I don't think Rob considered how many words could make him blush when deciding to make a podcast with Jess, the author of Words From Hell. They have very different reactions to "naughty" words, but that's one of the things that make the podcast great. Two very knowledgeable people bouncing off each other and sharing what they know, wonderful!
I speak Canadian English, more specifically a southern ontario dialect, and personally I feel like it’s a bit of a sweet spot. We use the extra ‘U’ in words like colour and favourite, but I think we tend to have a more similar vocabulary to the U.S.
@@der.Schtefanand IRL they despise each other but they have the same agent and they is working on a Hollywood romcom so the show must go on. Hey you started it
As an American who used to live in the UK it took me a long time to accept the treatment of collective nouns as plural. All my English teachers had drilled into us that collective nouns were singular, thus "the team WAS...," "the choir IS...," etc. Thus when I heard the BBC, no less, saying "the team WERE...," and "the choir ARE..." it was so jarring. After a decade there, however, I had become so used to it, and indeed had wrapped it into my own speech patterns, that when I moved back I had to reteach myself the grammar rule of my childhood.
True. In the UK, they refer to things like The Company in the plural form, as if acknowledging that The Company is an organization made up of many people.
The British do something special here in that they leave out words. When Brits say "The police are here" they are actually saying "The (members of the) police are here". In the other instances when one cannot use "(members of the)" in front of a word, they use 'is' and not 'are'. Example: "Music is my first love" and not "Music are my first love". So, the British do follow the normal rule that a collective concept is singular. Yet they leave out words when they conjugate the otherwise singular concept as a plural. I speak or read ten languages and only the British have made this confusing outcome part of their language, though not even in Britain does everyone do that for all possible instances. Still... in the US, the greater Los Angeles area also does something different from the rest of the nation, with their freeways. It is "the 405" and not "405". The difference is again that a word was left out. "The 405 freeway was congested once again" is correct, but "Freeway 405 was congested once again" is correct as well. The word order declares whether there is a 'the' in front of 405 or not, while in both (indeed different) cases the word 'freeway' got left out.
@@binxbolling Thank you, William, I appreciate the comment. These folks are then still saying "(Members of) the police are here." They are then not saying "The force is here," which is what is being said when folks say that "The Police (force) is here." It is totally fine to say that the police are here, but the point is then that they are pointing at the actual people and not at the force (of control) that the police holds in society. It is fine to say that "The family are here", but words were then left out: "(Some members of) the family are here." When one says "The family is here," then one does not point to the members but to the group as a whole. "The government are going to step in" declares that "(various departments of) the government are going to step in." Meanwhile, "the government is taking steps to ameliorate the Supreme Court's surprising decision." There is no problem, except for what I would call laziness. The standard manner is that we conjugate a concept in the singular, third person. The interesting part is how this corruption happened in English only. This leaving out of words, changing the regular concept as singular into a sentence in which it ends up being conjugated in the plural. So, it becomes funny, indeed a corruption if you wish, and then everyone started saying the same things, forgetting the original version. That's probably because English was spoken on an island and at one point in time incorporated so many words from foreign languages that no one knew their left from right all the time any more. English is perhaps the language in the world containing the most linguistic mistakes. It is a funny language with several strange mistakes when you look at the original version of English or when you compare it with languages across the channel.
As an American that grew up in an ex British colony (Kenya), and went to British schools, I’m very glad that my American stepfather had the foresight to correct me on my use of the word rubber otherwise I would’ve had a very embarrassing experience at the American high school the first time I needed an eraser.
I was startled to say the least when one of the 4th graders in my class when student teaching abroad in Hamburg came up to my desk and asked for a rubber. I was frantically trying to figure out what he was trying to do or say when he picked up an eraser and said "I need to rub something out." That boy had a future in diplomacy based on thar alone! 😄
@@gwjchrisOh jeez. It's a good thing that wasn't over here in the US or he would've gotten teased to death by his classmates. Definitely would've had to remind myself it's innocent abroad and tell myself to get my head out of the gutter if I was in your position.
And there is another Americanism. We would say, _"As an American WHO..."_ and not _"As an American THAT..."._ WHO is used for a person, while THAT is used for an inanimate object.
@@Aotearoa_Kiwi I don't think it's strictly an Americanism. I am American but I think it's a common grammatical mistake/colloquialism across the planet.
@@HistoryNerd808 ... I haven't heard this 'mistake' used where I live, so assumed it to be an Americanism. It certainly is annoying. I wonder where else it is used.
In France we call french fries "frites" (fried), a short way for "patates frites" (fried potatoes), and they are actually a well known speciality from Belgium (and North of France). Rob has got the good pronunciation for all french words: aubergine, courgette, niche, clique and lingerie (plus a very stylish english from England accent 😊). We are using the word "biscuit" (said in the french way) that means baked twice, as a generic term. And the racoon is a "raton laveur", a washing big rat. Thank you so much Jess and Rob! So enjoyable!
That reminds me of a great joke from a movie I watched (the scene is a shop in Brazil) "Do you have Brazil Nuts here?" "Yes, but we don't call them that here." "What do you call them?" "Nuts."
@IanUniacke I love that, even though here in Bazil, a Brazil nut is called 'Castanha do Pará' (lit. Pará not, for Pará is a northern state from where the nuts come).
In German they say "Pommes" for fries coming from the French "pommes (de terre) frites" de terre is omitted. The funny thing is that in certain regions (essentially the one that were occupied by France) they also use the word "Fritten". (There was a famous horse butcher that had a funny slogan for his business: "Gestern noch geritten, heute schon mit Fritten." (yesterday still ridden, today already served with fries).
@@Wee_Langside "Je suis coincé" means I'm stuck, I have no other solution, I'm trapped, I'm in a cul-de-sac. Funny also this "cul-de-sac" (means bottom of the bag) !
Having lived in UK and US, I learned these: 1. detour vs diversion 2. Speed bump vs speed hump 3. Watch your step vs mind the gap 4. Sneakers vs trainers
We have both speed bumps and speed humps in the US. Speed bumps are relatively short things, probably less than a foot (30 cm) from front to back, and are typically very jarring to drive over, even at slow speeds. I will go out of my way to avoid a speed bump if I can. Speed humps, on the other hand are more extended, often 3-5 feet (1-1.5m) from front to back. They are much more smooth at slower speeds than speed bumps are. Driving over them quickly, though, might launch your car into the air!
Brit here, thought I'd give my tuppence worth: I would use both detour and diversion, but I use different verbs with them, I would "go on a detour" but "take a diversion". And with the phrases "watch your step" and "mind the gap", to me they mean slightly different things, "watch your step" suggests there's a general trip hazard, but "mind the gap" would be for getting off a train or bus etc.
Some dialectal differences I learned growing up: 1. jumper (BrE) vs sweater (AmE) 2. loo (or toilet like everyone says) vs restroom/bathroom 3. headmaster vs principal 4. fringe vs bangs 5. aircon vs AC 6. mobile vs cellphone 7. bonnet vs hood 8. boot vs trunk 9. petrol vs gas 10. conical flask vs Erlenmeyer flask 11. mixed (schools) vs coed 12. autumn vs fall 13. cinema vs movie theater 14. BODMAS/BIDMAS (or BOMDAS as my Canadian maths teacher put it) vs PEMDAS 15. Pythagoras' theorem vs Pythagorean theorem 16. primary school/junior school vs elementary school/grade school 17. university vs college (for any higher ed institution) 18. noughts & crosses vs tic-tac-toe 19. scissors-paper-rock vs rock-paper-scissors 20. brackets (the curved ones) vs parentheses went to an international British-curriculum school; that means we go up Years instead of Grades and learn maths instead of math, and the more athletic of us play football, not soccer. Most of us (the non-Brits) learned English from American media, so our vocab is a mix of both while our accents were distinctly American much to the chagrin of our predominantly British teachers
In Canada nearly all of these fall to the US side, but I have seen a few fall almost electively to the British side. I've seen "mind the gap" on the subway (not "the tube" or "underground"). But on occasions that I see "speed hump", it's difficult not to laugh. You're supposed to take your time with that... :D
28:37 It is more obvious to French speakers when they learn a Québécois French uses words that are usually seen as old-fashioned across the pond in the motherland. Bas 🇨🇦: chaussette🇫🇷 (sock _«Tous mes bas sont percés vis-à-vis le gros orteil.»_ Brailler 🇨🇦: pleurer, pleurnicher🇫🇷(to cry, snivel; also used in Canada) _« Quand elle a appris le décès de son père, elle s’est mise à brailler. Elle a braillé sans arrêt pendant au moins deux heures.»_ Menterie🇨🇦mensonge🇪🇺(a lie: also used int Québec) _« Je ne te crois plus. Tu passes ton temps à me raconter des menteries.»_ Présentement 🇨🇦: actuellement, en ce moment.🇫🇷(Right now, at this moment; also used in Quebec) _«Présentement, i' fait frette au Québec.»_ Soulier 🇨🇦: chaussure🇫🇷🇧🇪🇨🇭(also used in Quebec but it sounds far too European to me) So yeah we talk of souliers de marche, souliers de femme, souliers de course🏃♂️(or “espadrilles”) Tannant : agaçant - annoying Être tanné : avoir dépassé sa limite - to be fed up Ustensiles : fourchette, couteau et cuillère. So yeah utensils, cutlery, or silverware. Whatever you call them. The Europeans use this word to refer to cooking utensils. And not a fork, spoon or knife. I believe they called them Les couverts _« Laver les ustensiles, les verres et les assiettes après le repas. »_
I belong to a Car Club that has worldwide membership. This international makeup was glaringly obvious at one of the membership meetings that I attended during a show. At this meeting there were representatives from England, Australia and the most verbose participant from the United States was very noticeably from Tennessee and at some point it occurred to me that all of these members were speaking the same language but it was highly probable that none of them fully understood what the others were saying. As to the comment about the US being made up of a population of thieves and outlaws - that, as I remember is the precise explanation of how Australia came into existence. The U.S. would be more correctly described as having been settled for the combination of religious freedoms and expanded entrepreneurial opportunities, an undeniable fact that can be seen in how often rules and laws are set up to protect commerce. As much as I have liked and enjoyed "Rob Words" this new collaboration has been fascinating. Thank you for combining fun and education.
Yeah, the British colonies in America were mostly dissidents (usually on the basis of religion) or people, rich or poor, looking for economic opportunity.
Georgia was a penal colony but probably not for very long. Transporting prisoners wouldn't have been economical in the 17th century, the ships weren't good enough and Britain was not yet the naval superpower that they became later. After the Revolution Britain needed a new place to dump their criminals and Australia was it. They couldn't use Canada because it was too close to the US and they wouldn't want to put a bunch of disgruntled people in a place where they might get ideas about overthrowing the British government.
Let's never forget that many didn't 'settle" at all, in the voluntary sense, but were torn from African homelands, shipped abroad in chains in awful conditions, and forced to work by "settlers" and their (frequently, British) bosses who went to church on Sundays and saw no wrong in this-slavery was a commonplace in the Bible, after all. I'm white English, but not proud of our slaving heritage. Thankfully, we were relatively early adopters of abolition and, in the end, integration. Those black folk added many words to our lexicon, too.
Some of our colonies were used as penal colonies in the early days as well. New England was not, but Virginia and Maryland were used to transport convicts. After the American revolution New South Wales became the go to destination, but not all Australian states began as penal colonies.
I like to say that it's confusing because Canadian English and American English are two different languages, but all the words are the same. Americans think Canadians are apologizing when we say Sorry, and Canadians think Americans are asking us to get out of their way when they say Excuse Me.
Regarding "gaol", quite common here in Australia. I'm a British expat and I bump into it a fair bit - we have quite the mixture of "americanisms" and "britishisms" here, along with Australianisms
I was going say something similar, and for chips and french fires and crisps, we just use chips for both. And biscuits for cookies unless they are the smaller chocolate chip cookies, but even then many still use biscuit. Petrol instead of gas, what do Americans call gas as in liquid petroleum gas (LPG)?
As usual, an absolutely fabulous episode. I love these lessons. For many years, 25. To be exact, I have been mentoring Chinese engineers in colloquial, slang and American English. I have shared both this channel and Rob words with them. This has always been a fascinating area for me ! And I'm not even an English linguistics or literature major. I'm a classical guitarist who has been fascinated with language since elementary school. Thanks again for a great episode!
My favourite example is of the newbie English diplomat in the US. He received an invite to a party, with a footnote that the dress code was : Fancy. He turned up in a Donald Duck outfit only to find everybody else in 'Black Tie'.
I just heard Jess refer to a raccoon as a ‘trash panda’. In Australia, the white ibis is called a ‘bin chicken’ ubiquitously, because they congregate in human areas and trash dive in roadside garbage bins. Most people don’t know the bird is an ibis. It’s just a ‘bin chicken’. We don’t have raccoons here in Sydney.
We don't have raccoons anywhere in Australia, except for probably a zoo. For those that don't know, the ibis is a wading bird with long legs and a long black beak.
That is hilarious. I live in Florida and I would never think to call an ibis anything other than an ibis, or "that bird over there". Also ours have red beaks and look somewhat more dignified.
About 20 years ago, there was a TV show in the US, "Judging Amy". In one episode, Amy says to her mother "You're not going to guilt me into it." Mom: "Guilt is not a verb." Amy: "It is, the way you do it."
Within the United State I was very confused moving from the Deep South to New England. A buggy was a carriage in the grocery store, a woman's hand bag was a purse and never a bag, and when looking for dressing for turkey I was repeatedly sent to the salad dressings aisle. Asking for sweet tea I brought hot tea and some sugar, and a water fountain was a bubbler. There was also turn off the light instead of cut off the light... sighs. Many more confusions were to come in many situations. No one knew about the United States Southern Region's traditional meal or mothers day tradition of wearing your mother's flower. It was Very challenging for some time... The words were quite frustrating and more "deep south foods" were found in Canada than New England which makes complete sense due to French Canadian influences in the regions meal preferences though Canadian French Fries at McDonalds' were a complete surprise! Thank you for this video!
From the Midwest and worked on the east coast with a few new endlanders. I said purse, a bag was something you got from a store or your carry on luggage, but they said pocketbook. Pocketbook to me was a woman’s wallet. That was a change purse to them.
I am trying to remember where I learned this from, but I learned it in a History of American Education class in graduate school. When Noah Webster published his dictionary, it was hailed for preserving traditional English on both sides of the pond. Partially, this is the case because, as Rob pointed out, we had immigrants from England, Ireland, Wales, and Scotland, so we preserved elements of the language found all over the British Isles. Another way of looking at it is that we accepted those who spoke a form of English that the inhabitants of London would never have listened to. So someone like Rob could speak with his northern English accent and not get beaten down in America like Londoners and their RP would.
English had both spellings at the time, -ize/ise and -or/our. Webster chose the variations closer to the original (Greek "-izein", Latin "-or"). The UK eventually went the other way, closer to the French "-ise" and "-eur".
I think that accounts for differences in accent and vocab, but I would say that grammatical differences come from non-English-speaking immigrants who learned their English/American on the job, where there were immigrants from other countries who had different grammatical patterns.
A long time ago I was a teacher (I live in Australia) and regularly ran ski trips (snow) for students. The ski instructors were generally from Europe or North America. A common mistake of new skiers is that as they go faster and feel they may fall over, they will stand up straighter; this increases the chances of falling over. The correct response is to lean forward (push you bum out). I was watching some students having an their first lesson (with an instructor from the USA). A girl (around 17) was skiing downhill and standing a little too upright. He called over to her 'Push your fanny out!. Hilariously she did and fell over.
Regarding trash vs garbage. I grew up in Chicago and treated those words as synonyms. However when i bought my house in Massachusetts in the 1980s the town made a legal distinction between the two. Garbage was messy waste such as food whereas trash was neat waste like paper. Today what was trash is now called recyclables and the enforcement is stricter. Another change, now I mix the American and British terms for the containers, its the garbage can and the recycling bin.
You're totally right, "recycling bin" is more common than "recycling can" even though it's right next to the "garbage can" and the exact same shape and size. Interesting! - JZ
@@WordsUnravelled Let me posit a reason for that. Until about 30 years ago garbage cans were literal cans, they were made out of steel and were no different than a soup can aside from size. Today's receptacles are plastic, they are much closer to the storage bins that you would buy at an office supply store then they are to a can of beans. Recycling came in after the switch to plastic, thus bin rather than can. We still say garbage can out of habit just like we still say diaper even though they are now made out of paper rather than diaper cloth.
@@4TNR This suggests "garbage/trash can" is rooted in the era when they were can-shaped and made of metal, and while the word lingerers for modern trash containers, it resists being applied to new concepts like "recycling bin" or "compost bin".
This is fast becoming one of my favourite you tube channels, funny, slightly geeky (in a good way) and I especially love the almost childish enthusiasm both of you have for new knowledge. PS. Rob I totally empathise with the going red on slightly naughty/ risqué words!
I’ve been involved in discussions on several of these American vs The Mother Tongue videos. Thank you both for being so friendly and cordial with each other. I knew Rob wasn’t like that at all. It starts to wear on one being told our language is beneath British English.
But many of the words Americans use from the Dutch are from a specific group of Dutch settlers in the US, the ones who settled in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, which became New York when the British acquired it in the wake of one of the several Anglo Dutch wars in the 17th century, and Charles II conferred the proprietorship of the new British colony on his brother, the Duke of York. And the Dutch influence remained much longer in New York than many Americans might think. Martin Van Buren, America’s 7th president in the 19th century spoke Dutch as his mother tongue, and retained a Dutch accent all his life. Oh and while Americans will often eat biscuits with a savoury meat based gravy, they will as often eat them, like scones, with jam or honey.
Dutch influenced the traditional Norfolk dialect in Eastern England due to the Hugenots. They were initially invited over to revive the flagging weaving trade, then arrived in larger numbers due to religious persecution.
@@HobbyHopperJoanne on scones I would agree, although in America many like to put melted cheese on their biscuits as well, similar to the cheese scones you find in Britain. But American biscuits, while similar to scones, are not identical, which is what makes them more versatile. Biscuits are usually eaten warm from the oven, while scones are often eaten at room temperature. Biscuits are somewhat more crumbly in texture than scones. And biscuits generally don’t have sugar added into the mix, nor pieces of fruit or berries. So they’re more neutral in what they can be eaten with, whether it be a savoury gravy or cheese, or honey or jam, which is also true of a slice of bread in both America or Britain.
Thank you. I knew this and it's fascinating. There were certain folks in this region and New England and all of Michigan and Fort Detroit before the British arrived. There were so many battles and wars between everyone in that region including numerous tribal nations. The time of the 1300s , eventually led to the revolution, but a great many battles were fought. Including, tribes against tribes . Our Connecticut roads are all primarily original tribal trails. We live in donated tribal lands. The puritans had a hand in burning down an entire village of Mashantuckett Pequots on what is now Mystic, as in Mystic Pizza. The same city in the movie .
@@AdDewaard-hu3xk Begane grond=ground floor. To the best of my understanding, most of the world starts with the ground floor, the floor over that is the first, etc. The USA and Canada are outliers.
Lifts (elevators) here in NZ nowadays often call them "levels", maybe to sidestep this ambiguity? Also there seems to be a trend to start numbering them at 0.
I have just watched this cast for the third time, something that I’ve done with most of the entries. The ‘to and fro’ between the hosts is a delight. I always smile and click whenever a new one drops. Thank you both for providing such happy entertainment. By the way, Jess’s book is a delight. I bought both the hardcover and Kindle versions. Perusal is a joy.
One factor in the differences between British and American spellings, from what I remember of etymology, is that British-American settlers took a specific spelling / pronunciation with them, a language time capsule as it were, while the English in Britain continued to be influenced by French up until the French Revolution, when Britain pulled back from anything smacking of French (sparks of revolution landing in the dried timber of class discontent in Britain, and all that). One example is "schedule": Americans usually say /sked-ul/, the Greek hard K, and the Brits say /sched-ul/.
Many, many years ago, I (born in the US) used to enjoy arguing about these differences with a friend from England. To prove a point about the "ise" vs "ize" difference, I looked in the introduction to her Shorter Oxford Dictionary and discovered that "ize" was the preferred spelling on etymological grounds. And in fact, in checking other British dictionaries, I often saw both forms given, with the "ize" form shown first. Of course, in practice, the British use the "ise" spelling almost all the time. I also remember an incident in which a person from Texas wanted to go home in the dark through an unlit area, and a Brit who was present offered to lend him a torch. Seeing the bewildered look on the face of the Texan, I had to translate for him: "he means a flashlight".
OK, so it is quite OK for 'American English' to evolve, (ie 'torch' to 'flashlight') but somehow NOT for the mother tongue to also evolve and improve? Yes, in the 1960s I saw the improvement from 'ize' to 'ise', but this is hardly a deal breaker. It was the ridiculous, completely unnecessary, and ultimately INCONSISTENT changes which Noah Webster forced onto the colonies which grind my gears. Such as 'license' (the verb) for licence (the noun), but practice (the noun) for practise (the verb); totally contradictory! Or 'center' but ogre and ochre; again totally inconsistent!. Not to mention fence, but 'defense'? Ludicrous.
An interesting thing that some people may or may not have noticed is that the ise to ize switch isnt exactly a complete switch, there are many ise words that are still spelled ise in american english, think "disguise", "surprise", "advise", etc. Sure, those typws kf words might be in tbe minority but they still exist nonetheless
@@jlewwis1995 Excellent point! The switch to 'er' from 're' is not complete either, eg: ogre and ochre. Not to mention 'license' but 'practice' and 'fence' but 'defense'. How to take a difficult language to learn, and make it even MORE inconsistent! Well done, Noah Webster.
My favourite pronunciation difference that I still have vibrant discussions with my daughter about is; the military commissioned rank below a captain. I insist on leftenant (sic) for British forces but lieutenant for American ones (in which I include Star Fleet)
Having served as one, I cannot disassociate from the word Lieutenant, pronounced Leftenant. I don't think it bothers Americans, it still irks me a little when Captain Picard uses the non-British term, but then I reason he's supposed to be French, so it's not so bad.
I was born in England, but left for the US when I was 6. But my mother was quite British and so I was influenced by her - of course. I was recently in a bar and grill and when the bartender asked me if I wanted fries or chips with my meal, I reflexively said “chips” and was crestfallen when I got potato chips. You would think I would be over that by now! Also - as for niche - I have always used “nitch” for the physical space, and “neeche” for the the more conceptual usage as “He had a niche talent.” - probably due to an association with the supposed “sophistication” of French pronunciations. At any rate… Another amusing and informative show. Thank you both…
You guys aren excellent together. As a Brit living in Germany, (31 years now) I love videos that touch on my native tongue. This month (last week) being especially poinient for UK/USA(Canada/AUS connections, especially to those like us (Rob) living in Germany.
As an Aussie, I call the hot variety 'chips' and the bag of thin spuds, also 'chips'. 🤷♀ It's not confusing though, if we want the hot variety we go into a shop or cafe and so on that has them on the menu. If we want the thin and crispy variety, we'll just call them a bag of chips. Oh, and I collect my mail from my letter box 💌. What's with the American penchant for dropping the word 'to' when talking about writing 'to' someone? Actually, thinking about it, it's probably odd to add the word 'to'. We don't ask someone to email to me, text to me or call to me, but we do ask them to write to me. I think I have a headache 🤕
RE the chip/fry debate: As a fellow Brit, my gut feeling is that fry is a subset of chip. I would call the thin things you get at McDonalds either fries or chips, but the thicker version is only called a chip (and a wedge is a completely different category as it has to be shaped like a wedge). The way I think of it, all fries are chips but not all chips are fries.
My 2024-self agrees, but I think my 1984-self would have considered 'fries' to be an unwelcome intrusion. Likewise 'cookie' has become the correct UK term for a specific type of biscuit. A suspect there must be other examples of American (or other non Anglo-English) words being appropriated and put to a more specific use than their origin sense.
@@pauljohnashmore To me (American, but also a weirdo) the biscuits that come in packages and are very neatly shaped are biscuits, and the homemade things that are all sort of lumpy and probably have chocolate chips or raisins in them, are cookies.
In American English fries is the generic term and yeah the medium skinny kind are just fries, but there are other kinds shoestring fries, steak fries, thick cut fries, curly fries, waffle fries… Also a bajillion varieties of hash browns.
As a Brit, when we were in North Carolina, we ordered some food and were told "We will bring you your silverware shortly". Then gave us plastic knives and forks. We found it very funny and the waitress thought we were odd for laughing.
That's an interesting one, because we do actually also use the word plasticware for plastic cutlery in the US. I don't know if it's used in North Carolina, and I think maybe some people just don't feel a need to specify what the material is (after all, I don't think I've ever checked to make sure my silverware is actually made of silver).
@@MKisFeelinSpicy Yes, good point. But silverware sounds like it should be fairly substantial, whatever metal it's made of, and the flimsy white plastic shards we were offered just didn't cut it, literally. The food was great though.
In NZ I wouldn't expect to hear "silverware" used for anything that wasn't actually made of silver. The general term would be "cutlery". Although the plastic stuff it could be argued barely qualifies for that term...
I gotta say, it's refreshing having a (relatively) bite-sized podcast I can listen to as I get ready for work or when I have a spare half hour to kill. I don't have to worry about stopping right at the most interesting part, and forgetting about it for weeks at a time, since I can get through a whole episode in one sitting. Love the work, been a fan of RobWords for a while now, and I'm looking forward to picking up some of Jess's books.
@@paulcharleton3208 ... Condominiums are homes that you purchase, but you only own the inside, plus an undivided interest in the common areas (for which you pay a monthly fee to the condo association to cover maintenance). They are usually constructed like apartments (flats), but also can be townhouses or even standalone houses, the latter being most common in retirement communities. If an American says "my apartment," they're usually renting from a person or organization that owns the entire building. If they say "my condo," they usually own it.
I'm Polish and find this topic fascinating, probably because it is mix of history, culture, geography and language. I always try to imagine how it has been changing over the over the centuries. Do more episodes, please. :-)
The double "L" in "traveller" and similar words seems to have been dropped in America in just the last 30 or 40 years. I'm approaching 70 and I am almost certain that I learned it as "travel, travelled, traveller."
MORE! MORE! Speaking of how English has been changing over the years, my passion is genealogy: my great-great-grand uncle, William Harbison, died in Belfast Gaol, as it was spelt in the 1860's. I have spent 40 years researching him, so I've been reading lots of newspaper reports from the 1860's, and was amazed to see phrases like "the houses were building" and "the houses were a-building". Compare that with modern Belfast usage ""not being standing waiting". I can't wait for the next video! P.S. I really DO like it when you blush!
Pretty much the same here in NZ. Generally, chips are what you get in a small local business called a Fish & Chip shop, whereas fries are what you get in the generic chain outlets like Mcdonalds, Burger KIng, KFC etc, - all American franchises. Wedges seem more common as a snack served in bars. But I'm old and don't buy anywhere except at the chip shop, so I could be out of date.
I was just popping down here to make a similar comment. Fries is a catch-all term. Chips are the type that are fatter and have more potato flavor. I'm also quite fond of waffle fries. Yum!
@@davidfrischknecht8261 ... I respectfully disagree. British chips are pretty much the same size as US french fries. They ARE thicker than shoestring fries, which is what most fast food chains (such as McDonald's serve); but not nearly as thick as steak fries.
In American English (where I grew up), the word "corn" specifically refers to the grain known as "maize", whereas in British English, "corn" refers to a small granule of grain of any variety.
@racechick2033 Traditionally if talking about a crop, or grains you might feed to animals, 'corn' in England is wheat, or sometimes similar grains. 'Sweet' corn is the traditional word for maize as an ingredient for cooking, or just 'maize' for the crop. As a kid in Yorkshire the only time you would say just 'corn' was 'corn on the cob' when eating whole cobs, with butter.
On the word "Flat" and its appropriateness. always assumed because almost all flats are on a single level, ie no internal stairs, that it referred to that physical aspect of the architecture. It is a flat layout of rooms.
@@Roland-pw5xj In the US a Duplex is a house with two separate living spaces, doors, and addresses (though they might be 1043A and 1043B). Basically it's constructed like a townhouse (common wall, common roof) but it's only two living spaces instead of several.
Oddly, when I was growing up in the US, what I encountered more often with archaic usage than 'oftentimes' was 'oftimes'; is this just a colloquial shortening, or a separate derivative from 'oft'?
Another Dutch word used in the USA is “stoop”, for the set of steps leading up to a front door. This is iind of hyper local, as it is used very commonly in New York City, and far less so outside.
Spouse used to work (oh, we both live in the USA---although, I am not from here) at a large concern that had, at one time, owners who came from England. One of the things that the employees wondered was if this new outfit was going to supply pants (as in uniform pants) like the previous owners had. Absolutely not! Later, the misunderstanding became apparent when they did indeed supply uniform pants---but, called them trousers. Naturally, someone said something like, "Pants? Trousers? Same diff," to which the reply was no, pants are what you wear under your trousers. Ohhhh---underwear. (I also have called these same things gotchies---non-American childhood.) Enjoyed presentation again. Thank you.
As an American, I've always enjoyed, "Why Can't the English?" from My Fair Lady where the high-class British linguist sings, "One common language I'm afraid we'll never get / Oh, why can't the English learn to / Set a good example to people whose / English is painful to your ears? / The Scotch and Irish leave you close to tears / There are even places where English completely disappears / Well, in America, they haven't used it in years".
Lerner's lyrics partly reflect George Bernard Shaw's book text... and the lyricist was educated here in England, of course (at Bleadales). Thanks for the reminder of those brilliant words. Shaw, being Irish, loved poking fun at the snobbery rife among the English middle classes. _Plus ça change..._
The differences between American and British English that have always stood out to me are pronunciations of h as "Ay-ch" or "Hay-ch" and z as "Zee" or "Zed", as well as ending words with -er or -re (theater vs theatre).
There's an anecdote that during the Vietnam War, when American young men were going to Canada pretending to be Canadians to avoid the draft, Canadian border guards would make them recite the alphabet backwards, because a Canadian would say "zed" while an American would say "zee".
@@sluggo206 I feel the opposite. I think that they are much more likely to not fall into the trap if the trick word is the very first one. Conversely, if they say the alphabet from A to Z, they will get in a rhythm, repeating what they memorized, and reflexively blurt out "zee".
NO ONE in America *earnestly* used the term “freedom fries” in the early 2000s despite what Rob’s cohost claims in this video. I’m guessing (though shall do further research to confirm) that that particular “practice” was first described by a major media outlet such as the NYT and WP.
I know that politicians were calling them that for some reason. To this day, I still don't know why since I have no interest in politics, but if it was to piss off the Middle East, then I fear the reason to be even more stupid than I already speculate.
@@r0bw00d France refused to allow US bombers to fly over French airspace from the UK, thus requiring us to go all the way around when bombing Libya, even though France is allegedly an ally. Which prompted some indignation in the US. And also prompted the famous Simpsons clip where Groundskeeper Willie refers to the French as "Cheese eating Surrender Monkeys" But I believe the US Congressional cafeteria actually did change the name of French Fries to Freedom Fries on the cafeteria menu for a short while.
Before becoming a character for italian comedia dell'arte, Pantaleon was a celebrated saint (Pantoleon Di Nicomedia) in Venice Italy. His name Pantaleon became a nickname in italy because of comedia dell'art. But the French adopted and popularised the Word Pantalon, in memory of the venician saint, because this weird outfit for that time, arrived from China and became famous nearby the church of Saint Pantoleon in Venice.
Refreshing, Jess and Rob, for avoidance of "We're right, you're wrong". We all should appreciate that 'good' English is simply that which communicates effectively what we wish to convey. If I'm in a location where Faucet is understood better than Tap, I won't put my foot down and refuse to say it !
I've lived as an expat (indeed, for most of that time, an alien) outside of the Anglosphere for most of my life, though I was born in California and had never gone abroad until I was 26 years old. At that point, I took a job in New Zealand, but after leaving New Zealand, it was Mexico, Indonesia, China, now Georgia, and several others. Over the years I've encountered and come to incorporate words, phrases, and pronunciations from English speakers from all over. What I find the most interesting is encountering other Americans. They hear my North American accent and they get actively hostile toward me when I say things like "lift" for an elevator or use the British pronunciation of "can't" (no one pronounces "do" and "don't" with the same vowel sound, but never mind) to the point that it completely derails the conversation we were having previously. It's so annoying that I now avoid encountering Americans when I can. One British man I was talking to once paraphrased Mark Twain when he said that my personal idiolect belongs in a museum somewhere, hahaha.
I once nearly choked when an American friend stated he was going to put his stocking on his head. I asked if he was going to rob a bank. After a bit of explanation, I advised that in the UK stockings are what women wear on their legs. He replied that in the US they're called hose. I replied we used a hose to water the garden. I then asked why he'd come to study in the UK. His reply was because he thought we spoke the same language.
In Northern England, at least, pants and trousers are used entirely interchangeably. I've never been in any outdoor store, anywhere in the country, and seen a section stocking 'trail trousers'.
In Australia, 'pants' usually mean outerwear, both short and long, whereas trousers are only full length. ''Shorts' are simply short pants, while the things that go under your pants are underpants - or one of fifty different slang terms. Bog-catchers, anyone?
I’ve heard Northerners from Manchester/Lancashire say that and there’s also the phrase ‘moleskin pants’ in the Durham folk song ‘The Blackleg Miner’ but that’s definitely not what we say in the Midlands.
Before re-immigrating to England in 1973, I studied a little bit of bookkeeping in a night class in California (because we planned to buy a shop when returning - and yes, we did do so); then later in my life I studied accountancy here in the UK. Three of the standard account names really struck me as hilariously different - in the US, I was taught: 'accounts payable', 'accounts receivable' and 'merchandise inventory' - those same three account names in the UK: 'purchases', 'sale' and 'stock'. Agreed about the difference between chips (yum!) and french fries, but I don't think McDonalds, Burger King or any of the multitude of fast food 'restaurants' call them french fries here - just fries. Proportionally, twice as many Americans have fannies than we Brits. I wonder if the American pronunciation of 'lingerie' was somehow associated with 'negligée' The only verbed noun that really grates on my ears is 'invite' for 'invitation'
If I want to invite people, I send them an INVITATION. When I give someone something, THEN it becomes a gift. Someone is given a task, not 'tasked'. Sadly, too many others which do not immediately come to mind. Just a lazy inventing of words which are already unnecessary.
@@loneprimateseriously, don't care that you are the head of the giant international high tech company I work for and a cunning millionaire, having an "ask" means I have no respect for you. Next we'll be talking about how many "sleeps" before our next product release? If every developer and architect in the company understands a code request, we can understand a "request". We've been understanding the word our entire life.
The story of biscuit in America is interesting American's used to call biscuits what everyone else in the world calls biscuits. You can find examples of this in old online advertising. the best example of this is the precursor to the Oreo, which had probably the worst name ever for a biscuit "Hydrox". The Hydrox was eventually overtaken by the Oreo, which was advertised as a "biscuit sandwich". Examples of this are also online. The manufacturer of the Oreo is the National Biscuit Company (later Nabisco). This begs the question of when did this change occur?
Except Biscuit means "twice baked" like a "ships biscuit", i.e. hardtack. And these barely edible flour/water rocks were called biscuits long before the word was used for small sweetcakes.
And that leads us to a possible new episode of Words Unravelled called "That might not mean what you think it means" Begging the question is a certain type of logical fallacy where you lack an initial postulate, it's a mistranslation from latin so it's ripe for confusion. And frankly, languages change so the original sense of the phrase might be joining the dinosaurs...
The term "lift" was universal, but the prominent manufacturer in the U.S. was the Elevator company. Like with Band-aid and Jello, it became the defacto term for all.
Really? I used to work at Schindler in the US, at the time Schindler Haughton, and I have never heard of a company simply called Elevator nor seen any of their equipment. Could not have been prominent.
I stumbled upon Words Unravelled for the first time a couple of days ago. I absolutely LOVE the interaction between the two of you! I subscribed during the first episode and intend to find all the others you have made TO DATE! :-)
The quote that Rob shared at the start of the video ("...separated by a common language.") is one I've heard/read many times. But I've seen it attributed to Shaw, Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, and Will Rogers. Seems like something any one of them might have said.
It was Shaw, and he said divided, not separated. Wilde wrote ‘We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language’. Shaw may or may not have been paraphrasing Wilde. Churchill and Mark Twain get credited for hundreds of things they never said. Years ago I posted on a subreddit, "Arguing with an intelligent person can be difficult and you might not win, but you may as well try because arguing with an idiot is impossible." It has been repeated thousands of times and I have seen it attributed to Churchill, AND Twain, AND Shaw, AND Wilde, and, preposterously, even Dickens! 😃
OK right off the bat. The word apartment is probably rooted in the same word as partition, an apartment being a partition of a larger building. I think I have even heard it mentioned there. Being apartments in Buckingham palace (although obviously not in the same sense as rental space for the public.). My understanding is also that elevator was a trade name (presumably of the Otis elevator corporation before it came into common usage and they lost the rights to the name. Same thing with escalator.
Otis had the patent on the "safety elevator", the device to prevent an elevator from falling if the cable broke. As a result, Otis managed to grab a very large share of the market while the patent was in effect. To this day, if I enter an elevator in the US I give it at least a 3 out of 4 chance of being an Otis.
It would have been fun to throw a Canadian into this conversation. We really do live partially in both of these worlds, and yet with our own distinct terms used neither in the US nor the UK. Even our standard spelling is a blend, with an almost patriotic sense of how to spell colour, but an abandonment of the s for the z (pronounced zed, not zee!!). It was said that in England during the Second World War the Canadians were the go betweens, the translators, helping the Brits to understand the Americans, and helping the Americans to understand the Brits (culturally and linguistically). I suspect we are more closely aligned with the US now due to the pervasive cultural influences, but we do still walk our own linguistic path between our neighbours to the south and our neighbours across the pond. Like the US, we also have a diverse influence of Indigenous terms and terms from the immigrants from around the world that have come to call Canada home. And no ... we don't say aboot!!!
I beg to differ. I'm a Californian but I have cousins all over Ontario and Quebec and I heard aboot from many of them when we'd visit. Of course those visits were 40+ years ago, so normal pronunciation shift has probably occurred.
One of my favorite memories of my brother was when we were in London waiting for a bus. He was always hilarious with impersonations and accents so I wasn’t surprised when he put on a faux upper class British accent when I said something about the bus being late… “Bus?! BUS?!! You ignorant Yankee. It’s called a rumbling shravebox!” Then just after I’d recovered and we’re still waiting a cyclist passed by and I suggested we rent bikes …”Bikes?! BIKES?!! he thundered. You Yankees are hopeless! That’s an impertinent fitzwilly!” 🤣
6:12 "umbrella term: fries" is a good way of thinking about it, even for British English. As Rob mentions a bit earlier, we'd definitely use "fries" especially in conjunction with "skinny fries", ironically I think we'd be more likely to call them "American fries" while Americans would say "French". But yeah, our umbrella term is chip, but ultimately, if we picture chips, we don't picture fries, we picture the chippy! Interestingly though, one of the things I love about English is our appetite to use more words for certain versions of things. For example, when having "steak and chips" at home that's what I'd call it, but if I was at a french restaurant, I'd be happy calling the dish "Steak frites" or even more likely "moules frites" when talking about those dishes in those contexts.
The interesting thing about french fries is that "french" doesn't refer to the country of origin but to the type of cut of the potato itself. That long cut is call a batonnet cut in French cooking, so the full name, therefore, is french fried potatoes: french meaning the cut of the potatoes and fried meaning how they're cooked.
@@MKisFeelinSpicy, Paralyze is used in North America, while Paralyse is used in the rest of the English-speaking world. The word is a loan word from French, dating back to the 19th century. The French word uses the Y, so it's improbable that I was ever used in English. In Modern English, Y is used at the end of a sentence, while I is generally used in the middle, except for loanwords, like Hawaii or skiing, or in the case of the world paralyze. We don't switch y to I as we would in English but keep the Y. Perhaps if you wanted to anglicize a word you would replace the Y in paralyze with an I.
6:43 Angel and use the word crisps too, but it refers to something different. Pretty much in my experience just Pringles, but anything where the potato has effectual been pulped out mashefld and then pressed back into a thin shape to cook is technically a crisp here.
A university professor of mine explained to us that there are more similarities between Swedish and Norwegian than there are between British and American English
No, we usually understand each other quite well without major problems, but I've seen scores of misunderstandings when parties from UK and US have come to an agreement and both parties are quite sure that all problems have been straightened out. Six months later it's a big legal mess.
As an American, I read the British version of Harry Potter at age 6 and boy did that throw me. For years, I didn't know the difference between British words, magical words, and words I just didn't know yet. For instance, I thought corridor was a wizarding term for hallway 😅
One of the simplest but very common issues is the excess use of "of" in USA English. Indeed, it gets over-used in British, but far more in USA. A couple of examples: Too high of a step. vs Too high a step. I fell off of the wall. vs I fell off the wall. But this permeates everywhere. Try going through some USA text and seeing how many "of" occurrences can be removed without significant impact on meaning. But "off of" is just far too common in both USA and British. I have looked many times yet never found a situation in which the "of" part is necessary. However, I accept criticism that I often drop "of" regardless standard practice/grammar.
@@polyvg I have NEVER seen this used, except by US people. The 'of' is completely redundant. If you have an example of an ENGLISH writer using it, especially in the last four or five hundred years, I would be very interested to see it.
One that grates with me: UK - a couple of things US - a couple things I've caught people in the UK affecting the US usage, usually the same ones who use 'gotten' instead of 'got'. Depressing.
One of my favourites is that in the US you park a car in the parkway and drive on a driveway, whereas in Britain it is the reverse, you park in the driveway and drive on a parkway. (Which on reflection seems completely illogical!)
The whole fries vs chips part is fun being a Dutchy. Our "square potato slices" traditionally are between french fries and chips. So we have at least 3 categories. 1. Really thin long curly style. Often called Steppegras 2. Thin ones (American style) are French Fries (In Dutch: Franse Friet) 2. Traditional style. Which are called either friet (pronounced like: freat) or patat depending on the region 3. Thicker ones have different names that translate to: Grandma fries, Belgian/Flemish fries. 4. Chips we took from English to describe their style/thickness. 5. Wedges (in Dutch partjes) And then you have the names we copied from other sources for the odd shaped ones like the ones that Jess mentioned, like tater tots and snacks like "pommes duchesse", etc.
That's just the soft form vs hard. Verbs usually shift from hard to soft. When I was young, sneaked was proper - now you rarely hear it used. In the US it's now snuck. It shifted the other way.
@@JustMe-dc6ks SO? I don't HEAR them pronounced differently, I just read it occasionally, and it is VERY confusing! We need a law to enforce translating US slang into proper English for the REST of the world.
"A biscuit in gravy in Britain would be an abomination". But what Jess describes seems similar to what I would call a "dumpling". Is it usual to treat "zucchini" as singular? "Waggon" to me seems old-fashioned. It suggests a horse-drawn vehicle, which would more often now be called a "cart". On the railways in Britain we do have "wagons". The American pronunciation of the first syllable of "lingerie" puzzles me, because it reflects the usual sound of "i" in neither English nor French. How did that happen?
A dumpling is steamed, a biscuit is baked. In the US the ingredients would be identical. If you mix your dough a bit wet (like for dumplings) we call those "drop biscuits" because you drop the dough onto the pan before baking.
@@andrewmurray9350, I seem to remember something about that. It's like, here in New Zealand, we tend to call all bleach, Janola. That is the brand name of only one.
Here in Canada I know a woman who took her Canadian friend with her on a trip home to Manchester. They stayed at a B&B where her friend was somewhat flummoxed when the host politely offered to "knock you up in the morning". On this side of the Atlantic, that's a rather more than merely polite offer. :D
I recall a Craig Ferguson-chaired _Late, Late Show_ where a Brit said to an attractive US woman, "You must have lots of admirers; I bet you have to beat them off with a stick!" ... It brought an audience reaction he hadn't anticipated.
I was so happy to find this. I love words! I'm such a geek I was excited about the book "Eats, Shoots and Leaves." I have definitely got to find your books.
Thoughts from someone who lived in the Commonwealth and the US as a child. I have often heard people referring to the waste disposal worker as the "trashman." It is not derogatory. Also, the sport of climbing has the UK using German-derived words, whereas in the US the French dominates. The most recent spelling bee winner in the US apparently triumphed with the word "abseil." Few American would know that word, but many would know what it means to rappel. But my favorite from the business world is when someone suggests a topic should be tabled. The meaning is exactly the opposite across the two dialects!
@@richardparsons6156 At least "Autumnal" has a long pedigree (going back to at least the 16th Century), and I suppose it's better than "Fallal", or whatever the US equivalent would be :)
@@richardparsons6156I have a feeling few will agree. Autumn is an excellent word! The 'Pillar of Autumn' from the Halo games would sound a lot less grand than the 'pillar of fall' 😂
In Australia we primarily use British style pronunciation and spelling. However, I notice that there are some 'Americanisations' creeping into our language. I noticed in this podcast that we generally use zucchini and eggplant. Also, our sportscasters are using more American pronunciations - e. g., they tend to say deeefence instead of d'fence. And also ceremoany instead of cerem'ny. I just love this 'cast, it's definitely my new favourite.
In Canada, because of our proximity to the US, we are seeing CENTER for CENTRE now and again. And LIEUTENANT is often pronounced the American way. Horror of horrors our younger people are saying ZEE for ZED too.
How do you pronounce "offence" when it is a sports team (or do you use that at all)? Because if you place the accent on the second syllable (as in d'fence), to an American that is a different word (as in "to commit an offence"). American sportcasters have probably shifted the pronunciation so that the two words match; you would pronounce the defence team in a trial "d'fence." Sport is the only situation in which you would accent the first syllables of these two words, specifically to mean the defensive and offensive sides of a team. And of course Americans also more frequently spell these words with an S, not a C.
I remember when The Chats song "Smoko" from Australia got popular in the US, I was surprised to hear the word "elevator" used instead of lift. Also, Bluey has my young child calling what we call "GPS" now "SatNav." So our youngest over here are slowly getting Australianisms in US English now, lol.
Great chat, I think of a soft, fluffy biscuit in gravy as a dumpling, but when on sweet stewed fruit as a cobbler…nothing to do with shoes, perhaps looking like cobble stones
I don't think Rob considered how many words could make him blush when deciding to make a podcast with Jess, the author of Words From Hell. They have very different reactions to "naughty" words, but that's one of the things that make the podcast great. Two very knowledgeable people bouncing off each other and sharing what they know, wonderful!
I found it charming that Rob blushed so much, especially over tidbit/titbit.
Writing that book thoroughly desensitized me to profanity of all kinds. And Rob is such a good sport! ❤
So happy to see you over here! :) - JZ
Aren't they both adorable? I love how red Rob gets.
It brakes the gender stereotype of a woman blushing because of profanities and of a man using profonities :)
@@amadeosendiulo2137 *breaks. Here, of all places.
I speak Canadian English, more specifically a southern ontario dialect, and personally I feel like it’s a bit of a sweet spot. We use the extra ‘U’ in words like colour and favourite, but I think we tend to have a more similar vocabulary to the U.S.
i _love_ the word toque -- as I also love Canadian comedy like The Red Green Show and Letterkenney!
I forgot to add one more thing. It's really fun when Jess stumps Rob, or Rob stumps Jess. Delightful interactions. What a treasure these two are!
You know those are scripted, right?
❤
@@der.Schtefanand IRL they despise each other but they have the same agent and they is working on a Hollywood romcom so the show must go on. Hey you started it
As an American who used to live in the UK it took me a long time to accept the treatment of collective nouns as plural. All my English teachers had drilled into us that collective nouns were singular, thus "the team WAS...," "the choir IS...," etc. Thus when I heard the BBC, no less, saying "the team WERE...," and "the choir ARE..." it was so jarring. After a decade there, however, I had become so used to it, and indeed had wrapped it into my own speech patterns, that when I moved back I had to reteach myself the grammar rule of my childhood.
True. In the UK, they refer to things like The Company in the plural form, as if acknowledging that The Company is an organization made up of many people.
The British do something special here in that they leave out words. When Brits say "The police are here" they are actually saying "The (members of the) police are here".
In the other instances when one cannot use "(members of the)" in front of a word, they use 'is' and not 'are'. Example: "Music is my first love" and not "Music are my first love". So, the British do follow the normal rule that a collective concept is singular. Yet they leave out words when they conjugate the otherwise singular concept as a plural.
I speak or read ten languages and only the British have made this confusing outcome part of their language, though not even in Britain does everyone do that for all possible instances.
Still... in the US, the greater Los Angeles area also does something different from the rest of the nation, with their freeways. It is "the 405" and not "405". The difference is again that a word was left out. "The 405 freeway was congested once again" is correct, but "Freeway 405 was congested once again" is correct as well. The word order declares whether there is a 'the' in front of 405 or not, while in both (indeed different) cases the word 'freeway' got left out.
USA citizens speak more original English phonetically.
@@Fred-RickSchermerAmericans also say, "The police are here."
@@binxbolling Thank you, William, I appreciate the comment.
These folks are then still saying "(Members of) the police are here." They are then not saying "The force is here," which is what is being said when folks say that "The Police (force) is here."
It is totally fine to say that the police are here, but the point is then that they are pointing at the actual people and not at the force (of control) that the police holds in society.
It is fine to say that "The family are here", but words were then left out: "(Some members of) the family are here." When one says "The family is here," then one does not point to the members but to the group as a whole.
"The government are going to step in" declares that "(various departments of) the government are going to step in." Meanwhile, "the government is taking steps to ameliorate the Supreme Court's surprising decision."
There is no problem, except for what I would call laziness. The standard manner is that we conjugate a concept in the singular, third person.
The interesting part is how this corruption happened in English only. This leaving out of words, changing the regular concept as singular into a sentence in which it ends up being conjugated in the plural. So, it becomes funny, indeed a corruption if you wish, and then everyone started saying the same things, forgetting the original version. That's probably because English was spoken on an island and at one point in time incorporated so many words from foreign languages that no one knew their left from right all the time any more.
English is perhaps the language in the world containing the most linguistic mistakes. It is a funny language with several strange mistakes when you look at the original version of English or when you compare it with languages across the channel.
As an American that grew up in an ex British colony (Kenya), and went to British schools, I’m very glad that my American stepfather had the foresight to correct me on my use of the word rubber otherwise I would’ve had a very embarrassing experience at the American high school the first time I needed an eraser.
I was startled to say the least when one of the 4th graders in my class when student teaching abroad in Hamburg came up to my desk and asked for a rubber. I was frantically trying to figure out what he was trying to do or say when he picked up an eraser and said "I need to rub something out." That boy had a future in diplomacy based on thar alone! 😄
@@gwjchrisOh jeez. It's a good thing that wasn't over here in the US or he would've gotten teased to death by his classmates. Definitely would've had to remind myself it's innocent abroad and tell myself to get my head out of the gutter if I was in your position.
And there is another Americanism. We would say, _"As an American WHO..."_ and not _"As an American THAT..."._ WHO is used for a person, while THAT is used for an inanimate object.
@@Aotearoa_Kiwi I don't think it's strictly an Americanism. I am American but I think it's a common grammatical mistake/colloquialism across the planet.
@@HistoryNerd808 ... I haven't heard this 'mistake' used where I live, so assumed it to be an Americanism. It certainly is annoying. I wonder where else it is used.
In France we call french fries "frites" (fried), a short way for "patates frites" (fried potatoes), and they are actually a well known speciality from Belgium (and North of France). Rob has got the good pronunciation for all french words: aubergine, courgette, niche, clique and lingerie (plus a very stylish english from England accent 😊). We are using the word "biscuit" (said in the french way) that means baked twice, as a generic term. And the racoon is a "raton laveur", a washing big rat. Thank you so much Jess and Rob! So enjoyable!
That reminds me of a great joke from a movie I watched (the scene is a shop in Brazil) "Do you have Brazil Nuts here?" "Yes, but we don't call them that here." "What do you call them?" "Nuts."
@IanUniacke I love that, even though here in Bazil, a Brazil nut is called 'Castanha do Pará' (lit. Pará not, for Pará is a northern state from where the nuts come).
In German they say "Pommes" for fries coming from the French "pommes (de terre) frites" de terre is omitted. The funny thing is that in certain regions (essentially the one that were occupied by France) they also use the word "Fritten". (There was a famous horse butcher that had a funny slogan for his business: "Gestern noch geritten, heute schon mit Fritten." (yesterday still ridden, today already served with fries).
I think that we should incorporate the French word coince as in je suis coincé. It was something a French neighbour used quite often.
@@Wee_Langside "Je suis coincé" means I'm stuck, I have no other solution, I'm trapped, I'm in a cul-de-sac. Funny also this "cul-de-sac" (means bottom of the bag) !
I really love this series of conversations between you two. And the blushing is utterly adorkable.
Oh, that's a magnificent coinage! I really hope it was intentional
Is "adorkable" the opposite of dorkable?
Having lived in UK and US, I learned these:
1. detour vs diversion
2. Speed bump vs speed hump
3. Watch your step vs mind the gap
4. Sneakers vs trainers
We have both speed bumps and speed humps in the US. Speed bumps are relatively short things, probably less than a foot (30 cm) from front to back, and are typically very jarring to drive over, even at slow speeds. I will go out of my way to avoid a speed bump if I can.
Speed humps, on the other hand are more extended, often 3-5 feet (1-1.5m) from front to back. They are much more smooth at slower speeds than speed bumps are. Driving over them quickly, though, might launch your car into the air!
Brit here, thought I'd give my tuppence worth: I would use both detour and diversion, but I use different verbs with them, I would "go on a detour" but "take a diversion". And with the phrases "watch your step" and "mind the gap", to me they mean slightly different things, "watch your step" suggests there's a general trip hazard, but "mind the gap" would be for getting off a train or bus etc.
Some dialectal differences I learned growing up:
1. jumper (BrE) vs sweater (AmE)
2. loo (or toilet like everyone says) vs restroom/bathroom
3. headmaster vs principal
4. fringe vs bangs
5. aircon vs AC
6. mobile vs cellphone
7. bonnet vs hood
8. boot vs trunk
9. petrol vs gas
10. conical flask vs Erlenmeyer flask
11. mixed (schools) vs coed
12. autumn vs fall
13. cinema vs movie theater
14. BODMAS/BIDMAS (or BOMDAS as my Canadian maths teacher put it) vs PEMDAS
15. Pythagoras' theorem vs Pythagorean theorem
16. primary school/junior school vs elementary school/grade school
17. university vs college (for any higher ed institution)
18. noughts & crosses vs tic-tac-toe
19. scissors-paper-rock vs rock-paper-scissors
20. brackets (the curved ones) vs parentheses
went to an international British-curriculum school; that means we go up Years instead of Grades and learn maths instead of math, and the more athletic of us play football, not soccer. Most of us (the non-Brits) learned English from American media, so our vocab is a mix of both while our accents were distinctly American much to the chagrin of our predominantly British teachers
The State of Delaware Department of Transportation (correctly) uses the term speed hump, but everyone else in Delaware uses speed bump.
In Canada nearly all of these fall to the US side, but I have seen a few fall almost electively to the British side. I've seen "mind the gap" on the subway (not "the tube" or "underground"). But on occasions that I see "speed hump", it's difficult not to laugh. You're supposed to take your time with that... :D
Can we have an episode dedicated to just rude words?? We want to watch Rob blush furiously for a whole episode! Lots of love from Australia.😀
oh, you're mean. . what a wonderful idea!
😂 Ah, there's the laugh emoji!
28:37 It is more obvious to French speakers when they learn a Québécois French uses words that are usually seen as old-fashioned across the pond in the motherland.
Bas 🇨🇦: chaussette🇫🇷 (sock
_«Tous mes bas sont percés vis-à-vis le gros orteil.»_
Brailler 🇨🇦: pleurer, pleurnicher🇫🇷(to cry, snivel; also used in Canada)
_« Quand elle a appris le décès de son père, elle s’est mise à brailler. Elle a braillé sans arrêt pendant au moins deux heures.»_
Menterie🇨🇦mensonge🇪🇺(a lie: also used int Québec)
_« Je ne te crois plus. Tu passes ton temps à me raconter des menteries.»_
Présentement 🇨🇦: actuellement, en ce moment.🇫🇷(Right now, at this moment; also used in Quebec)
_«Présentement, i' fait frette au Québec.»_
Soulier 🇨🇦: chaussure🇫🇷🇧🇪🇨🇭(also used in Quebec but it sounds far too European to me)
So yeah we talk of souliers de marche, souliers de femme, souliers de course🏃♂️(or “espadrilles”)
Tannant : agaçant - annoying
Être tanné : avoir dépassé sa limite - to be fed up
Ustensiles : fourchette, couteau et cuillère.
So yeah utensils, cutlery, or silverware. Whatever you call them. The Europeans use this word to refer to cooking utensils. And not a fork, spoon or knife. I believe they called them Les couverts
_« Laver les ustensiles, les verres et les assiettes après le repas. »_
I belong to a Car Club that has worldwide membership. This international makeup was glaringly obvious at one of the membership meetings that I attended during a show. At this meeting there were representatives from England, Australia and the most verbose participant from the United States was very noticeably from Tennessee and at some point it occurred to me that all of these members were speaking the same language but it was highly probable that none of them fully understood what the others were saying.
As to the comment about the US being made up of a population of thieves and outlaws - that, as I remember is the precise explanation of how Australia came into existence. The U.S. would be more correctly described as having been settled for the combination of religious freedoms and expanded entrepreneurial opportunities, an undeniable fact that can be seen in how often rules and laws are set up to protect commerce.
As much as I have liked and enjoyed "Rob Words" this new collaboration has been fascinating. Thank you for combining fun and education.
Yeah, the British colonies in America were mostly dissidents (usually on the basis of religion) or people, rich or poor, looking for economic opportunity.
Georgia was a penal colony but probably not for very long. Transporting prisoners wouldn't have been economical in the 17th century, the ships weren't good enough and Britain was not yet the naval superpower that they became later. After the Revolution Britain needed a new place to dump their criminals and Australia was it. They couldn't use Canada because it was too close to the US and they wouldn't want to put a bunch of disgruntled people in a place where they might get ideas about overthrowing the British government.
Let's never forget that many didn't 'settle" at all, in the voluntary sense, but were torn from African homelands, shipped abroad in chains in awful conditions, and forced to work by "settlers" and their (frequently, British) bosses who went to church on Sundays and saw no wrong in this-slavery was a commonplace in the Bible, after all. I'm white English, but not proud of our slaving heritage. Thankfully, we were relatively early adopters of abolition and, in the end, integration. Those black folk added many words to our lexicon, too.
Some of our colonies were used as penal colonies in the early days as well. New England was not, but Virginia and Maryland were used to transport convicts. After the American revolution New South Wales became the go to destination, but not all Australian states began as penal colonies.
I like to say that it's confusing because Canadian English and American English are two different languages, but all the words are the same. Americans think Canadians are apologizing when we say Sorry, and Canadians think Americans are asking us to get out of their way when they say Excuse Me.
Regarding "gaol", quite common here in Australia. I'm a British expat and I bump into it a fair bit - we have quite the mixture of "americanisms" and "britishisms" here, along with Australianisms
I was going say something similar, and for chips and french fires and crisps, we just use chips for both. And biscuits for cookies unless they are the smaller chocolate chip cookies, but even then many still use biscuit. Petrol instead of gas, what do Americans call gas as in liquid petroleum gas (LPG)?
@@utha2665 In NSW I often heard “hot chips” to explicitly differentiate chips from crisps. Less common now I’m in Victoria.
@@jasonbrown678 Yeah, we use hot chips when clarification is needed here in WA too.
As an Australian. It's a bit of column A. More of column B. And our own mixed in for good measure.
@@utha2665 I believe the American term 'gas' for petrol comes from a shortening of the word 'gasoline'.
As usual, an absolutely fabulous episode. I love these lessons. For many years, 25. To be exact, I have been mentoring Chinese engineers in colloquial, slang and American English. I have shared both this channel and Rob words with them. This has always been a fascinating area for me !
And I'm not even an English linguistics or literature major. I'm a classical guitarist who has been fascinated with language since elementary school. Thanks again for a great episode!
My favourite example is of the newbie English diplomat in the US. He received an invite to a party, with a footnote that the dress code was : Fancy. He turned up in a Donald Duck outfit only to find everybody else in 'Black Tie'.
Obviously not very English. If someone says fancy it means posh. Every person in England knows this
@@richardbradley5217 Dressing up as Donald Duck is a perfectly reasonable response to "Fancy Dress".
@@dtooke2003 Aye of you ain't from here
I’m confused. How else could fancy be taken?
@@rayafoxr3 Fancy can mean posh
My Dad said that any one who couldn’t spell any English word more than two ways had no imagination.
Mai dæd sed thuh seim thinge.
Eyem goying two steel that fraize
@@MrRat-69y dnt rlly nd djctvs t spll wrds the.
This youtube channel is by far the most enjoyable that I view at the present time.
👏👏👏👏
Yay! Glad you enjoy it.
I just heard Jess refer to a raccoon as a ‘trash panda’.
In Australia, the white ibis is called a ‘bin chicken’ ubiquitously, because they congregate in human areas and trash dive in roadside garbage bins. Most people don’t know the bird is an ibis. It’s just a ‘bin chicken’.
We don’t have raccoons here in Sydney.
We don't have raccoons anywhere in Australia, except for probably a zoo. For those that don't know, the ibis is a wading bird with long legs and a long black beak.
@@utha2665 Also raccoons are much cuter than bloody bin chickens.
In Canada, the bald eagle is sometimes called a Dump Chicken as they spend a lot of time sifting through used diapers for scraps.
That is hilarious. I live in Florida and I would never think to call an ibis anything other than an ibis, or "that bird over there". Also ours have red beaks and look somewhat more dignified.
@@Ithirahad I will trade you your ibis for raccoons! (I may live to regret this offer.)
I like how Jess verbed “verb” into a verb ❤
I stand by it! :) - JZ
@@WordsUnravelled😂🍟😂🥔🥔Totes 🆖🅾️
I am glad I am in such fine company in using "verbed" the same way Jess did.
"To verb or not to verb, this is the question."
About 20 years ago, there was a TV show in the US, "Judging Amy". In one episode, Amy says to her mother "You're not going to guilt me into it."
Mom: "Guilt is not a verb."
Amy: "It is, the way you do it."
Within the United State I was very confused moving from the Deep South to New England. A buggy was a carriage in the grocery store, a woman's hand bag was a purse and never a bag, and when looking for dressing for turkey I was repeatedly sent to the salad dressings aisle. Asking for sweet tea I brought hot tea and some sugar, and a water fountain was a bubbler. There was also turn off the light instead of cut off the light... sighs. Many more confusions were to come in many situations. No one knew about the United States Southern Region's traditional meal or mothers day tradition of wearing your mother's flower. It was Very challenging for some time... The words were quite frustrating and more "deep south foods" were found in Canada than New England which makes complete sense due to French Canadian influences in the regions meal preferences though Canadian French Fries at McDonalds' were a complete surprise! Thank you for this video!
From the Midwest and worked on the east coast with a few new endlanders. I said purse, a bag was something you got from a store or your carry on luggage, but they said pocketbook. Pocketbook to me was a woman’s wallet. That was a change purse to them.
@@Crosses3 You may be right. Perhaps was a pocketbook! haha There were many linguistic differences.
I am trying to remember where I learned this from, but I learned it in a History of American Education class in graduate school. When Noah Webster published his dictionary, it was hailed for preserving traditional English on both sides of the pond. Partially, this is the case because, as Rob pointed out, we had immigrants from England, Ireland, Wales, and Scotland, so we preserved elements of the language found all over the British Isles. Another way of looking at it is that we accepted those who spoke a form of English that the inhabitants of London would never have listened to. So someone like Rob could speak with his northern English accent and not get beaten down in America like Londoners and their RP would.
English had both spellings at the time, -ize/ise and -or/our. Webster chose the variations closer to the original (Greek "-izein", Latin "-or"). The UK eventually went the other way, closer to the French "-ise" and "-eur".
I think that accounts for differences in accent and vocab, but I would say that grammatical differences come from non-English-speaking immigrants who learned their English/American on the job, where there were immigrants from other countries who had different grammatical patterns.
A long time ago I was a teacher (I live in Australia) and regularly ran ski trips (snow) for students. The ski instructors were generally from Europe or North America. A common mistake of new skiers is that as they go faster and feel they may fall over, they will stand up straighter; this increases the chances of falling over. The correct response is to lean forward (push you bum out). I was watching some students having an their first lesson (with an instructor from the USA). A girl (around 17) was skiing downhill and standing a little too upright. He called over to her 'Push your fanny out!. Hilariously she did and fell over.
Regarding trash vs garbage. I grew up in Chicago and treated those words as synonyms. However when i bought my house in Massachusetts in the 1980s the town made a legal distinction between the two. Garbage was messy waste such as food whereas trash was neat waste like paper. Today what was trash is now called recyclables and the enforcement is stricter. Another change, now I mix the American and British terms for the containers, its the garbage can and the recycling bin.
You're totally right, "recycling bin" is more common than "recycling can" even though it's right next to the "garbage can" and the exact same shape and size. Interesting! - JZ
@@WordsUnravelled Let me posit a reason for that. Until about 30 years ago garbage cans were literal cans, they were made out of steel and were no different than a soup can aside from size. Today's receptacles are plastic, they are much closer to the storage bins that you would buy at an office supply store then they are to a can of beans. Recycling came in after the switch to plastic, thus bin rather than can. We still say garbage can out of habit just like we still say diaper even though they are now made out of paper rather than diaper cloth.
@@joshuarosen465 Diaper is a kind of cloth? Well, you learn something every day.
true. it is a "garbage can" or a "trash can" but ALWAYS a "recycling bin" - even if the shape is identical
@@4TNR This suggests "garbage/trash can" is rooted in the era when they were can-shaped and made of metal, and while the word lingerers for modern trash containers, it resists being applied to new concepts like "recycling bin" or "compost bin".
This is fast becoming one of my favourite you tube channels, funny, slightly geeky (in a good way) and I especially love the almost childish enthusiasm both of you have for new knowledge.
PS. Rob I totally empathise with the going red on slightly naughty/ risqué words!
I’ve been involved in discussions on several of these American vs The Mother Tongue videos. Thank you both for being so friendly and cordial with each other. I knew Rob wasn’t like that at all. It starts to wear on one being told our language is beneath British English.
Both lift and elevator describe an upwards motion. This contraption also takes you down!
I suppose resisting and defying gravity is more impressive and memorable than simply letting it win, even in a sedate controlled manner.
And stop-lights tell you to go as well as to stop.
I love what the two of you are doing. Your rapport and mutual respect make this one the most enjoyable TH-cam vids.
But many of the words Americans use from the Dutch are from a specific group of Dutch settlers in the US, the ones who settled in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, which became New York when the British acquired it in the wake of one of the several Anglo Dutch wars in the 17th century, and Charles II conferred the proprietorship of the new British colony on his brother, the Duke of York. And the Dutch influence remained much longer in New York than many Americans might think. Martin Van Buren, America’s 7th president in the 19th century spoke Dutch as his mother tongue, and retained a Dutch accent all his life.
Oh and while Americans will often eat biscuits with a savoury meat based gravy, they will as often eat them, like scones, with jam or honey.
Dutch influenced the traditional Norfolk dialect in Eastern England due to the Hugenots. They were initially invited over to revive the flagging weaving trade, then arrived in larger numbers due to religious persecution.
Growing we never put anything but sweets on biscuits. The idea of gravey is weird to me.
@@HobbyHopperJoanne on scones I would agree, although in America many like to put melted cheese on their biscuits as well, similar to the cheese scones you find in Britain.
But American biscuits, while similar to scones, are not identical, which is what makes them more versatile. Biscuits are usually eaten warm from the oven, while scones are often eaten at room temperature.
Biscuits are somewhat more crumbly in texture than scones. And biscuits generally don’t have sugar added into the mix, nor pieces of fruit or berries. So they’re more neutral in what they can be eaten with, whether it be a savoury gravy or cheese, or honey or jam, which is also true of a slice of bread in both America or Britain.
@@HobbyHopperJoanne It's a southern thing. Dumplings ( as in chicken and) are boiled biscuits.
Thank you. I knew this and it's fascinating. There were certain folks in this region and New England and all of Michigan and Fort Detroit before the British arrived. There were so many battles and wars between everyone in that region
including numerous tribal nations. The time of the 1300s , eventually led to the revolution, but a great many battles were fought. Including, tribes against tribes . Our Connecticut roads are all primarily original tribal trails. We live in donated tribal lands. The puritans had a hand in burning down an entire village of Mashantuckett Pequots on what is now Mystic, as in Mystic Pizza. The same city in the movie .
Here's a fun, confusing one: floor, as in the floor of a building. They mean the same in both AE and BE, until you start counting them.
In Dutch, een hoog is the second floor, twee the third. No idea now what the ground floor was called.
@@AdDewaard-hu3xk Begane grond=ground floor. To the best of my understanding, most of the world starts with the ground floor, the floor over that is the first, etc. The USA and Canada are outliers.
Yes, we have the ground floor, then 1st, 2nd, etc. The ground floor is at ground level.
Lifts (elevators) here in NZ nowadays often call them "levels", maybe to sidestep this ambiguity? Also there seems to be a trend to start numbering them at 0.
@@gcewing , wow, haven't seen that down here!
I have just watched this cast for the third time, something that I’ve done with most of the entries. The ‘to and fro’ between the hosts is a delight. I always smile and click whenever a new one drops. Thank you both for providing such happy entertainment. By the way, Jess’s book is a delight. I bought both the hardcover and Kindle versions. Perusal is a joy.
One factor in the differences between British and American spellings, from what I remember of etymology, is that British-American settlers took a specific spelling / pronunciation with them, a language time capsule as it were, while the English in Britain continued to be influenced by French up until the French Revolution, when Britain pulled back from anything smacking of French (sparks of revolution landing in the dried timber of class discontent in Britain, and all that). One example is "schedule": Americans usually say /sked-ul/, the Greek hard K, and the Brits say /sched-ul/.
Many, many years ago, I (born in the US) used to enjoy arguing about these differences with a friend from England. To prove a point about the "ise" vs "ize" difference, I looked in the introduction to her Shorter Oxford Dictionary and discovered that "ize" was the preferred spelling on etymological grounds. And in fact, in checking other British dictionaries, I often saw both forms given, with the "ize" form shown first. Of course, in practice, the British use the "ise" spelling almost all the time.
I also remember an incident in which a person from Texas wanted to go home in the dark through an unlit area, and a Brit who was present offered to lend him a torch. Seeing the bewildered look on the face of the Texan, I had to translate for him: "he means a flashlight".
OK, so it is quite OK for 'American English' to evolve, (ie 'torch' to 'flashlight') but somehow NOT for the mother tongue to also evolve and improve? Yes, in the 1960s I saw the improvement from 'ize' to 'ise', but this is hardly a deal breaker. It was the ridiculous, completely unnecessary, and ultimately INCONSISTENT changes which Noah Webster forced onto the colonies which grind my gears. Such as 'license' (the verb) for licence (the noun), but practice (the noun) for practise (the verb); totally contradictory! Or 'center' but ogre and ochre; again totally inconsistent!. Not to mention fence, but 'defense'? Ludicrous.
"Torch" was definitely a point of confusion for me when reading books by British authors as a kid! - JZ
I'm American and the ise vs ize ending confuses me so much that I stopped caring if I get it wrong and usually default to ise.
An interesting thing that some people may or may not have noticed is that the ise to ize switch isnt exactly a complete switch, there are many ise words that are still spelled ise in american english, think "disguise", "surprise", "advise", etc. Sure, those typws kf words might be in tbe minority but they still exist nonetheless
@@jlewwis1995 Excellent point! The switch to 'er' from 're' is not complete either, eg: ogre and ochre. Not to mention 'license' but 'practice' and 'fence' but 'defense'. How to take a difficult language to learn, and make it even MORE inconsistent! Well done, Noah Webster.
My favourite pronunciation difference that I still have vibrant discussions with my daughter about is; the military commissioned rank below a captain. I insist on leftenant (sic) for British forces but lieutenant for American ones (in which I include Star Fleet)
Having served as one, I cannot disassociate from the word Lieutenant, pronounced Leftenant. I don't think it bothers Americans, it still irks me a little when Captain Picard uses the non-British term, but then I reason he's supposed to be French, so it's not so bad.
I was born in England, but left for the US when I was 6. But my mother was quite British and so I was influenced by her - of course. I was recently in a bar and grill and when the bartender asked me if I wanted fries or chips with my meal, I reflexively said “chips” and was crestfallen when I got potato chips. You would think I would be over that by now!
Also - as for niche - I have always used “nitch” for the physical space, and “neeche” for the the more conceptual usage as “He had a niche talent.” - probably due to an association with the supposed “sophistication” of French pronunciations.
At any rate… Another amusing and informative show. Thank you both…
I would do that as well. Put the candle in that "nitch" (noun). But I might sell a niche (neesh) product. (adjective)
As a foreigner, I can accept almost anything except for that horrible pronunciation “nitch”. It just makes my ears bleed.
You guys aren excellent together. As a Brit living in Germany, (31 years now) I love videos that touch on my native tongue. This month (last week) being especially poinient for UK/USA(Canada/AUS connections, especially to those like us (Rob) living in Germany.
Also, when the content ends, I'm always wishing the podcast/vid was longer. You are excellent hosts.
As an Aussie, I call the hot variety 'chips' and the bag of thin spuds, also 'chips'. 🤷♀ It's not confusing though, if we want the hot variety we go into a shop or cafe and so on that has them on the menu. If we want the thin and crispy variety, we'll just call them a bag of chips.
Oh, and I collect my mail from my letter box 💌.
What's with the American penchant for dropping the word 'to' when talking about writing 'to' someone? Actually, thinking about it, it's probably odd to add the word 'to'.
We don't ask someone to email to me, text to me or call to me, but we do ask them to write to me.
I think I have a headache
🤕
Lets not forget too that Aussies wear thongs on their feet.....
We say a couple of things, but I've heard America's say, couple things!
I see 'crisps' in stores in the us, but they're more like thin crackers.
@@sydhenderson6753 , I've seen some like these here in NZ. Funnily enough, they're an Australian brand!
RE the chip/fry debate: As a fellow Brit, my gut feeling is that fry is a subset of chip. I would call the thin things you get at McDonalds either fries or chips, but the thicker version is only called a chip (and a wedge is a completely different category as it has to be shaped like a wedge). The way I think of it, all fries are chips but not all chips are fries.
My 2024-self agrees, but I think my 1984-self would have considered 'fries' to be an unwelcome intrusion. Likewise 'cookie' has become the correct UK term for a specific type of biscuit. A suspect there must be other examples of American (or other non Anglo-English) words being appropriated and put to a more specific use than their origin sense.
@@pauljohnashmore To me (American, but also a weirdo) the biscuits that come in packages and are very neatly shaped are biscuits, and the homemade things that are all sort of lumpy and probably have chocolate chips or raisins in them, are cookies.
In American English fries is the generic term and yeah the medium skinny kind are just fries, but there are other kinds shoestring fries, steak fries, thick cut fries, curly fries, waffle fries… Also a bajillion varieties of hash browns.
I would say in England we only started saying 'Fries' when American fast-food chains became popular, for that type of thin crispy 'chip'.
As a Brit, when we were in North Carolina, we ordered some food and were told "We will bring you your silverware shortly". Then gave us plastic knives and forks. We found it very funny and the waitress thought we were odd for laughing.
Ah, he/she should have said "would you prefer polypropylene or polystyrene cutlery" ... just kidding
That's an interesting one, because we do actually also use the word plasticware for plastic cutlery in the US. I don't know if it's used in North Carolina, and I think maybe some people just don't feel a need to specify what the material is (after all, I don't think I've ever checked to make sure my silverware is actually made of silver).
@@MKisFeelinSpicy Yes, good point. But silverware sounds like it should be fairly substantial, whatever metal it's made of, and the flimsy white plastic shards we were offered just didn't cut it, literally. The food was great though.
Lol it's fair. I don't usually call plastic utensils "silverware" either (I'm in Missouri). But I wouldn't have been shocked to hear it.
In NZ I wouldn't expect to hear "silverware" used for anything that wasn't actually made of silver. The general term would be "cutlery". Although the plastic stuff it could be argued barely qualifies for that term...
I gotta say, it's refreshing having a (relatively) bite-sized podcast I can listen to as I get ready for work or when I have a spare half hour to kill. I don't have to worry about stopping right at the most interesting part, and forgetting about it for weeks at a time, since I can get through a whole episode in one sitting. Love the work, been a fan of RobWords for a while now, and I'm looking forward to picking up some of Jess's books.
34:50 - The upper-crust Americanism for "Holiday" as a verb is "summer" or "winter". as in "Where does your family winter"?
Comedian George Carlin queried, "Why are they called apartments when they're all stuck together?"
Ah, George. Much missed...
Such a gem! - JZ
Also ..... What is a "condominium" - such an American word but that ending is quite Latin of character?
@@paulcharleton3208 ... Condominiums are homes that you purchase, but you only own the inside, plus an undivided interest in the common areas (for which you pay a monthly fee to the condo association to cover maintenance). They are usually constructed like apartments (flats), but also can be townhouses or even standalone houses, the latter being most common in retirement communities.
If an American says "my apartment," they're usually renting from a person or organization that owns the entire building. If they say "my condo," they usually own it.
@@VictoriaKimball oh thanks - an excellent explanation theres another mystery solved 👍
I'm Polish and find this topic fascinating, probably because it is mix of history, culture, geography and language. I always try to imagine how it has been changing over the over the centuries. Do more episodes, please. :-)
The double "L" in "traveller" and similar words seems to have been dropped in America in just the last 30 or 40 years. I'm approaching 70 and I am almost certain that I learned it as "travel, travelled, traveller."
American usage as double-L optional EXCEPT when stress is on the second syllable. Then the L must be doubled.
What words might that apply to?
@@garrymontgomery2033 One that springs to mind is compel, compelled (assuming you were referring to @ClaytonBanes comment above).
@@robheyes6470 I'd never have thought that "compeLed" would be used by anybody.
i know how you feel. . i distinctly remember, "roof, rooves" and, "hoof, hooves." . it's a b h getting old.
MORE! MORE!
Speaking of how English has been changing over the years, my passion is genealogy: my great-great-grand uncle, William Harbison, died in Belfast Gaol, as it was spelt in the 1860's. I have spent 40 years researching him, so I've been reading lots of newspaper reports from the 1860's, and was amazed to see phrases like "the houses were building" and "the houses were a-building". Compare that with modern Belfast usage ""not being standing waiting".
I can't wait for the next video!
P.S. I really DO like it when you blush!
Your podcasts are absolutely delightful. I think you could have multiple future episodes re: the differences between American and British usages.
Chips are fat and fries are skinny...in Australia. Wedges are triangular in cross section.
Pretty much the same here in NZ. Generally, chips are what you get in a small local business called a Fish & Chip shop, whereas fries are what you get in the generic chain outlets like Mcdonalds, Burger KIng, KFC etc, - all American franchises. Wedges seem more common as a snack served in bars. But I'm old and don't buy anywhere except at the chip shop, so I could be out of date.
I was just popping down here to make a similar comment. Fries is a catch-all term. Chips are the type that are fatter and have more potato flavor. I'm also quite fond of waffle fries. Yum!
Same in UK
I think what the British call chips we would call steak fries in the US. They're thicker and not as long.
@@davidfrischknecht8261 ... I respectfully disagree. British chips are pretty much the same size as US french fries. They ARE thicker than shoestring fries, which is what most fast food chains (such as McDonald's serve); but not nearly as thick as steak fries.
In American English (where I grew up), the word "corn" specifically refers to the grain known as "maize", whereas in British English, "corn" refers to a small granule of grain of any variety.
Yes, although corn-on-the-cob is always maize.
I've never heard any other thing called 🌽 corn in 58 years. Grains are grains, corn is corn (maize).
@racechick2033 Traditionally if talking about a crop, or grains you might feed to animals, 'corn' in England is wheat, or sometimes similar grains. 'Sweet' corn is the traditional word for maize as an ingredient for cooking, or just 'maize' for the crop. As a kid in Yorkshire the only time you would say just 'corn' was 'corn on the cob' when eating whole cobs, with butter.
On the word "Flat" and its appropriateness. always assumed because almost all flats are on a single level, ie no internal stairs, that it referred to that physical aspect of the architecture. It is a flat layout of rooms.
That's what I thought. Apartments with two floors are usually called maisonettes or duplexes.
Correct
@@Roland-pw5xj In the US a Duplex is a house with two separate living spaces, doors, and addresses (though they might be 1043A and 1043B). Basically it's constructed like a townhouse (common wall, common roof) but it's only two living spaces instead of several.
Oddly, when I was growing up in the US, what I encountered more often with archaic usage than 'oftentimes' was 'oftimes'; is this just a colloquial shortening, or a separate derivative from 'oft'?
Fascinating, and very entertaining, podcast - thank you. And we Antipodeans have our own _(quite different)_ version of English.
Another Dutch word used in the USA is “stoop”, for the set of steps leading up to a front door. This is iind of hyper local, as it is used very commonly in New York City, and far less so outside.
Stoep.
A stoop up to a shop! Makes perfect sense, even to (most) non-US people.
Spouse used to work (oh, we both live in the USA---although, I am not from here) at a large concern that had, at one time, owners who came from England. One of the things that the employees wondered was if this new outfit was going to supply pants (as in uniform pants) like the previous owners had. Absolutely not! Later, the misunderstanding became apparent when they did indeed supply uniform pants---but, called them trousers. Naturally, someone said something like, "Pants? Trousers? Same diff," to which the reply was no, pants are what you wear under your trousers. Ohhhh---underwear. (I also have called these same things gotchies---non-American childhood.) Enjoyed presentation again. Thank you.
Found the Canadian.
I still call mine "gonch".
As an American, I've always enjoyed, "Why Can't the English?" from My Fair Lady where the high-class British linguist sings,
"One common language I'm afraid we'll never get / Oh, why can't the English learn to / Set a good example to people whose / English is painful to your ears? / The Scotch and Irish leave you close to tears / There are even places where English completely disappears / Well, in America, they haven't used it in years".
Lerner's lyrics partly reflect George Bernard Shaw's book text... and the lyricist was educated here in England, of course (at Bleadales). Thanks for the reminder of those brilliant words. Shaw, being Irish, loved poking fun at the snobbery rife among the English middle classes. _Plus ça change..._
A delightful program. The thing that I like the best is that the hosts speak so intelligently. Do I sound snobby? I love correct English. Thank you.
First time I've come across your channel, and i love how you made language funny and enjoyable!
The differences between American and British English that have always stood out to me are pronunciations of h as "Ay-ch" or "Hay-ch" and z as "Zee" or "Zed", as well as ending words with -er or -re (theater vs theatre).
As I understand it, "haitch"came about due to Irish influence, but it is not used universally by all Brits - only perhaps half or so.
There's an anecdote that during the Vietnam War, when American young men were going to Canada pretending to be Canadians to avoid the draft, Canadian border guards would make them recite the alphabet backwards, because a Canadian would say "zed" while an American would say "zee".
@@sluggo206 That works going forward, too, although you reach the shibboleth word faster going backward.
@@allendracabal0819 Yes, but going forward an American might remember to say "zed" if they know about it, but going backward they don't.
@@sluggo206 I feel the opposite. I think that they are much more likely to not fall into the trap if the trick word is the very first one. Conversely, if they say the alphabet from A to Z, they will get in a rhythm, repeating what they memorized, and reflexively blurt out "zee".
NO ONE in America *earnestly* used the term “freedom fries” in the early 2000s despite what Rob’s cohost claims in this video. I’m guessing (though shall do further research to confirm) that that particular “practice” was first described by a major media outlet such as the NYT and WP.
yeah it was a joke that made the rounds but I never heard anyone *actually* referring to them as such.
i remember that flag waving exhortation was met with universal scorn. . it lasted until the next commercial break on the t.v. news.
I know that politicians were calling them that for some reason. To this day, I still don't know why since I have no interest in politics, but if it was to piss off the Middle East, then I fear the reason to be even more stupid than I already speculate.
@@KJones-qs7ju but remember, the politicians who promoted "freedom fries" were pissed at the French for not wanting to get into the Iraq war.
@@r0bw00d France refused to allow US bombers to fly over French airspace from the UK, thus requiring us to go all the way around when bombing Libya, even though France is allegedly an ally. Which prompted some indignation in the US. And also prompted the famous Simpsons clip where Groundskeeper Willie refers to the French as "Cheese eating Surrender Monkeys"
But I believe the US Congressional cafeteria actually did change the name of French Fries to Freedom Fries on the cafeteria menu for a short while.
Before becoming a character for italian comedia dell'arte, Pantaleon was a celebrated saint (Pantoleon Di Nicomedia) in Venice Italy. His name Pantaleon became a nickname in italy because of comedia dell'art. But the French adopted and popularised the Word Pantalon, in memory of the venician saint, because this weird outfit for that time, arrived from China and became famous nearby the church of Saint Pantoleon in Venice.
Excellent, thank you for the additional context! - JZ
Refreshing, Jess and Rob, for avoidance of "We're right, you're wrong".
We all should appreciate that 'good' English is simply that which communicates effectively what we wish to convey. If I'm in a location where Faucet is understood better than Tap, I won't put my foot down and refuse to say it !
In THAT case, 'good English' is non-existent.
@@Scott-i9v2ssnobbery is perhaps a more accurate term
I've lived as an expat (indeed, for most of that time, an alien) outside of the Anglosphere for most of my life, though I was born in California and had never gone abroad until I was 26 years old. At that point, I took a job in New Zealand, but after leaving New Zealand, it was Mexico, Indonesia, China, now Georgia, and several others. Over the years I've encountered and come to incorporate words, phrases, and pronunciations from English speakers from all over. What I find the most interesting is encountering other Americans. They hear my North American accent and they get actively hostile toward me when I say things like "lift" for an elevator or use the British pronunciation of "can't" (no one pronounces "do" and "don't" with the same vowel sound, but never mind) to the point that it completely derails the conversation we were having previously. It's so annoying that I now avoid encountering Americans when I can. One British man I was talking to once paraphrased Mark Twain when he said that my personal idiolect belongs in a museum somewhere, hahaha.
I once nearly choked when an American friend stated he was going to put his stocking on his head. I asked if he was going to rob a bank. After a bit of explanation, I advised that in the UK stockings are what women wear on their legs. He replied that in the US they're called hose. I replied we used a hose to water the garden. I then asked why he'd come to study in the UK. His reply was because he thought we spoke the same language.
You didn't explain what "put his stocking on his head" REALLY meant. I am still wondering!
He obviously meant "stocking cap". I would never call that just a "stocking", though. Maybe he also said cap, but you didn't catch it.
People use the term stocking to mean hose in the US too. Although it is a term mostly older people use.
@@ladybirdlee3058 So why the change? Much easier when ‘stockings’ and ‘hose’ mean different things!
@@allendracabal0819 So what is a ‘stocking cap’?
In Northern England, at least, pants and trousers are used entirely interchangeably. I've never been in any outdoor store, anywhere in the country, and seen a section stocking 'trail trousers'.
I've known people from the Manchester area who say pants, meaning trousers.
It's a very regional usage.
call 'em britches, and just carry on.
In Australia, 'pants' usually mean outerwear, both short and long, whereas trousers are only full length. ''Shorts' are simply short pants, while the things that go under your pants are underpants - or one of fifty different slang terms. Bog-catchers, anyone?
I’ve heard Northerners from Manchester/Lancashire say that and there’s also the phrase ‘moleskin pants’ in the Durham folk song ‘The Blackleg Miner’ but that’s definitely not what we say in the Midlands.
Before re-immigrating to England in 1973, I studied a little bit of bookkeeping in a night class in California (because we planned to buy a shop when returning - and yes, we did do so); then later in my life I studied accountancy here in the UK. Three of the standard account names really struck me as hilariously different - in the US, I was taught: 'accounts payable', 'accounts receivable' and 'merchandise inventory' - those same three account names in the UK: 'purchases', 'sale' and 'stock'.
Agreed about the difference between chips (yum!) and french fries, but I don't think McDonalds, Burger King or any of the multitude of fast food 'restaurants' call them french fries here - just fries.
Proportionally, twice as many Americans have fannies than we Brits.
I wonder if the American pronunciation of 'lingerie' was somehow associated with 'negligée'
The only verbed noun that really grates on my ears is 'invite' for 'invitation'
I'm still annoyed by people 'gifting' things !
The one that's grinding my gears these days is an "ask" for a request.
If I want to invite people, I send them an INVITATION.
When I give someone something, THEN it becomes a gift.
Someone is given a task, not 'tasked'.
Sadly, too many others which do not immediately come to mind. Just a lazy inventing of words which are already unnecessary.
@@loneprimateseriously, don't care that you are the head of the giant international high tech company I work for and a cunning millionaire, having an "ask" means I have no respect for you. Next we'll be talking about how many "sleeps" before our next product release? If every developer and architect in the company understands a code request, we can understand a "request". We've been understanding the word our entire life.
Sounds more like a nouned verb.
I would love to see video (or series) featuring dialectic differences that the two of you have experienced!
Absolutely love your presentations. I'm from South Africa, which also has some ideosyncracies in our English usage!
The story of biscuit in America is interesting
American's used to call biscuits what everyone else in the world calls biscuits. You can find examples of this in old online advertising. the best example of this is the precursor to the Oreo, which had probably the worst name ever for a biscuit "Hydrox".
The Hydrox was eventually overtaken by the Oreo, which was advertised as a "biscuit sandwich". Examples of this are also online. The manufacturer of the Oreo is the National Biscuit Company (later Nabisco).
This begs the question of when did this change occur?
Except Biscuit means "twice baked" like a "ships biscuit", i.e. hardtack. And these barely edible flour/water rocks were called biscuits long before the word was used for small sweetcakes.
@@Rocketsongbut Nabisco didn’t make ship’s biscuits, so the question is still valid.
And that leads us to a possible new episode of Words Unravelled called "That might not mean what you think it means"
Begging the question is a certain type of logical fallacy where you lack an initial postulate, it's a mistranslation from latin so it's ripe for confusion.
And frankly, languages change so the original sense of the phrase might be joining the dinosaurs...
I worked at HMP Stafford, which was still called "Stafford Gaol" and was in Gaol Rd. Many people said "Goal Road" !!!
I was amused when the sign was Er Police Station and Hm Prison
The term "lift" was universal, but the prominent manufacturer in the U.S. was the Elevator company. Like with Band-aid and Jello, it became the defacto term for all.
Really? I used to work at Schindler in the US, at the time Schindler Haughton, and I have never heard of a company simply called Elevator nor seen any of their equipment. Could not have been prominent.
I stumbled upon Words Unravelled for the first time a couple of days ago. I absolutely LOVE the interaction between the two of you! I subscribed during the first episode and intend to find all the others you have made TO DATE! :-)
Excellent video, you two. Very enjoyable. I note the algorithm has identified my interest in language, etymoloy and accents.
Carry on the good work!
The quote that Rob shared at the start of the video ("...separated by a common language.") is one I've heard/read many times. But I've seen it attributed to Shaw, Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, and Will Rogers. Seems like something any one of them might have said.
I heard it attributed to Winston Churchill. Reminds me of "Any sufficiently pithy remark is eventually attributed to Mark Twain" - Mark Twain
It was Shaw, and he said divided, not separated. Wilde wrote ‘We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language’. Shaw may or may not have been paraphrasing Wilde. Churchill and Mark Twain get credited for hundreds of things they never said. Years ago I posted on a subreddit, "Arguing with an intelligent person can be difficult and you might not win, but you may as well try because arguing with an idiot is impossible." It has been repeated thousands of times and I have seen it attributed to Churchill, AND Twain, AND Shaw, AND Wilde, and, preposterously, even Dickens! 😃
OK right off the bat. The word apartment is probably rooted in the same word as partition, an apartment being a partition of a larger building. I think I have even heard it mentioned there. Being apartments in Buckingham palace (although obviously not in the same sense as rental space for the public.). My understanding is also that elevator was a trade name (presumably of the Otis elevator corporation before it came into common usage and they lost the rights to the name. Same thing with escalator.
Otis had the patent on the "safety elevator", the device to prevent an elevator from falling if the cable broke. As a result, Otis managed to grab a very large share of the market while the patent was in effect. To this day, if I enter an elevator in the US I give it at least a 3 out of 4 chance of being an Otis.
It would have been fun to throw a Canadian into this conversation. We really do live partially in both of these worlds, and yet with our own distinct terms used neither in the US nor the UK. Even our standard spelling is a blend, with an almost patriotic sense of how to spell colour, but an abandonment of the s for the z (pronounced zed, not zee!!). It was said that in England during the Second World War the Canadians were the go betweens, the translators, helping the Brits to understand the Americans, and helping the Americans to understand the Brits (culturally and linguistically). I suspect we are more closely aligned with the US now due to the pervasive cultural influences, but we do still walk our own linguistic path between our neighbours to the south and our neighbours across the pond. Like the US, we also have a diverse influence of Indigenous terms and terms from the immigrants from around the world that have come to call Canada home. And no ... we don't say aboot!!!
What about all the "ay?"s 😉
I beg to differ. I'm a Californian but I have cousins all over Ontario and Quebec and I heard aboot from many of them when we'd visit. Of course those visits were 40+ years ago, so normal pronunciation shift has probably occurred.
I love the Canadian word "parkade". So elegant compared to the American "garage" or British "car park". And "klicks" (kilometers) and Nanaimo bars.
One of my favorite memories of my brother was when we were in London waiting for a bus.
He was always hilarious with impersonations and accents so I wasn’t surprised when he put on a faux upper class British accent when I said something about the bus being late…
“Bus?! BUS?!! You ignorant Yankee. It’s called a rumbling shravebox!”
Then just after I’d recovered and we’re still waiting a cyclist passed by and I suggested we rent bikes …”Bikes?! BIKES?!! he thundered.
You Yankees are hopeless! That’s an impertinent fitzwilly!”
🤣
6:12 "umbrella term: fries" is a good way of thinking about it, even for British English. As Rob mentions a bit earlier, we'd definitely use "fries" especially in conjunction with "skinny fries", ironically I think we'd be more likely to call them "American fries" while Americans would say "French". But yeah, our umbrella term is chip, but ultimately, if we picture chips, we don't picture fries, we picture the chippy!
Interestingly though, one of the things I love about English is our appetite to use more words for certain versions of things. For example, when having "steak and chips" at home that's what I'd call it, but if I was at a french restaurant, I'd be happy calling the dish "Steak frites" or even more likely "moules frites" when talking about those dishes in those contexts.
The first time I saw the American nouns "tire" and "curb" written as the British "tyre" and "kerb" I thought they were typos.
No, those words can be very 'tiring' and lead you to 'curbing' your enthusiasm. VERY different meanings!
The interesting thing about french fries is that "french" doesn't refer to the country of origin but to the type of cut of the potato itself. That long cut is call a batonnet cut in French cooking, so the full name, therefore, is french fried potatoes: french meaning the cut of the potatoes and fried meaning how they're cooked.
Never seen paralize /paralise before. Thought it was paralyze / paralyse.
@@josephconnole4222 I don't believe iou.
@@MKisFeelinSpicy, Paralyze is used in North America, while Paralyse is used in the rest of the English-speaking world. The word is a loan word from French, dating back to the 19th century. The French word uses the Y, so it's improbable that I was ever used in English. In Modern English, Y is used at the end of a sentence, while I is generally used in the middle, except for loanwords, like Hawaii or skiing, or in the case of the world paralyze. We don't switch y to I as we would in English but keep the Y. Perhaps if you wanted to anglicize a word you would replace the Y in paralyze with an I.
@@josephconnole4222 I was just making a joke about how the 'y' in 'you' is not interchangeable with 'i'.
@@MKisFeelinSpicy oh! .now y get it!
6:43 Angel and use the word crisps too, but it refers to something different. Pretty much in my experience just Pringles, but anything where the potato has effectual been pulped out mashefld and then pressed back into a thin shape to cook is technically a crisp here.
This is utterly fascinating to a retired English teacher. Wish I had had this decades ago. Thanks to both of you. Your skills blend beautifully.
A university professor of mine explained to us that there are more similarities between Swedish and Norwegian than there are between British and American English
Rubbish
@@harrynewiss4630 garbage
No, we usually understand each other quite well without major problems, but I've seen scores of misunderstandings when parties from UK and US have come to an agreement and both parties are quite sure that all problems have been straightened out.
Six months later it's a big legal mess.
As an American, I read the British version of Harry Potter at age 6 and boy did that throw me. For years, I didn't know the difference between British words, magical words, and words I just didn't know yet. For instance, I thought corridor was a wizarding term for hallway 😅
So what is "corridor"? Not a hallway?
@@stevenhs8821 a corridor is a hallway but it's not a wizarding term, it's just more commonly used in British English.
One of the simplest but very common issues is the excess use of "of" in USA English. Indeed, it gets over-used in British, but far more in USA. A couple of examples:
Too high of a step. vs Too high a step.
I fell off of the wall. vs I fell off the wall.
But this permeates everywhere. Try going through some USA text and seeing how many "of" occurrences can be removed without significant impact on meaning. But "off of" is just far too common in both USA and British. I have looked many times yet never found a situation in which the "of" part is necessary.
However, I accept criticism that I often drop "of" regardless standard practice/grammar.
"off of" is completely redundant. 'It fell off the table' is fine. I have not noticed this issue in real English to date.
@@rahb1 Seems extremely common in expressions like "I bought it off of the internet". Both in USA and in British English.
@@polyvg I have NEVER seen this used, except by US people. The 'of' is completely redundant. If you have an example of an ENGLISH writer using it, especially in the last four or five hundred years, I would be very interested to see it.
One that grates with me:
UK - a couple of things
US - a couple things
I've caught people in the UK affecting the US usage, usually the same ones who use 'gotten' instead of 'got'. Depressing.
@@nickmiller76 Doesn't a "couple" make that two things that grate with you? 😄
One of my favourites is that in the US you park a car in the parkway and drive on a driveway, whereas in Britain it is the reverse, you park in the driveway and drive on a parkway. (Which on reflection seems completely illogical!)
The whole fries vs chips part is fun being a Dutchy.
Our "square potato slices" traditionally are between french fries and chips. So we have at least 3 categories.
1. Really thin long curly style. Often called Steppegras
2. Thin ones (American style) are French Fries (In Dutch: Franse Friet)
2. Traditional style. Which are called either friet (pronounced like: freat) or patat depending on the region
3. Thicker ones have different names that translate to: Grandma fries, Belgian/Flemish fries.
4. Chips we took from English to describe their style/thickness.
5. Wedges (in Dutch partjes)
And then you have the names we copied from other sources for the odd shaped ones like the ones that Jess mentioned, like tater tots and snacks like "pommes duchesse", etc.
I listen to a lot of American audiobooks and the word that's grates in my English soul is 'shined' instead of shone. 🌞🇬🇧🇬🇧
Plus 'dove' (which is a bird) instead of dived. Among MANY others!
“Dohve” and “duhve” aren’t pronounced the same, in American English.
That's just the soft form vs hard. Verbs usually shift from hard to soft. When I was young, sneaked was proper - now you rarely hear it used. In the US it's now snuck. It shifted the other way.
@@JustMe-dc6ks SO? I don't HEAR them pronounced differently, I just read it occasionally, and it is VERY confusing! We need a law to enforce translating US slang into proper English for the REST of the world.
The sun shone but he shined his shoes.
"A biscuit in gravy in Britain would be an abomination". But what Jess describes seems similar to what I would call a "dumpling".
Is it usual to treat "zucchini" as singular?
"Waggon" to me seems old-fashioned. It suggests a horse-drawn vehicle, which would more often now be called a "cart". On the railways in Britain we do have "wagons".
The American pronunciation of the first syllable of "lingerie" puzzles me, because it reflects the usual sound of "i" in neither English nor French. How did that happen?
A dumpling is steamed, a biscuit is baked. In the US the ingredients would be identical. If you mix your dough a bit wet (like for dumplings) we call those "drop biscuits" because you drop the dough onto the pan before baking.
The only difference between 'lift' and 'elevator' is where you were brought up.
Also the needless pomposity of using four syllables when ONE would do!
😅
Isn't "elevator" a trade mark name that became generic, others include Jeep, Hoover, Coke etc..
@@andrewmurray9350, I seem to remember something about that.
It's like, here in New Zealand, we tend to call all bleach, Janola. That is the brand name of only one.
Boom boom
You guys are a very good compliment to each other. I enjoy your podcast and look forward to them.
Have you yet done a segment on words we get from woodworking? Such as hewing to the line, tried and true, sawyer, etc?
Here in Canada I know a woman who took her Canadian friend with her on a trip home to Manchester. They stayed at a B&B where her friend was somewhat flummoxed when the host politely offered to "knock you up in the morning". On this side of the Atlantic, that's a rather more than merely polite offer. :D
😅🤣😅
Ah. Canada - what an interesting way to add some colour/color to the conversation!
🤣🤣🤣🤣
I recall a Craig Ferguson-chaired _Late, Late Show_ where a Brit said to an attractive US woman, "You must have lots of admirers; I bet you have to beat them off with a stick!" ... It brought an audience reaction he hadn't anticipated.
Oh my! Well, that would definitely wake a person up! 😊
Hong Kong 🇭🇰 uses ‘Flat’ and ‘Lift’ vs ‘Apartment’ and ‘Elevator’. too .
In San Francisco we call them flats.
Really? I always used apartment and lift 😮
My wife bought a "fanny pack" before going to Ireland. I suggested she call it a "butt bag". She didn't. I didn't know Irish people were so giggly.
Did you explain to her why you made the recommendation before the trip?
I was so happy to find this. I love words! I'm such a geek I was excited about the book "Eats, Shoots and Leaves." I have definitely got to find your books.
Thoughts from someone who lived in the Commonwealth and the US as a child. I have often heard people referring to the waste disposal worker as the "trashman." It is not derogatory. Also, the sport of climbing has the UK using German-derived words, whereas in the US the French dominates. The most recent spelling bee winner in the US apparently triumphed with the word "abseil." Few American would know that word, but many would know what it means to rappel. But my favorite from the business world is when someone suggests a topic should be tabled. The meaning is exactly the opposite across the two dialects!
I once said, unironically at the time, “I hate the American tendency to verbify nouns!”. 😁
in the UK, the word 'Autumnal' is used alot.. one of the most hated words in my brain :D
@@richardparsons6156 At least "Autumnal" has a long pedigree (going back to at least the 16th Century), and I suppose it's better than "Fallal", or whatever the US equivalent would be :)
@@richardparsons6156I have a feeling few will agree. Autumn is an excellent word!
The 'Pillar of Autumn' from the Halo games would sound a lot less grand than the 'pillar of fall' 😂
@@caramelldansen2204 Autumn is an excellent word... Autumnal is an awful verb :D
@@richardparsons6156Autumnal is not a verb.
When my sister moved to Sheffield she was laughed at for saying, ‘garbage can.’
garbage can - hahahahahaha, oh stop. hahahahahaha
In Australia we primarily use British style pronunciation and spelling. However, I notice that there are some 'Americanisations' creeping into our language.
I noticed in this podcast that we generally use zucchini and eggplant. Also, our sportscasters are using more American pronunciations - e. g., they tend to say deeefence instead of d'fence. And also ceremoany instead of cerem'ny.
I just love this 'cast, it's definitely my new favourite.
In Canada, because of our proximity to the US, we are seeing CENTER for CENTRE now and again. And LIEUTENANT is often pronounced the American way. Horror of horrors our younger people are saying ZEE for ZED too.
How do you pronounce "offence" when it is a sports team (or do you use that at all)? Because if you place the accent on the second syllable (as in d'fence), to an American that is a different word (as in "to commit an offence"). American sportcasters have probably shifted the pronunciation so that the two words match; you would pronounce the defence team in a trial "d'fence."
Sport is the only situation in which you would accent the first syllables of these two words, specifically to mean the defensive and offensive sides of a team.
And of course Americans also more frequently spell these words with an S, not a C.
I remember when The Chats song "Smoko" from Australia got popular in the US, I was surprised to hear the word "elevator" used instead of lift.
Also, Bluey has my young child calling what we call "GPS" now "SatNav." So our youngest over here are slowly getting Australianisms in US English now, lol.
@@MarkNeugebauer-cr3pqspeaking of Canada, I was pretty baffled by the Rush album name Vapor Trails. What happened to the U?
Great chat,
I think of a soft, fluffy biscuit in gravy as a dumpling, but when on sweet stewed fruit as a cobbler…nothing to do with shoes, perhaps looking like cobble stones
You two are just brilliant! So edutaining!