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British versus American phrases, words, spellings

One thing that is now becoming clear is how different our languages are, in the meanings of different words.

I hope this thread really expands as I'm enjoying it!
 
Hey made of stone, sorry, I didn't see your question on what is standard english over here. I guess, as I don't have a real answer, is that when you hear our news reporters speak that is usually typical American english. You know, like Tom Brokaw, Katie Couric...etc...I think they sound normal or regular to my ears. They don't have a strong accent, I mean that you couldn't say they were from the South with their drawl, or the East Coast with their reduced R's and clipped sound. So I would think they sound the most standard.
 
I find it strange in this day of e-mail and text message and such like that there is still the need for telegrams to be sent, after all in some parts of the county a letter can take 4 days to travel 20 miles........
Telegrams are probably more "sure". They probably would hold up better as a form of evidence if for any reason court procedings became necessary.

How about "wellingtons"? As an American, I would call them....um...rubber boots(?).
 
How about "wellingtons"? As an American, I would call them....um...rubber boots(?).

I know people in America that would call them "galoshes"
 
Mikawa Ossan, I think what you have just said about telegrams does hold a certain amount of truth, who knows.

As for 'Wellingtons', we do call them 'Wellies' for short, there are those who would refer to them as 'Wellington Boots' and you can also hear them being called 'Gum Boots'. And if you do call them 'Rubber Boots' then that would seem self-explanatory as Gum is another word for Rubber.

And to add further 'Chewing Gum' in Britain is called 'Gum' in the States.
 
My mother mentioned Wellingtons today as what she used to call "boots". Was that a brand name of a boot that just caught on? I think I remember English people calling boots "rubbers" also (and erasers).

made of stone - You're probably right - the movie I saw was set in the '20s, I think. "Trunk call" might have meant actually using a phone in a kind of trunk for long distance. You brought back another old memory with "on" versus "at". Yes, in the U.S. we say "call me at ....." I remember my aunt asking one of us if someone was "on" the phone. We thought she meant were they talking on the phone right then, but she meant were they hooked up to the phone line! This was also a long time ago - I'm way in the dark ages!

As for standard English, Goldiegirl is right - the news anchors here are examples of "standard American English". I think they're taught to get rid of any obvious accents (from the north or south). Thank goodness it's not the "President's English", otherwise none of us would understand what anyone else was saying! We'd all have "fuzzy English"!

undrentide - I remember subways in England called "the underground" or "tube". Nowadays in the U.S. "Subway" is also a famous sandwich shop!

Mycernius - I thought the word "fanny" was used only in the American south as a term for "bottom"! That's the only place I've heard it. It's interesting that Canadians use it, too. Though as Grammarsauras said, it's probably becoming an old term. "Cool" is an old term that's still used here today, meaning "swell" or "neat". "Fanny packs" are becoming popular here, a kind of purse you wear around your waist.

Goldiegirl - I haven't heard of a "bubbler" - what is it?

EmporerHirohito - The term "cellar" seems to be used in the U.S. to mean a cellar that's separate from the house (like in old movies when you see someone opening a door to steps going underground, usually with an oil lamp and wind blowing like a tornado is coming). Goldiegirl might know more about this being from the midwest where tornadoes are common (and Wisconsin had a few only a couple of days ago)! We do use "basement" for cellar in the house.

"Letter box" is "mail box" in the U.S. "Coke" is also a slang for cocaine here. I've also heard people use "coke" for any soft drink.

About 1st floor versus ground floor - I got confused in a hospital recently when in the elevator there were buttons for "ground floor" and "basement"! I think the basement was below the ground floor. But then there was 1st floor, etc.

Another difference - Americans say "he's in the hospital", while the British say "he's in hospital."

Obeika - I've heard "galoshes" used here for boots.

EmporerHirotito - "Gum" is also called "chewing gum" or "bubble gum" here in the U.S. But just "gum" is probably used more often.
 
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A bubbler is a drinking fountain. We call them bubblers here because our drinking fountains used to bubble water from the spout in a steady stream. Of course now a days you have to use a handle to turn the water on, but the term bubbler stuck! It's one of my favorite Wisconsin-isms. Another one but I am not sure if it's a midwest thing is the saying "yous (yews) guys". It makes my ears hurt! (Hey yous guys did you see dem Packers won de game last week der ehhhh? )
 

Ahh want to discuss Milwaukee ism's and really get them confused?:bikkuri:

Let's see doohickies or thing-a-ma-jigs, for those that remember, "Go play on the freeway!"
 
Doohickies and thing-a-ma-jigs...don't ya know they can all be found in your junk drawer!
 
And to add further 'Chewing Gum' in Britain is called 'Gum' in the States.
I always said "bubble gum" for the kind of gum you can blow bubbles with, but "chewing gum" for the kind of gum you can only chew for the flavor. I would have said "gum" as a catch-all for both types of gum.
 
That phrase can also mean to make someone pregnant in the UK as well "To get knocked up"

@Grammarsaurus - When I was in Canada I noticed that some words did retain UK spelling, such as theatre, centre, neighbour, but other had an American spelling such as Tire instead of Tyre.

The US can blame Noah Webster for their spelling. He decided that English words should be spelt as they were said. In fact he lobbied congress to legalise simple spelling that would have turned the US into the only conutry in the world were diviant spelling would have been punishable under law. Some of his words that didn't catch on were wimmen, fether, tuf, groop. Although he wasn't the only one who changed spelling he is probably the most influential in the US. I recommend Bill Brysons' Mother Tongue as an excellent book about the English language.
Here's another one and it is the shortened form of mathematics. In the UK it is maths and in the US it is math.
 
Another one but I am not sure if it's a midwest thing is the saying "yous (yews) guys". It makes my ears hurt! (Hey yous guys did you see dem Packers won de game last week der ehhhh? )

In the south the term is "ya'll" - "Hey ya'll, what's going on?" Instead of "you guys" or "yous"!

Mycernius - I remember "math" vs. "maths". I'll look for Bill Bryson's book "Mother Tongue" - I like his other books. I think he was originally British but lived in the U.S. (or the other way around).

"Doowinkie" is a southern version of "doohickie". "Whatchamacallit" or "whatsit" is another one.
 
I've just read over some of the other threads here, and I see everyone's already been comparing British and American English! I apologize - I hadn't seen these threads before!
 

In the 1970s (when I was working at a college radio station), I learned that there is a term in broadcasting for the way news anchors (even at the local level) are expected to speak: Midwest Standard. That term is probably still used.
 
I always said "bubble gum" for the kind of gum you can blow bubbles with, but "chewing gum" for the kind of gum you can only chew for the flavor. I would have said "gum" as a catch-all for both types of gum.

I would have said the same thing, seems that what one area of the US may consider to be "typical" English is not the same for another.

There are too regional-ism's as well in the US.

Bubbler could be drinking fountain, water fountain, or water cooler depending on the location. Then there is soda and pop, which both refer to the same thing a carbonated, sweetened beverage, or not, like Coke.

This "gum" one too.

Yet there are still enough differences, I particularly find the spelling differences interesting although annoying at times. Particularly when someone asks a direct question about spelling a word here in Japan, let's take the word, colour or color both are spelled correctly and yet from the perspective of the persons country or education one or the other spellings of a word could be incorrect. It is annoying to say the least.
 
In the 1970s (when I was working at a college radio station), I learned that there is a term in broadcasting for the way news anchors (even at the local level) are expected to speak: Midwest Standard. That term is probably still used.

In Britain there is a term for speaking correctly when broadcasting either on Television or Radio, particulary with regards to the BBC. That term is 'Received Pronounciation'.
 
GoldieGirl and Sarapva and others, thank you very much for your explanations of 'standard' American English. I wonder if the Midwest accent is usually truly 'neutral'?

The US can blame Noah Webster for their spelling. He decided that English words should be spelt as they were said.

Thanks to Mycernius for reminding me of another difference (highlighted in bold).

Burn, dream, lean, learn, smell, spill and spoil are all regular verbs in American English, but in British English irregular forms (as with Mycernius' spelt) are much more common (though regular forms are acceptable).

There are other differences with regular and irregular verbs, but the one that stands out most to me is that the British past participle of 'get' is 'got', but in the US 'gotten' is often used.
 
Well I am from the midwest and I sound like the people on the news...or should I say they sound like me? As for gotten...I don't understand...I gotten a new car? How do you mean it's used. Sorry! I got a new car makes sense to me. But, perhaps that is not what you mean?
 

Well, you've reminded me of a nice thread I saw once on another forum that I was thinking of making here. People would record themselves speaking and post a link to the file on the web, so everyone could hear their voice. I think that would be rather nice!

In English there are three forms of a verb that we need to know in order to use it correctly. These are the infinitive, the simple past and the past participle.

(The past partciple is used for the present perfect and past perfect forms and the passive, and more.)

For example, talk is a regular verb, so the simple past and the past participle just add -ed:

talk talked talked

Examples of each in use:

(infinitive) I like to talk with my friends.

(simple past) I talked with my friends yesterday.

(past participle) I have just talked with my friends.


'Get' in the same way is:

(UK) get got got

(US) get got got or gotten


Thus, in Britain we'd say 'he's got heavier recently', but I believe in the US 'he's gotten heavier recently' is possible.

 
Our own accents are hard to identify as accents when we're so used to hearing them.

I think "gotten" is used here with "had" - "He had gotten angry before realizing his mistake". (I can't think of what this past tense is called.) Saying, "He got angry before realizing his mistake" means it's all in the same tense. "I had seen" is further in the past than "I saw". (Someone with more grammatical knowledge might know better what this is!)

I think you've got it, made of stone!
 
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Sorry Sarapva, I just edited my post with (what I thought might be) a clearer example of 'gotten'.

Yes, I meant that 'gotten' is used with a form of 'have' most often (as the past participle that's what it's for!)

'I had seen' isn't further in the past than 'I saw'. Examples:

1) Yesterday I saw a fox.

2) By the time I was three I had seen plenty of foxes.
 
But "yesterday" is more recent than "by the time I was three"(?).
 
But "yesterday" is more recent than "by the time I was three"(?).

Sorry, it's late here and i'm rather sleepy. Right you are!!

Please forgive me, and allow me to give other examples so that I make more (some?!!) sense in the context:

1) I drank my first beer at the age of eighteen. (Honestly, mister policeman!)

2) By ten o'clock last night I had already drunk ten beers. (honeshtly mishter polish-man!)

It's interesting that you say 'gotten' is used more with 'had' (past perfect tense) than 'has' (present perfect tense) as these two are so strongly related. And I only meant to suggest that in the US 'gotten' is possible, while it doesn't exist in the UK at all. I should also have said that in my understanding 'gotten' is only used when non-possessive forms of 'get' are intended (which is why I changed my - poor - example)?
 
Well I am from the midwest and I sound like the people on the news...or should I say they sound like me?
newscast English (for national television) was purposefully created to minimalize any hint of a detectable "accent." Newscasters go through quite a bit of training to learn to enunciate everything, and while it sounds a lot like many dialects (that's part of the idea) it's not quite the same. Here in Japan, newscasters are even more strict about their pronunciation, and are trained to very clearly follow older phonetic rules when they read the news to sound more professional and authoritative.

Generally, "media English" is just a Californian accent, since much of the TV gets produced here, but I have met people from all over the country that have accents similar to my own.
 

I think I've gotten it now! I think you're right - "has" is used more often with "gotten" - "It has gotten rather hot today". You wouldn't say "I've gotten a new car" - you would say "I've got a new car". I didn't know "gotten" wasn't used in British English! Thanks for your examples!
 
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