[QUOTE=Giles]
No: I meant that, especially in Victoria, “football” means Australian rules football, and Tasmania and South Australia tend to follow that line as well. On the other hand, in New South Wales and Queensland, the main code of “football” is Rugby League. I haven’t been to Western Australia for more than 50 years, so I’m not sure what the default “football” is in that state.
[/QUOTE]
I was about to ask about that. Isn’t that ‘footy’?
Conversely, ‘footballers’ is a really elegant way of making the distinction between soccer and US football, at least going based on an acquaintance of mine who’s a rabid fan. We call ours ‘football players’ and not ‘footballers’.
As for ‘fanny’, well. I pretty much died when my vet handed me the bill for a sanitary trim of my XL cat, and on it was “FANNY SHAVE” since I remembered what fanny means in UK terms. They should’ve called it a Brazilian, I figured, and had done with it, but was too polite to say as much to the vet.
Americans seem to use abbreviations more. GF. BF. BS. VCR. ATM. At least, I really notice that when reading this board, the only board I frequent much that has a large American membership.
For our antipodean friends, one dead giveaway is “heaps”, meaning “a lot”.
There are the crude ones: “shitter”, “crapper”, etc.
And the more polite ones… I know in Canada it’s “bathroom” inside the home, and “Rest Room” or “Washroom” elsewhere. I’ve asked people in the Eastern States where the washroom was, and they looked at me with wary concern as if I asked where I could hose myself down. Oddly enough, in those places “bathroom” works fine
I would also say that Canadians don’t use the word “toilet” unless the topic is installing plumbing.
I’m assuming that over in Jolly Ol’ England it’s “Loo” and “WC”???
“Toilet” or “loo” (which always sounds a bit Jolly Hockey Sticks to me), or in a public place “gents” and “ladies”. Rarely “WC”. A cruder choice would be “the bog”.
[QUOTE=TheLoadedDog]
For some reason, “cunt” used as an insult in Australia is exclusively male, although it can also be used as a general term meaning “guys” or “people”: “Every cunt was at the beach today” but obviously this depends on the circles you mix in.
The first time I saw “cunt” referring to a woman was in an American novel, and I had to go back and reread the last few pages to see who the new male character was that I’d missed.
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Following this, I disagree with those who’ve said British cunts are females…having spent many a happy few minute chanting ‘D’Urso, you’re a cunt’…
Not hardly one thing about how non-English-speaking furrners write English? What are we, too PC to mention such a thing?
FWIW, I’ve noticed that native German and Dutch speakers like to smoosh adjectives and the nouns they apply to together. I once got a “Christmascard” from Amsterdam.
Oh, that drives me mad. I often have to plough through the documentation produced by a certain large German software company and it’s full of that. “Restart the logonservice on the backupserver.”
Another one from non-native speakers is “for sure”. I think there was another thread about this - somehow it must have crept into widely-used course material somewhere that we Anglophones use that phrase by itself to mean “yes, indeed”. The only time I ever use it is in “that’s for sure” or “to know something for sure”.
I’ve noticed a lot of non-native English speakers (usually Germans) will use the word “some” instead of “a few” or “several”, usually when talking about a length of time.
“I will be gone for some hours.”
“I have not been there for some years.”
[QUOTE=Secret Volcano Lair]
“I will be gone for some hours.”
“I have not been there for some years.”
[/QUOTE]
That’s perfectly-normal English, but more of a British style than American.
Well, if they give the slightest rat’s bum about George W. Bush and United Statesian politics, that’s a dead giveaway that they are residents of the United States.
This is particular to a region, I believe, but that region is part of the US, so I will also say when someone says “It needs washed” instead of “It needs to be washed” that they are from the US. I also have to say, that particular regionalism bugs the living piss out of me.
You can also tell UK’ers by the way they call drugstores/pharmacies chemists.
[QUOTE=Beware of Doug]
Not hardly one thing about how non-English-speaking furrners write English? What are we, too PC to mention such a thing?
FWIW, I’ve noticed that native German and Dutch speakers like to smoosh adjectives and the nouns they apply to together. I once got a “Christmascard” from Amsterdam.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=TheLoadedDog]
I should point out that most of the things in this thread people are saying are British can be found right across the Commonwealth.
[/QUOTE]
Not necessarily, when you take Canada into the mix. Our vocabulary shares a lot with the U.S., so some of the words that have been mentioned as British in this thread are not commonly used here.
[QUOTE=John DiFool]
If a poster says, “When I went to university”, I can probably assume he/she is Canadian.
“When I went to college” is what an American would say.
[/QUOTE]
I’m Canadian, yet I always use “college” when referring to myself. I didn’t go to a university, I went to a college. As a general rule, in Canada universities give out degrees. Colleges give out diplomas.
Although I must admit, when I do refer to my post-secondary education, calling it “college” does make me feel like a Yank.
There’s a poster on the boards somewhere who grew up in the UK then moved to the US, so their stories from years back describe British events in American English. I had to do a double take on one such post :dubious:
[QUOTE=Danja]
Should anyone be interested, the correct spelling is “Estadounidense.”
[/QUOTE]
Used to be, at least. I haven’t seen it like that in a long time. Do you know if the RAE is accepting “Estadunidense” now?
As I have mentioned before, my english is a hopeless mess of british and american. I say “colour” and “arse” but most of my idioms reveal me as an american. It is just that my first english classes (as a kid) were for british english and most of my current reading is from british sources.
[QUOTE=GingerOfTheNorth]
As do two Swedish women I know online.
[/QUOTE]
Understandably so. In swedish it’s a deadly sin to split up words the way you do in english. So for example we would spell it strawberryjam, not strawberry jam, and messageboard, rather than message board.
[QUOTE=Northern Piper]
Not necessarily, when you take Canada into the mix. Our vocabulary shares a lot with the U.S., so some of the words that have been mentioned as British in this thread are not commonly used here.
[/QUOTE]
