# Brit-speak: if Chips==Fries, then ??==Chips **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 16, 2005, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-speak-if-chips-fries-then-chips/304099 "2005-05-16T17:53:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2005, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-speak-if-chips-fries-then-chips/304099/21 "2005-05-17T01:47:21Z")
> [@aerodave](#): > > I had a similar issue with biscuits once. > > If Americans call them cookies, and Brits call them biscuits, then what to Brits call what we call biscuits? As in buttermilk, breakfast-style biscuits. > > Well, I decided to find out when I made a trip to the UK last year, and the answer is simple. They don’t call them anything because they DON’T EXIST. Even the KFCs over there don’t have biscuits (crime against nature, I tell ya.) > > When I confronted my British colleagues about this, they couldn’t even understand what I was describing. “You mean like a scone?” One guy had been to a buffet in Texas, and said he was too scared of the baseball-sized bread things to try one. He didn’t get the smothered-in-gravy part, either. It was only when I described the things that he made the connection, and figured out exactly what the hell I was trying to describe as a “biscuit.” > > The point? For some things, the words don’t exist because the items are conspicuously absent. Forget about trying to explain corn bread to a Brit. I took a couple of Brit gents to lunch one time. (it was a work thing) I took them to the “Black-Eyed Pea” I figured that was about as American as you can get. I can’t remember what they ordered, but I do remember when the lady brought the corn bread out; My newly found Brit friends got quite a kick out of it. They kept saying “Ha, Ha, it’s like having cake with your dinnner!” Also, I heard they don’t have Ranch Dressing over there? Is that true? ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2005, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-speak-if-chips-fries-then-chips/304099/22 "2005-05-17T01:53:03Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > I’m told that scones are about as close as we come to American biscuits. Yes, but to mangle Douglas Adams, they’re more or less exactly unlike biscuits. Biscuits contain much more air (they’re “lighter”) and much less sweet (they’re not sweetened at all.) They also contain longer gluten strands, so they don’t crumble as readily as scones. Really, I don’t know why they’ve not caught on in England. They’re white and bland and sop up grease so well. It seems a natural fit! ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2005, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-speak-if-chips-fries-then-chips/304099/23 "2005-05-17T02:50:15Z")
> [@mittu](#): > > They are called crisps. So what do you call them when you’re pissed off at the French? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![dqa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dqa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dqa)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2005, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-speak-if-chips-fries-then-chips/304099/24 "2005-05-17T02:50:33Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Also, the word _cookie_ is part of the British vocab - it usually refers to (what we would normally call) a biscuit that hasn’t been rolled or moulded into shape and is therefore rough or irregular in shape, especially with inclusion of chocolate, toffee or fruit pieces - _biscuits_ are typically more regular in shape, often embossed with writing and/or pictures. So I gather homemade chocolate-chip cookies would properly bear that name in Britain? Or are they too “regular,” having been shaped into quasi-circles? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2005, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-speak-if-chips-fries-then-chips/304099/25 "2005-05-17T02:51:16Z")
Oops, that would be the “chips”, not the “crisps”… ---
**Author:** ![buns3000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c89c15/32.png) [@buns3000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buns3000)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2005, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-speak-if-chips-fries-then-chips/304099/26 "2005-05-17T04:09:41Z")
In Australia, you just wouldn’t be heard to say “crisps”, as **Groveldog** noted. You’d either refer to the brand name or call 'em “chips” - or maybe “potato chips” if there was some doubt which sort you meant (“potato chips” meaning the non-hot variety). I remember my sister inducing some outrage on the part of a lady in a fast-food joint on a trip to the US with her enquiry “Whats a biscuit?”. The response was “Whats a biscuit? Whats a biscuit?!?” I still don’t know what a “biscuit” is in the US. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2005, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-speak-if-chips-fries-then-chips/304099/27 "2005-05-17T04:23:13Z")
[Biscuits](http://www.kountrylife.com/content/rec105.htm), American style. Do they not sell [Bisquick](http://www.bettycrocker.com/products/prod_bisquick.aspx?MSCSProfile=3C79F0C7EA3162B2B387890FD0523006CC99AD6C9C981CAA89105CEEE02249FB6979DE8C8DAAA00B444E9DF993357C8BC09F72ABC7F9CC9C55AF10B25348F017F6D6FD97AEB7BE0FFC86AE559DFCF900A751B69704E1E039AA78AF98406C0FA136215BDA37455C036D1670D85B4CAA73E32218D1639B57C0B0B31530ED620404) in Oz? ---
**Author:** ![Cunctator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/43a26b/32.png) [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2005, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-speak-if-chips-fries-then-chips/304099/28 "2005-05-17T04:55:13Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > Do they not sell [Bisquick](http://www.bettycrocker.com/products/prod_bisquick.aspx?MSCSProfile=3C79F0C7EA3162B2B387890FD0523006CC99AD6C9C981CAA89105CEEE02249FB6979DE8C8DAAA00B444E9DF993357C8BC09F72ABC7F9CC9C55AF10B25348F017F6D6FD97AEB7BE0FFC86AE559DFCF900A751B69704E1E039AA78AF98406C0FA136215BDA37455C036D1670D85B4CAA73E32218D1639B57C0B0B31530ED620404) in Oz? I’ve never seen it it a normal supermarket. I did see it once in a shop that specialised in products for American ex-pats and I must say that I wondered what on earth it was. If I’m making scones (the vague equivalent of the American “biscuit”) I just use flour, not a ready-made mix. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2005, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-speak-if-chips-fries-then-chips/304099/29 "2005-05-17T05:16:31Z")
Well, maybe the closest thing to biscuits is [shortcake](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortcake). The shortcake my mom used to make for strawberry shortcake was pretty much just a big biscuit, IIRC. Does that make sense to anyone? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2005, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-speak-if-chips-fries-then-chips/304099/30 "2005-05-17T06:18:35Z")
To further the enlightenment: In America, any small (a few bites), sweet baked good, shaped (perhaps very roughly) like a flattened disk, is a cookie. Any small, salty baked wafer is a cracker. The one exception is Graham crackers, which are somewhat sweet but not salty, and most closely resemble what Brits call a digestive biscuit. It is my understanding that these products are both called “biscuits” in Britain, or “sweet biscuits” and “savoury biscuits” if the distinction need be made. American biscuits are only vaguely similar to scones. They’re generally lighter and puffier, and have (I think) a somewhat more savory flavor. One would never see raisins or other fruits in biscuits, and they’re often served as an accompiament to meals, formal or informal. One more rural American dish, typically a breakfast, is biscuits and gravy, which is exactly what the name says: Biscuits broken onto a plate, and then smothered in an extremely high-fat sausage gravy. Americans have scones as well, which are more or less the same as British scones, but seen much less often. Pudding in America refers to a specific sort of dairy dessert not entirely unlike custard. It typically comes in chocolate, vanilla, butterscotch, or tapioca flavors. We also have plum pudding (served only at Christmas), bread pudding, and rice pudding, which I believe are originally British dishes, but one would never refer to such as just “pudding”. In Britain, pudding is a general term which can refer to any dessert. Or there’s “black pudding” and “white pudding”, which are not desserts at all, but two varieties of boiled sausage, but one would never refer to those as just “pudding”, either. In America, jelly and jam are both fruit spreads such as one might spread on toast or scones. Strictly speaking, jam contains pieces of solid fruit, while jelly contains only fruit juice, but most Americans use the terms interchangeably (most often “jelly”). Orange spreads only are referred to as marmelade, and a spread made from apples is apple butter, but any other fruit spread would be called jelly or jam. The dessert made from flavored, sugared gelatin is generally called by the trade name Jell-o, or (rarely) by the generic term “gelatin”. In Britain, jelly refers to the gelatin dessert, and fruit spreads are jam. Corn, to Americans, refers exclusively to the grain known in the rest of the world as maize, sweetcorn, or American corn. Americans reserve the term maize (alternately, Indian corn) for a particular type of American corn, which tends to have hard kernals in a variety of colors (brown, white, red, even blue). This variety of corn doesn’t make for very good eating (except perhaps as popcorn), but is often used as a decoration in the fall. For Brits, corn can refer to any grain. Cornbread is a uniquely American foodstuff, which therefore has no British name. It’s a bread made with cornmeal, instead of flour. It may or may not be sweetened, depending on the part of the country. It has a very crumbly texture, and is often used to sop up gravy or other sauces. Corn muffins are the same thing, except baked in small round tins instead of rectangular loafs. Any I’m missing? ---
**Author:** ![Rayne\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df705f/32.png) [@Rayne\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rayne_Man)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2005, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-speak-if-chips-fries-then-chips/304099/31 "2005-05-17T06:26:27Z")
One more I can think of , and that is cider. In the US I think it means any apple juice drink. You can can have hard ( alcoholic ) and soft ( non-alcoholic) . In the UK (and France) cider just means the hard stuff. We just call the other sort apple juice. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2005, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-speak-if-chips-fries-then-chips/304099/32 "2005-05-17T06:30:49Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > Well, maybe the closest thing to biscuits is [shortcake](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortcake). The shortcake my mom used to make for strawberry shortcake was pretty much just a big biscuit, IIRC. Does that make sense to anyone? Shortcake is usually crumbly (“short” means brittle). The texture of an American biscuit is more fluffy. A properly-made biscuit is brown and toasty on the outside and light and feathery inside. As for potato crisps (American chips) served with a meal, this is most often done in places like school cafeterias that serve ready-made sandwiches. These places don’t have the facilities to make chips (fries). Most places that sell burgers also sell chips (fries) rather than crisps (chips). ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2005, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-speak-if-chips-fries-then-chips/304099/33 "2005-05-17T06:45:03Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Corn, to Americans, refers exclusively to the grain known in the rest of the world as maize, sweetcorn, or American corn. Americans reserve the term maize (alternately, Indian corn) for a particular type of American corn, which tends to have hard kernals in a variety of colors (brown, white, red, even blue). This variety of corn doesn’t make for very good eating (except perhaps as popcorn), but is often used as a decoration in the fall. For Brits, corn can refer to any grain. In my experience, Americans rarely use the word “maize,” regardless of what type of corn we’re talking about. To us, “maize” is the British word for corn. We don’t use the word “maize” to refer to Indian corn. Indian corn is a multicolored type of flint corn. Popcorn is a separate variety - I don’t think flint corn will pop. The only culinary use for flint corn that I know of is as cornmeal. Other types of corn are sweet corn (this is the type of corn usually served as a vegetable or side dish) and dent corn (which is most commonly used as animal feed). I’ve also heard of flour corn, but I don’t know what it’s used for (cornstarch?). I suppose there are varieties of corn bred for oil. ---
**Author:** ![Bambi\_Hassenpfeffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Bambi\_Hassenpfeffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bambi_Hassenpfeffer)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2005, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-speak-if-chips-fries-then-chips/304099/34 "2005-05-17T06:46:37Z")
> [@Rayne Man](#): > > One more I can think of , and that is cider. In the US I think it means any apple juice drink. You can can have hard ( alcoholic ) and soft ( non-alcoholic) . In the UK (and France) cider just means the hard stuff. We just call the other sort apple juice. Not quite correct. See this [page](http://www.foodsubs.com/Juice.html). Apple cider and apple juice are distinct from each other. Juice has had the pulp filtered completely out, and cider has some of it left in. You’re right about the hard cider, though. > [@Chronos](#): > > Strictly speaking, jam contains pieces of solid fruit, while jelly contains only fruit juice And you are correct here, **Chronos** , but I wanted to add a little clarification. In the US, we have 4 distinct categories of fruit spreads, plus apple butter. [ol][li] **Jelly** : flavored only with the fruit juice.[/li][li] **Jam** : flavored with juice and containing fruit chunks.[/li][li] **Preserves** : flavored with juice and containing whole fruit.[/li][li] **Marmalade** : flavored with juice and containing fruit chunks and peels – usually citrus[/ol][/li] I know that in Commonwealth English, “jelly” means “gelatin”, which might be why the Brits look at us funny when we mention PB&J sandwiches. Peanut butter and Jell-O would freak me out too. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2005, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-speak-if-chips-fries-then-chips/304099/35 "2005-05-17T07:02:48Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > Yes, but to mangle Douglas Adams, they’re more or less exactly unlike biscuits. Biscuits contain much more air (they’re “lighter”) and much less sweet (they’re not sweetened at all.) They also contain longer gluten strands, so they don’t crumble as readily as scones. > > Really, I don’t know why they’ve not caught on in England. They’re white and bland and sop up grease so well. It seems a natural fit! I suppose it might be because we have a couple of cultural equivalents (equivalent in the sense that they are starchy and eaten with gravy); Yorkshire puds and Good Old Bread ‘n’ Gravy. I keep meaning to try American biscuits and gravy. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2005, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-speak-if-chips-fries-then-chips/304099/36 "2005-05-17T07:03:52Z")
> [@SHAKES](#): > > Also, I heard they don’t have Ranch Dressing over there? Is that true? Dunno; certainly isn’t popular by that name, although we might have something similar by another; what’s it like? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Kenneth\_Noisewater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@Dr.Kenneth\_Noisewater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Kenneth_Noisewater)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2005, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-speak-if-chips-fries-then-chips/304099/37 "2005-05-17T07:05:25Z")
FYI [this is a biscuit](http://www.hollyeats.com/images/South/Arcade-Biscuit.jpg) (in the U.S. at least). It’s soft, fluffy and often bland. ---
**Author:** ![Muad\_Dib](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/35a633/32.png) [@Muad\_Dib](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muad_Dib)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2005, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-speak-if-chips-fries-then-chips/304099/38 "2005-05-17T07:05:53Z")
> [@Rayne Man](#): > > One more I can think of , and that is cider. In the US I think it means any apple juice drink. You can can have hard ( alcoholic ) and soft ( non-alcoholic) . In the UK (and France) cider just means the hard stuff. We just call the other sort apple juice. If it’s clear and yella, why youv’e got juice there fella! But if it is tangy and brown, why, you’re in cider town! ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2005, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-speak-if-chips-fries-then-chips/304099/39 "2005-05-17T07:11:30Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > To further the enlightenment: In America, any small (a few bites), sweet baked good, shaped (perhaps very roughly) like a flattened disk, is a cookie. Any small, salty baked wafer is a cracker. The one exception is Graham crackers, which are somewhat sweet but not salty, and most closely resemble what Brits call a digestive biscuit. It is my understanding that these products are both called “biscuits” in Britain, or “sweet biscuits” and “savoury biscuits” if the distinction need be made. Not really; we call 'em crackers - always have - A cracker is a savoury (or plain unseasoned) baked wafer - usually _crisp_ in nature, a biscuit is a sweetened baked wafer- usually _crumbly_, and a cookie is a crumbly, sweet _biscuit_, often containing pieces of fruit or chocolate, probably formed by baking a flattened ball or blob of dough (as opposed to one stamped out of a rolled sheet. > [@](#): > > In America, jelly and jam are both fruit spreads such as one might spread on toast or scones. Strictly speaking, jam contains pieces of solid fruit, while jelly contains only fruit juice, but most Americans use the terms interchangeably (most often “jelly”). Orange spreads only are referred to as marmelade, and a spread made from apples is apple butter, but any other fruit spread would be called jelly or jam. The dessert made from flavored, sugared gelatin is generally called by the trade name Jell-o, or (rarely) by the generic term “gelatin”. In Britain, jelly refers to the gelatin dessert, and fruit spreads are jam. Jelly also refers to seedless jam in Britain - specifically the clear kind that has been strained without force through a fine cloth jelly bag ---
**Author:** ![Antonius\_Block](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/51bf81/32.png) [@Antonius\_Block](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antonius_Block)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2005, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-speak-if-chips-fries-then-chips/304099/40 "2005-05-17T07:16:54Z")
Well, **Muad’Dib** beat me to the Simpsons reference (spoken by Ned Flanders). Of course, it’s unlikely that Ned is too familiar with “hard cider” (which, although the name might imply extreme potency, would generally get its ass kicked by a decent [scrumpy](http://www.angelfire.com/ab4/bern/ciderweb/scrumpy.htm)). > [@Bambi Hassenpfeffer](#): > > **Preserves** : flavored with juice and containing whole fruit. I never knew that! I’m troubled by one thing however. I’ve often seen 2oz or 4oz jars of “pineapple preserve”, which would seem rather unlikely given your definition. Are they just misusing the term, or is it regional, or what? [I’m not claiming expertise, just askin’]. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-speak-if-chips-fries-then-chips/304099.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-speak-if-chips-fries-then-chips/304099.md?page=3)