Result: US win
Reason: The Don Hartman Song Brit.
agony aunt US
advice columnist
**Result: ** US win
Reason: agony aunt would have won this but the UK loses for being outdated and sexist. Brit.
anti-clockwise US
counter-clockwise
**Result: ** US win
Reason: counter has a nicer ring to it. Brit.
boob tube US
tube top
**Result: ** British win
Reason: do I need to explain? Brit.
bum US
fanny
**Result: ** British win
Reason: I wouldn’t pinch a fanny but I would pinch a bum (on babies in my family of course - what do you take me for?) Brit.
diamente US
rhinestone
**Result: ** British win
Reason: diamente elevates a rhinstone Brit.
hot flush US
hot flash
**Result: ** British win
Reason: hot flash is something on a camera. And you cannot feel flashed. Brit.
ladybird US
ladybug
**Result: ** US win
Reason: It’s a bug, it’s not a bird. Plus ladybird is giving too much credit to these cretins. Brit.
nappy US
diaper
**Result: ** British win
Reason: a nappy sounds cute, a diaper already sounds soiled - there may be some subjectivity here. Brit.
pavement US
sidewalk
**Result: ** US win
Reason: sidewalk is a much better description of what it is Brit.
queue US
line
**Result: ** British win
Reason: queue is such a great word. And the Brits are best at that and therefore own this. Brit.
trainers US
sneakers
**Result: ** no result
Reason: both are unsatisfying. They both describe actions you might do wearing these but neither really give you a sense of what they are. Brit.
waistcoat US
vest
Actually, the UK equivalent for stroller is pushchair (though the word buggy seems to have overtaken pushchair in recent years). A pram is what Americans would call a baby carriage.
So I would say the following:
Brit: pushchair
US: stroller
Result: US by a hair.
Reason: Pushchair is wonderfully literal, but stroller is a cooler word.
Appeal to the umpire.
“Torch” in this instance is an abbreviation of “Electric Torch”, and a penalty should perhaps be applied to the US term unless your Flashlight is actually being used for signaling with flashes.
Yeah, “Torch” wins. Classic wooden torches are essentially extinct, and battery powered lights are the functional successors. “Flashlight” makes no sense, and is not evocative.
Er wot? Have just polled several British friends and not a one of them has ever heard “boob tube” used as anything but another term for a television set (nor have any of my US friends ever heard of a television set being called a “tube top”)…but I will give you this one if you can cite where in fact a tube top is called a boob tube.
(It is quite evocative of the same mental image offhand, though.)
Au contraire. It’s called this because it is a flash of heat.
Try googling “boob tube” (from a US location) and then look at “images”. (I’m not sure I understand why, since it does not mean that in the US.)
Perhaps it’s a generational thing, but for me (grew up in London, born in the 60s) boob tube meant what Americans call a tube top, and did not mean TV.
Brit here, coming out in defence of our usage (perhaps it’s just what I’m accustomed to): “macaroni cheese” makes perfect sense – a compressed version of “macaroni made more exciting by being cooked with cheese”. “Macaroni and cheese” strikes me as unnecessarily wordy and clumsy; with a bit of a suggestion of a load of cooked plain macaroni, with a hunk of cheese beside it on the plate. And the often-used American equivalent “mac-and-cheese” is to me, an abomination. My first encounter with that one, had me wondering “what in heaven’s name is this? The latest horror from McDonalds?”
To contribute an entry, sort-of: I greatly like the US “Go figure”. I can’t think of a succinct British equivalent – “go and figure it out, if you can” lacks all brevity and punch. To risk confusing things, with a totally different language: I like the near-counterpart which French has – “Faut pas chercher a comprendre”: giving the sense in an admirably snappy way, of “there’s no point in even trying to understand this absurdity.”
This has to go to the Americans, just because “freeway” is so much more concise (though, TBCF, if you hear “duel carriageway”, it does describe traffic on the interstates rather well)
Brit: flat, walkup, bedsit
US: apartment
Goes to the British, just for being more descriptive
Brit: biscuit
US: cookie
Americans win this one if only because a biscuit in British can also be an American cracker (a word that may also be used in the US as a sort of ethnic slur) – there is that whole British “pudding” mess that is best avoided entirely
