# English vs. English

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-vs-english/6968>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 4, 2000, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-vs-english/6968 "2000-02-04T00:05:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Edward\_J\_Cunningham\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e79b87/32.png) [@Edward\_J\_Cunningham\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Edward_J_Cunningham_1)\
**Post date:** [February 9, 2000, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-vs-english/6968/21 "2000-02-09T22:33:00Z")

</div>

One notable example of how American English (or at least one idiom) shifted back to the mother country occured in the Mike Leigh film _Secrets and Lies_. I’ve read that in England, “to knock” someone means just to wake somebody up while over here it means to get a woman pregnant. Well, in _S&L_, there’s a scene where Brenda Blethyn’s character warns her daughter to bring some protection (i.e. contraceptives) with her on a date to make sure she doesn’t get “knocked up.”

Of course on the flip side, millions of Americans use the term “full monty” thanks to the recent Oscar-nominated film. So things do work both ways…

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![TomH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/90db22/32.png) [@TomH](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TomH)\
**Post date:** [February 9, 2000, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-vs-english/6968/22 "2000-02-09T23:52:00Z")

</div>

It’s “to knock _up_” which means to wake somebody up. In small towns and villages, where the vast majority of the men worked in a single factory or mine, the business owner would employ a man, known as a “knocker-up”, to go round the village waking up the relevant men in time for their shift.

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-vs-english/6968.md?page=1)