# 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:** 26
**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 25, 2024, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/501 "2024-10-25T07:45:29Z")
There is a tendency for folks down here in the south to perceive northern (by which I mean everything from the north of England up) vowel sounds as all oooo and eeee and aaaaay. I suppose it’s like the thing where Canadians are caricatured as pronouncing _about_ as ‘aboot’, when it doesn’t really quite sound like that. ---
**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 25, 2024, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/502 "2024-10-25T07:55:20Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > 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._ The trouble with using phonetically-styled pronunciation guides made out of the regular alphabet is that the fit is rarely exact; the intent in your example was clearly to steer people _away_ from pronouncing the name to rhyme with ‘shade’ - they could have written ‘Shah-deh’ and it might have worked, but it is imprecise in the same way as ‘shar-day’; there is _sort of_ an R sound in there, but it’s not necessarily as complete a sound as it might be if there was a letter R in the actual name/word. English just doesn’t have strict relationship between orthography and phonology - especially as there exist a wide variety of dialects and accents that have different phonology, but share the same written forms. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2024, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/503 "2024-10-25T08:07:57Z")
> [@Zyada](#): > > In nearly every place in the US that I’ve been to, the first floor I reach when I enter the build is the ground floor. It’s the same in Canada. English Canada, that is, I’ve gone into buildings in Quebec where the ground floor (first floor to you and me), is called the _rez de chaussée_, and abbreviated “RC” on the elevator buttons. The “first floor” is up the stairs; in other words, the second floor to you and me. I thought the American/English Canadian convention would be the same across the Anglosphere, but I was surprised to find that it is not. At least, in the UK and Australia, the ground floor is the ground floor; the “first floor” is one flight up. ---
**Author:** ![Chad\_Sudan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chad_sudan/32/4509_2.png) [@Chad\_Sudan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chad_Sudan)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2024, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/504 "2024-10-25T09:05:53Z")
I remember the feeling of utter bewilderment the first time I came across the British term [vox pop](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/vox-pop). ---
**Author:** ![Oswald\_Bastable](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oswald_bastable/32/214_2.png) [@Oswald\_Bastable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oswald_Bastable)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2024, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/505 "2024-10-25T09:09:53Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > In particular, the question is often something like “Oh yeah, well why don’t you call a stripy horse a ZEDbra?” (implying that Zee and Zee-bra are evidence of some sort of pattern of consistency). This may have been pointed out, but actually in British English we kind of do pronounce Zebra like that (though without the ‘d’). ‘Zeb-ra’ rather that ‘Zee-bra’. OB ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2024, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/506 "2024-10-25T10:25:57Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > I’ve gone into buildings in Quebec where the ground floor (first floor to you and me), is called the _rez de chaussée_, and abbreviated “RC” on the elevator buttons. Same in France (unsurprisingly). For the benefit of American readers: _rez_ means floor or level, and _chaussée_ means road or street or pavement, so _rez-de-chaussée_ literally means “floor of the street,” or “street level.” For completeness, the German equivalent is very similar. It’s called _das Erdgeschoss_ (or _Erdgeschoß_ if you want to be old-fashioned). As in the French, _das Geschoss_ means floor or story, but _Erde_ means soil or ground (literally Earth). So instead of “street level” as in French, the German synonym means “ground floor.” And the elevator button says “EG.” ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2024, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/507 "2024-10-25T11:39:48Z")
I’m not 100% sure that’s a British term as opposed to an abbreviation for a journalism term that I’ve certainly heard in the US (_vox populi_) ---
**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 25, 2024, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/508 "2024-10-25T12:14:27Z")
I’m English. I know how we say it. [This](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-z/232867/35) is what I was talking about. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2024, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/509 "2024-10-25T15:26:55Z")
The English language is typically pronounced with dirty vowels. The long vowels are like diphthongs even when they are not. “So” tends to close into a “-w” just like “sow” (the thing done with seeds, not the pig). “Say” is spelled that way because it is pronounced that way. Many of the long back vowels have a subtle velar finish at the end, which kind of explains how the unexpected “-r” appears in some accents as well as the intrusive-r mechanism. ---
**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 25, 2024, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/510 "2024-10-25T16:54:35Z")
European hotel elevators I have experienced often have buttons labelled “-2”, “-1”, “0”, “1”, “2”, etc. The lobby is "0’; basement levels are negative numbers in sequence. Some hotels (at least in North America) have a “mezzanine” level - usually a balcony overlooking the lobby with hotel offices and meeting rooms, and labelled “M” on elevator buttons. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2024, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/511 "2024-10-25T17:08:18Z")
> [@The\_Stafford\_Cripps](#): > > “Lino” is linoleum, a type of floor covering. As an American, I’d say linoleum is a type of “flooring”. A “floor covering” would be something like an area rug–a small, movable carpet that only covers a limited part of a floor. ---
**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 25, 2024, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/512 "2024-10-25T17:39:53Z")
Yeah, we have mezzanines here too - usually indicated by an M on the lift buttons. Sometimes the button is off to one side, halfway between 0 and 1. Sometimes 0 is G instead (for ground) ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2024, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/513 "2024-10-25T19:28:28Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > I have never, ever heard of this in my fifty-something years living all over the US (and being perennially fascinated by language – I’ve heard all three hundred episodes of Lexicon Valley, read a thousand books and learned blogs on the subject, etc.). As a counter-anecdote, I knew multiple people back in the 1990s who insisted that “several” should only be for groups of seven. The same kind of people who insisted that “decimate” should only mean reduction by a tenth. I remember specifically because I was already a word nerd and knew they were wrong. Especially with “several” because since it’s cognate with “separable”. I don’t think there’s any dialect that that uses “several” to mean seven, but there are certainly people who make that mistake. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2024, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/514 "2024-10-25T20:26:37Z")
On the Oregon Coast, the Inn at Spanish Head was used in math class because its entrance at road level is about the fifth floor. ---
**Author:** ![Zyada](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zyada/32/3028_2.png) [@Zyada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zyada)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2024, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/515 "2024-10-25T23:57:26Z")
Re several = seven I looked up the [etymology](https://www.etymonline.com/word/several) and there was no mention of seven, but the entry included the word severalfold. And reddit had this entry [Reddit - Dive into anything](https://www.reddit.com/r/etymology/s/kcvZ5fDC0o) and this entry: [Reddit - Dive into anything](https://www.reddit.com/r/EnglishLearning/s/GUtwDjTiOR) Basically people thought it meant seven because the two words start the same Enough people have thought that way to make “Does several mean 7?” as a common question. Note that i did **not** put seven in my query ---
**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 26, 2024, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/516 "2024-10-26T01:23:48Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > On the Oregon Coast, the Inn at Spanish Head was used in math class because its entrance at road level is about the fifth floor. The engineering building at UCLA (Boult Hall?) has an entrance on a different floor on each of its four sides. I had a German class in that building, and my older sister (a south campus science major) told me the engineering students had cheap _good_ coffee but wasn’t sure how to tell me how to get to the room where it was. I went into the stairwell and found some coffee drips on the floor and followed them. Eureka. ---
**Author:** ![kferr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/71e660/32.png) [@kferr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kferr)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2024, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/517 "2024-10-26T11:34:47Z")
> [@SCAdian](#): > > In my experience it rhymes with “cot”, not “caught”. To me those are pronounced the same. Here’s a good video on how English spelling got so messed up - [The invention that broke English spelling.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Syp1DVQgN_g) ---
**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 26, 2024, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/518 "2024-10-26T12:08:53Z")
> [@carrps](#): > > The engineering building at UCLA (Boult Hall?) has an entrance on a different floor on each of its four sides. I had a German class in that building, and my older sister (a south campus science major) told me the engineering students had cheap _good_ coffee but wasn’t sure how to tell me how to get to the room where it was. I went into the stairwell and found some coffee drips on the floor and followed them. Eureka. I grew up on the Carmel hills in Haifa, Israel, and virtually every building I knew had something weird going on, that way. The apartment building I grew up in had a back yard three flights of stairs above street level; my high school had a basketball court on the roof of its library; and my college (Haifa U) was basically a non-Euclidian nightmare. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2024, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/519 "2024-10-26T13:51:20Z")
> [@kferr](#): > > To me those are pronounced the same. But if you spelled them the same, that would create confusion, especially since many people do not (so it is not merely some historical issue). ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2024, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/520 "2024-10-26T14:16:28Z")
> [@SCAdian](#): > > When you walk into a building, what is the _first floor_ your feet come in contact with – the one at ground level or the one that’s up a flight of stairs? For me, it’s not so much the first floor. I would be fine, and even appreciate as a language quirk, always calling the street-level floor the “ground floor”. But only if you still call the story you erect on top of that the second floor. Because that is in no way the first floor you encounter. I don’t really have a problem beyond the second/first floor though. But knowing whether something is on the first floor you enter a building on versus having to take the stairs/elevator/lift can make a difference sometimes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941.md?page=25) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941.md?page=27)