The Words the UK Knows but Americans Don't (and vice versa)

[Lori_the_Hoosier]

My husband grew up in the West Country of England, in deepest Somerset. His normal mode of speech is what would be classified as 'Received Pronunciation', or Oxford English, but when we go to his family home, in a place called Wellington, everything changes; then he slips into a dialect he spoke as a child that doesn't really sound like English at all. He and his friends from back then gabble away in what sounds like a weird, medieval Middle English, full of thee's and thou's, and dasn't's and casn't's, 'could' past tense becomes 'cas't', 'could you ' becomes 'cus't', 'would you' is 'wus't', 'cannot' becomes 'canna', and 'wouldn't' become 'woodn'a'. I get one word in ten, but he happily gabbles on fluidly with a bunch of people from the heart of England who don't seem to speak a word of real English, just a mangled dialect that makes no sense to an outsider like me.

 

[stickygirl]

My husband grew up in the West Country of England, in deepest Somerset. His normal mode of speech is what would be classified as 'Received Pronunciation', or Oxford English, but when we go to his family home, in a place called Wellington, everything changes; then he slips into a dialect he spoke as a child that doesn't really sound like English at all. He and his friends from back then gabble away in what sounds like a weird, medieval Middle English, full of thee's and thou's, and dasn't's and casn't's, 'could' past tense becomes 'cas't', 'could you ' becomes 'cus't', 'would you' is 'wus't', 'cannot' becomes 'canna', and 'wouldn't' become 'woodn'a'. I get one word in ten, but he happily gabbles on fluidly with a bunch of people from the heart of England who don't seem to speak a word of real English, just a mangled dialect that makes no sense to an outsider like me.

Ooo a touch Poldark you mean?! I love accents, I collect them

 

[English_guy_bkk]

My husband grew up in the West Country of England, in deepest Somerset. His normal mode of speech is what would be classified as 'Received Pronunciation', or Oxford English, but when we go to his family home, in a place called Wellington, everything changes; then he slips into a dialect he spoke as a child that doesn't really sound like English at all. He and his friends from back then gabble away in what sounds like a weird, medieval Middle English, full of thee's and thou's, and dasn't's and casn't's, 'could' past tense becomes 'cas't', 'could you ' becomes 'cus't', 'would you' is 'wus't', 'cannot' becomes 'canna', and 'wouldn't' become 'woodn'a'. I get one word in ten, but he happily gabbles on fluidly with a bunch of people from the heart of England who don't seem to speak a word of real English, just a mangled dialect that makes no sense to an outsider like me.

Maybe you could help me if you have the time...when l was younger, l was based in Bristol and that area. On the weekends I didn't go home we would go to buy 'reel ciderrr' (ohh arrr) and trying to sound sophisticated ask if they put a pigs head in the fermentation vat. Any truth in that?
(0n a side note, while in Bristol a guy in the telephone exchange would play 'massive attack' every day on his cassette recorder and tell anyone who would listen just how big they would become)

 

[Monserrat_Caballe]

Maybe you could help me if you have the time...when l was younger, l was based in Bristol and that area. On the weekends I didn't go home we would go to buy 'reel ciderrr' (ohh arrr) and trying to sound sophisticated ask if they put a pigs head in the fermentation vat. Any truth in that?
(0n a side note, while in Bristol a guy in the telephone exchange would play 'massive attack' every day on his cassette recorder and tell anyone who would listen just how big they would become)

Hubby says that story is equal parts local legend and bullshit; he grew up on a large estate that had apple orchards and a Victorian cider press and in October, after the first frost and the apple harvest, he used to watch them pulping and pressing the apples (and cadge a glass or two of the fresh, unpasteurized apple juice) and watch them filtering and casking the juice to let it ferment naturally in the huge oak casks. At no point did he see any kind of animal offal being dumped in the casks. The casks were filled, lids hammered on and sealed, and taken away on a dray to be stacked in the cider house for a couple of years before being sold to blenders and distributors. I once tried real Somerset farmhouse Scrumpy cider and it was delicious, but a bit like drinking Zombie cocktails; after a glass and a half my legs didn't work, in the local parlance, I was pissed as a fart, and I had a hangover next day as big as God's own country...

 

[Lori_the_Hoosier]

Maybe you could help me if you have the time...when l was younger, l was based in Bristol and that area. On the weekends I didn't go home we would go to buy 'reel ciderrr' (ohh arrr) and trying to sound sophisticated ask if they put a pigs head in the fermentation vat. Any truth in that?
(0n a side note, while in Bristol a guy in the telephone exchange would play 'massive attack' every day on his cassette recorder and tell anyone who would listen just how big they would become)

Monny's right; I tried that shit once, the local Oxfordshire version of scrumpy, it was f*cking lethal, I thought my teeth were going to dissolve...

 

[Lori_the_Hoosier]

Ooo a touch Poldark you mean?! I love accents, I collect them

You should hear him in his daily speech; he pronounces where, what, when, why as 'hwhere, hwhat, hwhen, hwhy'. The 'ou' diphthong is pronounced as I, so 'round' comes out as 'rind', 'house' sounds like 'hice', 'down' is 'dine', so for instance, "I can't look down, the ground's going round and round' comes out as "I can't look dine, the grind's going rind and rind'. Try saying it out loud and you'll know what he and all his cousins sound like.

'There' is 'thyah', OK, yes is 'Akayy, yah', 'Thank you' usually comes out as 'nk'yah', 'F*ck off'is 'f*ck orff', 'Yes' is 'yyah, so 'Over there' comes out as 'ovah thyah'.

Sometimes his brand of 'Public School' English defeats me, but he pretty much grew up speaking that way, from prep-school all the way through university, so he doesn't know he's doing it. All his cousins and friends do it too, they don't hear each other doing it but a room full of them drives me scatty

 

[oggbashan]

Decades ago I used to have staff all over the UK. As I picked the telephone up I could usually tell who was calling and from where from the accent:

Belfast, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Nottingham, Manchester, Birmingham, etc.

 

[English_guy_bkk]

Hubby says that story is equal parts local legend and bullshit; he grew up on a large estate that had apple orchards and a Victorian cider press and in October, after the first frost and the apple harvest, he used to watch them pulping and pressing the apples (and cadge a glass or two of the fresh, unpasteurized apple juice) and watch them filtering and casking the juice to let it ferment naturally in the huge oak casks. At no point did he see any kind of animal offal being dumped in the casks. The casks were filled, lids hammered on and sealed, and taken away on a dray to be stacked in the cider house for a couple of years before being sold to blenders and distributors. I once tried real Somerset farmhouse Scrumpy cider and it was delicious, but a bit like drinking Zombie cocktails; after a glass and a half my legs didn't work, in the local parlance, I was pissed as a fart, and I had a hangover next day as big as God's own country...

An honest and sincere thank you for your reply.
I doubt I shall ever return to those farms (because l live in Asia) who sold me cider with the pigs head additive. I shall still tell that story though.
Again thanks a bundle for your reply and ouch..,a scrumpy hangover!

 

[English_guy_bkk]

Decades ago I used to have staff all over the UK. As I picked the telephone up I could usually tell who was calling and from where from the accent:

Belfast, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Nottingham, Manchester, Birmingham, etc.

Were Monday morning accents more difficult to decipher?

 

[oggbashan]

Were Monday morning accents more difficult to decipher?

I was always sober on Monday mornings. Those from Belfast, Glasgow, Belfast and Newcastle could be slurred.

 

[English_guy_bkk]

Let me just apologize if l have taken this thread off subject. Trying desperately to get back on the original subject...you can have my 'apple gawk if you want'

 

[oggbashan]

I spent several years in Plymouth. It took me about six months to understand some of the locals, particularly those from small Dartmoor villages.

But when I was in Australia, I had no problems. On the month-long voyage to Australia, I shared a dining table with an Australian girl and her parents (we were both far too young to feature on Lit) apart from the stewards, she and I were the only people in 1st class under 40. I helped her with her homework. She helped me with Aussie slang.

 

[stickygirl]

You should hear him in his daily speech; he pronounces where, what, when, why as 'hwhere, hwhat, hwhen, hwhy'. The 'ou' diphthong is pronounced as I, so 'round' comes out as 'rind', 'house' sounds like 'hice', 'down' is 'dine', so for instance, "I can't look down, the ground's going round and round' comes out as "I can't look dine, the grind's going rind and rind'. Try saying it out loud and you'll know what he and all his cousins sound like.

Love it. It reminds me of the young lady asking for 'dark cake' and when fudge cake appears she exclaims 'noi noi, dark cake - you know Coca Cola, low sugar, dark cake!'

Has anyone mentioned 'eraser' versus 'rubber'? The Ozzies can chip in that their Sellotape is called Durex. In Essex Durex are called crisp packets... then crisps are chips are French fries... I'm still not sure which is what for whom

 

[oggbashan]

... In Essex Durex are called crisp packets... then crisps are chips are French fries... I'm still not sure which is what for whom

In the UK, chips are thick and usually greasy, nothing like French fries which are sold by the big M. Crisps are very thin dried slices of potato with a flavouring sold in packets. Dirty chips are a new fad - very greasy and covered with a sauce.

Do not try a pie floater in South Australia unless your stomach is armour lined - or Pie and Mash, or Eels and Mash in the UK.

 

[Lori_the_Hoosier]

In the UK, chips are thick and usually greasy, nothing like French fries which are sold by the big M. Crisps are very thin dried slices of potato with a flavouring sold in packets. Dirty chips are a new fad - very greasy and covered with a sauce.

Do not try a pie floater in South Australia unless your stomach is armour lined - or Pie and Mash, or Eels and Mash in the UK.

Will loves something called 'pie, mash, and liquor', a habit he picked up in his student days. The last pie and mash shop in Central London was a place called 'Kenney's' on The Old Kent Road, it was where he'd pick up his pie, mash and liquor, which looked like some kind of thin pea soup, and the meat pie would be floating in it. When Kenney's closed he was heartbroken. He also used to buy jellied eels, potted shrimp, and pickled rollmop herring from a man called Tubby Isaacs who had a stall he moved between Liverpool Street Station, outside the Bishopsgate entrance, and down at the other end of Middlesex Street (Petticoat Lane) in the market. The first time I tasted jellied eel I was hooked. Will built me a small smoker so I could smoke my own eel, sardines, and herring and mackerel.

 

[stickygirl]

Anyone know the UK expression 'he's a bit light in the boots' or can hazard a guess?

'Hazard a guess'... hmm... another slice of etymological pie

 

[PennameWombat]

As a note, I'm not thread hijacking. Maybe stretching. Melissa's opinion is doubtlessly heartfelt, but Americans as a rule just don't understand sporting rivalries in the UK and farther afield.

The Yankees suck.

There is no middle ground with opinions about the Yankees .

I've wondered this before, but how the fuck did you end up a Millwall supporter?

Has to do with Kasey Keller. He was one of the first American soccer players to get a deal to play abroad. I'll quote him:

After the 1990 World Cup I had offers for tryouts from a club in Germany and one in England. I knew nothing about either one, but I figured that at least in England I'd be able to talk to my teammates.

I was wrong about that.

The club in England was Millwall. He played goalkeeper there form 1992 through 1996, was their fan-voted player of the year one year and has always stated his admiration for the club. He later played for Leicester and Tottenham and in Spain and Germany, and amassed 102 US National Team caps. Anyway, I started following Millwall then.

That was also when I happened across Millwall's web site, one of the very early sites, which was alongside the RMT web site. Took me a while to unravel the Millwall-Unions connection (look up Bob Crow, for anyone interested.)

As a note, in my story A Mermaid Christmas I tossed in a quick passage reflecting back to the grand old days when the Green Street and Bushwackers firms faced off. My American readers will have zero clue what the paragraph means, and possibly many UK readers won't either.

I've worked with 'disaffected youth' round areas including South Bermondsey, the only station I've ever been to where not only had all the ticket machines been permanently vandalised in the 90s, but the signs displaying the station name, along with all seats and shelters, had also been stolen and sold as scrap metal. So more than once I ended up at the next station because I didn't want to alight the train onto some random lump of concrete!

I also learnt enough to blend in with lcoal Millwall or Palace supporters. Could have been worse - the only fans who truly scare me are Stoke... And I've never been near an Old Firm match!

My Glaswegian friend in New York told me about a few Old Firm (for those wondering, Rangers (the traditionally Protestant club) versus Celtic (the traditionally Catholic club) in Glasgow) matches he attended in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Back when hooligans were common. He... had... stories. As a note about the depth of feelings and the rivalry, Rangers signed their very first Catholic player, Mo Johnston, only in 1986. And the club had been founded in 1872.

As Millwall is associated with mainly the English transport and other unions and their location was on the docks, many soccer (football) clubs are associated with religious or political groups. Do you know that FC Barcelona, in Spain, traditionally didn't allow even a single white thread to be used in their uniforms? Why? They're Catalan, and white is the color of Madrid. Thus, Real Madrid's uniforms being primarily white. In Buenos Aires, River Plate FC are the club of the upper classes, with Boca Juniors the club of the working class. There's a reason the playing surfaces are surrounded by fences.

And if you think Swedes are dour, passionless automatons... I was witness to the riot when Djurgårdens IF played AEK in Stockholm. It was a bitterly cold, rainy and windy evening, but the blood ran hot.

No American sporting rivalries get anywhere near these, modulo, below, sometimes with high schools (ages 15-18).

Getting back to how to get punched in the face in America: yeah, I guess most rivalries are small and local, maybe one towns high school vs the next township's high school? Or two high schools if a town is big enough for two? Is there nothing that would work on a bigger level, like, say "I grew up in New York City, but not a classy neighborhood." "Oh, you mean Jersey?"

What about being in a sports bar in NY and a visitor from Boston asks the English guy, "Have you heard of the Red Sox?" English guy goes "Yeah, apparently they're like the Yankees, only good." Would that be provocative enough?

Or do you have to resort to 'your mom' level of obvious insult?

High school rivalries would be the most common if you're wanting to generate biffo. I recall a couple of tense face-offs way back when. But at University and later when we encountered each other it was "ah, you went there" and most of us didn't much care. That doesn't mean we didn't judge a bit, for example, those of us from generally poorer areas and those from the "east side." But it wasn't deep animosity, but a recognition of, e.g., my part that the 'east siders' had much better teachers and more well-equipped high schools, which gave them a leg up at University, from us who'd had crap schools where many of the teachers had been nudged out of better schools.

As to your sports bar, maybe. In part, an English accent would allow more latitude. There's always a chance, but generally you'd have to get truly obnoxious. As a rule, even in NY, most sports bars would likely have multiple screens showing different games. Verbal ribbing of opposition fans, sure. Fisticuffs? Would generally require some additional causes, plus significant alcoholic lubrication.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Anyone know the UK expression 'he's a bit light in the boots' or can hazard a guess?

'Hazard a guess'... hmm... another slice of etymological pie

I've never used it in my life - I associate it with the generation now around 80, ie my parents.

Ended up discussing both 'bent as a nine-bob note' and 'queer as a clockwork orange', earlier.

 

[Rustyoznail]

Love it. It reminds me of the young lady asking for 'dark cake' and when fudge cake appears she exclaims 'noi noi, dark cake - you know Coca Cola, low sugar, dark cake!'

Has anyone mentioned 'eraser' versus 'rubber'? The Ozzies can chip in that their Sellotape is called Durex. In Essex Durex are called crisp packets... then crisps are chips are French fries... I'm still not sure which is what for whom

Haven't heard the term "Durex" for yonks - it's usually just sticky tape. Fried potato in any form are chips. Macca's tries very hard to tell us they sell french fries, but it hasn't really caught on.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I had offers for tryouts from a club in Germany and one in England. I knew nothing about either one, but I figured that at least in England I'd be able to talk to my teammates.

I was wrong about that."

I've heard similar quotes from so many footballers and managers! I recall Souness signing Johnston and it being newsworthy - let's face it, football is tribal and not progressive in the least (not since the 30s when the FA banned women's teams and Rangers started banning Catholics) - we're talking a sport where there's still not one out gay player in the top leagues (since Fashunu's suicide in the 90s). My colleague was in a youth team recently, too scared to come out, as apparently it really hasn't improved much - despite the large handful of gay footballers people know exist...



Crystal Palace is my local team: they've cleaned up a lot since Ogg's experiences, though the surrounding area hasn't. The last ungentrified bit of London, Fort Neef and Selhurst... I have a bit of a soft spot for Millwall.

"We are Millwall, we are Millwall, no-one likes us, we don't care..." (to the tune of Sailing)



Maybe there's something in the intensity of a footie match, blink and you'll miss the action, that leads to the high emotions? The couple baseball games I've been dragged to, the baseball seemed almost an afterthought compared to the food and beer. It was like a warm-up band no-one cares about missing, people wandering off all the time, so many you couldn't really have paid attention anyway and you'd have been singing "Sit Down Shut Up" permanently if anyone had started it. By the seventh inning I was just wishing for anything stronger than beer...



Back to words - what do baseball players call those pants they wear that go all wrinkled and unflattering?

 

[beachbum1958]

Anyone know the UK expression 'he's a bit light in the boots' or can hazard a guess?

'Hazard a guess'... hmm... another slice of etymological pie

When I was a boy, I grew up surrounded by military types; both my brothers and also my father were serving military, and I used to hear their squaddies and friends bandy that phrase (or a similar one, 'light in the loafers') around in reference to squaddies and officers ('Ruperts') they suspected of being gay. When I was 10 years old it meant nothing, I had to grow up before I actually understood what they were saying

 

[PennameWombat]

When I was a boy, I grew up surrounded by military types; both my brothers and also my father were serving military, and I used to hear their squaddies and friends bandy that phrase (or a similar one, 'light in the loafers') around in reference to squaddies and officers ('Ruperts') they suspected of being gay. When I was 10 years old it meant nothing, I had to grow up before I actually understood what they were saying

"Light in the loafers" was the version I was familiar with from my youth in the US, with the meaning as mentioned here. I don't recall exactly where or from whom I first heard it, but I was old enough and there was enough context I understood the meaning.

 

[stickygirl]

I've never used it in my life - I associate it with the generation now around 80, ie my parents.

Ended up discussing both 'bent as a nine-bob note' and 'queer as a clockwork orange', earlier.

Oh, so it's a recycled phrase. It probably goes back to the Roman Army

 

[English_guy_bkk]

Ok, I was doing my daily exercise of 17 press ups this morning and thought of another word...'rodgering'

 

[Rustyoznail]

Ok, I was doing my daily exercise of 17 press ups this morning and thought of another word...'rodgering'

Never been the same since the Star Wars battle droids squeak out "Roger Roger"...