One small difference. In UK (and Australia) People go to classes in university, wile in US they go to a university or college. Note the a for university, but not college.
The Yanks also drive on the wrong side of the road
We get the same thing over here, Japanese businessmen on business trips. Nobody drinks like they do and they forget where they are.Which reminds me of a major crash I herd about recently, a Frenchman was over here on holiday and was driving the wrong way down the freeway and crashed into a young family
Fraggle Rocker said:I wonder how the Brits regard it? You flap your intervocalic D and T like a Spanish R, just like we do, so "ladder" and "latter" are homophones. The Brits pronounce them D and T. They reserve that flap for their R, whereas you always pronounce it as a liquid like we do. Your vowels sound a lot like British vowels--to most Americans. But I can hear the difference and I wonder if they sound like American vowels to them.
Do you guys pronounce "tune" and "new" as tyoon and nyoo like the Brits, or toon and noo like us? How about American skedule versus British shedule?
So if you're on your way to a concert and you stop at three friends' houses so they can ride in your car, what have you done? We pick them up. Do you "collect" them?
A trolley is a trolley car, a public transit vehicle with an electric engine that runs on rails and has some primitive apparatus on top that draws electricity from overhead wires. There are very few of those any more so the noun will probably become available for a new definition.
A biscuit here is a bread roll made with baking soda.
Children eat lollipops, which are "suckers" on the end of a stick
Only a Southerner, with their unique accent ("Wah doan y'awl set dan a spell?"), would think that an Australian sounds like a (northern) American.
To us a garret is an attic that's been fashioned into a miserable little apartment and rented out to a starving artist, poet or musician.
US rotary = UK roundabout
I only hear them called "traffic circles." In the Southwest they're sometimes called by their Mexican Spanish name, glorieta.
I find that quite strange. I've read elsewhere that the closest equivalent in Australia/England would be something like "scone".
A biscuit here is like an unsweetened scone, only fluffy...unless you don't know what you're doing...
Scones-at least the ones I've had here, are like very solid cakes baked in triangles. A biscuit is fluffy and porous.
That brings something to mind:
We call the above an English Muffin. It's actually somewhat close to our biscuits, not yours, in character, except it's yeast-raised.
Do they have English Muffins in England? If not I shall find that hysterical.
Biscuits are generally crisp, not fluffy.A biscuit here is like an unsweetened scone, only fluffy...unless you don't know what you're doing...
Scones-at least the ones I've had here, are like very solid cakes baked in triangles. A biscuit is fluffy and porous.
I see. Do people who use R.P. call themselves English instead of Australian?Some Australians may pronounce "ladder" and "latter" similarly, but many do not (myself being one example). It's probably a bit of a class marker.
When I lived in Chicago in the 1940s and 50s the older people still called them trolley cars, although the younger ones just called them streetcars.Those electric cars are called trams where I live, not trolleys.
A scone is a stone with one letter changed--at least the ones I got in Canada, which have since become popular down here. An American-style biscuit is soft enough to be eaten.I find that quite strange. I've read elsewhere that the closest equivalent in Australia/England would be something like "scone".
It seems like the basic difference between American and British/Australian spelling is that you use more letters.I travelled (not traveled) . . . .
It doesn't help at all that many of the Australian singers who have become popular here sound like Americans, and a few such as Keith Urban even sing country music and sound a little like Southerners. I went to see The Church a few weeks ago, a band from the 1970s, and they sound Australian.. . . . through some less-travelled parts of California a few years ago and a lot of Americans tried to guess where I was from based on my accent. Quite a few thought I was English. But at least one guessed that I might be from Sacramento. The only guy that nailed it first up was a waiter in a restaurant in San Francisco, who had been to Australia.
What's amazing that it works at all. I suppose you could envision it as a freeway interchange with no grade and no cloverleaves, so all the lanes intersect instead of passing over and under each other. If you're going west and want to turn left, you take a right exit onto a connector which curves around and crosses your original road on the far side of the roundabout. There you will encounter a red light. It will turn green when the people coming south on the cross road get their turn to move. After you've gone counterclockwise (anticlockwise to you, remember we rotate in the opposite direction over here) for 270° your "off-ramp" becomes an "on-ramp" and you merge into their lanes. If you had wanted to make a right turn you would simply have taken a different connector which would have merged you onto the northbound lane, with no stops required but a yield to traffic from the south. If you had wanted to go straight you would have either simply proceeded through a green light while the folks on the north-south road (or you, in the alternate scenario, on the 270° connector) were stopped at their red light; or waited for a red light to change as all those other people were allowed to cross your road from the north-south highway or the various connectors.I'm not clear on the distinction between a "traffic circle" and a "roundabout". I've never heard of a traffic circle. You say they have traffic lights? How does that work?
The law is that the first car to arrive has the right of way. If two arrive at the same time, the one on the right goes first. If it's a busy intersection and cars are backed up, we settle into a rhythm where one set of north- and southbound cars go, then one set of east- and westbound, etc. If somebody wants to make a left turn, of course this messes it up and people might get throttle-happy. I would imagine that in New York City this would be bedlam, but in the rest of the country four-way stops are one of the few aspects of life in which we emulate the overly polite British. I've seen two drivers hold up their lanes by insisting, "After you, sir." "No, ma'am, you first." You can tell that we Americans live in our cars, it's the only place we have any manners.One thing that struck me in America was the number of four-way intersections with no traffic lights. I found that drivers were actually very polite in giving way at such intersections. In Australia, it would be a total mess, which is probably why we don't have them.
Yorkshire pudding is not a dessert. It's a side dish served with the meat. My mother learned the recipe from my father's English mother and it was one of her best dishes. Although hers came out crispy and I understand that it's actually supposed to be soggy, but leave it to the Brits to not even be able to make their own recipes come out well.I've got one difference between the poms and the Aussies, pudding is not a generic term for any dessert, it is a specific TYPE of dessert
Over here jelly is a clear, smooth type of fruit preserves whereas jam has bits of fruit in it. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich is the favorite lunch of American children. (Well I suppose now it's pizza, which has become our national dish since most Italians won't claim it.)Oh and BTW it's JAM, jelly is a dessert made using gelatin and sets hard
It doesn't help at all that many of the Australian singers who have become popular here sound like Americans, and a few such as Keith Urban even sing country music and sound a little like Southerners.
Yorkshire pudding is not a dessert. It's a side dish served with the meat. . . but leave it to the Brits to not even be able to make their own recipes come out well.
Well I suppose now it's pizza, which has become our national dish since most Italians won't claim it.)
The U.S. media identify Keith Urban as an Aussie and I've never heard him deny it. I'm almost positive that long ago when I first discovered The Church the background info said they were originally a New Zealand band. I can't find anything about that now, but they were never very popular here and even less so now, so there isn't much info available on them.*Kiwi*cough*Kiwi* Edit: Wiki gives him a dual identity.
In song he has that neutral accent that anglophones from every country gravitate toward, unless he's trying to sound like a cowboy. In speech he has a slight Aussie accent but it's easy to overlook.What is his accent then?
Seether are from South Africa but I would never have guessed.S.Africans I can figure out after a spell.
In America sure, but not in Italy. When I was there forty years ago I found restaurants that served it because they never turn down good food, but they regarded it as strictly Italian-American. Apparently it was originally a somewhat obscure Neapolitan regional dish. Naples (Napoli) is a major seaport going back to Hellenic times (Neapolis = "New City"), so it stands to reason that sailors and their cooks might have taken it to other countries faster than it would have spread internally.You're visiting the wrong cities then. Come to the Midwest and the guappos refuse to give up their specious claim to it!
it's time once again to rub our fellow friends noses in it.
so sidle up and mosey on down.
So the ten million people in sleepy Portugal should be able to tell the two hundred million people in Brazil, one of the world's largest countries and a leader in Latin American culture and commerce, how to speak and write?It's our language, so you Yanks should follow our rules. Obviously you don't, and that's your prerogative.
So the ten million people in sleepy Portugal should be able to tell the two hundred million people in Brazil, one of the world's largest countries and a leader in Latin American culture and commerce, how to speak and write?
While many Americans are unfamiliar with Australian accents and so guess they might be British (among other things),
I find that quite strange. I've read elsewhere that the closest equivalent in Australia/England would be something like "scone".
The only guy that nailed it first up was a waiter in a restaurant in San Francisco, who had been to Australia.
I'm not clear on the distinction between a "traffic circle" and a "roundabout". I've never heard of a traffic circle. You say they have traffic lights? How does that work?
It's our language,
so you Yanks should follow our rules. Obviously you don't, and that's your prerogative.
Not quite: it was your language. These days, UKers only account for about 15% of people who speak English as a first language. Downside of getting all these others nations using your language, is that you end up ceding control of it.
If it would be more clear, we can start referring to it as "American" instead of "English," though.
And between that prerogative and America's vastly greater influence in how English is used, I'm left wondering in what sense, exactly, it can be said to belong to the UK/England any more.