This question comes from my 10-year-old daughter. She was marveling that even in our common language, certain words have two meanings exclusive to each country, or that a single object has two names also exclusive to each country.
For example, a hand-held battery-powered light-emitting device is called a “flashlight” in the US, and called a “torch” in the UK (which in America is a hand-held flame holder, like seen with the Olympics, or “Gilligan’s Island”).
So the question is: what do Brits call hand-held flame holders? And if it’s also “torch”, how do you distinguish between battery-powered torches and flame-powered torches?
They’re both torches, you can tell the difference because one will burn your face off and the other won’t. I suppose I would say “battery operated” or “flaming” though.
I’m not British but we also use torch for flashlight. Generally “flaming torch” will suffice although I can think of only a few instances where context wouldn’t immediately illuminate as to the specific meaning. That is to say, unless talking about villagers attacking Frankenstein’s monster most of the time we’d be talking about the battery operated device.
In general, there’s no confusion, since the difference is noted in context. A burning torch pretty much stopped being used when the battery operated ones were invented. People don’t think a car is a vehicle typically drawn by horses nowadays, either.
As others have noted, context is usually sufficient to tell the difference. Some jokes make use of the ambiguity by carefully constructing an ambiguous or misleading context, for example:
“I bought my young son a jigsaw to keep him amused while I went out for the evening. Unfortunately, I returned to find that he had plugged it in and cut off three of his fingers”
An interesting difference that Americans sometimes encounter, to much embarrassment, is the meaning of “pants” across the ocean. “Torch” is relatively harmless by comparison.
I work for a company with offices on both sides of the pond. Our COO, from the UK, was over in our US office a couple months ago. You should have seen the look on her face when he heard one of my coworkers casually mention a woman carrying her things in a “fanny pack”. Hoo boy.
I’ve always been puzzled by the word “flashlight”, actually, because in typical usage what you do with that device is provide continuous illumination rather than brief flashes.
When I worked in New Zealand, I was momentarily nonplussed when the sweet grandmotherly receptionist in our office asked me if I knew where to get rubbers if I needed them.
“Britain and the United States are two countries separated by a common language. And a lot of fish.” -Eddie Izzard.
Our office’s director came over from London last year, and we occasionally carry on a bit of good-natured ribbing about the differences. Such as playing dumb when he proposes we meet at “half two” and things like that. But don’t ever get him started on tipping.
then of course there are the different pronunciations of the same words… “You say, uh, “erb,” we say “herb.” Because there’s a fucking ‘H’ in it!”
Like any other of a thousand words with duplicate meanings (which happens in British and American English), we use context. It is extraordinarily easy not to get confused in said situation.
As someone above pointed out: nut, bowl, hood, gas, and a thousand other words have the same issue, and nobody struggles with them. There’s nothing special about the word “torch”.
