# 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:** 1\ **Showing post:** 1034
**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:** [January 31, 2025, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941/1034 "2025-01-31T12:54:25Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > Also on the question of articles, in my time high school students went to **the** prom, but today’s high school kids go to prom. I think it was sometime in the last 25 years that the article disappeared. And. it’s hard to ask about it online because you get a lot of young people who are trying to help but totally misunderstand the question. > > So maybe we’ll be saying “in hospital” too, before long. I wonder if this is just a matter of my memory being odd, but I could swear we said “to prom” interchangeably with “to the prom” back in the early-to-mid-90s. As in, “who are you taking to prom”? At least it does not sound the least bit odd to my ears, and I haven’t talked with anyone or heard about prom probably in about twenty years. Like here’s a post from 2000 on this board, and it uses “to prom”: > [@Vote for me for Prom Queen](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vote-for-me-for-prom-queen/20797/7): > > I never went to prom. So i’m totally jealous. stuck_out_tongue ETA: Oh, I see you said “in the last 25 years that the article disappeared.” Well, my sense of time is warped, I see, so my experience would actually track with your sentence. ETA: OK, better cite. [This is from 1926](https://www.google.com/books/edition/To_Dragma/EAbPAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22to+prom%22&pg=PA246&printsec=frontcover): “Many of our girls are going to prom …” [Or 1929](https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Smith_Alumnae_Quarterly/tcPOAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22to+prom%22&pg=PA462&printsec=frontcover): “For the thirteenth man that I asked to Prom […] Oh, the thirteenth man that I asked to Prom […]” --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-britishisms-most-baffle-americans-what-americanisms-most-baffle-brits/1008941)._