On the same theme though, something I've noticed about the way Americans (on line anyway) describe how they cook something, it's "I throw in" or "I toss in" such an such an ingredient. Now to me that conjures up an image of the person standing on the other side of the kitchen and throwing the ingredients in the direction of the pan! Why such vivid language?
Another language difference that has been highlighted elsewhere to me is the elevation of leadership titles.
It is well known that pretty well anyone in management in the US seems to be called vice-president of xyz, whereas in the UK, they tend - unless owned in the US - to be at best "head of" - or just "xyz manager".
It may be well-known, but I don’t know that it’s particularly accurate. “Vice-presidents” abound in some US contexts I can think of (banks come to mind), but it’s by no means the case generally.
But the one that alerted me to this was that in the UK, the head of a university is a vice-chancellor. Not even an actual chancellor. Whereas in the US they are president.
That depends on the university and the university’s structure. There was a discussion about this on the Ship sometime in the last year or two. I went to an American public university that is part of a public university system, where each constituent university is a separate and distinct entity (not just separate campuses under one administration). The system has a president, while each university is headed by a chancellor. I seem to recall @Ruth saying that the opposite was the case in the University of California system.
One difference I've noticed is some US speakers saying they e.g. "make chicken" for dinner.
To us in the UK that would imply you had the ability to actually create chickens.
My mother (in the American South) would correct us if we said “make chicken.”
While I'm at it, spaghetti here refers to the pasta itself; it's not the dish. And under no circumstances are individual pasta pieces called "noodles".
Yes, I think it was last summer that we had a long discussion on the Ship about pasta and noodles in British, American and other usages. Can’t remember which thread, though.
On the same theme though, something I've noticed about the way Americans (on line anyway) describe how they cook something, it's "I throw in" or "I toss in" such an such an ingredient. Now to me that conjures up an image of the person standing on the other side of the kitchen and throwing the ingredients in the direction of the pan! Why such vivid language?
It's not a Pond difference thing. Watch Jamie Oliver or other British chef on the telly and they'll use similarly vivid or rigorous terms.
Except Mary Berry of course.
Is anyone else here old enough to remember Fanny Craddock? She wouldn't have used language like that ... 😉
I've got into hot water before now about Americanisms but generally speaking, at a media level at least, I don't think the divergences are as stark as some make out.
At a regional level, yes.
I noticed in the comments box of an online video by a popular proponent of 'historical pronunciation' that an American poster noted some very striking similarities between the speech of some Appallachian builders and some of the phrases in popular Elizabethan speech.
I don't doubt that but feel it can be overemphasised at times.
I noticed a very stark Americanism in one of @Gramps49's posts, something nobody I know here in the UK would say, but it was still perfectly comprehensible.
It was along the lines of 'slow down some', or 'worsening some' or something like that. Not generally used in contemporary British English but comprehensible all the same and certainly not unpleasant in any way.
I'm sure I often use baffling phrases in my posts, and not only when I'm deliberately adopting a 'Wenglish' style of speech, which I don't do very often these days.
On the same theme though, something I've noticed about the way Americans (on line anyway) describe how they cook something, it's "I throw in" or "I toss in" such an such an ingredient. Now to me that conjures up an image of the person standing on the other side of the kitchen and throwing the ingredients in the direction of the pan! Why such vivid language?
Have you encountered Jamie Oliver at all? Bung some of this in. Bish bash bosh.
I think it’s supposed to be less threatening than “please strip naked and put on that backless gown”.
A Baptist minister I know once went to the doctor for a problem with his feet. The nurse asked him to take his shoes and socks off and lie on the couch then left the room for a moment.
He misheard and thought she'd asked him to take all his clothes off. Puzzled but not wanting to make a fuss he stripped off and lay face down on the couch with his bum stuck up in the air.
Whereupon the female doctor walked in, obliviously looking at her notes.
'Well Mr
, what appears to be the prob- ... Eeek!'
Mention of Fanny Craddock reminds me of a joke I heard the other day from an old radio show, describing a party where she did the catering and Lionel Blair was the entertainment. They were described as ‘Butch Casserole and the One-Dance Kid’.
Like others, the mention of more exuberant terms for cooking techniques brought Jamie Oliver immediately to my mind.
Swiftly followed by an image of Ainsley Harriott liberally sprinkling seasoning from a great height into his cooking pot.
It's a particular style of chefspeak designed to convince you that cooking is slapdash fun and ridiculously easy. But it's like Picasso - you need to master drawing before you can look as if you can't.
Popping in to mention an oddity I've found in the way my brain deals with variant spelling, with particular reference to spellings of sulphur. There was agreement among scientists that the American spelling sulfur would be used in journals, papers and so on. (There was I thought a reciprocal agreement with regard to aluminium, but it isn't observed for some reason.)
Anyway, it doesn't bother me much, as if I'm reading science, it's sulfur, and if I'm not, it's sulphur, or in some circumstances, brimstone, and the flow is not interrupted while I mentally comment that it's an Americanism.
Until I was reading and American edition of the Odyssey, where Zeus strikes the ship with a thunderbolt, and fills the ship with the yellow powdery substance. Spelled sulfur. And my brain stopped me with the thought "Where's the science?" And immediately cast the whole episode as a match for something scientific I had recently read. So leaving Odysseus hanging over Charybdis I searched and found a passage about some folks caught in the Cascades by Mt. St. Helens. Withoujt the waves, of course.
This has led to another case of different interpretations, nothung to do with the pond. The Earth Science Dept at the OU said it was obviously volcanic, and got me into the Bodleian to research possibilities. Classicists approached want to have nothing to do with it, publications declare emphatically that nowhere in Homer is any reference to volcanoes, or Hesiod either. (I wonder how they would interpret Pliny on Vesuvius.) The ancient writer Apollonius of Rhodes in his Argonautica uses Homeric descriptions of the area it happened with added molten lava!
I wouldn't have spotted this without the cross pond spelling. And certainly not from the translation (possibly T E Lawrence's) that used brimstone.
"'Cockwomble' is derogatory British slang for a person, usually male, who is prone to making outrageously stupid statements and-or inappropriate behaviour while having a very high opinion of their own wisdom and importance." Is this true? If so thank you friends across the pond. I know just when to use it.
"'Cockwomble' is derogatory British slang for a person, usually male, who is prone to making outrageously stupid statements and-or inappropriate behaviour while having a very high opinion of their own wisdom and importance."
If you dig around in the political threads in Purg and Hell, you're likely to find a number of politicians described using this word on a regular basis.
Or, on both sides of the Pond now, I think, 'Will you do that for me?'
As in, 'Can you lift your arm up for me?'
Or, 'Can you lie there on the couch for me?'
And so on.
Attending ante-natal appointment during first pregnancy, taking an hour off from work and wearing a business suit: Could you provide us with a mid-stream urine sample, please, Mrs X
Attending ante-natal appointment during second pregnancy, taking an hour off from being at home with a toddler, and wearing jeans: Could do you do a wee-wee in this pot for us, please, first name?
There was a huge difference in language use between the two pregnancies, based on the fact that first time round I was a pregnant lawyer and second time round I was a pregnant at-home mother-of-one.
Or, on both sides of the Pond now, I think, 'Will you do that for me?'
As in, 'Can you lift your arm up for me?'
Or, 'Can you lie there on the couch for me?'
And so on.
Attending ante-natal appointment during first pregnancy, taking an hour off from work and wearing a business suit: Could you provide us with a mid-stream urine sample, please, Mrs X
Attending ante-natal appointment during second pregnancy, taking an hour off from being at home with a toddler, and wearing jeans: Could do you do a wee-wee in this pot for us, please, first name?
There was a huge difference in language use between the two pregnancies, based on the fact that first time round I was a pregnant lawyer and second time round I was a pregnant at-home mother-of-one.
TBF, the other variable is different clinicians each time.
I am at present frequently called by the cardiology department of my local hospital, who invariably address me by my first name, which I never use. I am normally adressed by my friends bymy second name. At 86 years of age, I am accustomed to being addressed as Mr X or Sir. I sometimes feel inclined to point out that I am not ga-ga, despite all appearances, but the hospital staff are doing their best, and no doubt following instructions.
"How are we today?" a form of enquiry I only used to come across in a medical situation, e.g. in hospital, but it now seems to be creeping into restaurant-speak, when you first encounter your server. I want to respond, "I don't know, how are you?"
"How are we today?" a form of enquiry I only used to come across in a medical situation, e.g. in hospital, but it now seems to be creeping into restaurant-speak, when you first encounter your server. I want to respond, "I don't know, how are you?"
Reminds me of the start of "Mr Slater's Parrot" by the Bonzo Dog Band.
"Hello, and how did you find yourself this morning?" "Well, I just rolled back the sheets and there I was !"
I've noticed that in the Newcastle area in the North East of England when people say 'How are you ?' they simply mean 'Hello' They don't particularly want answers like 'I'm fine,thankyou'.
I am at present frequently called by the cardiology department of my local hospital, who invariably address me by my first name, which I never use. I am normally adressed by my friends bymy second name. At 86 years of age, I am accustomed to being addressed as Mr X or Sir. I sometimes feel inclined to point out that I am not ga-ga, despite all appearances, but the hospital staff are doing their best, and no doubt following instructions.
The best thing is to ask. Personally I hate being addressed as Mr LB or Sir. The first sounds like they think I'm my dad and the second makes me sound like a form master.
I'm not desperately keen on my first name but it's the thing that's specifically me, rather than my surname which just identifies my family.
Round here “ Are you all right” ( which sounds more like Yerlright?) = Hello, though either “ You all right?” or “Fine thanks, are you?” are fine as a reply.
Allegedly “Aye up, mi’ duck” is also the local greeting, though I can’t say I’ve heard it except in parody.
Now that I'm getting on in years, I find I'm increasingly irritated by being addressed as "darling" by people I don't know, young enough to be my grandchild.
Finally! My chance!
May I ask about HOW to express something in British English?
In the US, there is no profanity involved with the word "bloody." We take it literally as "there's blood on it." Pimple-faced teens pick bloody holes in their skin. Menstrating young women deal with "bloody rags." The desperado may have to remove a bloody shirt after a gun fight. When I cut my hand chopping vegetables, the kitchen towel was soon all bloody.
How do people express these things, when what seems here to be the most basic adjective is off the table -- unless one intends to be crass?
Blood-soaked? Blood-stained? Rephrase as 'covered in blood'?
Bloody is a mild expletive as they go - the effect of using it to mean literally 'covered in blood' would probably be more humourous than offensive. When Duncan in Macbeth asks 'What bloody man is that?' of a blood-covered messenger the effect to modern British ears is that he is mildly grumpy at being disturbed.
It also depends on positioning. 'His hands were bloody' is faintly archaic but isn't an expletive at all.
We do use "bloody" to simply mean something with blood on it. It's generally clear by context whether "bloody" is being used descriptively, or as a swear word. "Bloody" is not off the table.
"The kitchen towel was all bloody" would be clear; "the bloody kitchen towel" less so. Although if you said "I cut my hand chopping veg; I've put the bloody kitchen towel to soak in cold water" that would also be clear, and no-one would think you were swearing.
Or we'd phrase it differently - the desperado would remove a blood-soaked or blood-stained shirt. Menstruating women would also be dealing with "blood-stained" rather than "bloody" items.
It's tricky. Feels stylistically wrong. But it's good to know some culturally-appropriate options.
It also seems like some thpical US forms of expression might be seen as overstatement or exageration across a pond, while we Americans often see Brits in general as masters of understatement.
I am 60 year Canadian university student services professional and lecturer. This morning a student I have never met sent me an email with the following salutation "Hey Dr. Misspelled last name". ( I'm not a doctor and the proper spelling of my last name is clear in my email address.) Are those on the other side of the Pond receiving communications from young people that start with "hey" or is this more common on my side of the pond?
Comments
That depends on the university and the university’s structure. There was a discussion about this on the Ship sometime in the last year or two. I went to an American public university that is part of a public university system, where each constituent university is a separate and distinct entity (not just separate campuses under one administration). The system has a president, while each university is headed by a chancellor. I seem to recall @Ruth saying that the opposite was the case in the University of California system.
My mother (in the American South) would correct us if we said “make chicken.”
Yes, I think it was last summer that we had a long discussion on the Ship about pasta and noodles in British, American and other usages. Can’t remember which thread, though.
It's not a Pond difference thing. Watch Jamie Oliver or other British chef on the telly and they'll use similarly vivid or rigorous terms.
Except Mary Berry of course.
Is anyone else here old enough to remember Fanny Craddock? She wouldn't have used language like that ... 😉
I've got into hot water before now about Americanisms but generally speaking, at a media level at least, I don't think the divergences are as stark as some make out.
At a regional level, yes.
I noticed in the comments box of an online video by a popular proponent of 'historical pronunciation' that an American poster noted some very striking similarities between the speech of some Appallachian builders and some of the phrases in popular Elizabethan speech.
I don't doubt that but feel it can be overemphasised at times.
I noticed a very stark Americanism in one of @Gramps49's posts, something nobody I know here in the UK would say, but it was still perfectly comprehensible.
It was along the lines of 'slow down some', or 'worsening some' or something like that. Not generally used in contemporary British English but comprehensible all the same and certainly not unpleasant in any way.
I'm sure I often use baffling phrases in my posts, and not only when I'm deliberately adopting a 'Wenglish' style of speech, which I don't do very often these days.
Have you encountered Jamie Oliver at all? Bung some of this in. Bish bash bosh.
As in "Just pop off your clothes and climb onto the couch" or "Pop on this gown" or "Pop into that cubicle and get changed" ...
As in, 'Can you lift your arm up for me?'
Or, 'Can you lie there on the couch for me?'
And so on.
A Baptist minister I know once went to the doctor for a problem with his feet. The nurse asked him to take his shoes and socks off and lie on the couch then left the room for a moment.
He misheard and thought she'd asked him to take all his clothes off. Puzzled but not wanting to make a fuss he stripped off and lay face down on the couch with his bum stuck up in the air.
Whereupon the female doctor walked in, obliviously looking at her notes.
'Well Mr
, what appears to be the prob- ... Eeek!'
In my post, I mean ...
It’s what happens if you type 5 hyphens/dashes with no space between them.
So I looked back to see if the minister was lying face down or face up ....
Swiftly followed by an image of Ainsley Harriott liberally sprinkling seasoning from a great height into his cooking pot.
Anyway, it doesn't bother me much, as if I'm reading science, it's sulfur, and if I'm not, it's sulphur, or in some circumstances, brimstone, and the flow is not interrupted while I mentally comment that it's an Americanism.
Until I was reading and American edition of the Odyssey, where Zeus strikes the ship with a thunderbolt, and fills the ship with the yellow powdery substance. Spelled sulfur. And my brain stopped me with the thought "Where's the science?" And immediately cast the whole episode as a match for something scientific I had recently read. So leaving Odysseus hanging over Charybdis I searched and found a passage about some folks caught in the Cascades by Mt. St. Helens. Withoujt the waves, of course.
This has led to another case of different interpretations, nothung to do with the pond. The Earth Science Dept at the OU said it was obviously volcanic, and got me into the Bodleian to research possibilities. Classicists approached want to have nothing to do with it, publications declare emphatically that nowhere in Homer is any reference to volcanoes, or Hesiod either. (I wonder how they would interpret Pliny on Vesuvius.) The ancient writer Apollonius of Rhodes in his Argonautica uses Homeric descriptions of the area it happened with added molten lava!
I wouldn't have spotted this without the cross pond spelling. And certainly not from the translation (possibly T E Lawrence's) that used brimstone.
If you dig around in the political threads in Purg and Hell, you're likely to find a number of politicians described using this word on a regular basis.
I feel like I need to point you at this, as well: https://stronglang.wordpress.com/2017/02/09/the-rise-of-the-shitgibbon/
Attending ante-natal appointment during first pregnancy, taking an hour off from work and wearing a business suit:
Could you provide us with a mid-stream urine sample, please, Mrs X
Attending ante-natal appointment during second pregnancy, taking an hour off from being at home with a toddler, and wearing jeans:
Could do you do a wee-wee in this pot for us, please, first name?
There was a huge difference in language use between the two pregnancies, based on the fact that first time round I was a pregnant lawyer and second time round I was a pregnant at-home mother-of-one.
TBF, the other variable is different clinicians each time.
I found it irritating at first and then began to notice that she responded well to it and didn't at all feel patronised.
Reminds me of the start of "Mr Slater's Parrot" by the Bonzo Dog Band.
"Hello, and how did you find yourself this morning?" "Well, I just rolled back the sheets and there I was !"
The best thing is to ask. Personally I hate being addressed as Mr LB or Sir. The first sounds like they think I'm my dad and the second makes me sound like a form master.
I'm not desperately keen on my first name but it's the thing that's specifically me, rather than my surname which just identifies my family.
Allegedly “Aye up, mi’ duck” is also the local greeting, though I can’t say I’ve heard it except in parody.
Although I do hear, 'How do?' from time to time.
In my native South Wales, as an incomer pointed out, the standard greeting was, 'Right, errrrr?'
They could never remember the other bloke's name so 'errrrr ...' or 'bwt' stood in for that.
'Right, bwt?'
(Pronounced similarly to 'butt' and short for 'bwti' or 'butty'.)
Great grandma Hattie's reply to that was, "I do as I please."
No, no. The response is "Nae bad, fit like yersel'?"
Nae bad, fit like yersel?
Aye tyauvin' awa.
("Tyauve" means work, but "aye tyauvin awa" means something like "just getting on with things")
Keep calm and tyauve awa.
May I ask about HOW to express something in British English?
In the US, there is no profanity involved with the word "bloody." We take it literally as "there's blood on it." Pimple-faced teens pick bloody holes in their skin. Menstrating young women deal with "bloody rags." The desperado may have to remove a bloody shirt after a gun fight. When I cut my hand chopping vegetables, the kitchen towel was soon all bloody.
How do people express these things, when what seems here to be the most basic adjective is off the table -- unless one intends to be crass?
Bloody is a mild expletive as they go - the effect of using it to mean literally 'covered in blood' would probably be more humourous than offensive. When Duncan in Macbeth asks 'What bloody man is that?' of a blood-covered messenger the effect to modern British ears is that he is mildly grumpy at being disturbed.
It also depends on positioning. 'His hands were bloody' is faintly archaic but isn't an expletive at all.
"The kitchen towel was all bloody" would be clear; "the bloody kitchen towel" less so. Although if you said "I cut my hand chopping veg; I've put the bloody kitchen towel to soak in cold water" that would also be clear, and no-one would think you were swearing.
Or we'd phrase it differently - the desperado would remove a blood-soaked or blood-stained shirt. Menstruating women would also be dealing with "blood-stained" rather than "bloody" items.
It's tricky. Feels stylistically wrong. But it's good to know some culturally-appropriate options.
It also seems like some thpical US forms of expression might be seen as overstatement or exageration across a pond, while we Americans often see Brits in general as masters of understatement.
(Apologies to Orcadians)
I've read the same (or almost identical) poem about Caithness.