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Heaven: 2021 Proof Americans and Brits speak a different language

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  • Firenze wrote: »
    Golden Key wrote: »
    Firenze--
    And what's "stoor"?

    filthy dust'

    Dust comes in two varieties - "stoor" which is, as Firenze says, filthy, and "stew" which is dust which has drifted gently into corners - dust bunnies.

    You can have a perfectly clean house one day, which is covered in stoor the next, but stew involves longer term neglect.

    Similarly, it only takes one set of muddy footprints to render a clean kitchen floor dubby, but clarty involves more dirt.

  • Another very useful Scots word is 'havering'. I used it at work once, which pleased a colleague, as he knew exactly what I meant, but neither of us could translate it it exactly into North American English for the benefit of the others present. 'Bullsh*tting' was a common word in that environment, but seemed too intense and perhaps more intentional. I still haven't come up with a good equivalent.
  • Another very useful Scots word is 'havering'. I used it at work once, which pleased a colleague, as he knew exactly what I meant, but neither of us could translate it it exactly into North American English for the benefit of the others present. 'Bullsh*tting' was a common word in that environment, but seemed too intense and perhaps more intentional. I still haven't come up with a good equivalent.

    Does "waffle" capture most of the sense?
  • Hmm... Yes - that's close, though I still feel there's a nuance there that I can't quite define. I think it has to do with the way my father said it. When he talked about havering and my Londoner mother talked about waffling, it seemed there was a difference.
  • DafydDafyd Hell Host
    Waffling has slight pejorative overtones: people may describe an evasive politician as waffling or bullshitting. I don't think you'd get an English singer singing, when I waffle I know I'm going to be the man who is waffling to you.
  • Dafyd wrote: »
    Waffling has slight pejorative overtones: people may describe an evasive politician as waffling or bullshitting. I don't think you'd get an English singer singing, when I waffle I know I'm going to be the man who is waffling to you.

    I think waffle and bullshit are quite different. Bullshitting implies making stuff up to me - groundless assertions and so on - whereas waffle when used by politicians is more an evasive tactic where they use a lot of words and time to say nothing at all.

    I was going to suggest "natter", but I don't think that's quite right. "Prattle"?
  • Hem and haw?
  • orfeoorfeo Suspended
    Those Scottish words often look like they have Nordic overtones...

    Came because I was reminded of an American choice that I’m gradually getting used to. For a long time, anytime an American podcaster said “obligated” I wanted to call out “obliged” in response.
  • Those words don't mean the same thing to me. Obligated means formally required. Obliged means you should by convention but are not required.

    Natter means more fussy than prattle to me. Prattle is aimless and not emotional. Nattering implies the person is irritable. Do you use the word faff? Which means to me to delay by aimless fossicking about.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    A literal use of "fossicking", AIUI, is digging for opals. Not far under the surface, IIRC?
  • orfeoorfeo Suspended
    edited September 2020
    Those words don't mean the same thing to me. Obligated means formally required. Obliged means you should by convention but are not required.

    Well, as far as I can recall the contexts I have heard people using 'obligated' have not had anything formal/legal/binding about them. But I haven't kept any notes. And of course I wouldn't tend to notice when an American podcaster said "obliged".

    A couple of quick Googles confirms that that distinction tends to only exist in North America, and elsewhere "obliged" is used for both.

  • Natter means more fussy than prattle to me. Prattle is aimless and not emotional. Nattering implies the person is irritable. Do you use the word faff? Which means to me to delay by aimless fossicking about.

    To me, prattle implies long-winded and pointless, whereas natter is more of a social chat - certainly not carrying the "fussy" implication. Faff is a splendid word of much use, and as you say refers to pointless dicking around that wastes time rather than taking. I suppose faff could involve fossicking, but rarely does - fossicking is strictly hunting for something (usually in a drawer of "useful" items of indeterminate origin.)
  • Wasn't thinking of legally binding. I do recall someone making something of the differences between shall and must. As in you shall/ must. Which don't differentiate in my thinking if someone's telling me to do something.
  • To me, 'Prattling' is what young children do when they are able to talk, and it's charming. 'Natterning' is housewives of a certain age chatting together on doorsteps, or when out shopping. I suppose I'm showing my own age!
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Hmmm. Shades of -

    Women
    Rabbit rabbit rabbit women
    Tattle and titter Women prattle
    Women waffle and witter

    Men Talk. Men Talk.


    Liz Lochhead: Men Talk
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    Firenze--

    Sounds like something from the musical/movie "The Music Man"!
    :)
  • jedijudyjedijudy Heaven Host
    My mind went exactly there, @Golden Key !
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    {High-fives Ms. Jedi.}
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    How do you say the word antifa?

    It's not a word I've actually heard used much here, but I'd imagined it was pronounced ANT-i-fa, with the stress on the first syllable and possibly a lighter stress on the 'fa'. I think that's usually assumed to be the case here. But in the debate between the presidential candidates Mr Trump, and I think Mr Biden, pronounced it 'anTEEfa' with the stress on the middle syllable.

    What's usual where you live? Is 'anTEEfa' usual in the US or is it peculiar to the president?

  • Anti-fascist. To my ears the middle syllable is overly stressed and emphasized by the American speakers you mention. The stress is there but not pumped up like they do it.

    It's not an organization BTW. It's about principles.
  • I'd always pronounce it "anti-fa", exactly as if I was saying "anti-fascist", but terminating early.
  • an-TEE-fa. That's a common syllabification scheme in three-syllable words. Not the only, but whatevs.
  • mousethief wrote: »
    an-TEE-fa. That's a common syllabification scheme in three-syllable words. Not the only, but whatevs.

    Well, quite. Not the only, like when there's some reason to use a different emphasis. Like, for example, when the word is a compound.

    You don't talk about po-LI-gons, do you? or bi-CY-cles? Or an-TEE-fog glasses? an-TEE-lock brakes? Or an-TEE-logs? Or an-TEE-gens? Or an-TEE-phon?
  • mousethief wrote: »
    an-TEE-fa. That's a common syllabification scheme in three-syllable words. Not the only, but whatevs.

    Well, quite. Not the only, like when there's some reason to use a different emphasis. Like, for example, when the word is a compound.

    You don't talk about po-LI-gons, do you? or bi-CY-cles? Or an-TEE-fog glasses? an-TEE-lock brakes? Or an-TEE-logs? Or an-TEE-gens? Or an-TEE-phon?

    So what? So fucking what? A word's meaning and pronunciation are what the majority of its users make them. There really is nothing else. You go tell the majority of Americans they're pronouncing it wrong. Tell me how that goes over, and how much the world is changed.
  • What I want to know is when it became wrong to be antifascist. My friend's dad was in Bomber Command, which has issues, but he was obviously antifascist. And a good many others. However it's pronounced.
  • mousethief wrote: »
    So what? So fucking what? A word's meaning and pronunciation are what the majority of its users make them. There really is nothing else. You go tell the majority of Americans they're pronouncing it wrong. Tell me how that goes over, and how much the world is changed.

    So what? It tells you quite a lot, actually. The normal pronunciation of words beginning anti-, amongst normal Americans, is seen in antilock, antifog, antigen, and all those other words. Many Americans (presumably influenced by the TV news, which is where they probably encountered the word) don't pronounce antifa the same way.

    That tells you that they're not reading it as anti-fa, but as some arbitrary three-syllable word, as though it were a new kind of vegetable or something. Which to me seems like a failure in messaging on behalf of the antifa folks.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    Re pronunciation of "antifa":

    I think it's given a Spanish pronunciation.

    Re anti-fascists being considered bad:

    For people who are fascists, or playing at being them, or are using their ideas for personal gain, anti-fascists are automatically bad.

    The people from the antifa movement that I've seen and heard about in the news, especially the group at Charlottesville who protected the peaceful protesters, are scary. They may have done good work on that occasion; but IIRC they seemed like they might *want* a confrontation. And I think there's been negative info about them; but there's been so much other news since that I don't remember it.
  • Golden Key wrote: »
    Re pronunciation of "antifa":

    I think it's given a Spanish pronunciation.

    I'm not a Spanish speaker, but afaik, Spanish has both for example antigas (ancient, cf. the island of Antigua) and antigás (anti-gas, as in gasmask). In the former, the emphasis is on the second syllable, whereas in the latter (because it contains the prefix "anti", it isn't.

    IOW, the "an-TEE-fa" pronunciation is only Spanish if you pretend that the anti isn't a prefix.
  • TrudyTrudy Heaven Host
    OK folks (in particular, folks who are mousethief, but Leorning Cniht, you're treading close to the line too), we're talking about the pronunciation of a word here; let's not have actual riots in the streets over it.

    While the concepts of fascism and anti-fascism get folks rightly riled up, let's not misplace that furore into righteous indignation over pronunciation.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    I'm not a Spanish speaker, but afaik, Spanish has both for example antigas (ancient, cf. the island of Antigua) and antigás (anti-gas, as in gasmask).

    A slight digression:

    There was an old king of Antigua
    Whose wife said to him "what a pig you are".
    He turned to his queen
    Said is "it manners you mean
    Or do you refer to my figua?"

    That scans much better with the accent on "tig". No idea what the inhabitants say.

    As far as antifa is concerned, the usual pronunciation I've heard here is along the lines of AN-ti-FA.
  • Enoch wrote: »
    How do you say the word antifa?

    What's usual where you live? Is 'anTEEfa' usual in the US or is it peculiar to the president?
    I generally don’t say the word “antifa.” But what I hear from the relatively few people who do say it is an-TEE-fa.

  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    edited October 2020
    Yes, it's become its own new word. It *means* "anti-fascist"; but the word itself is no longer "anti-" + "fa". It specifically means a particular anti-fascist movement.

    So "an-TEE-fa".

    FWIW.
  • The difficulty Americans and Brits have in understanding each other's spoken language is of long standing. I remember reading the following anecdote in a magazine of, I think, the 1950s, soon after US service families began to be stationed here regularly.

    An American woman came into a large store in a British town and said to the salesperson 'I wanna drymup. Fer pickin' up kittens.' The shop assistant could make nothing of this. After several minutes of mutual incomprehension and increasing exasperation on the part of the customer, the floor supervisor came over and enquired what the trouble might be. He took the customer away, calmed her down and had a lengthy conversation. After a while he returned and said, 'Miss Brown, the lady requires a long-handled floor duster. "Kittens" are small balls of fluff.'

    As a matter of interest, are balls of fluff generally called kittens in the USA?
  • Thought they were dust bunnies. Which reminds me...
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    edited October 2020
    Eirenist wrote: »
    As a matter of interest, are balls of fluff generally called kittens in the USA?
    This is the first time this American has ever heard dust balls called "kittens." I've always heard "dust balls" or "dust bunnies." I assume "kittens" might be regional, though I have no idea what region.

    But the "long-handled floor duster" is, in my experience, usually called a "dry mop" here.

  • I heard everyone getting each other with "yah right" in England. Which I believe is some version of "you all right?" which must mean "how are you?". I prefer "good morning" or "hello". Because I don't think they care how I am.
  • In the parts where I live, near London, it seems usually to be 'Hi!' to which I am sorely tempted to reply 'What ho!', Wooster-style. 'Hi!' seems to be universal on BBC Radio 4, too. Getting down with the kids, I suppose.
  • Hi seems ubiquitous to me, but probably not in north, west, etc.
  • Eirenist wrote: »
    In the parts where I live, near London, it seems usually to be 'Hi!' to which I am sorely tempted to reply 'What ho!', Wooster-style. 'Hi!' seems to be universal on BBC Radio 4, too. Getting down with the kids, I suppose.
    In the Southern US where I am, it's more likely to be "Hey!" than "Hi!," though the latter is sometimes heard.

  • I've considered adopting "greetings and hallucinations" as my way of greeting people. I earnest think that hallucinations are a kind thing to wish anyone at present.
  • Question for our non-American friends of whatever continent: what does "casket" mean to you? Can it be used for a jewellery box or some other use than putting dead bodies into? Because it seems to me that that's the only use it admits in these United States.
  • Casket does mean a coffin to me, but they're coffins not caskets in my usage. In my part of Canada.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    edited October 2020
    I think that properly, coffins are the shaped boxes, narrow head with quick broadening to the shoulders and a gentle taper to the feet. Caskets are the rectangular boxes. In ordinary speech these days, both are referred to as coffins.
  • Leorning CnihtLeorning Cniht Shipmate
    edited October 2020
    mousethief wrote: »
    Question for our non-American friends of whatever continent: what does "casket" mean to you? Can it be used for a jewellery box or some other use than putting dead bodies into? Because it seems to me that that's the only use it admits in these United States.

    My British answer is that casket can certainly be a small, probably ornamental box for jewellery or similar. The box that we put dead people in is a coffin.

    The usual term for a box containing a lady's adornments is a jewellery box, though. A casket, IMO, would be a rather showy box, probably for a few special pieces or something.

    ETA: I've never seen the hinged shiny rounded rectangular thing that one sees in US films and TV shows in real life in the UK. I'd expect a UK coffin to be wooden with a screwed-on lid.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Those hinged shiny rounded rectangular things (why "things" I ask) are much more common here than the traditionally shaped coffins. I can't think of the last time I saw a coffin at either a religious or non-religious funeral.

    As an aside, while I can't quickly find precise statistics, I'd say that somewhere around 75% of funerals are secular; of the balance, fewer than half will have been conducted in a place of worship.
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    mousethief wrote: »
    Question for our non-American friends of whatever continent: what does "casket" mean to you? Can it be used for a jewellery box or some other use than putting dead bodies into? Because it seems to me that that's the only use it admits in these United States.

    My British answer is that casket can certainly be a small, probably ornamental box for jewellery or similar. The box that we put dead people in is a coffin.

    The usual term for a box containing a lady's adornments is a jewellery box, though. A casket, IMO, would be a rather showy box, probably for a few special pieces or something.
    I agree. The primary use of 'casket' here is not a coffin.
    ETA: I've never seen the hinged shiny rounded rectangular thing that one sees in US films and TV shows in real life in the UK. I'd expect a UK coffin to be wooden with a screwed-on lid.
    Nor have I.

    There's a recent fashion for the environmentally minded to go to their eternal rest in a basketwork coffin. It's still much the same shape as an ordinary one, though often rectangular rather than with the bulge in the middle for the elbows.

  • I would have said the word "casket" is rarely used at all in modern "English" English.
  • Sparrow wrote: »
    I would have said the word "casket" is rarely used at all in modern "English" English.
    While in my American experience, the word “coffin” is reserved for vampires, horror movies and Halloween. The thing that people we actually know are buried in is a casket. And it’s the rectangular box thing described above, though it may be made of wood rather than something shiny.

  • Jewelry box.

    Are we in roast beef - prime rib territory?
  • MarsupialMarsupial Shipmate
    edited October 2020
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Eirenist wrote: »
    As a matter of interest, are balls of fluff generally called kittens in the USA?
    This is the first time this American has ever heard dust balls called "kittens." I've always heard "dust balls" or "dust bunnies." I assume "kittens" might be regional, though I have no idea what region.

    But the "long-handled floor duster" is, in my experience, usually called a "dry mop" here.

    I had to look up “dry mop”, but I think that has to do with my lack of sophistication in floor cleaning technology rather than with any peculiarity of Canadian English. The thing that comes to my mind for that task is a broom...

    The only connection I know of between felines and dust bunnies is the one we discovered when our newly acquired feline wandered under a chair on her first day at our home some years ago and came out with her tail covered in dust bunnies.

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