An interesting US/UK usage difference recently appeared in another thread, which the search engine couldn’t find for me. I am going by memory here, so I might be slightly mistaken.
American / British
administration / government (typically changes with elections)
government / state or crown (established by the constitution)
I haven’t seen this one mentioned yet:
In the US we consider time off from work and/or visiting an exotic locale a vacation. We say “he’s on vacation” to describe someone who is taking such time off or visiting such a place.
The British usually say holiday and wil say “he’s on holiday” for the same purpose.
A “holiday” in the U.S. is a day of special observance, either religious (Christmas, Easter) or governmental (Veteran’s Day, Memorial Day). Most workers are off work on these days as well. I don’t know if The British use the same word for their special days of observance.
Public holidays in the UK are usually called Bank Holidays (because the banks close, I assume).
I have a heck of a time trying to describe what American-style “pudding” is to many British folk, to whom “pudding” is either a rather damp bready dessert served with custard poured over it, or a term referring to “dessert” in general (ignoring “black pudding” for the moment).
‘pudding’ in the UK can be used as a generic term for dessert (sometimes also called “sweet” or “afters”), but it is is also sometimes somthing more specific; a doughy sort of pie/cake, not unlike a large steamed dumpling - this may be either sweet or savoury - Steak and kidney pudding being a main course, treacle pudding being a dessert.
Although there are a few other things also called ‘pudding’ - black pudding (blood sausage), bread pudding (a sort of heavy fruit cake) batter/yorkshire puddings (light batter baked very hot so that it puffs up into a hollow ball) and so on.
Bilberries (mentioned earlier) are not quite the same as blueberries, but they are closely related (I’m going picking tomorrow) - they are also known as Blaeberries/Whortleberries in some parts.
Snow Peas are indeed known as Mange Tout (!) here, but there are also ‘sugar snap’ (or just ‘snap’) peas, which are similar - the whole pod is eaten - but they are fleshy and crunchy, rather than flat.
I didn’t see anyone mention fava beans - these are known as broad beans here.
What Americans call ‘yellowjackets’ are just known as ‘wasps’ here (or ‘jaspers’ if you are at school).
I’ve not heard many people refer to SUVs here, it would seem that they are either referred to by their brand/model, or are sometimes generically referred to as ‘jeeps’ or ‘off-roaders’
At the end of a meal, Brits will ask for the ‘bill’, although the term ‘check please!’ has entered the language in the comic context.
I think I’ve heard Americans refer to the large plastic containers in which milk is bought as ‘jugs’ - we call them bottles, even though they are not made of glass. A number of items that Americans would generally call ‘cups’ (such as the container that instant noodles come in) would generally be called ‘pots’ here.
Rubber (english) = Eraser (american)
There’s a North American variant known as “huckleberries”, which we had growing in our yard in NE Pennsylvania. They’re smaller and tarter than blueberries, but otherwise quite similar in appearance and taste. (I don’t know whether “Huckleberry Finn” got his name from the berry, or if “whortleberry” evolved into “huckleberry” after the book.)
Not to be confused with Garden Huckleberries, which are something else altogether (family Solanaceae - blueberries, cranberries, bilberries etc are in Ericaceae).
Ah, that’s what rutabaga means!
As a PS, I don’t know the American, but personally (in UK) we use pumpkin to mean “great big orange vegatable”, courgette “medium sized lozenge shaped green vegetable” and marrow “like a courgette, but bigger and tougher.” I have never heard squash used.
(IMHO they’re all tasteless and disgusting, but that’s another story)
We frequently use the term wasp along with yellow jacket here. I don’t know if there are any specific distinctions between the two, but when one is threatening to sting you, you don’t care what it’s called. You just want to kill the damn thing.
American and British pumpkins are the same thing. Mangetout will correct me if I’m wrong, but I think they all belong to the same family as the cucumber.
BTW, the French use courgette to refer to the small things we Britons call courgettes and also for what we call marrows. The Italian term is zucchini, which is evidently where the Americans got the name from.
Aubergine is called egg plant in the USA, not just because of the shape of the vegetables but because the first commercially grown ones were a pale creamy colour. The dark purple ones came later but are now the more common variety.
Just thought of a few more food-related ones:
British/American:
shallot/scallion
gherkin/pickle (especially dill pickle?)
pepper/bell pepper (sometimes we call them sweet peppers, and I think pimentoes are occasionally used either side of the Atlantic for the red kind)
Do Americans have a different word for cornichons? Crackers (i.e. unsweetened biscuits) are a whole area of difference in themselves.
A yellowjacket is a type of wasp:
http://www.direct.ca/pestpage/wasps1.html
From the same website:
German Yellowjacket Paravespula germanica (Linnaeus)
Eastern Yellowjacket Paravespula maculifrons (Buysson)
Common Yellowjacket Paravespula vulgaris (Linnaeus)
What Americans call green peppers, red peppers, etc., we in Australia called capsicum.
And while Americans draw a distinction between coriander (generally the seeds, or the ground powder) and cilantro (the leafy herb), in Australia it is all called coriander.
Oh, yeah:
English = herb
American = erb
Yes, a yellowjacket is a type of wasp, but they are never called yellowjackets in the UK, only ever just ‘wasps’ or sometimes “aaaahgerrritoffameeebastard”
We do have other wasp species here, but they aren’t anything like as commonly seen as Vespula Vulgaris.
The term ‘Hornets’ on the other hand, in the UK refers very specifically to a single species of very large (about the size of an adult’s thumb), very aggressive wasps.
The term caught me out the other day in an ‘Identify this bug’ thread - I suggested hornet and the OP said ‘No, it was *bigger than that’ - it did actually turn out to be a European Hornet (which is what I had in mind).
Oh, while we’re here…
American/British
Bug/insect
although I believe the American term is broader, as it incorporates other arthropods such as spiders and centipedes, whereas a Brit would tend to say insect/spider/centipede or possibly ‘creepy crawly’ if it was unidentified.
Actually, shallots and scallions are two different things. Shallots are called shallots here also. What we in the US call scallions (we also call them green onions) is what you call spring onions.
We use the term gherkin to refer to a specific kind of pickle – a small one, usually dill.
A cornichon here is a small sweet pickle.
‘Pickle’ in the UK though, generally refers to some kind of chutney, most often Branston or similar.
Cucumbers, melons, pumkins, squashes and marrows are all in the Cucurbitaceae.
Winter squashes are grown in the UK (and have been for a long time), but they are often still generically called ‘pumpkins’.
Summer squashes are (as far as I remember) a relatively new introduction to the UK - I’ll check my reference books tonight.
Another one:
American ‘corn’ = UK ‘Sweetcorn’
UK ‘corn’ can refer to any grain, most commonly wheat or barley.
Oh, also ‘sweetcorn’ usually refers to the loose kernels, the whole thing on a plate is most often called ‘corn-on-the-cob’ (my four-year-old son calls it ‘corn-on-the-bone’)
Angua:
Are traffic jams the same on all sides of the pond? (We don’t call them traffic jellies here…)
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Davebear *
**Don’t be too grateful, yet. I’m in the east, and I’ve never heard anyone use the word anorak. Perhaps that’s a Canadian/American difference. I’ve seen it in catalogs, and in novels, but that’s it. They’re parkas, here, when we’re ambitious enough to name the style. Usually, they’re just coats.
Don’t mean to hijack the thread, but clarification is in order here. Anorak is a Canadian term, but has been adopted to some extent by Alaskan Eskimos. Alaskan Eskimos take Anorak to mean a garment made completely from animal skin or fur (the Eskimo language doesn’t differentiate between skin and fur). The parky (not parka) is any outer garment, but is generally made from cloth. The Eskimo word for this (at least in one dialect) is actually “atigi”, with the “g” written like a “q” with a loop to the right of the leg; sort of a combination q and b.
Just so I don’t completely ignore the thread, I understand that the English word for food is “chips”, for cuisine it’s “spotted dick” and for haute cuisine it’s “bubble and squeak” don’t throw anything hard, okay? 
I’ve known a couple of male Robins, not counting celebrities and comic book figures, but it is more common as a female name.
As for why we say ROBIN Hood, your answer suggests that we mean he’s a “robbing hood”, but that makes no sense, since that explanation would still imply that the word Hood should be emphasized, possibly even having the main accent of the phrase. If you call someone a “robbing hood”, you’re not going to pronounce it “ROBBING hood”, as if you want to distinguish him from a non-robbing-hood. No, the only reason we say it like that is because we think of Robin Hood as all one name, even as if it were written in one word…Robinhood.