# 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:** 24
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2024, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/461 "2024-10-23T16:52:50Z")
Amazon has it. ---
**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 23, 2024, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/462 "2024-10-23T18:31:26Z")
That’s certainly plausible. In fact the official FAA glossary entry for “apron” differs from the ICAO version only in calling out the the sloping concrete surface leading to/from the water at a seaplane base is the “ramp”, as distinct from the level part which is the “apron”. ICAO’s “apron” definition makes no mention of seaplane facilities. ---
**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 23, 2024, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/463 "2024-10-23T18:40:55Z")
> [@sb1953](#): > > I believe that to service them they were taxied onto a wheeled frame that could then be pulled up onto the ramp and into a hangar Called “beaching gear”. In some cases it was a frame as you say. In other cases it was simply a wheel(s) + tire(s) set and a float that could be partly filled with water to obtain neutral buoyancy. The device would be floated out to the seaplane, then bolted to fittings on one side or the other of the hull fairly forward, with a smaller version for the tail. See **[Landing gear (Operation from water) - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landing_gear#Operation_from_water)** for more explanation and a pic of one large flying boat on its beaching gear. The wiki article on the P5M Marlin has a pic of one about to enter the water with its beaching gear attached where you can see the float I’m talking about: **[P5M-1 VP-45 Jax 1954 - Martin P5M Marlin - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_P5M_Marlin#/media/File:P5M-1_VP-45_Jax_1954.jpg)**. ---
**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 23, 2024, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/464 "2024-10-23T21:56:54Z")
I’m currently reading _Israel Rank_ – the book _Kind Hearts and Coronets_ was based on. Since it was published in 1907, there are a _lot_ of words and phrases I’m unfamiliar with. I’m reading an annotated edition which has footnoted a lot of things the editors thought needed explanation. Most are helpful, but does Scotland Yard really need to be footnoted? But one word – **not** footnoted was pinchbeck, and it was used more than once. I had to google. Turns out it was the name of a particular gold blend used for jewelry and invented by a jeweler named Pinchbeck. Anyone ever heard this word? My edition was published in the 80s, so was that recent enough that the average reader would know what pinchbeck was? ---
**Author:** ![BippityBoppityBoo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bippityboppityboo/32/5745_2.png) [@BippityBoppityBoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BippityBoppityBoo)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2024, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/465 "2024-10-23T22:19:46Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I’ve never heard of the Complete until this thread. It doesn’t look like my local brick and mortars carry it. Thanks I didn’t pick up on the ‘Complete’ variation. My local b & m stores don’t carry it either anymore. One of them used to but now list it as unavailable. > [@Tibby](#): > > Currently $1.69 for a 7.5 oz _Complete_ pouch (good for 6 biscuits) from Kroger delivery. Walmart will ship it to me for $2.00 a pack, for 6 biscuits. Meh, I’ll just do it from scratch or frozen. ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2024, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/466 "2024-10-24T00:05:05Z")
> [@carrps](#): > > But one word – **not** footnoted was pinchbeck, and it was used more than once. I had to google. Turns out it was the name of a particular gold blend used for jewelry and invented by a jeweler named Pinchbeck. Anyone ever heard this word? My edition was published in the 80s, so was that recent enough that the average reader would know what pinchbeck was? It’s been used on the (British edition of) Antiques Roadshow, I heard it in a repeat just recently. ---
**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 24, 2024, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/467 "2024-10-24T01:34:06Z")
I thought I remembered reading about pinchbeck in a Dickens novel, but it turns out I was thinking of this: > **[NFL Players Whose Names Sound Vaguely Dickensian, and the Characters They...](https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/nfl-players-whose-names-sound-vaguely-dickensian-and-the-characters-they-would-be-in-an-actual-dickens-novel-2007-2008-regular-season-edition)** > > Ethan Albright > Honest and upright youngest son of the dissolute Lord Albright. Childhood favorite of his deceased mother, Lady Alicia Albright, and... > **Darnell Dockett** > Senior partner in the clockmaking firm of Dockett and Dockery. His testimony on the accurate timing of sprint races, the periodicity of 26-stone pendulums, and the combustibility of pinchbeck secures the acquittal of Jeremy Trueblood, and the convictions of Messrs. Maxwell and Walker. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2024, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/468 "2024-10-24T14:31:55Z")
I know of only one instance of rhyming slang that originated in America. In the film _Chutney Popcorn_, two Americans are quarreling. One of them says “Take a pill!” The meaning was clear from slang current in the 1990s when the film was made: “chill pill” was an elaboration of “chill,” i.e. calm down. Even an American like me could hear “pill” and understand “chill.” I feel like this evolved from ordinary American slang and wasn’t intentionally rhyming slang but fortuitously turned out that way. ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2024, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/469 "2024-10-24T14:52:31Z")
I’m pretty sure that wasn’t one of Jonathon Green’s four examples, so that’s #5. Frustrated at being unable to remember JG’s last example, I tried googling _“American rhyming slang”_ - this thread was hit #5 - and came up with _baloney_ (= phony). I honestly can’t remember if that was JG’s fourth word; maybe we have another. The search also threw up something on Wordpress which gave _Rattler’s hiss_ as American rhyming slang for “kiss”. That’s a new one on me. Thoughts? Aside: Saw British standup Nish Kumar last night. He (unironically) used the word “Gotten”. I thought of this thread. j ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2024, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/470 "2024-10-24T18:19:29Z")
In 1984, I was bemused how the CD of _Diamond Life_ bore a sticker about the artist’s name: "Pronounced “Shar-day.” How did that r get in there? In what language is “d” pronounced rd? In Fijian, “d” is pronounced nd, so it would’t be without precedent. Just as you can bend the spoon when you mystically realize _there is no spoon_, so can you make sense of “Shar-day” when you realize _there is no R._ Back in the 1990s I read a book by an English traveler in Turkey titled _A Fez of the Heart_. He wrote several chapters on the history of the fez and his search for a fez in modern Turkey, so I took his title literally and missed the pun. For those nonrhotic Brits “A fez of the heart” is a homonym for “Affairs of the heart.” It took way too many years for that to dawn on me. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2024, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/471 "2024-10-24T18:28:27Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > For those nonrhotic Brits “A fez of the heart” is a homonym for “Affairs of the heart.” It took way too many years for that to dawn on me. Similarly, it took me years to realise that “fa” does sound like “a long, long way to run” in some dialects. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2024, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/472 "2024-10-24T18:31:16Z")
> [@carrps](#): > > But one word – **not** footnoted was pinchbeck, and it was used more than once. I had to google. Turns out it was the name of a particular gold blend used for jewelry and invented by a jeweler named Pinchbeck. Anyone ever heard this word? Only in old-timey books. E.g. from _Barry Lyndon_ > ‘Didn’t he return you the thirteenpence in copper, and the watch, saying it was only pinch-beck?’ Or from _Framley Parsonage_ > Where, in these pinchbeck days, can we hope to find the old agricultural virtue in all its purity? ---
**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 24, 2024, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/473 "2024-10-24T18:31:37Z")
And the pun in Led Zeppelin’s “D’yer Mak’er” only works if you pronounce it non-rhotically as " 'd’ja make-a." (It’s a reference to the old joke: “My wife went to the Caribbean.” “Jamaica?” “No, she went of her own accord.”) ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2024, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/474 "2024-10-24T18:32:31Z")
No objection to British English itself. It usually acquits itself well. It’s just that the “intrusive R” is the most embarrassing thing they’ve ever done to their language. _I soar a film today, oh boy_ ?? _I sore a film today, oh boy_ ?? _Rael, welcome! We are the Lamia-r-of the pool_ - that only heightened the weirdness of the “Lamiar” song. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2024, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/475 "2024-10-24T18:33:48Z")
> [@hogarth](#): > > Similarly, it took me years to realise that “fa” does sound like “a long, long way to run” in some dialects. As in the “Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa” song? 😉 [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/j38S1tXlIgo/maxresdefault.jpg "Otis Redding-"Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song)"") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j38S1tXlIgo) ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2024, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/476 "2024-10-24T18:38:58Z")
Before I moved to Malaysia, I read all the books on Malaysia I could find in the library. They were mostly written by British authors. I was bemused because they kept writing constructions like “The Malay Peninsular is…” or they’d end a sentence with “…the Malay Peninsular.” So they were using “peninsular” as a noun, when everybody knows it’s an adjective—right? Not everybody. I investigated and found it’s a widespread error, by English writers only, because their nonrhotic brains lost the ability to distinguish the noun form from the adjectival form. In print, no less! ---
**Author:** ![colinfred](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colinfred/32/21338_2.png) [@colinfred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colinfred)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2024, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/477 "2024-10-24T18:47:42Z")
Peninsular is a noun when you’re talking about an area of land that is peninsular. Actually never mind, I got that wrong, ooops. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2024, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/478 "2024-10-24T18:52:32Z")
Q.E.D., Doper. Kyoo feckin’ Ee Dee. ---
**Author:** ![iamatractorboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iamatractorboy/32/21261_2.png) [@iamatractorboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamatractorboy)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2024, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/479 "2024-10-24T20:14:12Z")
In fairness, doesn’t American English tend to have the same problem with words that end in D or T? American accents pronouncing those sound awfully similar to my British ear… ---
**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 24, 2024, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/480 "2024-10-24T20:25:24Z")
As far as I can tell, Jam, Jelly and preserve/conserve have pretty much the same meanings on both sides of the Atlantic (ignoring the Jelly/Jello angle, which is a different thing). The key difference seems to be the ‘default’ word - in Britain, people will probably casually say ‘jam’ as a generic term that might actually mean any of jam, jelly or preserve, whereas I think in the USA, people perhaps tend to casually say ‘jelly’ as a generic term meaning jelly, jam or preserve [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941.md?page=23) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941.md?page=25)