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English Usage US vs. UK

Damien Evans said:
Yes, it is: speak properly you thick bastard, no one south of Glasgow can understand you!:D
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Glasgow is some considerable distance north of the border. "No-one south of Carlisle" would be the more accurate rendering.

Anyway, we remember the Paul Hogan show. Don't get started on difficult accents! :p
 
Morrigan said:
On the other hand, "theatrical release" is just the American way to say "released in cinemas", just as "elevator" is the American way to say "lift". They are equivalent. But a parliament is not the "UK equivalent" of the American government, anymore than the Saudi monarchy is the "Saudi equivalent" to the British parliament.
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Item 3 of your link defines parliament as

a legislative body in any of various other countries
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Congress and Senate are, within that context, a parliament just as the Bundestag is. There is, however, clearly a difference between parliament and the government, at least in the UK and other Commonwealth countries. How does the US press describe the Bundestag, just as a matter of interest?

And thirdly, every other UK poster here understood his meaning, so that's why you're just being pedantic again. :p
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Indeed, but that's also what some eejit who's name I forget said when I pointed out that it was wholly incorrect, and indeed insulting, to point out that one could not use the terms "England" and "Britain" interchangeably. And it's one of the reason's Queen Lizzie doesn't use the "II" in Scotland....
 
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As an aside, I'm correcting a draft report where an English consultant consistently refers to entrance passages in lieu of closes, the normal Scottish term and the one used in the building regulations (amongst other things). The term entrance passage is udnerstandable, but incorrect in context, and would raise an eyebrow or two amongst most readers.
 
Architect said:
As an aside, I'm correcting a draft report where an English consultant consistently refers to entrance passages in lieu of closes, the normal Scottish term and the one used in the building regulations (amongst other things). The term entrance passage is udnerstandable, but incorrect in context, and would raise an eyebrow or two amongst most readers.
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Reminds me of when I had piles. The doctor gave me these two capsules and told me to put them in my back passage. We don't have a back passage so I left them in the hall. All the good they did I may as well have shoved them up my arse.
 
Modified said:
In the hospital. Also, here you go to college when you go to a university.
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That's weird. If you told someone in my town that you were "in the hospital", the response would be "Which one?", followed by "Who are you visiting?", the assumption being that whilst you happened to be in the hospital building, you weren't actually there to receive treatment.

Ditto with "going to a university". It implies you're just going there to visit, not to study or enrol as a student.
 
Darat said:
Well my English is a bastard mixture of a few dialects and a Lancashire one is one of those (and it even retains "thee" and "thou"). Out of curiosity any links to this "old Lancaster line" for aye? I'm genuinely interested in British dialects.
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Nothing to add on the "old Lancaster line" but I wanted to say that my grandfather used "aye" for his entire life. I never heard him say yes. He was a Devon boy - quite a way from Lancaster (and Scotland).
 
volatile said:
That's weird. If you told someone in my town that you were "in the hospital", the response would be "Which one?", followed by "Who are you visiting?", the assumption being that whilst you happened to be in the hospital building, you weren't actually there to receive treatment.
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What about "at the beach" or "at the store"? Here those can mean "doing beach things at an unspecified beach" and "shopping at an unspecified store (but only one)". And if your car is "in the shop" it can mean it is "being repaired at an unspecified repair shop".

Ditto with "going to a university". It implies you're just going there to visit, not to study or enrol as a student.
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The thing here is that you go "to college", even if you're studying at a university and not yet enrolled in any particular college within that university (generally you can be "undeclared" for the first two years). If you're at a community college, you might claim you're going "to college", but everyone else would probably say you're going "to community college".
 
Modified said:
In the hospital. Also, here you go to college when you go to a university.
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The use of "the" would be acceptable here too, likewise for jail and so on, and the frequency of use is due to regional variatons IIRC.
 
Architect said:
The use of "the" would be acceptable here too, likewise for jail and so on, and the frequency of use is due to regional variatons IIRC.
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Do you mean that "go to the jail" could mean "be jailed"? Here it would have to be "go to jail".
 
Darat said:
To carry on with the pedantic theme - outwith is NOT a "purely Scottish word" - it may well be a word in some Scottish dialects but it is also a word in some English (northern) dialects as well.
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One dialect usage that sounds very strange to my southern English ears is the Yorkshire "while", which I have heard used to have the meaning until.

Dave
 
I don't mind most of the US variants although it seems to me that changes like theatre to theater suggest a subtle change in pronunciation also.

Yetts is an old word and in the East of Scotland is in place names like Yetts O Muckhart. Most castles had an iron yett.

The one that I find most peculiar is Math as an abbreviation of the plural Mathematics. Would one abbreviate automobiles to auto rather than autos?

However, diversity is the spice of life.
 
I think that one of the interesting things is that they don't recognise that many of their phrases are Americanisms unlike, say, Canadians or Antipodeans or Brits who tend to recognise their own national variants a lot more.

(says the man from North Uist)
 
Wildy said:
Then again I had to think a bit when listening to the song Piano Man, because he uses 'stoned' in a rather uncommon context.
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That might be regional/old-fashioned but still American English. My father, who is very American, uses the expression "stoned" when he's talking about getting drunk on alcohol.
 
Architect said:
I think that one of the interesting things is that they don't recognise that many of their phrases are Americanisms unlike, say, Canadians or Antipodeans or Brits who tend to recognise their own national variants a lot more.
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It's possible that Americans don't encounter non-domestic English speakers as much as Canadians, Brits, Aussies or Kiwis do.
 
Can't you guys just get along? Accept the fact that the British Empire contaminated half the globe with their funny language and get over it. :D
 
In Scotland it will still be considered acceptable,if unusual, to say "he got the gaol/jail". Well, actually "He goat the jail", but you know what I mean.

Mattdick said:
That might be regional/old-fashioned but still American English. My father, who is very American, uses the expression "stoned" when he's talking about getting drunk on alcohol.
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I have very occasionally heard it used that way in the UK, although not since the mid 1980s or so.
 
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Architect said:
I think that one of the interesting things is that they don't recognise that many of their phrases are Americanisms unlike, say, Canadians or Antipodeans or Brits who tend to recognise their own national variants a lot more.
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A lot of things regarded as Americanisms are things that have survived in America and died out in the UK, as opposed to being new coinages.
 
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