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Differences between British and American English

calikak

By calikak,
in Cunard Line

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patwell

patwell

Posted
Posted
Thank you Penny :) It's still hard to beliee she is gone.

 

Bear is a beauty! I everyone just loves your visits. :)

 

I"m sure it is...when we lost our other Golden neither one of us could function.

 

I am so proud of Bear's accomplishments. He worked very hard with me to learn to curb his natural exhuberance which was necessary for him to pass the testing for certification. I am humbled watching him "work"....he is so empathetic and seems to know just who needs what kind of attention from him with each visit. He has many friends who wait for him each week. It's the best thing we do....

 

Cheers, Penny

Penny’s Affair to Remember QM2 Review

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=471053

 

November 10,2007...the “Affair” continues....

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travel-to-go

travel-to-go

Posted
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My sympathies to both of you. That hurt is still raw for you both.

 

Loss of a pet is so hard.

In some ways it can be harder than people. At least people know what they are going through and you can explain, talk, whatever. I have just booked a family of five on a Royal Carib Cruise when the guy called me back to price out his Aunt and Uncle going, too. I was supposed to call her on Monday to get the deposit (due today) Well, she had just learned that their dog had a very fast-growing tumor on her back- A Mast Cell tumor. She went in yesterday to have it removed and see how bad things were/ Of course I advised her she could get a full refund up until final payment date, which is not until Feb 1. Her nephew couldn't understand why she wanted this reassurance. Of course, I knew. I understood fully well. And would you believe RCL said they would accept the "any reason" cancel guarantee with the insurance? No other outside insurance company will do that for anywhere near the price. Of course most cruiselines (including Cunard) use Berkley Care. I have had to file a claim with Berkley (for Cunard). No hssles, full refund, and when the client lost his paperwork, they happily resent it to him.

I know it is not til Feb, and the cruise is in April. But no one wants to put money down on a fun cruise with that uncertainty hanging in the air. I need to call her tomorrow to see how she (the dog) is.

 

Again,

my sympathies to you both.

 

Karie,

who knows that sorrow.

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Cruachan

Cruachan

Posted
Posted
Happyscot and is likely to be comatose for at least a week!

 

A week!!!!! I'm guessing he'll be lucky to be back in action again before Hogmanay :D

 

can we please have something rub off on our oval ball team for the RWC? They badly need it :mad:

 

You couldn't have said a truer word. Once again I'm sure I'm backing a loser supporting Scotland. Fortunately though I have a "fall-back position". Maureen's South African which gives me some justification for supporting the Boks - at least they've got a chance of making the quarter finals :)

 

Jimmy

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dak

dak

Posted
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Maureen's South African which gives me some justification for supporting the Boks - at least they've got a chance of making the quarter finals :)

 

Jimmy

 

I think they have a good chance of winning if the ABs fall at the later stages as has been their practice.

 

David

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happyscot

happyscot

Posted
Posted

They won't muuurrrr-duuurrrr the muuurrr-duuuurrrr will they? It's not finished yet.............................it's my life's work....................gosh that's sad, isn't it.

 

Hello?

 

Anybody out there?

 

Oh crap; I feel a Shakespear moment coming on. Cue wind machine.

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patwell

patwell

Posted
Posted
They won't muuurrrr-duuurrrr the muuurrr-duuuurrrr will they? It's not finished yet.............................it's my life's work....................gosh that's sad, isn't it.

 

Hello?

 

Anybody out there?

 

Oh crap; I feel a Shakespear moment coming on. Cue wind machine.

 

Choose your words carefully Happyscot...if that's even possible;) We are not alone...:eek:

 

Cheers, Penny

Penny’s Affair to Remember QM2 Review

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=471053

 

November 10,2007...the “Affair” continues....

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NoPiratesPlease

NoPiratesPlease

Posted
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I've been really loving this thread! We have British friends we cruise and we play these games all the time, right Jocal?

 

"We have "gasoline", you call it "coffee". " Well, that certainly is true! Also, in the UK, people have this sad tendency to IMMEDIATELY put milk in tea without asking if you want it.

 

Although not a tea drinker as a rule, I do like the occasional cuppa, especially with Chinese, Japanese, or Thai food. But I like to drink it unadulturated, as I drink my coffee. In fact, while I'm not crazy about milk in my coffee, I utterly DETEST milk in tea.

 

And while "chips" are potato chips (crisps) in the US, EVERYONE knows what "Fish and Chips" are--only health codes prevent them being served in newspaper.

 

We might say it's raining "cats and dogs" or "buckets" and Brits will say "stair-rods" (those things that hold down carpets on staircases).

 

If, in the US a Brit were to say "I really like to murder a fag" he'll get charged with conspiracy to commit a hate crime, when all the poor fool wanted was to smoke a cigarette!

 

Meanwhile our word for angry and your word for drunk are both "p*$$ed". And up near Carlyle, the oldtimers might pronounce "wine" as "ween"...

 

What really annoyed me was that the Harry Potter books were released in the US with lots of language changes. "HP...And the Philosopher's Stone" was renamed "Sorcerer's Stone". As we were reading it to our kid, I kept thinking, "this thing sounds like the Touchstone, the Philosopher's Stone"...because it was. We don't need translations of Jane Austen, the Brontes, Charles Dickens or George Bernard Shaw. Why of JK Rowlings?

 

Meanwhile, while tripping up on the US/UK differences, just the differences in US language are amazing. I went to school ("University") in Binghamton, New York, where kids from New York City and Long Island met and lived with kids from Albany, Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo. To a down-stater, a soda was a Coke or a 7-up, but was an ice-cream soda to upstaters, who, like Brits called soda "Pop". They called a certain fruit an "ornge" rather than "are-ange" and the roof of a house or the root of a treat was pronounce like the o-o in "look" rather than "toot".

 

Down South a paper bag is a sack or a poke such as "A pig in a poke". Tea is iced tea and if you want hot tea you ask for "hot tea". Living down there for 15 years I learned that they didn't have an accent--I did!

 

But nothing was a funny as what happened to my poor dear wife in London 2 weeks ago. She was there on business and asked the front desk to send her up some matches. We were talking on our cell phones (mo-bile to the UK) when the hotel phone rang. I hear her say "I asked for MATCHES, not a MATTRESS!"...seems the clerk at the front desk ("clark" in UK) was from Eastern Europe and didn't speak any recognizable form or variation of English that was understandable by ANYONE!

 

When he heard that a friend found on Youtube an old clip of The Two Ronnies where a sales "clark" is being driven crazy by a customer.

"I need o's" Clerk bring him a hoe "No, O's!" Clerk brings a hose. "No O's" Clerk brings him panty-hose. "No. O's for my garden gate. "Mon Repose" Letter O's!"

 

Then he asks for "p's" and the clerk starts getting him P's, when he says "no. Tins of peas"...and on and on.

 

Some of the spelling differences are obvious. English is Germanic with a French overlay (1066 and the Normans, (as opposed to the Theodores)). In the US we dropped the French spellings (colour, labour) but to be snooty many insist on going to The Theatre.

 

Meanwhile language changes over time "down" means "with it" when it used to mean depressed, like "blue". "Phat" sounds like "fat" but only sort of means the same thing, but much, MUCH sexier.

 

Still, when my mom (not "mum") and dad went to England in 1970, they couldn't get into their hotel room to sleep off jet-lag. So they went to the movies ("cinema") and saw the classic M*A*S*H which was a first-run at that time. While they were ROLLING on the floor (especially during the football game--not "match"--that would be soccer) their fellow audience had NO idea what was so funny!

 

But I had that happen during my Southern sojourn--I went with a date to see "My Favorite Year", which is one Noo Yawkism after another. I was crying with laughter, she was bored to tears, poor girl.

 

One last thing: "Bunk" to a New Yorker has a COMPLETELY different meaning. My late dad would typically say "I was walking to the subway and who do you think I bunk into?"

Yup, "bunk" for "bump". And probably should have been "bonk", but it was "bunk".

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Kindlychap

Kindlychap

Posted
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We might say it's raining "cats and dogs" or "buckets" and Brits will say "stair-rods" (those things that hold down carpets on staircases).

 

Actually, "raining cats and dogs" might be used over here. And I, for one, haven't heard the stair rod reference.

 

Just goes to show quite how complicated things are!

 

Matthew

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NoPiratesPlease

NoPiratesPlease

Posted
Posted
Actually, "raining cats and dogs" might be used over here. And I, for one, haven't heard the stair rod reference.

 

Just goes to show quite how complicated things are!

 

Matthew

 

Must then be a Manchester thing Mancunians use. "Apples and pairs"--go upstairs "slabs of meat" -- your feet. ????????

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Kindlychap

Kindlychap

Posted
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Must then be a Manchester thing Mancunians use. "Apples and pairs"--go upstairs "slabs of meat" -- your feet. ????????

 

"Apples and Pears" are stairs - not the act of going upstairs. Both that and "Slabs of Meat" are cockney rhyming slang.

 

Matthew

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NoPiratesPlease

NoPiratesPlease

Posted
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"Apples and Pears" are stairs - not the act of going upstairs. Both that and "Slabs of Meat" are cockney rhyming slang.

 

Matthew

 

Thanks for the correction. I knew it was something like that, but, no offense, it's nothing but pure gibberish to me, and I memorized it by rote, not by meaning.

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travel-to-go

travel-to-go

Posted
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NPP,

I'm guessing you went to Harpur college.

So what do other people in the world call Spedies?

And BTW, I will be sailing with

Binghamtonians Ed and Sandy in just over a month (Cunarder) How about those awful floods last year. I saw a lot of pictures Vestal, Endwell, and further up- Chanango EnJoie Park under water- Had to move the BC Open!

 

As for tea- Not just Iced tea, but Sweet Tea! (Although I grew up using saccarin tablets in the pitchers of iced tea my mom made from scratch!

And in Atlanta any soda is a Co-cola- Or maybe an RC Cola or a NEHI.

And the word bunk- as in twaddle, or bull dingies, came from Buncombe, named for a famous politician from Buncombe County North Carolina (Asheville) who was full of, Well, Bunk!

 

Karie,

who has lived in a few of the places you have, it seems!

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FranKes2000

FranKes2000

Posted
Posted
Actually, "raining cats and dogs" might be used over here. And I, for one, haven't heard the stair rod reference.

 

Just goes to show quite how complicated things are!

 

Matthew[/quote

 

 

"Stair rods" is a Yorkshire expression.

A very discriptive phrase when it comes to straight down heavy rain.

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Cruachan

Cruachan

Posted
Posted
Maybe we need another thread English English v Scottish English. That would also run to many pages!

 

J,

 

You wouldn't chuckle. If that started spreading, you'd need threads for North Yorkshire English v East Yorkshire English, Lancashire English versus Derbyshire English etc etc, ad infinitum. :)

 

Jimmy

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happyscot

happyscot

Posted
Posted
They were always caretakers round these parts. Maybe we need another thread English English v Scottish English.

 

That would also run to many pages!

 

 

Awa n bile yer heid ye wee sassenach ****e ye.

 

Translation: "What a fine idea, one that is worthy of support".

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