# What Britishisms most baffle Americans? What Americanisms most baffle Brits? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 18, 2024, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941 "2024-10-18T08:53:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2024, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/181 "2024-10-18T21:15:12Z")
The Americans have a World Series, but only invite one non-US team. When the British have a World War, OTOH, it does what it says on the tin. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2024, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/182 "2024-10-18T21:18:47Z")
Related, but not related, faggot. in the UK, a type of meatball made from offal (although I think we are also generally aware of the slur that shares the same word). There’s often confusion between fag (cigarette) and faggot (meatball) on the USA side too, it seems - it’s not uncommon to hear Americans saying that cigarettes are called ‘faggots’ in the UK. They’re not - that’s something else. ---
**Author:** ![pjd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pjd/32/3009_2.png) [@pjd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pjd)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2024, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/183 "2024-10-18T21:23:44Z")
“Brilliant” has largely been superseded by “Amazing” ---
**Author:** ![pjd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pjd/32/3009_2.png) [@pjd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pjd)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2024, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/184 "2024-10-18T21:25:47Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > Some decades ago, I worked for Alesis Studio Electronics, and helped design their electronic drum machine Thank you for your service ! I have an SR16, lovely bit of kit. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2024, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/185 "2024-10-18T21:27:34Z")
> [@pjd](#): > > Private school” is becoming more prevalent, although “Public school” is still Though the terms have two distinct meanings. All pubic schools are private school but not all private schools are pubic schools. Public schools are the elite private schools where a huge chunk of the British establishment are educated. I’ve never heard the US use of the term either when I visit my hometown in the UK or talking to my family there (though I’ve noticed a lot of US parlance start to seep in). Possiblity that’s a bad sample as my hometown is in this home counties near a bunch of aforementioned public schools ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2024, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/186 "2024-10-18T21:35:40Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > The Americans have a World Series, but only invite one non-US team …who are part of the American League. ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_Finn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@Mark\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mark_Finn)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2024, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/187 "2024-10-18T21:37:08Z")
And there are those British family names, such as “Featherstonhaugh” (pronounced “Fanshaw”), and “St John” (pronounced “Sinjin”). Many others. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2024, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/188 "2024-10-18T21:47:03Z")
Off-topic, so I won’t say much. I was the person who recorded the drum samples in a Burbank studio, processed the data (stored on 5" floppies) and compressed it to burn into a ROM. ---
**Author:** ![pjd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pjd/32/3009_2.png) [@pjd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pjd)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2024, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/189 "2024-10-18T21:50:24Z")
Well, you did a good job ! Hijack over. ---
**Author:** ![Jaycat.again](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat.again/32/11525_2.png) [@Jaycat.again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaycat.again)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2024, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/190 "2024-10-18T22:19:17Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > the word “lorry” As opposed to “lolly.” ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2024, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/191 "2024-10-18T22:29:52Z")
Yeah, I always thought that was a lollipop, but apparently it’s an ice cream cone? I just finished a book set in Buckinghamshire immediately after WWII that I quite enjoyed. Two daughters in the family had spent five years as evacuees in California and returned with American language and customs. I was on the alert, but the author did a good job. I always thought I’d have fun working with a publisher editing books by UK authors who had American characters or settings. Often, it’s not just the words they get wrong, but the phraseology. Uh, no, I can’t imagine any American saying _that._ ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2024, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/192 "2024-10-18T22:42:01Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Tarmac or ‘road’, or maybe when used in contrast to pavement(where it means footway), ‘carriageway’. To an American, “tarmac” is what airplanes roll around on. You’ll only find it in airports and airfields. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2024, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/193 "2024-10-18T22:56:36Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > The term “sorted” had me confused for a while. In the UK, it appears to mean done, completed, settled, finished, or no longer of concern. It also (though that might show my age, being a teenager in the 1990s in the UK) can mean having successfully brought drugs (as in the Pulp song: Sorted for Es and Whizz) ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2024, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/194 "2024-10-18T22:58:40Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > Not true. It has less impact these days than it used to, but it’s still not a word that you will commonly hear. You wont hear ‘cunt’ on British television (not including movies.) On a show like Gogglebox, they’ll say fuck, shit, asshole etc…, but never the C word. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2024, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/195 "2024-10-18T22:59:34Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > Then we received a message from a customer in the UK who was highly offended. To him, a bummer is someone who fucks you in the bum (ass), i.e., a homosexual (at least to him). He complained that he was being accused of being gay just because he ran out of memory. That usage j think is pretty old fashioned, much like bugger, using it to refer to homosexuality sounds pretty archaic. Like it conjures up images of how a retired army officer might refer to gay people in the 1950s ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2024, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/196 "2024-10-18T23:07:23Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > To an American, “tarmac” is what airplanes roll around on. You’ll only find it in airports and airfields. Which is in turn funny for a different reason. “Tarmac” is actually a contraction for “tarmacadam” which was the original (now obsolete) term for the asphalt (tar + gravel) paving material invented by the Scotsman John McAdam around the 1820s\*. Which in turn was laid over a rock & crushed rock roadbed over compacted dirt. A civilization-changing invention that gets not nearly enough applause in our era. When airports were first invented they were large grassy areas maybe 1/2 mile on a side with a terminal building & hangars in one corner. Real quickly the parking area in front of the terminal got turned into a muddy quagmire by all the passing planes. In response the parking area was then paved with the tech of the day: tarmacadam, which had been by then shortened to “tarmac”. While the rest of the airfield remained a grass, well, field and each airplane found its own area and azimuth to take off or land within the big square. So an area of what we now call “asphalt” a few planes-worth in size in front of a terminal building somehow became known for what it was made from, tarmac, rather than what it did, store parked airplanes and facilitate their unloading, servicing, and reloading. Fast forward to now. The last time commercial scale airplanes were light enough not to sink through asphalt was maybe 1950. Nowadays the whole parking area is 12 to 18" thick mongo reinforced high strength high test concrete. Which costs insane dollars per square _foot_ but is routinely poured by the square _mile_. No asphalt anywhere, but the lay press still parks airplanes “on the tarmac”, and the passengers parrot the phrase. In the biz, we park them on the “ramp” as distinct from the taxiways and runways. And now you know … the rest of the story Good day. 😉 * * * \* See > **[Macadam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macadam)** > > Macadam is a type of road construction pioneered by Scottish engineer John Loudon McAdam around 1820, in which crushed stone is placed in shallow, convex layers and compacted thoroughly. A binding layer of stone dust (crushed stone from the original material) may form; it may also, after rolling, be covered with a cement or bituminous binder to keep dust and stones together. The method simplified what had been considered state-of-the-art at that point. > Pierre-Marie-Jérôme Trésaguet is sometime... ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2024, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/197 "2024-10-18T23:11:04Z")
A biscuit is not some horrible dry cookie or a cracker. English biscuits fail at being both things. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2024, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/198 "2024-10-18T23:13:08Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > When the British have a World War, OTOH, it does what it says on the tin. I got a genuine laugh out of that one. Nicely played Good Sir! ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2024, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/199 "2024-10-18T23:17:44Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > We changed the error message. International is hard. Always will be. 😉 Around the turn of the century I was working on software for government emergency management. I cannot tell you the hassles we had converting the UI language from US English to Australian English and, separately, New Zealand English. The technological obstacles were small. We’d designed for full internationalization from the git-go and our underlying platform was fully internationalized. The cultural & terminology obstacles were … huge. And this was just dialects of English. We later sold versions to other Eurpoean languages and somehow that wasn’t as bad. I guess they were used to English-first products being sorta flaky in their language. Whereas the Aussies and Kiwis wanted no sign it wasn’t bespoke for them from end to end. Such fun. Not. Makes for good stories in retirement though. Crikey! ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2024, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/200 "2024-10-18T23:31:55Z")
> [@Dallas\_Jones](#): > > English biscuits fail at being both things Those are strong words from the country that invented the abomination that is the Oreo 😉 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941.md?page=11)