Reminds me of the friend from England who left her ‘mobile’ on the ‘personal shelf’ in my wife’s car. ‘Mobile’ is fairly well known, but rarely used. But we never heard of a ‘personal shelf’ (the shelf between the passenger seats and the rear window if I understood correctly).
Much of central Edinburgh is built on a grid system, more or less, and we use the term ‘block’ all the time in the American sense.
Pretty sure I’d call that the passenger shelf.
That might have been the term used. It was relayed to me second hand. She spoke to my wife who may have heard ‘passenger’ as ‘personal’. I don’t recall that term used either, though it makes more sense.
I can agree with that, from personal experience.
I’ve lived just outside of NYC for over 50 years. I was familiar with the concept of Christmas crackers, but had never actually seen one before last month. My teenage niece had heard about them, and she got a bunch of them for the family get-together. Only a couple of us knew what to do with them. A couple of others expected that when they opened them, there would be cookies inside.
As an estimate of distance, no. But what about when giving directions? I’d think it’s convenient, whether the streets are in a grid or not, to tell someone looking for the bakery to “go two blocks that way, turn right, then go three more blocks, and it’s on the left.”
No, it isn’t used that way over here. For one thing, the road you’re on is probably twisty, and the cross-streets come at irregular intervals, as well as being of different sizes and probably not going straight across (the next left turn probably isn’t directly opposite the next right turn) - there’s just no way to visualise things in terms of blocks. You’d say ‘Take the second right, and then it’s on your left just after the third left turn’ or whatever.
It’s the same here. The term ‘block’ would be confusing if there isn’t a cross street that runs on both sides of the street you are on. But lots of people give poor directions and that doesn’t stop them. Are Brits better at giving directions than us Colonials? Do they tell you to turn where the old fire station used to be?
Others I’ve seen: Failure to recognize that Americans don’t call pill-form medicine “tablets,” as in “I had a headache so I took a couple of tablets,” or refer to people who take care of elderly or disabled people as “carers.”
Also, American people who take care of children are called “babysitters” on an informal basis, or “child care workers” if it’s more regulated. The British seem to use “child minders.”
Seeing those in books set in the U.S. is a sure sign that the editor is not up to date or paying attention.
snipping mine
Thanksgiving is nearly always turkey, but it’s not odd for Christmas either. Some do ham, some do turkey, I’m sure some do something else (do people still do goose?)
Christmas Crackers, though, wow, that’s crazy. I wouldn’t even know what those are if not for a Mr. Bean episode, and there are british people in my family.
I think the typical British person would understand what you meant if you said you lived on the same block as so-and-so, but not ‘that’s two blocks away.’
I really liked in a recent Sherlock episode when
they had a character say cellphone, even though he was British. It seemed like a slip-up, maybe pandering to the US market, but was actually a plot point.
Really? Blimey, central Edinburgh definitely didn’t seem to be on a block system to me - nothing like US cities. But you’re Scottish, so I’ll refine my statements to be just about England.
No. It just wouldn’t work. There just aren’t blocks. At least, not in most of England. You’d usually say something like ‘walk/drive two minutes that way…’ etc.
Look at this map of a place I used to live. There are kinda squares to fit the map, but they’re mostly not square in real life - those roads all curved and the buildings are all over the place - and they’re tiny.
If you were walking from, say, Moorfields Eye Hospital to Angel tube station, how many blocks would you be passing? Or from Moorfields to Barts?
We do use babysitters for informal childcare, done by family, friends or a suitable teenager. It’s mostly for evening childcare though, or short periods during the day now and then, not regular daytime care so the parents can work, which is probably where the difference lies.
A childminder in the UK is a specific job - someone who looks after other people’s kids in their own home. It’s not a general term for someone who looks after kids.
I’m sure I saw the singing chinless woman in Raising Hope referred to as a babysitter, and yeah, to me she’d be a childminder. Or some other term, maybe. But not a babysitter.
Other than for same-sex couples and, in some cases, much older/late middle-aged couples, it would be pretty to quite rare to hear an American refer to their serious or live in unmarried love interest as their “partner.” It would be much, much more common, even sometimes for people in their 50s in long term unmarried relationships, to refer them as “boyfriend” or “girlfriend,” or at least “significant other.” I don’t know that any of those terms see much use in the British Isles for people once they are out of their school/college days.
Yes, I see that all the time in English books. If an American refers to another person as his or her partner, unless the two people are standing right next to each other and the relationship is obvious, it’s always a question whether they mean domestic partners or business partners. In Britain, it seems to be quite common to refer to a live-in romantic partner.
It may or may not be, but the fact remains that we don’t use it.
I have no idea if “two blocks” in one direction (for example, “where’s the post office?”, “two blocks in that direction”) means the second block away from the one I am currently on or that there should be two clear blocks between the block I am on and the block I want to be on.
And to show that smaller non-London places have the same issue. Here’s where I grew up:
Well, I’m really meaning the Georgian/Victorian New Town areas, including the Southside. But of course there’s the higgledy piggledy Old Town right in the middle of it all.
And, thinking about it, maybe the usage has changed a bit since I was growing up.
Looking at Edinburgh on Google Maps I can see where you’re coming from. There certainly area small areas that have a grid pattern, but they are generally spaced out and contained within weird shapes. I’m guessing in most cities you’ll find somewhere that has a grid pattern, but that doesn’t mean the city is set out that way.
She’s not really a good example of a babysitter, though. Really it’s more like you said it was (someone coming to watch the kids while the parents go out for a while). Shelley (I think that’s her name) is really more of a daycare provider than a babysitter. There’s not really a more streamlined name for it that I’m aware of like your term childminder. Daycare provider, daycare worker, just stuff like that. Not saying the show, or people in general, might not sometimes call them a babysitter, but that’s not at all the generally accepted use for the word.