English Vs USA Language...

[Amiga Forever]

I was laughing when it say

English USA
Trousers Pants

Now this one is really confusing! in the U.K. the word 'pants' is only used for "underpants" hence, when an American says he is going to put on a fresh pair of pants before going out, it cracks us up.

http://www.hintsandthings.com/library/WORDS2.htm

I remember when I went to USA and I ask them for SWEETS and they were like and I try to explain to them that in England...we have Mars bars, Twist, Kitkat and he say Go for Candy... I was like EH?
So he show me round the MallMart store and there the Candy.....I was like oooh right :roll:

 

[commodorejohn]

Well yeah, but that's Wal*Mart staff. Half of them are cattle, the other half are too overworked from picking up the slack left by the first half to be paying attention to what you're saying. "Sweets" isn't unheard-of in the US, and certainly isn't too difficult to figure out.

"Pants" is a funny one though ;D

 

[davideo]

I was asked by a couple of friends a few years ago to investigate what their storekeeper was using the work internet for.

I showed them the internet history and they asked "What's he looking at Candy for?"

When I showed them I don't know who was the most embarrased

Dave G

 

[ChrisUnionNJ]

Thats like if you ask someone here for a fag you will get one of two
responds.
1-No i'm straight thank you..

2-A punch in the nose..

 

[desiv]

This is all your fault..
I found myself researching this stuff tonight..
http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2006/07/candy-and-sweets.html

Jeesh!!

Now I need some smarties... er. um.. which ones tho..

desiv
p.s. I do remember an American stand up comic who complained that he went to England and asked for "English muffins" and they'd never heard of them.. ;-)

 

[AndyLandy]

Thats like if you ask someone here for a fag you will get one of two
responds.
1-No i'm straight thank you..

2-A punch in the nose..

Yeah, the expression "smokin' a fag" means something completely different over there than over here...

 

[ChrisUnionNJ]

Thats like if you ask someone here for a fag you will get one of two
responds.
1-No i'm straight thank you..

2-A punch in the nose..

Yeah, the expression "smokin' a fag" means something completely different over there than over here...

Yeah but one of your words got me hooked up when I was a kid 16 1/2
met a girl named Randy so I asked her if she was when she told me her
name I was not sure what would happen but I got lucky in more ways
then one..

 

[AndyLandy]

This is all your fault..
I found myself researching this stuff tonight..
http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2006/07/candy-and-sweets.html

Oh wow, I read the subsequent article about candy bars vs. chocolate bars and it had a link to this page: http://totl.net/VisibleMars/

Said page was put together by one of the guys I work with at the Uni. Small world etc.

 

[Justin]

i like the Amirican term "fanny"

 

[ChrisUnionNJ]

What does that mean in the UK?

 

[BrooksterMax]

What does that mean in the UK?

Female front lower region is the most polite I can put it

 

[Merlin]

Erm...


'Rooting in somebody's drawers' means two completely different things to Brits versus Aussies, so other variants of English can be a minefield too...

One is searching for an item in a chest of drawers, the other, well.. rooting is apparently 'Gettin' it on' in Aussie...

Here's an embarrassing experience I had in Spain once when I was in my late teens.

As the typical Brit, I do like a full English breakfast from time to time. So, on a self-catering holiday I fancied one, so I set off for the supermarket with my newly learned basic Spanish.

I went in and found the bacon and most of the other items easily, but the eggs were a tad elusive. I ended up at the dairy counter and said to the guy behing the counter "habla huevos?"

The supermarket went quiet and the guy behind me looked blank. So, like the typical Brit on holiday, I thought 'Speak louder'. The women in the supermarket stared at me open-mouthed. :wooha:

So, I asked "habla huevos!" in increasing volume, until a guy tapped me on the shoulder and said in English "You might want to try "Tiene huevos?". What you have just asked is like asking a guy in England at a fruit stall if he had plums". oh:



So, I learned exactly how 'eggs' and 'plums' were related in the Spanish and English vernacular; in other words, cahonies, nuts, gonads, etc.!!

Languages, they are a nightmare!!

 

[Amiga Forever]

Ha Ha Ha Merlin

Excellent

 

[Geordi]

Now this one is really confusing! in the U.K. the word 'pants' is only used for "underpants" hence, when an American says he is going to put on a fresh pair of pants before going out, it cracks us up.

-Lol. My dad says something like this, except he mean underpants.

We also have an expression saying someone is no more important than anyone else, we say, 'He puts his pants on one leg at a time like everyone else." Well, I guess if it's underpants, we jump in with both legs!

 

[SpeedGeek]

If you really think about it, it's amazing the English language survived in America in any recognizable fashion. Sure the original 13 colonies were settled by mostly English folks but more than 50 native American Indian languages spoken, French and Spanish colonies, Imported African slaves (shame on those English folks), hundreds of thousands of Irish (great potato famine), Germans, Italians, Dutch, and Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese in latter years. ( I'm sure I missed a few).

You would think something resembling "City Speak" (Blade Runner) was more likely to evolve under the circumstances. Of course Ebonics is a language all it's own my RapMaster friends!

 

[cosmicfrog]

Oh crumpets

 

[Buzzfuzz]

Sod off, better then the American version :-D

 

[tokyoracer]

I do find this new craze of copying what you Americans do rather odd. I have seen recently that people my age are calling trousers pants and I have been hearing people mention candy a few times in the last couple of years. I don't know what we are trying to achieve with this.

This brings me neatly onto something else which I find odd. It's pretty clear we seem to learn American lingo without actually ever visiting the place but it's never the other way round.

 

[ShambleS1980]

I blame films aka movies

 

[BrooksterMax]

This neatly bring me neatly onto something else which I find odd. It's pretty clear we seem to learn American lingo without actually ever visiting the place but it's never the other way round.

Whatever




(not been to the US yet)