American vs British English - do we understand each other?

JAS_OH1 said:
No! It's butchered to pieces and the grammar from some people who don't speak any other languages can be quite cringey. It drives me nuts that some people can't focus on their one and only language and get it right, when we have so many people here from other countries who speak 2 or more fluently.

And for the record, I like words that we spell with a "z" to be spelled with an "s" and I also like "colour" over "color" and so forth.
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I read an article in an English newspaper written by an English journo the other day that had spelled specialised with a z
Most of the time I think oh well it’s just part of languages relentless transformation, but that was a step too far 😂

Apple and other tech companies don’t have any respect for British English language, the dictionaries are seriously incomplete, they’ve paid a bare lip service to it.
So many British English words are missing which I find bizarre as it’s no trouble for them to load a British English dictionary. Tbh I think it’s a bit rude to do that to anther countries language but that’s global trade for you, it’s not known for its consideration 😂

A couple of weeks ago I seriously had to explain to my 22year old that it is not an eggplant, it’s and aubergine.

I often have to google a word separately to find the British English spelling as apple will have a well known British English word underlined in red as a spelling mistake which makes me doubt myself and have to check.
It’s always in the dictionary so I’m left wondering if they’re using a converted American dictionary instead of a British one 🤷‍♀️
 
I might be in a unique position here in that I live in the Americas, visit the USA frequently, yet come from the UK. I see both sides of the coin. I'm pretty sure we understand each other perfectly well, although we may hesitate occasionally over this word or that.
In culinary terms, "eggplant" actually came from Europe: zucchini is Italian; aubergine and courgette are French words, although courgettes originally came from Central America.
Learning to speak other languages is a huge advantage when learning your own.
 
JAS_OH1 said:
I feel a new thread coming...
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Oh no not another prawn shrimp thread quick turn things around… do we understand each other?
Invariably yes.
Enough that it’s only odd words that differ and everyone is happy to say “What’s that?”
It’s generally a cause of amusement or intrigue rather than any difficulty.

I think the difficulty comes when we use the same words similarly but not exactly in the same way. So a word like clever where an Americans tend to mean worthiness and integrity and we would assume you mean what you’d call smart.
 
SandwichShortOfAPicnic said:
I think the difficulty comes when we use the same words similarly but not exactly in the same way. So a word like clever where an Americans tend to mean worthiness and integrity and we would assume you mean what you’d call smart.
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Clever means smart. Never heard anything about integrity or worthiness. I know some clever scumbags.
 
SandwichShortOfAPicnic said:
Oh ok. Our American correspondent over here is talking out of her hat then.
Good. She said other stuff that didn’t sound right too.
Glad cos I didn’t like most of it 😂
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Yeah, clever just means smart here, but (IMO) less like a “book smart,” and more a natural ability, an ability to work things out mentally, and more of a creative kind of problem-solving smart.

I think clever is used a lot more in everyday language in the UK than here, though - we’d just say smart. Maybe we’re just not clever enough to use clever. :laugh:

How about the word mean? Here, if I described someone as mean, it would be to say they’re unkind, but it always seemed, until recently, anyway, that mean in the UK, when describing a person, usually alluded to thriftiness as much as anything.

I say until recently because it’s something I’ve picked up on in UK TV shows these days and visiting in person - more and more, I hear it used to describe an unpleasant person more than a thrifty one.
 
TastyReuben said:
Yeah, clever just means smart here, but (IMO) less like a “book smart,” and more a natural ability, an ability to work things out mentally, and more of a creative kind of problem-solving smart.

I think clever is used a lot more in everyday language in the UK than here, though - we’d just say smart. Maybe we’re just not clever enough to use clever. :laugh:

How about the word mean? Here, if I described someone as mean, it would be to say they’re unkind, but it always seemed, until recently, anyway, that mean in the UK, when describing a person, usually alluded to thriftiness as much as anything.

I say until recently because it’s something I’ve picked up on in UK TV shows these days and visiting in person - more and more, I hear it used to describe an unpleasant person more than a thrifty one.
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It means (haha) both.
Here it’s more rooted in meaning you’re “mean spirited” which applies to being overly tight with money to the extent it effects others or themselves as well as mean as in nasty.
“That’s just mean” or “You’re being mean” as in nasty has always been as common as tight fisted.
 
Popular American words that are very much in the English vernacular now are things like ‘awesome’ ‘snap’ ‘bangs’ ‘gotten’ ‘beef’ amongst many others.

The younger gen share a lot more of the slang. I’d say the majority of our streaming platforms content is American and some of those words very much appeal to our way of thinking so they are quickly integrated. We tend to like new words.

We also have a lot of Australian language crossing over too. I suppose that’s more due to there still being close immigration ties with Australia.
 
I was going to enter our English here, probably best known as colonial English :)
Written like English, but with local slang mixed in.

But my standard confusion has always been schools
Public schools are not for the public and private schools are not private.
And then there are grammar schools.
Varsity, university and college
O levels, A levels, matric and high school
:scratchhead::scratchhead::scratchhead:
 
I watch cnn and fox and my wife and I were recently watching the hosts talking about " riz" wife and I looked at each other . They explained it's a young person's slang for a person with charisma. I casually dropped it in a conversation with 15yo granddaughter.
She said do you know what that means.? I said weve been saying it for years.
A day in the life of me.. :)

Russ
 
TheSoloChef said:
I assume the Americans call a Prawn Cocktail a Shrimp Cocktail?
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We do indeed. Here is a description of the difference between the terms in the U.S.

Differences between prawns and shrimp12345:
  • Prawns tend to be larger than shrimp and often taste sweeter.
  • Both have 10 legs, but prawns have pincers on three pairs of legs, while shrimp have one clawed duo.
  • The terms "prawn" and "shrimp" are often used interchangeably, but they are scientifically distinct.
  • In commercial farming and fisheries, the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, but "prawn" usually signifies freshwater forms and "shrimp" marine forms.
 
One word which really causes confusion is 'casserole'. In Europe it means a dish cooked in a pot with gravy. A stew in other words. In the US it's a baked dish. What in Europe we might call 'a bake'.

Example of casserole in US:

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Example of casserole in UK and, I believe Australia and New Zealand:

1728820313403.png
 
A word that is now used here but caused some generational confusion to start with is ‘pissed’.
Here it always meant drunk, then American tv brought it to us as meaning annoyed or angry.
We’d always had “in a p*ss” meaning the same thing but the two were quite distinct.

More than once one of my sons would be telling me someone was pissed and I’d reply something like “What? They were drunk at work?!!” 😂
 
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