my family's Irish
| so I may have picked it up from there.
|
| As a kid I found the Irish usage of "press" for cupboard
| and "runners" for trainers/sneakers confusing as hell.
| siquick wrote:
| I've lived in Australia for nearly 15 years and still say
| "swimming costume" - the locals ridicule me and call me for
| posh for not saying "bathers".
| twic wrote:
| You mean your budgie smugglers?
| fsckboy wrote:
| > _swimming costume_
|
| when i was a lad, my mother always said "swimming togs"
|
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/togs
| itohihiyt wrote:
| I never say: swimming costume. I call it a: swimming cozzie.
| Wonder what you American friends would make of that?
| lelanthran wrote:
| > Turns out Americans say "swim suite"
|
| Maybe "swim suit"? "Suite" is something else, no?
| yesco wrote:
| 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 essays.
|
| I eventually came to realize many of my spelling "errors" were
| actually due to my exposure to the British spellings for many
| common words I would see online, like color/colour or
| behavior/behaviour for example. Unfortunately my teachers were a
| little unreasonable about this and would still deduct points when
| I pointed this out...
|
| To this day I still inconsistently use all spelling variants, and
| curse Noah Webster for his half assed attempt at regional
| spelling reform. In practice my phone just auto corrects them
| without me noticing though.
| dataflow wrote:
| > Unfortunately my teachers were a little unreasonable about
| this and would still deduct points when I pointed this out...
|
| I can see the teacher's perspective here. I don't think it's
| unreasonable for teachers to mark this down, though I don't
| think your request to get back the points was unreasonable
| either.
|
| Communicating effectively with your particular audience (the
| local American audience one in this case) is arguably a skill
| they're trying to teach you. Using language constructs that are
| unnatural for your audience can distract them and disrupt their
| flow. You don't want your reader to see "enrol" and spend the
| next 5-10 seconds pondering if you're illiterate or unable to
| run a spellchecker instead of spending that time digesting your
| actual point. This friction gets in the way of your point, thus
| ultimately hurting your own cause in addition to wasting their
| time. So when you keep doing that on your assignments and
| exams, you're effectively showing that you haven't mastered
| this skill -- and so it's not unreasonable for your grade to
| reflect that.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| its also entirely inconsequential after school, so do your
| job and follow the district mandates
|
| but for the rest of us, the point of language is to convey a
| shared concept, and if the sender and receiver are doing that
| then mission accomplished
| carstenhag wrote:
| If you live in the US, I agree that you must use American
| English.
|
| But even us people that live outside of the US/UK/related
| countries often got errors marked, because we used the wrong
| regional variant... In Europe, British English is used as a
| reference point, but I had a similar problem as GP.
| dataflow wrote:
| > If you live in the US, I agree that you must use American
| English.
|
| Why though? I think you missed my point with the rationale
| for this. See below.
|
| > But even us people that live outside of the US/UK/related
| countries often got errors marked, because we used the
| wrong regional variant... In Europe, British English is
| used as a reference point, but I had a similar problem as
| GP.
|
| That makes perfect sense though? The point wasn't "act
| American because you're in America", the point was "they're
| trying to teach you to communicate with {whatever audience
| they believe you will most often find yourself needing to
| cater to in the future}". Obviously in Europe they deem
| that to be British-English speakers. In America it'd
| obviously be American-English. etc.
| laurencerowe wrote:
| As a computer science student in England we were told we
| should use 'program' rather than 'programme' since that
| was the convention in our subject.
|
| If I remember correctly BBC Basic accepted COLOUR as well
| as COLOR keywords to be more approachable to primary
| school children who were native English speakers.
| Kwpolska wrote:
| Dictionaries have also accepted the shorter spelling when
| talking about computer programs: https://dictionary.cambr
| idge.org/dictionary/english/program && https://www.oxford
| learnersdictionaries.com/definition/englis...
| pasc1878 wrote:
| Surely for the BBC Minor COLOUR was always the correct
| way.
|
| It was a bad show that they allowed COLOR as well.
|
| As each keyword was saved as a code - did COLOR and
| COLOUR really map to two different codes?
| zimpenfish wrote:
| According to https://www.ncus.org.uk/dsbbcoms.htm, they
| both map to &FB
| extraduder_ire wrote:
| To me, a program is on a computer, a programme is
| broadcast on TV.
| rjsw wrote:
| > If you live in the US, I agree that you must use American
| English.
|
| Unless you are writing International Standards. ISO
| requires British English spellings in documents.
| dullcrisp wrote:
| Also if you're invited to tea with the Queen
| cherryteastain wrote:
| I hear conversations with her are not as lively anymore
| mpclark wrote:
| They absolutely are! She just looks a little different.
| donohoe wrote:
| Unlikely, but not impossible.
| gomerspiles wrote:
| My teachers only commented/deducted if I mixed spellings in
| a single essay. If a teacher can't teach someone who uses
| either variant they probably have a stark educational
| deficit themselves.
| em-bee wrote:
| when i was an exchange student i was told that some
| students would have problems coming back because their
| english teachers would not accept the american english they
| would learn during the exchange year and that might reflect
| on their grades. fortunately i had an understanding teacher
| who didn't do that, but who was happy to see my english
| dramatically improved.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Which is why as European, I have my English dictionary set
| to UK English.
| Xophmeister wrote:
| > In Europe, British English is used as a reference point
|
| Anecdotal counterpoint, but... I'm a British English
| speaker, but many of my colleagues are Continental
| Europeans, for whom English is their second language. Part
| of my job involves copy editing and, almost without
| exception, their output is written in American English.
| Detrytus wrote:
| Is it because Microsoft Word default spellchecker
| settings?
| tmtvl wrote:
| No, it's due to the ovewhelming exposure to media from
| the U.S., mere spellcheckers oughtn't interfere with
| 'underground' vs 'subway', 'film' vs 'movie', 'flat' vs
| 'apartment', and so on and so forth.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Communicating effectively with your particular audience
| (the local American audience one in this case) is arguably a
| skill they 're trying to teach you_
|
| Please find me the numpty who can't distinguish colour from
| color.
|
| > _don 't want your reader to see "enrol" and spend the next
| 5-10 seconds pondering if you're illiterate or unable to run
| a spellchecker instead of spending that time digesting your
| actual point_
|
| Fair point. At the very least, one should be aware of the
| different usages.
| dataflow wrote:
| > Please find me the numpty who can't distinguish colour
| from color.
|
| Not sure what you mean by "distinguish". But just because
| you understand something that doesn't mean it can't slow
| you down, distract you, or be detrimental some other way.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _just because you understand something that doesn 't
| mean it can't slow you down, distract you, or be
| detrimental some other way_
|
| Sure. I'm just sceptical that errant signal isn't lost in
| the background of the American dialect's regional
| heterogeneity.
|
| If I ask someone in San Francisco "what colour pop" they
| want, the friction won't come from the "u."
| Izkata wrote:
| A better example for why regionality matters: what does
| "pants" refer to?
| lupusreal wrote:
| That's what a tired dog does.
| gerdesj wrote:
| No, they only pant. -----------------
|
| OK, at this point I really need to explain what on earth
| is going on here:
|
| "what does "pants" refer to?" - pants refers to trousers
| and pants refers to underpants and of course pants refers
| to pants as a noun. Pants also refers to heavy breathing
| as a verb.
|
| I have absolutely no idea how we ended up with this
| situation, where pant(s) is a noun and a verb and really
| odd. I'm going to blame Britain, US and Italy (via Latin)
| and not necessarily in that order.
|
| "A dog pants when they are hot but they only pant when
| they are hot."
|
| Note how I end up slapping an extra s in for no apparent
| reason - actually, it is when I don't put a verb in front
| of that word. So: "a dog will pant" ... "a dog pants".
| The extra s on the word seems to make it a verballish
| thing.
|
| On the bright side this is why phishing emails always
| look a bit wank.
| marky1991 wrote:
| "will pant" uses the infinitive, it's not conjugated at
| all. "He/she/it pants" is the third person singular
| conjugation.
| smcin wrote:
| > _how we ended up with this situation, where pant(s) is
| a noun and a verb and really odd. I 'm going to blame
| Britain, US and Italy (via Latin) and not necessarily in
| that order._
|
| Because (in English) adding -s(/-es) makes plurals of
| (most regular) nouns, and also makes 3rd person singular
| declension of (most regular) verbs.
|
| Other examples of noun+verb collocations: books, shows,
| scents, raises, views, votes, comments, dates, dogs,
| aims, bugs, ends, grades, hunts, launches, lifts, marks,
| moves, posts, rains, rates, records, rows, sets, signals,
| tracks... Examples with -es: searches, watches, punches
|
| (This is going to be much more common in English than
| Italian/Spanish/Latin because English uses -s/-es for
| both nouns and verbs.)
| kitd wrote:
| Eats, shoots and leaves?
|
| https://g.co/kgs/UzZtYRr
| smcin wrote:
| Also: https://www.amazon.com/Eats-Shites-Leaves-English-
| Shite/dp/1...
| singleshot_ wrote:
| Guy from jerkcity.
| inkyoto wrote:
| Rubbish / nonsense / drivel / twaddle / claptrap etc.
| Virtually unknown outside the UK.
| filterfish wrote:
| 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!
| inkyoto wrote:
| It is a lovely word, indeed, and it is undeservedly
| heavily underutilised, hands down.
|
| I find myself using it nowadays rather sparingly and
| mostly in just one phrase (and its semantic derivatives):
| <<all that twaddle [...]>>.
| ghaff wrote:
| I would say nonsense was quite common in the US.
| Otherwise agree (although I would get the meaning).
| inkyoto wrote:
| It is all pants to me (I was actually <<translating>>
| _pants_ into Universal English).
| d1sxeyes wrote:
| For what it's worth, although this is often considered an
| Americanism, a lot of regions of the UK (particularly in
| the North) have consistently used "pants" to mean
| trousers.
|
| https://www.ourdialects.uk/maps/clothing/
| Anon1096 wrote:
| Colour and realise I suspect most American readers would be
| able to understand just fine. But you start writing tyre,
| kerb, and gaol, and there will be real reading
| comprehension issues that start arising. We have
| standardized spellings for a reason and that's what schools
| are there to teach.
|
| And this is just spelling, not even going into words that
| have different meanings in the US vs UK like pants and
| lemonade.
| changing1999 wrote:
| Interestingly, recently there is a push in the US to
| normalize African-American (for the lack of a better
| name) grammar and spelling, e.g. using "do" in place of
| "does". Wonder if this includes normalizing the usage of
| British spelling as well.
| justin66 wrote:
| > normalize African-American (for the lack of a better
| name) grammar and spelling
|
| The name is "Ebonics." It's had its own name since the
| seventies, although the push to "normalize" it peaked in
| the nineties.
|
| > Wonder if this includes normalizing the usage of
| British spelling as well.
|
| No.
| changing1999 wrote:
| Thanks, I haven't heard of Ebonics before. Looks like at
| this point in time its usage is becoming discouraged (the
| term, not the phenomenon it describes).
| justin66 wrote:
| Like so many things that become objects of policy
| argument in the United States, the term describing it
| became overloaded to the point where it was rendered less
| useful. You don't hear the term so much now.
|
| The term reached peak use around the time (I'm going from
| memory here as far as timeline) some educators began
| exploring the concept of teaching kids who spoke Ebonics
| at home with some of the same techniques they would use
| to teach English as a second language students. America
| reacted with the focus, intelligence, and empathy it
| always does when issues of education and race are brought
| up.
| changing1999 wrote:
| Yeah I am starting to notice that (not from the US
| originally) re: how America reacts to this topic. Also,
| it looks like even the term "ebony" itself in the context
| of African-American culture is considered archaic.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| I love this example. I felt ick at realise but yeah,
| still understood it. Tyre I thought no way, that can't be
| tire. Kerb, wait, like curb?? And then gaol I think my
| tongue tied itself in knots and gave up trying to imagine
| what it might actually mean lol.
| a_e_k wrote:
| Archaic spelling of "jail". Read it with a soft g and a
| long a and it makes a little more sense. There's also the
| derivative "gaoler".
|
| (American here, but that's one I've come across before.)
| jimkleiber wrote:
| My goodness, I never would have guessed. Thank you for
| sharing.
|
| Also, if gaol can have a soft g, then so can gif? :-)
| onemoresoop wrote:
| I personally don't care much for small misspellings and they
| add zero friction to my reading, I'm more interested in the
| message and how it is delivered to some extent. What adds
| friction are some styles of writing which diverge too much
| away from the essential.
| Sakos wrote:
| In Germany, I wouldn't get marked down for using the wrong
| spelling, because it just didn't matter. Behavior? Behaviour?
| Who gives a fuck, it's all the same. It's ridiculous that
| these regional variations are somehow significant that it
| warrants points being taken away.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| 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 probably still some words that will make me
| think the person is not American, like organisation with an
| s. I read it and it viscerally feels off.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| 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.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| I'm not sure if you did it intentionally but I saw
| "recognise" and felt a slight electric shock :-)
|
| 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).
| 1659447091 wrote:
| > I eventually came to realize ...
|
| At least you use the "ize" suffix, so all else should have been
| forgiven!
|
| I prefer the "u" in colour/behaviour as I find it more
| aesthetically pleasing. But I absolutely despise the "ise"
| spelling of realize (realise) and am not entirely sure why.
| Though, I vaguely remember spelling all words with "ise" and
| getting some wrong some right and not understanding why (I'd
| learn later I'm dyslexic so I chalked it up to that and called
| it a day)
| hanniabu wrote:
| I can never remember if I should use grey or gray
| kirubakaran wrote:
| I prefer #666
| jcbrand wrote:
| The first vowel tells you from which country it comes.
|
| Grey is UK English, so think "e" for England. Gray is
| American English, so think "a" for America.
| ghaff wrote:
| Somewhat oddly, "grey" has ended up pretty normalized in
| the US so either works. There are a few other examples;
| theatre comes to mind. In a way that lots of other British
| spellings really have not.
| diggan wrote:
| > I can never remember if I should use grey or gray
|
| Become a web/CSS developer and it won't matter anymore.
| o11c wrote:
| 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, Webster didn't
| _invent_ the error.
| yesco wrote:
| To me it's about consistency. I don't really care what is or
| isn't "correct", I care that the spelling can sometimes be
| different depending on the region. It would be one thing if
| there was some unified body for English, like the French
| have, but we don't, so it's just another competing standard.
|
| Ultimately I think changes like this should be more
| grassroots than top down whims of private dictionary
| publishers. Not to mention that all this focus on the
| phonetics fundamentally misunderstands that the phonetics of
| English spelling are closer to a mnemonic than a rule. I
| suspect this will become gradually more obvious as languages
| world wide evolve to be more keyboard friendly in the coming
| century.
|
| But this all just my take on the situation.
| bloqs wrote:
| I find it fascinating that anyone in the US has this issue, as
| a Brit this was an issue for anyone with early internet
| exposure, but I hadn't considered the volume of
| British/Canadian/Aussie English to have an impact the other way
| round!
| Lio wrote:
| I remember in the 1980s entering a computer program into my
| BBC Micro after watching The Computer Programme[1] and
| finding out that it had dual spellings of key words like
| COLOUR/COLOR in its BASIC.
|
| So even before the internet was widely used people in the UK
| we're aware of the problem.
|
| 1. See how I slipped that one in there?
| diggan wrote:
| > as a Brit this was an issue for anyone with early internet
| exposure
|
| Same here as a Swedish person who grew up with American media
| + eventually getting into Internet communities. English exams
| felt great when I took them, I knew all the answers after
| all.
|
| But then getting the results back was always disappointing,
| as Swedish schools teach "British English", not "American
| English", so you better use the British spelling and
| pronunciation, otherwise it's completely wrong obviously and
| you deserve punishment.
| ghaff wrote:
| Companies, for example, have very detailed style guides
| about usage to enforce consistency. Obviously we don't
| "punish" people for doing things differently but we do
| correct them and, by implication, ask them to do it
| differently next time.
| hi_hi wrote:
| A word of warning as a Brit in Australia. You'll get funny looks
| when talking about routers and root!
| rikroots wrote:
| (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 eyes and asked: "Is
| that your real name?" Confused, I nodded. He handed me back my
| passport and waved me through - to his credit, the man never
| smiled or laughed at me, but I could see it had taken him a lot
| of effort to maintain his control.
|
| A day later I learned about the Wombat Joke. I grew to hate the
| Wombat Joke. I'd love to visit Australia again, but I'll
| probably use a false passport next time.
| hi_hi wrote:
| Haha, thank you for sharing that, great story.
|
| I'm embarrassed to admit I'm not aware of the Wombat Joke.
| I'm assuming you were warned about the danger of Drop Bears
| though :-)
| tbrownaw wrote:
| > _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.
| rikroots wrote:
| "He's a bit of a wombat, that one: eats, roots and leaves."
|
| ... Yeah. I don't get Aussie humour either.
| UncleSlacky wrote:
| Just makes me think of the acronym for "Waste Of Money,
| Brains And Time".
| unfunco wrote:
| When I lived with an Australian in London, he'd say you can
| beat an egg, but you can't beat a root (pronounced like
| beetroot) - I think it was a type of joke.
| CTDOCodebases wrote:
| Now time to conquer CSS.
| sph wrote:
| background-colour: gainsborough;
| CTDOCodebases wrote:
| I like the way you think.
| mmmBacon wrote:
| Yeah I don't think UK lingo has conquered anything here in the
| US. I find most UK lingo rather dorky and quaint. To me it's like
| talking to cousins you like from a quaint town that's woefully
| behind the times. It's not their fault though and it's kind of
| endearing.
|
| However, Americans who use British lingo are the absolute worst;
| they remind me of a Will Farrell character except they are not
| funny.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| At some point after the 1950s, en-gb speakers had to resign
| themselves to the dominance (if not prestige) of en-us; might
| the same process happen with en-us and en-in?
|
| (and then there's en-gb vs en-eu...)
| petesergeant wrote:
| Nothing sounds as unnatural to my British-attuned ear than North
| Americans saying "mate" or "mates".
| UncleSlacky wrote:
| "Twat" is worse, it comes out sounding like "twot" for some
| reason.
| sph wrote:
| Because they imported "mate" but forgot the crucial "oi!" part
| Starlevel004 wrote:
| Am I going insane? I've seen this posted before in the last week
| and some of the comments here are identical to the comments from
| last time.
|
| In fact algolia search shows this was first posted 3 days ago:
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
| nemomarx wrote:
| Yeah, the reply about the garbage lorry is word for word, isn't
| it? Did this get a second chance and it moved all the other
| comments with it, or...?
| gruez wrote:
| >Did this get a second chance and it moved all the other
| comments with it, or...?
|
| Probably. When that happens the comments don't get moved,
| their timestamps get adjusted to match the repost timestamp.
| Chaosvex wrote:
| Meta but that seems like a pretty dishonest and confusing
| system.
| mikeshi42 wrote:
| I read this exact reply N days ago... okay exact is stretching
| it but you get the point ;)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41683174
| superluserdo wrote:
| Clicking the link to the comments on that post takes you to
| this comment section, so I think there's some by-hand
| deduping/merging going on
| jgalt212 wrote:
| Don't get your knickers in a twist.
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| Dang has been resurfacing threads that got limited engagement,
| but that either have a second posting that's doing better or
| that he simply manually resets the timer on. The process by
| which he does this also resets the time on comments, too, for
| some reason; I don't really know except that I've noticed it
| happen to threads I had open or threads I had commented on.
| alberth wrote:
| You mean /invited
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/invited
|
| Invited: Overlooked links, invited to repost
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| 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.
| sbuk wrote:
| I like using it to say something is a waste of time or too much
| trouble; it's a faff...
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| A good example of 'faff' is when you join a queue, get to the
| teller and they tell you a) you needed to take a number
| and/or b) you're in the wrong line.
| timthorn wrote:
| Oh, no. A faff is an activity, rather than a scenario.
| Going to the bank could be a faff, but your example is just
| a bloody nuisance...
| Lio wrote:
| Now, I'd say the really correct usage would be "a _bit of a_
| faff" but if you find saying that too much faff it's all the
| same to me mate.
|
| Anyway, I'm on the drag getting to the shops. I need to fix a
| picture thas on the huh. ;)
| carlmr wrote:
| It's nice lingo, but is it commonly used in the US now? I've
| never heard it in the US except from Brits.
| rprwhite wrote:
| The sound of the word just seems to capture the action, or lack
| of action, so well.
| itohihiyt wrote:
| Someone who's actively engaging in faffing about: faffer.
| smcl wrote:
| I feel like my role in the comments here is to add a Scottish
| flavour - what we'd say where I grew up (South Aberdeenshire)
| rather than "faffing about" is "footering about"
| dyauspitr wrote:
| It's too British sounding. It would sound corny coming from
| anyone else.
| thecosas wrote:
| As an American, I still get hung up when hearing about a
| government "scheme" [0] in Britain without any negative
| connotation whatsoever.
|
| [0] https://www.cjr.org/language_corner/scheme.php
| habosa wrote:
| It's so good hearing about a "bike to work scheme" and trying
| to imagine what the evil part is.
| jajko wrote:
| Healthcare providers getting fat paychecks from all the
| treatment from accidents, or in later age prolonged lung
| cancer treatment? Funeral services?
|
| Or maybe just bike sellers being happy to sell junky
| overpriced fashionate ebikes that will drop embedded non-
| replaceable battery's capacity significantly within few years
| (or replace them for exorbitant costs).
|
| With the right mind the world is there to screw over, just
| look at the politicians and other high functioning
| sociopaths.
| Kwpolska wrote:
| An excuse to pay less cash to employees?
| williamdclt wrote:
| That's really not how it works
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| That it provides greater benefit to the better paid employees
| and is inaccessible to the people trying to find work?
| wglass wrote:
| Brilliant!
| yarg wrote:
| > Children who in the US would be deemed "smart" or "bright" or
| "gifted" are called clever in the UK.
|
| It's interesting the way that words sometimes seem to have nuance
| that doesn't seem to be strictly within the definition.
|
| For no reason I can remotely explain, I'd divide these into
| clever/bright and smart/gifted.
|
| I've met several autists that I would readily describe as smart
| or even gifted, but I wouldn't describe as clever or bright.
|
| (Although the distinction might just be that I'm an arsehole.)
| kragen wrote:
| In the US, the word is generally "asshole", although not, for
| example, in my grandfather's rural West Texas dialect.
| yarg wrote:
| I know that - the only time I use the American spelling is
| when I use it as a suffix.
|
| (I often consider it shorthand for "I'm not an American".)
| fsckboy wrote:
| but, in certain quarters in Great Britain, arse is pronounced
| as if it had no R
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| An inherited Americanism in itself.
| kragen wrote:
| While non-rhotic accents are common in parts of America,
| the dominant theory among linguists is that this was a
| result of Americans copying a trend in England, not the
| other way around, as you seem to be asserting:
|
| > _By the 1770s, postvocalic /r/-less pronunciation was
| becoming common around London even in formal educated
| speech. The English actor and linguist John Walker used
| the spelling_ ar _to indicate the long vowel of_ aunt _in
| his 1775 rhyming dictionary.[4] In his influential_
| Critical Pronouncing Dictionary and Expositor of the
| English Language _(1791), Walker reported, with a strong
| tone of disapproval, that "the r in_ lard, bard,... _is
| pronounced so much in the throat as to be little more
| than the middle or Italian_ a _, lengthened into_ baa,
| baad.... " _[8] Americans returning to England after the
| American Revolutionary War, which lasted from 1775 to
| 1783, reported surprise at the significant changes in the
| fashionable pronunciation that had taken place.[16]_
|
| ...
|
| > _The loss of postvocalic /r/ in the British prestige
| standard in the late 18th and the early 19th centuries
| influenced the American port cities with close
| connections to Britain, which caused upper-class
| pronunciation to become non-rhotic in many Eastern and
| Southern port cities such as New York City, Boston,
| Alexandria, Charleston, and Savannah.[9] Like regional
| dialects in England, however, the accents of other areas
| in the United States remained rhotic in a display of
| linguistic "lag", which preserved the original
| pronunciation of /r/.[9]_
|
| --https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhoticity_in_English#Hist
| ory
| 23B1 wrote:
| As an American patriot who mists up when I hear The Star-Spangled
| Banner...
|
| UK slang, like their humor, is just objectively better.
| rconti wrote:
| For many people of my rough age and hobbies (cars/motorsport),
| Top Gear and other British motoring shows and podcasts have had a
| massive impact. We had virtually nothing good in the way of TV
| shows about cars in the 90s/2000s, which meant that anyone
| watching World Rally Championship and F1 were downloading clips
| or torrents of them. That, in turn, led straight into
| finalgear.com in the mid 2000s, before the BBC finally had the
| sense to bring Top Gear to BBC America, which led to another huge
| uptick in popularity.
| ryukoposting wrote:
| Likewise. I didn't even know that several phrases I picked up
| from Top Gear were distinctively British, until my wife pointed
| one out recently. There are a few figures of speech I never
| adopted from the show, though. Ex: Is "oh cock" a British-ism,
| or just a James May-ism? I don't think I've ever heard that
| anywhere else.
|
| There's also the simple nature of being online at 6 AM. What
| other English-speaking country is awake at that time of day?
| UncleSlacky wrote:
| I think it's a May-ism. I was going to say it could be a
| "posh public schoolboy"-ism, but it turns out he went to
| comprehensive school ("public high school" for the Yanks out
| there).
| zkldi wrote:
| An interesting one is "bread" to refer to money; I believe it
| comes from cockney rhyming slang. Bread and Honey = Money.
| htk wrote:
| He's the author of two books I really enjoyed and recommend: "The
| Sound on the Page" and "When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It".
| hermitcrab wrote:
| 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.
| trollied wrote:
| I've heard a few Americans say "wanker" recently. It just
| doesn't sound right in their accent.
| corobo wrote:
| "Twat" is another one that sounds weird. Americans sound like
| they're replacing the a with an o
| smcl wrote:
| Interestingly, both twat and cunt are far more severe (and
| aimed at women) in US English than they are in UK/Aus/NZ
| English.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| '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.
| 867-5309 wrote:
| >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
| hermitcrab wrote:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/etymology/comments/2hg815/the_wo
| rd_...
| flumpcakes wrote:
| 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.
| smcl wrote:
| Yeah I was saying in UK/NZ/Aus (plus I guess Ireland too
| come to think of it) it's ungendered and not necessarily
| a severe swear word. I didn't think it was that harsh
| anywhere in UK but maybe I can't speak for England.
| Angostura wrote:
| I'm in my 50s and a Brit from London . For me 'cubt' has
| always been the absolute nuclear option- probably used 2
| or 3 times in my life
| UncleSlacky wrote:
| I'm sure Peg's character's maiden name in "Married...with
| Children" ("Wanker", from "Wanker County") was chosen
| deliberately.
| alexjplant wrote:
| I know several people in the US who use the verb and noun
| forms of "wank" synonymously with "whine" (perhaps because
| they both have the same starting consonant sound) without
| realizing how vulgar it is. I've gently pointed out to them
| what it means in British English and none seem to care.
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| I'd rather Americans start using fags instead of cigarettes,
| aluminum instead of aluminum and kilometers per hour instead of
| bald eagles per freedom.
| flumpcakes wrote:
| Royal society of chemistry has since gone with the American
| pronunciation of Aluminium, they won this one apparently.
| circuit10 wrote:
| We use miles per hour in the UK though
| itohihiyt wrote:
| My favourite thing that Americans say that means something very
| different in the UK is: fanny.
|
| "Fanny pack" makes me smile every time I hear it. One of my
| favourite Scottish colloquialisms is: fannybaws.
| smcl wrote:
| Similarly (originating in linux circles in the 90s, revived
| recently by cryptobros) the acronym "FUD" always makes me
| smile. For our friends across the pond, both "fanny" and "fud"
| are Scots slang for the female genitalia.
|
| There's so many of these - recently a startup called "boby"
| appeared ("boaby" is a less harsh form of "dick"). You can
| encounter characters in Stardew Valley for the switch called
| "Rocket" (West Coast Scots for a crazy person) and "Bam" (Scots
| for a usually sketchy guy who is up to trouble).
|
| I love them, they're like a little hidden treat for a tiny
| minority of the planet.
| wlll wrote:
| Somewhat related. Some US people came to visit our UK office
| back in about 2001, amongst them "Randy Bush". That entertained
| us. Also, there used to be a guy at Novell called "Randy
| Bender".
| hermitcrab wrote:
| An interesting article, somewhat let down by an inaccurate and
| overstated headline. No-one is getting 'conquered'. As it says at
| the end of the article:
|
| "But in the grand scheme of things, the traffic both ways has
| been modest. That is, American English and British English remain
| distinct dialects, with little danger of being homogenised."
| walrushunter wrote:
| The most interesting part of this article is the incendiary
| language in the headline.
|
| Nobody would click otherwise because it doesn't take a genius
| to know that the internet has caused Brits and Americans to
| interact more regularly and thus adopt more of each other's
| language.
| DrBazza wrote:
| I'm down for that in the US.
|
| I'm up for it, in the UK.
| smcl wrote:
| Let's meet in the middle and use "I'm game" - neither up nor
| down!
| Yeul wrote:
| I have my PC set to UK English.
|
| But realistically in my day to day life I speak English with
| people who are not from any historically English speaking
| territory. It's not owned by anyone.
| MrDrDr wrote:
| My favourite UK/US words are the ones we share but have different
| meanings - e.g. nonplussed
| ryukoposting wrote:
| How much of this can be attributed to the internet? I have been
| exposed to a lot of British figures of speech because I get up
| early in the morning and interact with people on HN and other
| sites. The other folks active at that time of day tend to be
| Brits.
| flumpcakes wrote:
| An interesting one working in tech is "routers" (the network
| devices that route traffic) and "routers" (the machine that cuts
| wood).
|
| In British English the pronunciation is swapped. A "rooter" is
| the network device, and the "rahowter" is the woodworking
| machine.
| ks2048 wrote:
| One I've noticed increasing is "cheers". Not the typical use (for
| my American mind) as a toast when drinking, but as "thanks" or
| "you're welcome".
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-10-05 23:02 UTC)