I use Webster’s New World College Dictionary by Simon & Schuster, Inc. for my general reference needs. And I think it is one of the best dictionaries out there. One of the many unique features it has is a star it inserts before entries that are primarily of U.S. and not British, usage. When I first got this dictionary, I was fascinated by how many seemingly common terms were American, and not British. I also am a little perplexed…
Some of the strictly American words don’t seem to have any substitute words, at least that I am familiar with. I could name a hundred. But I will just name four: What are the British equivalents to the American words “cute”, “autism”, “hydrogen bomb” and “neutron bomb”?
Someone please clear up my confusion. And feel free to give a link to a site that might help. I’d love to know of a site where I can look up these things for myself.
Well, we Brits pick up American usages from TV and films, of course, so that may muddy the waters a little. Basically, kids here play in American. But differences do remain: “cute” normally means a quality which you might ascribe to a kitten or a baby - we wouldn’t normally use it to mean “sexually attractive”.
So I own one crappy dictionary in other words . BTW, I am not to blame for this mistake. I looked up each word again just now, and ea. one indeed has a star by it. Does anyone else know what this dictionary was talking about?
Maybe it’s this: the President says “Such-and-such a country is cutting up rough. What should we hit them with?” And the Secretary of State would say “A Hydrogen Bomb”. The Defense Secretary, a moderate, would say “A Neutron Bomb”. But the British Ambassador would say “A cultural exchange program”.
It doesn’t actually mean just that, though. It can mean “sexy,” but in a way which is friendly, loving, and innocent in a way which “sexy” usually isn’t.
I am not British nor have I ever even been to Britain, so I am talking out of my ass, but I can easily imagine that
a) “Cute” is referring to the chiefly american meaning of “cute” as “sexy”.
b) “Autism” as defined by Dictionary.com has the following second meaning:
There’s no usage note but I could imagine this being a regional difference. I have never personally seen such usage.
c) “Hydrogen bomb” might have been an American-coined term for something elsewhere called “thermonuclear bomb” or “fusion bomb”.
d) Same with “neutron bomb”, I have heard people in Russia referring to it primarily as enhanced radiation bomb. I can imagine this being exclusive regional usage somewhere.
Cute? As in sexy but not overtly so? Girl next door is one polite phrase I’ve heard.
The other three are technical terms and I wouldn’t have heard anything else as an alternative. Autism, hydrogen bombs and neutron bombs are exactly the same in British English as I’ve heard it on the news and science books at school.
‘Sweet’ would be a fair approximation of ‘cute’ in British English, at least in as far as it pertains to golden-haired infants and puppies with big eyes. However for this and for the other meanings (i.e. sexy, etc), the American word ‘cute’ is widely accepted now.
We had no prior need for a word meaning ‘Sexy’ in Britain, as sexual intercourse and sexual attraction were unknown here until they were imported from America and mainland Europe about halfway through the twentieth century.
This may come down to personal preferences but I would use cute to mean ‘clever or shrewd’ (sense 3 as defined in The Collins English Dictionary).
This definition approximates to acute as in ‘penetrating in perception or insight’ (sense 1 in the same dictionary). I think this is what Bryan Ekers is getting at in his post upthread. I can’t be sure though because I’m not that cute.
Cute as in astute
Cute as in kittens
Autism - I would expect Autistic
Hydrogen bomb - probably Atom bomb
Neutron bomb would be the same - but probably relatively few people know what it is
Has anyone provided any evidence that those last two were ever considered “American” terms…
I have never considered them as such, they may have originated in the states but that would not mean they are really “American” terms. Technical terms are not usually associated with their country of origin (with some exceptions, e.g. Polystyrene vs Styrofoam, Aluminium vs aluminum).
**‘hydrogen bomb’ ** sounds dated. I think we used to say ‘atom bomb’ at the end of WW2, then called it ‘hydrogen bomb’ and now ‘nuclear weapon’.
‘It is believed the hydrogen bomb was up to 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima’
**‘neutron bomb’ ** is a nuclear weapon designed to kill humans with minimum accompanying property damage.
‘The United States wanted to develop a nuclear weapon that would allow it to wipe out a Soviet army as it invaded Western Europe but leave towns and cities intact.’
‘autism’ is a learning disability, involving strong preference for a rigid environment and making social interaction difficult. I believe Aspbergers Syndrome is the high intellectual end of the spectrum. There’s a marvellous book here called ‘The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Nightime’, which has an autistic kid as the hero.
‘Christopher has Asperger’s Syndrome. That’s a form of autism and it means that he doesn’t understand or relate to other people the way most of us do.’
