# 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:** 22
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2024, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/421 "2024-10-22T14:36:30Z")
That petition is clearly somewhat tongue-in-cheek. I think I may have once met a person here in the US who equated “several” with “seven,” but I don’t think it’s a widespread thing at all. “Several” means, I dunno, like around five, give or take a couple. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2024, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/422 "2024-10-22T14:43:35Z")
Remembered vaguely from one of those “Sovereign Citizen Gets TASED!” videos: > SOVCIT: I do not consent to the jurisdiction of the United States government or any of its several states! > POLICE OFFICER: There’s more than seven… ---
**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 22, 2024, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/423 "2024-10-22T14:45:13Z")
People mortally confused about a given thing are likely to make their presence disproportionately noticed by asking pained questions, for sure. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2024, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/424 "2024-10-22T15:04:03Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > (Amusingly, during the movie _Yesterday_, a British person says “I could murder a cigarette”, which is sort of a no-win situation since it would seem weird to me both if they said “fag”, but also “cigarette”, because the original feels like it’s a stock phrase that people would always say using “fag”, even if it turns out that “I could murder a cigarette” is a completely valid alternative. Well, ‘I could murder a…’ can be applied to anything you are desperate to consume - could be a burger, a negroni, a cappuccino, you name it really. Generally anything of a moreish or addictive quality. Not sure you’d apply it to a quinoa salad, but I suppose _some_one must fantasise about them. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2024, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/425 "2024-10-22T15:05:31Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > “Barney” as a description of a minor, possibly physical, dispute predates _The Flintstones_ by a century or so. I can’t find the actual etymology. No, it actually originated in the Stone Age—the Modern Stone Age, if you want to be precise. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2024, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/426 "2024-10-22T15:09:42Z")
Did you perhaps pronounce or spell “several” as “sevenal”? English accents can be tricky to figure out, after all! ---
**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 22, 2024, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/427 "2024-10-22T15:11:48Z")
Mmmm. No. ---
**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 22, 2024, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/428 "2024-10-22T15:22:05Z")
Did chatgpt write that? ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2024, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/429 "2024-10-22T15:28:21Z")
I saw that Carry On movie, but never made the connection. Don’t know if my parents did. But if they were chuffed to goolies, they kept it to themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2024, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/430 "2024-10-22T15:28:23Z")
No, I don’t believe ChatGPT is from New Jersey. ---
**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 22, 2024, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/431 "2024-10-22T15:32:21Z")
Not the last paragraph, obviously. ---
**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 22, 2024, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/432 "2024-10-22T15:40:10Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > Amusingly, during the movie _Yesterday_, a British person says “I could murder a cigarette” If that film had been made 30 years ago, they would’ve said fag. Got to remember the American market ! “I could murder a tart” was used as the punchline to a Jack the ripper joke, and later the same joke applied to the Yorkshire ripper. Spike Milligan used the phrase “several or eightal times” in one of his short stories. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2024, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/433 "2024-10-22T15:40:21Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > I’ve lost count of the number of times I have mentioned, in one of my videos, that something happened to me, or I have had something, for _several decades_, only to find a load of people either asking me “OMG, so you’re like, 70?”, and in some cases, arguing with me that actually, several _does_ mean seven where they live, which turns out to be somewhere in America. They’re just wrong of course - I don’t believe several means seven anywhere. > > So, it absolutely _is_ a thing. If it is, this is the first and only time I (and **Eyebrows** ) have heard of it ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2024, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/434 "2024-10-22T15:42:46Z")
Same here. I have never heard this usage in my 63 years. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2024, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/435 "2024-10-22T15:59:34Z")
> [@pjd](#): > > Spike Milligan used the phrase “several or eightal times” in one of his short stories. In a _Goon Show_ episode, one of his characters observes that the footbridge is under seven inches of rain. Another character corrects him: it’s actually the **Severn** Bridge that’s under **foot** inches of rain. ---
**Author:** ![JacobSwan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@JacobSwan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JacobSwan)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2024, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/436 "2024-10-22T16:04:06Z")
> [@pjd](#): > > “I could murder a tart” was used as the punchline to a Jack the ripper joke There was a distasteful joke about why Michael Barrymore doesn’t have any ash trays at his house. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2024, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/437 "2024-10-22T16:05:39Z")
Another American who has never heard “several” as meaning exactly seven, or even metaphorically seven. To me, it implies 3-6 for small sets, or 4-something-much-less-than-the-square-root-of-the-dataset for large data sets. For large datasets it could mean more than 7. Like if we were looking at 10,000 rows in a database, I could say “several of them have bogus data” if it were even up to like 12. I’d probably say “some” instead, though, even though it would be more accurate but less precise than “several”. ---
**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 22, 2024, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/438 "2024-10-22T17:38:08Z")
That is not generally how I measure the existence of phenomena. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2024, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/439 "2024-10-22T18:09:20Z")
Really? How peculiar. For most people the first recourse is to see how common the observation of phenomena is among themselves and their friends. How many people besides yourself think several = seven. That petition doesn’t count – it doesn’t claim this is a ommon usage;it just wants to define a specific value (which is anyithetical to the way the word is use to mean a vague number). A quick look through online dictionaries finds none that give “seven” as a variant meaning for “dseveral”. Not even a rare or archaic one. Some websites express disbelief that anyone could confuse the two, from which I gather that this is not unknown, but still a rare thing. [https://www.reddit.com/r/survivor/comments/1b395lb/several\_seven\_debate/](https://www.reddit.com/r/survivor/comments/1b395lb/several_seven_debate/) ---
**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 22, 2024, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/440 "2024-10-22T18:47:17Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Really? How peculiar. For most people the first recourse is to see how common the observation of phenomena is among themselves and their friends. I mean, I don’t measure the existence of something **I have observed** by whether or not you have heard of it. Your (or actually Eyebrows) assertion that something I have witnessed is ‘not a thing’ is not currency to me. > [@CalMeacham](#): > > How many people besides yourself think several = seven. I _don’t_ think several = seven. Why are you saying that I think that? I have encountered numerous examples of people who thought that though, including some who argued about it. I wish I could show you all of the examples but it seems to have been pretty common for people to delete their comment after realising they were wrong. Here is one surviving example where they didn’t: [https://1drv.ms/i/s!Ar4eOUAx-yGwieEDGBC98R0YxIKfEA?e=ZGfGU](https://1drv.ms/i/s!Ar4eOUAx-yGwieEDGBC98R0YxIKfEA?e=ZGfGU) While you’re on reddit, the discussions underneath that topic reveal a number of people who comment to the effect “Yeah, I thought that too”. [https://www.reddit.com/r/survivor/comments/1b395lb/several\_seven\_debate/](https://www.reddit.com/r/survivor/comments/1b395lb/several_seven_debate/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/AskUK/comments/18tw537/what\_numbers\_do\_you\_think\_of\_when\_someone\_says/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskUK/comments/18tw537/what_numbers_do_you_think_of_when_someone_says/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/confidentlyincorrect/comments/jrjem2/several\_not\_seven/](https://www.reddit.com/r/confidentlyincorrect/comments/jrjem2/several_not_seven/) Of course it’s reddit, so you can’t be sure how serious anyone is, and it’s also unclear whether this is specific to any particular region. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941.md?page=21) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941.md?page=23)