For a three course meal menu in Britain, I would generally expect the menu to have the three categories Starters, Mains and Desserts. But after that, it gets really muddled depending on the restaurant’s cuisine, location, quirks of the owner, etc. For the first course, Appetisers is pretty common (sometimes Appetizers if the restaurant has an American theme). Occasionally Entrees, but that’s more likely in a European themed restaurant. Antipasti if it’s an Italian restaurant, but I’ve seen non-Italian places using that for starters. Then there’s Small Plates, menus with the sections separated by spaces with no headings, and menus that are just a list with no separation other than the price jumping before the mains and then shrinking for the desserts.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Entrees used for the second (Mains) course, even in American themed restaurants. Alternatives I’ve seen are Big Plates, or just listing categories, such as Meat, Fish, lots of others. Also, non-English headings such as Les Plats in French restaurants.
Desserts course I’ve seen called Sweets and other whimsical headings that I’m not recalling right away.
So really no course headings on a British menu that should baffle an American. The service charge listed at the bottom of the menu, on the other hand, is a different topic that does baffle many Americans.
Thanks y’all for enlightening me as to the UK meaning of “geezer.” An original member of the pioneering Midlands heavy metal band Black Sabbath was (is?) Geezer Butler, and I always thought that was a pathetic (nick?-)name for a rock star. Now I know better.
Nope. In the UK, if you’re having jelly for dessert, it means a fruit gelatin dessert similar to the Jello brand. Hartley’s is a common brand.
If you’re having the seedless fruit spread in a jar that’s called jelly, it’s fruit juice, probably with added sugar, thickened with pectin as CalMeacham said.
What is baffling is that grape jelly is/used to be the most popular spread jelly in the US, but has almost no popularity in Britain.
I don’t find that baffling at all. Preserves are typically made of fruit that you have a seasonal glut of. While I can see the US having a glut of gapes, that’s pretty unlikely in the UK.
On scones: there are a variety of things that go by the name of scone in the UK, including Victoria Scones, Griddle Scones, Potato Scones, and probably some others that aren’t coming to mind. But if we’re talking about what most people think of as a scone there are two basic varieties: plain scones, which are essentially identical with US biscuits, and rich scones, which are similar, but include egg and sugar, and usually fruit. Cheese scones are rich scones, but replace the sugar (and some of the fat) with cheese.
It seems that Americans, when adapting the recipe for rich scones, have (for reasons I won’t speculate on) doubled the quantities of fat and sugar, which has turned them into what we in the UK would call Rock Buns, or Rock Cakes.
I’m a financial systems analyst, formerly a financial systems consultant, and my experience is completely different to yours. We would present software to clients that had multi-language capabilities, but only a single version of English - US English. They would ask for non-US English field labels, which we could explain were not delivered, but that we could implement their English dialect for a price. No one ever took us up on our offer.
Stretching the American to North American, financial systems that deal with Value Added Tax (VAT) have VAT labels. That’s a UK/European thing. Canada has Goods and Services Tax (GST). So does Singapore, Australia, and other countries I don’t want to look up. When it comes to paying to change the field labelling, GST country companies don’t seem to have a problem accepting VAT labels.
Moving the discussion back to Britishisms/Americanisms, I’ve encountered Americans who 1) don’t understand the concept that VAT is different than US sales tax, and 2) are stunned by how high the VAT rates are.
In British English if someone is a jerk but not quite a cunt then they are a twat. Saying “I’m going to twat that twat” translates to “I’m going to hit that jerk”. Note that British “twat” rhymes with “fat” whilst American “twat” rhymes with “caught”.
You also get 5 runs awarded if the ball hits a hat or helmet. And 4 runs if the ball hits a tree in the field. Yes, some cricket fields have trees in the playing area.
Maybe we should turn this into its own thread although I’m not sure how far my interest carries. In London,I can find Welch’s grape juice, an American brand, but no British grape juice. Yet I can easily find four varieties of fresh grapes in my local supermarket. The answer is probably that grape jelly just never caught the public attention, for whatever reason. But stating that it’s reason of supply, given how much fresh produce Britain currently imports, seems an unlikely explanation.
Well - I’ve certainly been schooled on scones by many folks. Thank you all.
Yes. Both are equivalent terms. ICAO defines it as:
APRON [ICAO]- A defined area, on a land aerodrome, intended to accommodate aircraft for purposes of loading or unloading passengers, mail or cargo, refueling, parking or maintenance.
Per ICAO that’s the only official term to use on the radio. Using carefully defined and standardized terminology is real important when the various participants don’t all have the same native language. And may both be speaking English which is not either of their native languages.
FAA uses a similar definition for “apron” but also recognizes “ramp” as a synonym.
Quite. Plus, grapes have a tendency to diminish in number quite remarkably between picking/acquisition and whatever you originally intended to do with them.
" Middle school" , “intermediate school” and “junior high school” all refer to a school between elementary/primary school and high school. Depending on the district, these schools include some of grades 5-9 - in my area, they were typically called "junior high school "when they contained grades 7-9 and “middle school” or “intermediate school” when they covered grades 5 (or 6) - 8. High school is 9-12th grades which are also referred to as freshman, sophomore , junior , senior. When my district had high schools and junior high schools , they both had 9th grade to accommodate students from non-public schools that ended in 8th grade. In some districts, you will have a combined junior/senior high school with a single principal while in others they are two completely separate schools on the same campus.
Canada follows both. I have been in several meetings where someone says, “let’s table this” and I have to ask, “are we putting it on or taking it off the table?” which confuses everyone. As far as I can tell, it varies by institution: the places with a lot of interaction with Americans use the American meaning, the others don’t. The Wikpedia article on tabling explains:
The Canadian meaning of to “table” in a parliamentary context is the British meaning to begin consideration of a proposal.[26] In a non-parliamentary context the British meaning is generally preferred but the American meaning of to “table” is also occasionally encountered; to prevent confusion over the contradictory meanings, the Canadian Oxford Dictionary recommends using a different verb altogether in non-parliamentary contexts.[27]
