False friends: familiar names which mean something very different elsewhere

Cafe Society
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So, let me start with an example: a flapjack in the UK is a baked item, made from oats bound together with butter and syrup/sugar/honey, often containing nuts and/or dried fruit. In the US, it’s a pancake.

Biscuits are a famous example too: a biscuit to a Brit is wide ranging umbrella term for cookies and cracker’s, while the scone-like American biscuit is a very different proposition.

The other half of biscuits and gravy - the gravy - is another. The various sauces known as gravy in the US would not pass muster in the UK. Nothing wrong with them as foodstuffs, but to a Brit, the word “gravy” means brown gravy.

Cider in the US is essentially a variety of apple juice. In the UK it is, exclusively, fermented. There’s no such term as “hard” cider to differentiate things in British English, because there doesn’t need to be, in the same way as there’s no point saying hard beer or hard wine.

In Newfoundland, goulash is elbow macaroni in a meaty tomato sauce, not a paprika-rich Hungarian stew!

Marinara sauce is not a well known term in the UK, but if it is used, don’t be surprised to find it full of seafood: the name can be taken as a reference to things “marine” in origin.

On a related note, my aunt was once famously taken pity upon by a kindly shop cashier in Austria in the 60s, who - quite correctly - surmised that a couple of foreign 20-something tourists had no need for two jars of Honey-brand floor polish, and duly explained that it wasn’t actually honey.

So, what else do we know about this folks? What have you accidentally ordered because the name meant something entirely different to you?

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I remember learning (much to my embarrassment) that “preservative” actually means “condom” in Russian. (It’s a French word, but the Russians use it too.)

I think macaroni goulash is pretty much a thing throughout North America. We certainly had it in Minnesota when I was growing up.

I’ll never forget when a Geordie friend of mine told me he was going around to his girlfriend’s to knock her up.

For those who don’t know: In Britain, this means literally knocking on someone’s door to see if they’re home. In America, it means getting someone pregnant.

“Bernard … are you sure you want to do that?” :dubious: :eek: :confused:

3

Gravy in the US also usually means brown gravy. In the southern US, there’s both brown gravy and white gravy, which will be served with different dishes. The Italian-American community in the general vicinity of Philadelphia uses the word “gravy” for a thick tomato-based spaghetti sauce, but most of the rest of the country will have no clue what they’re talking about. And there’s also something called “redeye gravy” in some parts of the country, made with coffee, but I’ve never encountered it.

For more examples, I think most folks by now know of the US/British distinction of fries/chips/crisps.

“Tamale” usually means masa corn flour boiled in corn-husk shells, but in parts of the US, it’s what most of the country calls “sloppy joe”: Crumbled ground beef in a ketchup-ish sauce served on a sandwich.

And I was once served a dish called “tortilla” by Mexican acquaintances (I’m not sure what region of Mexico) which, instead of being a thin flatbread, was basically a sort of omelet.

4

This is news to me. I’ve lived different parts of the US, and a sloppy joe was always a sloppy joe, no matter where I was. (I think real tamales are actually steamed, rather than boiled.)

Redeye gravy is basically ham drippings mixed with strong black coffee. Real country stuff eaten by the dirt poor (but actually not bad). Best served over grits with cheese. It’s called redeye because if you let it sit for a few minutes in a bowl, the coffee and drippings separate and you wind up with something out of a Roald Dahl short story staring at you.

The first time I ever heard spaghetti sauce referred to as “gravy” was on The Sopranos.

5

I ordered a pepperoni pizza at a Pizza Hut in Frankfurt, Germany. It came with very long banana peppers instead of meat.

6

Interesting. Newfs I knew told me it was a Newfie thing…but of course, I should know better than to listen to anyone commenting on their own use of language.

Good one! It means both in the UK actually, depending on context, so provides useful source material for dirty jokes.

7

Useful to know. The essentially unheard of (if using British terminology) Biscuits & Gravy being such a famous difference, I’d not clocked that.

A tortilla in Spain is a Spanish omelette, aye.

8

My mother made it quite often, which is amusing because my dad was first generation Hungarian-American (Austro-Hungarian–American, actually). I don’t know if he ever really knew the difference, but they divorced around the time I was five.

She was from Missouri via Chicago, and he was originally from Milwaukee.

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although most places do label it “country” or “breakfast” gravy

10

Can’t believe I forgot such an important one: a British fanny sits alongside that which Americans call by the same name, on the female of the species.

And a British fag is a cigarette…which wasn’t widely known by my Canadian friends when I excused myself for a smoke…

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FYI, I love biscuits and gravy, and this is one instance where you use the Southern white stuff, not brown.

It’s easy to make: You just brown some chopped onions and breakfast sausage (ground pork seasoned with sage and cloves, and maybe some red pepper flakes), stir some flour into the grease to make a roux, and then add whole milk. Keep stirring until the gravy thickens, and then pour over your hot buttered biscuits (split them open first). Top with lots of freshly ground black pepper. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm! :o

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The American expression “bum around” got some laughs from the Brits I worked with when I was teaching EFL.

“Whatcha gonna do tonight?”

“Oh, not much … just kinda bum* around … nothin’, really.”

I’ll also never forget one of my colleagues stepping out of the office because he “fancied a fag.” :dubious:

*“Bum” in this case being synonymous with “layabout,” i.e., someone without much money or incentive. Not with “bum” in the sense of “bottom.”

13

I was in a little sidewalk café in Brazil, and I asked the waiter, in near perfect Portuguese ;), “What is this? What is an ‘X’ burger?”

He looks at me like I’m the stupidest rube to ever fall off a plantain truck, and says, “Sheese Burger! Burger com Queso!”

:rolleyes:

The letter X, which they claim isn’t really part of their alphabet (again with this :rolleyes: ), is pronounced “sheese”. And what is more American than a good old Sheese Burger?

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I’m continually surprised that we have very few instances of “call something by a different name” going on in the midwest: gravy is brown, tortillas are flat, tamales are made with corn husks, sloppy joes are sloppy.

Should I feel proud, or embarrassed by how boring we are?

Now, I have friends all over the country, so I’ve had white chili in Ohio, “griddlecakes” in Texas vs. “Johnnycakes” in NC vs. “silver dollars” in Florida. I’ve volunteered to eat the “heel” of the bread and gotten a funny look: “Oh, the butt?” and a friend from the Bronx yelled from the other room “Oh, y’mean the Schpitzel?”

And I’ve been served soda pop that was referred to generically as “a Coke” in Georgia, or “a Vernor’s” in Michigan.

Those were the weirdest… imagine being a youngster from white bread Wisconsin visiting old relatives down in Jaw-ja, and being asked “Y’all want a Coke?” “Oh, sure!” “What kind o’ Coke?” “Ummm…?” “We got Sprahhhte, Ahrnj, or Co-cola”.

And I must have gone to college with the entire Vernor’s Corporate Cheerleading Squad. Everyone I met in Detroit would call out “Gettin’ a Vernor’s. Wanta come with?” “Umm, with what? Or was that the end of your sentnece? And are you asking about some kind of Asian massage, or a food?” (Found out the hard way: it’s a killer ginger/root brew used to strip varnish and the back of your throat)

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Just remembered another good one: The first month I was in the UK, I went to a pub in Inverness with a Brit and two French girls who were staying at the same hostel. At one point, the young man excused himself to go to “the loo,” and gave one of the girls a little pat on the bottom. She looked at me and I said (not knowing the difference between the American and British usage) “He just gave you a swat on the fanny.”

She thought this was a great expression and started using the word “fanny” all the time. It wasn’t until much later that I learned the truth, long after we had gone our separate ways. I would have loved to have been there the next time she used the word in polite company. :smiley:

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They do in Lithuania, too. :cool:

17

Yup, big favourite in this house! Though it’s known as American Biscuits and Sausagey Sauce…

18

We park our cars in the same garage. :o

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In the UK ‘bum’, or ‘bumming’, is also mild slang for (generally homosexual) anal sex.

OB

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**[VOICE OF BRIAN GRIFFIN]: **Why, yes. Yes, it is. :o