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Heaven: 2021 Proof Americans and Brits speak a different language

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  • Penny SPenny S Shipmate
    I do like Marmite, very thinly spread. But I once ate half a small jar (a very small jar - haven't seen one that size for a long time). It was an experiment. I had started to have migraines, and Marmite was mentioned as a possible trigger. Mine seemed to be associated with the calendar, and I ate the stuff at a time half way between one attack and the predicted next one. The Marmite did not trigger an attack. I did not try it at the predicted time, and I have never eaten that amount since. It was difficult.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    Okay, the term "crumpet" as referred to in Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going where Captian Cook Has Gone Before by Tony Horwitz is the two-legged bronze beauty which is usually topless on the beaches of Tahiti. Tony's partner is a British divorcee living in Australia. He makes that reference when Tony suggests tracing Captian Cooks' travels in the Pacific.

    One thing I have to admit, though, is I will never understand the British pound monetary system. I am much more comfortable with the decimal system most other countries use.

    But then again people in the US use a form of the imperial measuring system which no other country (including Britain now) uses. This really fucks me up when I go to Canada and have to by gas (petro) there. Thank God, the speedometer on my car does have a metric gage on it as well as the mile gage--otherwise, I would be paying a lot on speeding tickets. Nice people, those Canadians.
  • jedijudyjedijudy Heaven Host
    KarlLB wrote: »

    Marmite is Satan's earwax.

    Forgot to say, "Quotes File!" :joy:
  • The really screwy thing is that an American gallon is 3.89 litres, and an imperial gallon is 4.54. Most Canadians are bilingual re measuring. I use imperial measures for cooking (cups, teaspoons etc), metric for distance, feet and inches for height, small distances mm, pounds for some weights like people or meat, kg for lifting something. Two measuring systems does make for some pains, like having to have 2 sets of wrenches and socket sets, though also knowing that a ½" wrench is close to a 13mm, which works unless the bolt is stuck.

    We end up with some rather odd sizes for things, like a standard bottle or can of beer might be 330, 341 or 355 ml. Though when we take growlers to brew pubs for refill, they are 500 l and up in round metric sizes. -- do you call refillable beer bottles growlers?

  • john holdingjohn holding Host Emeritus
    Gramps49 wrote: »

    One thing I have to admit, though, is I will never understand the British pound monetary system. I am much more comfortable with the decimal system most other countries use.

    The British system has been decimal for (nearly) 50 years...what's hard to understand about that?
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    BroJames wrote: »
    I like a peanut butter and tomato sandwich too.

    Vegemite and tomato on toast makes a good mid-morning snack, especially if you've just picked the tomato.
  • Gramps49 wrote: »
    But then again people in the US use a form of the imperial measuring system which no other country (including Britain now) uses. This really fucks me up when I go to Canada and have to by gas (petro) there. Thank God, the speedometer on my car does have a metric gage on it as well as the mile gage--otherwise, I would be paying a lot on speeding tickets. Nice people, those Canadians.
    Ah... You used a word I was going to bring up here as an unusual example of the Americans going European. Gage was how Americans commonly used to spell what the rest of us (engineers, anyway) have always known as a gauge, but now seems to be common American usage as well.

  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    But then again people in the US use a form of the imperial measuring system which no other country (including Britain now) uses. This really fucks me up when I go to Canada and have to by gas (petro) there. Thank God, the speedometer on my car does have a metric gage on it as well as the mile gage--otherwise, I would be paying a lot on speeding tickets. Nice people, those Canadians.
    Ah... You used a word I was going to bring up here as an unusual example of the Americans going European. Gage was how Americans commonly used to spell what the rest of us (engineers, anyway) have always known as a gauge, but now seems to be common American usage as well.

    Spelling error
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    Gramps49 wrote: »

    One thing I have to admit, though, is I will never understand the British pound monetary system. I am much more comfortable with the decimal system most other countries use.

    The British system has been decimal for (nearly) 50 years...what's hard to understand about that?

    Goes to show how old I am.
  • And we tend to use a mix of metric and Imperial. Mike's rather than kilometres on road signs but for some inexplicable reason in kilometres on some footpaths ('trails' in US English).

    Most recipes use both pounds and ounces and metric measurements.

    We tend to think in yards rather than metres and in feet and inches rather than centimetres and metres, but it depends.

    Beer and milk are still dispensed in pints.

    I could go on.

    I suspect Gramps 49 is thinking of pounds, shillings and pence ('old money') from reading old novels or seeing old films (movies). I'm old enough to remember the old currency and used to take a 'threepenny bit' (pronounced 'thruppenny') to school. You were 'made up' (delighted) if you were given 'half a crown' at birthdays or Christmas.

    I can just about remember farthings, I think and we were beginning to be taught about rods, poles, perches and furlongs when metric came in. We were taught both the metric and Imperial systems and ended up completely confused.

    It wasn't that unusual to come across very worn Victorian or Edwardian pennies - and the old penny was huge - in change when I was a kid. They were sufficiently exotic for me to put them in a tobacco tin and keep them though. But plenty of George V and George VI coins around back then as I remember.

    Anyway, four farthings in a penny, two ha'ppennies in a penny, four pennies (pence) in a groat, 12 pennies in a shilling, 20 shillings in a pound. What's so complicated about that?
  • Whoops, 'miles' not 'mikes' ...
  • The really screwy thing is that an American gallon is 3.89 litres, and an imperial gallon is 4.54.

    A US pint is 16 fluid ounces. A US pint of water weighs a pound.
    A UK pint has been 20 fluid ounces since I think Stuart times. Whilst I appreciate the extra beer, there's not much rhyme or reason to it.

    Both gallons are eight of their respective pints.

    @Gramps49 is apparently stuck pre-1971 with old British money. Pre-decimal money wasn't actually all that complicated, although some Brits enjoy making it sound harder than it really is.

    I'd say weight was more confusing that coinage. Why should there be 16 ounces to the pound, but 14 pounds to the stone? Exactly what is a hundredweight again? (8 stone, for those at the back, or 1/20 of a (long) ton.
  • Robert ArminRobert Armin Shipmate, Glory
    In practice, as @Gamma Gamaliel said, we use a mixture of Imperial and metric in the UK. That may be confusing, but I can't see it changing with Brexit coming up.
  • orfeoorfeo Suspended
    A US pint is 16 fluid ounces. A US pint of water weighs a pound.
    A UK pint has been 20 fluid ounces since I think Stuart times. Whilst I appreciate the extra beer, there's not much rhyme or reason to it.

    Both gallons are eight of their respective pints.

    Oh Lord. Just tell me roughly how many millilitres are in my glass of beer...

    Mind you, in Australia different states have different terminology for that as well. I've literally seen a chart.

  • We call kilometres clicks fairly often. Fuel efficiency for vehicles is l/100km (litres burned per 100 km of travel).
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Yes, a reverse of mpg which is distance per unit of fuel.
  • I get the feeling that the Easter Bunny is made more of in the States than in Britain. It seems to have a distinct personality, as far as I can make it, while over here we get chocolate rabbits and that's it. Or am I out of touch with my own culture again?

    There is an attempt by sellers of greetings cards and chocolate to get the rabbit into UK Easter but so far its not taken over from the religious/ spring hybrid of my youth.
  • Imperial measures of length are still fairly common, especially in sport.

    We're all still pretty familiar with inches, feet and yards, but then you have
    chain - 22 yards, the length of a cricket wicket
    furlong - 10 chains, still used in horse racing
    mile - 8 furlongs
    league - 3 miles

    You've also got the
    ell - 45 inches, generally used to measure fabric
    link - 1/100th of a chain, a smidgeon under 8 inches
    rod (also called pole or perch) - 25 links

    Of course, nautical measurements are another matter :grin:
  • Robert ArminRobert Armin Shipmate, Glory
    Mentioning sport, I'm currently rereading Little Women and its sequels. To my surprise there are several references to people playing cricket (and none to rounders, sorry baseball). Was cricket popular in America at the time, or was it a type of baseball?
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    Gramps49 wrote: »

    One thing I have to admit, though, is I will never understand the British pound monetary system. I am much more comfortable with the decimal system most other countries use.

    The British system has been decimal for (nearly) 50 years...what's hard to understand about that?

    Goes to show how old I am.

    You really thought we still used £/s/d?
  • Cricket was played fairly widely across the original northern states, Pennsylvania being a hotspot. However, cricket needs a large pitch and a well-prepared flat wicket, making impromptu games a no-no, so baseball took over from around the time of the US civil war.
  • In shops in the UK the weight of items for sale has to be shown in (kilo)grammes.
    In the Channel Isles, Jersey, Guernsey and others which are an English crown dependency the weights are often shown in pounds (lbs). I asked once why this was and was told 'that's because we are not in the European Union, we don't have to use grammes'. The Channel Isles are linked to the English Crown but are not part of the UK and make their own laws
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    The Channel Isles and the Isle of Man are Crown Dependencies and are not part of the UK. From memory, the Channel Isles are the sole remaining parts of the Duchy of Normandy.
  • Robert ArminRobert Armin Shipmate, Glory
    I love the fact that milk is still sold in pints, but the cartons are marked as point whatever of a litre! Metric, but not really.
  • Gee D wrote: »
    The Channel Isles and the Isle of Man are Crown Dependencies and are not part of the UK. From memory, the Channel Isles are the sole remaining parts of the Duchy of Normandy.

    Indeed, when in the Channel Islands HMQ is addressed as Duke of Normandy, especially in loyal toasts.
  • mousethiefmousethief Shipmate
    edited April 2020
    Imperial measures of length are still fairly common, especially in sport.

    We're all still pretty familiar with inches, feet and yards, but then you have
    chain - 22 yards, the length of a cricket wicket
    furlong - 10 chains, still used in horse racing
    mile - 8 furlongs
    league - 3 miles

    You've also got the
    ell - 45 inches, generally used to measure fabric
    link - 1/100th of a chain, a smidgeon under 8 inches
    rod (also called pole or perch) - 25 links

    Of course, nautical measurements are another matter :grin:

    Also the acre, which is defined as the area of a rectangle one furlong long and one chain wide.
  • Land in western Canada is surveyed into townships, each of which is made of 36 sections 1 mile square, for 640 acres. Three townships (typically) make up a "rural municipality". Each section is divided into quarter sections which are 160 acres. The quarters are divided into quarters as well, each of which is 40 acres. This is the origin of the term "the back 40" which means an obscure area where no-one knows what you're doing, like where you might bury bodies, or where weird uncle Frank lives and everyone stays away from. Does any other country use the term "the back 40"?

    (Historically the Hudson's Bay Company got 1¾ sections of every township (sections 8 and 26), railways got almost half the land (odd numbered sections except for 2 of them) and schools got 2 sections. We continue to deal with railway problems because they have sovereign title to land, including having their own police: they're a nation unto themselves.)
  • Robert ArminRobert Armin Shipmate, Glory
    Cricket was played fairly widely across the original northern states, Pennsylvania being a hotspot. However, cricket needs a large pitch and a well-prepared flat wicket, making impromptu games a no-no, so baseball took over from around the time of the US civil war.

    Am I right in thinking that Little Women is set during the Civil War? There is a war going on in the background but not much is said about it.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Gee D wrote: »
    The Channel Isles and the Isle of Man are Crown Dependencies and are not part of the UK. From memory, the Channel Isles are the sole remaining parts of the Duchy of Normandy.

    Indeed, when in the Channel Islands HMQ is addressed as Duke of Normandy, especially in loyal toasts.

    As she is Duke of Lancaster when in that shire. The little irrelevancies that go towards making life interesting.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    The Civil War is a key part of the story in that is why the father of the girls is away. Little is said about the war, however.
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    The really screwy thing is that an American gallon is 3.89 litres, and an imperial gallon is 4.54. Most Canadians are bilingual re measuring. I use imperial measures for cooking (cups, teaspoons etc), metric for distance, feet and inches for height, small distances mm, pounds for some weights like people or meat, kg for lifting something. Two measuring systems does make for some pains, like having to have 2 sets of wrenches and socket sets, though also knowing that a ½" wrench is close to a 13mm, which works unless the bolt is stuck.

    We end up with some rather odd sizes for things, like a standard bottle or can of beer might be 330, 341 or 355 ml.
    One odd difference I notice between the UK and North America, which I've commented on before on these threads, is that our recipes work largely by weight. We don't tend to talk about cups. It makes foreign recipes really very difficult to follow. Flour (if you can get it, a very sore point at the moment) is measured by grammes or ounces and weighed out on scales. Obviously, we use volume measures for liquids, but those are quoted by litres or pints. The odd one out is things described as tsps, tbss (teaspoons, tablespoons) etc. but those are special measuring ones in 5, 10 etc millilitres, which often come tied together on little chains.
    Though when we take growlers to brew pubs for refill, they are 500 l and up in round metric sizes. -- do you call refillable beer bottles growlers?
    No.

    Nor does the expression 'Back 40' mean anything here.
  • Robert ArminRobert Armin Shipmate, Glory
    BroJames wrote: »
    The Civil War is a key part of the story in that is why the father of the girls is away. Little is said about the war, however.

    When the war is mentioned it is with pride at the men fighting for "freedom". That seemed to me an odd way to refer to a civil war, which is why I was puzzled.
  • MMMMMM Shipmate
    As a little girl reading Little Women, I had a hard time imagining it - to me, the Civil War meant Cavaliers and Roundheads, but the book seemed too modern (I think my copy had drawings). I don’t know how old I was when I realised....

    MMM
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    What occurred in England was not the Civil War but the Civil Wars.
  • MMMMMM Shipmate
    .
  • Enoch wrote: »
    One odd difference I notice between the UK and North America, which I've commented on before on these threads, is that our recipes work largely by weight. We don't tend to talk about cups. It makes foreign recipes really very difficult to follow.
    Yes, and that difficulty works both ways.

  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Enoch wrote: »
    One odd difference I notice between the UK and North America, which I've commented on before on these threads, is that our recipes work largely by weight. We don't tend to talk about cups. It makes foreign recipes really very difficult to follow.
    Yes, and that difficulty works both ways.

    Is that because you don't have scales or because the quantities are generally in metric?
  • The former as much as anything. Scales haven’t traditionally been a standard kitchen item here, though they perhaps seem to be becoming more common. But at least in my experience it’s mainly “serious cooks”—or probably more accurately, “serious bakers”—that typically have them. Most scales these days are digital, so presumably they can do ounces or grams. And there’s always the internet for finding gram-to-ounce and ounce-to-gram conversions.

    But there may also be a degree of unfamiliarity that gets in the way. Just as talking of cups of flour is unfamiliar to British bakers, talking of grams of flour is unfamiliar here.

    Do British kitchens not have measuring cups, whether in ounces/cups or milliliters?
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    The former as much as anything. Scales haven’t traditionally been a standard kitchen item here, though they perhaps seem to be becoming more common. But at least in my experience it’s mainly “serious cooks”—or probably more accurately, “serious bakers”—that typically have them. Most scales these days are digital, so presumably they can do ounces or grams. And there’s always the internet for finding gram-to-ounce and ounce-to-gram conversions.

    But there may also be a degree of unfamiliarity that gets in the way. Just as talking of cups of flour is unfamiliar to British bakers, talking of grams of flour is unfamiliar here.

    Do British kitchens not have measuring cups, whether in ounces/cups or milliliters?

    We have measuring jugs for liquids and many of us have cups now simply because of wanting to follow US recipes.

    I've just checked my cup measure and it does appear to be the required 237ml

    It does however always feel odd to measure dry ingredients by volume.
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    It does however always feel odd to measure dry ingredients by volume.
    Again, it’s familiarity and unfamiliarity. To many cooks here, it feels odd to measure those dry ingredients by weight. “That’s not how my grandmama thought me to make a cake.” :wink:

    Of course, then you get into what cooks here are taught about how to measure a cup of flour.

  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    ‘Pressed down and flowing over’?
  • I checked two different sets of measuring cups against each other and against a Pyrex measuring jug. They were all different. Weight is the only reliable method unless you always use the same set of cups. (And the 'growler' that makes frequent trips to the brewery - or did before the virus closed it - is 1.9l, or half a US gallon.).
  • BroJames wrote: »
    ‘Pressed down and flowing over’?
    Heh! Never pressed down or packed and never flowing over. Flour is spooned or scooped into the appropriate-sized measuring cup and then leveled at the rim with the dull side of a knife.

    BTW, while we’re on the subject of baking, I learned this past week how “biscuit” came to mean very different things on either side of The Pond.

    In the early days of British colonization here, biscuit meant the same thing as in Britain—a small hard or crisp unleavened baked food, which could be sweet or savory. But the Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam (New York) brought with them the word koekje, meaning “little cake,” and fairly quickly the anglicized version of that word—cookie—caught on for small cakes and for sweet biscuits. As “cookie” caught on for sweet biscuits, savory biscuits began to be called by the sound they made when broken: “crackers.”

    Meanwhile, American cooks began to add soda to basic quick breads so that they would rise while cooking, and they called these quick breads “soda biscuits.” Then, as “cookie” and “cracker” replaced “biscuit” in the traditional sense, “soda” was dropped from “soda biscuit,” and that kind of quick bread became known simply as a biscuit.

  • MarthaMartha Shipmate
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Heh! Never pressed down or packed and never flowing over. Flour is spooned or scooped into the appropriate-sized measuring cup and then leveled at the rim with the dull side of a knife.


    But how do you do the levelling off without getting flour all over the place? That's the bit I always struggle with.
  • You level it off over the bag or container for the flour, or if not that, over a bowl from which you can pour it back into the bag or container.
  • Or you level it over the board on which you intend to roll out your pie crust, thus flouring the board and saving you an extra step. (Guess who made pasties two days ago?)
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    Presumably then you have to have separate half (and quarter) cup measures. You can’t level off something that’s only half full.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Sticks of butter is a another thing that sounds funny to UK ears. Butter comes in cuboid blocks.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    Regards: Little Women, the father is a pastor who has gone off to minister to the soldiers in the American Civil War. When he comes back it is obvious he suffers from what we now know as PTSD.

    Grandma used to make soda biscuits. She came from Tennessee. Loved them.

    Another term for unleavened biscuits would be hardtack but I think this term is used worldwide.

  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    edited April 2020
    Good point, @Lamb Chopped.
    BroJames wrote: »
    Presumably then you have to have separate half (and quarter) cup measures. You can’t level off something that’s only half full.
    Sure. Most measuring cups come in sets, with 1/4, 1/3, 1/2, 3/4 and cup sizes. We have three sets (one set also has a 1/8-cup size), along with the standard 2-cup (with marks for ounces, part-cups and milliliters) Pyrex measuring cup with pouring spout. I don’t think that’s at all unusual.

    Meanwhile, a stick of butter = 1/2 cup (or 8 tablespoons/24 teaspoons) of butter, and 4 sticks = 1 pound of butter. The stick is wrapped in paper that marks teaspoons and tablespoons.

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