What Britishisms most baffle Americans? What Americanisms most baffle Brits?

I am obsessed with clotted cream. I put it on shortbread and bagels. Top it off with some jam or jelly and my world rocks.

Ha, very good!

Ah, but would you use ‘much’ and ‘many’ interchangeably? I’m willing to bet people would find that odd.

But yes sorry for the hijack.

Are you British and saying it sounds funny? Because as an American that sentence sounds totally normal to me.

In rural western PA the use of gotten is still fairly common.

I mean… yes? It’s a normal American word.

American, Chicago and I know it is correct but the word gotten simply looks, feels & sounds a little awkward.

As a non native speaker, I wonder if the division between forgot/forgotten is the same as between got/gotten. Is forgotten more common in American English? Because I’m always confused what form to use, or I have forgotten what I learned in school, respectively. :wink:

I might use it exactly because it sounds odd. Language is a tool and once you own the tool, it’s yours to use any way you like.
Slicing bread with a bandsaw might not be the safest and most effective way to do the job but it certainly gets people to perk up and pay attention.

But even here, what you’re asking about is consistency, which is not a thing that English does anyway.

When I was at school in the 1950s, we were told that “got” was an ugly word best avoided.

In most situations I’ve got is better expressed as I have.

That doesn’t help with the past though.

I like both graham crackers and digestives, but the main difference is in the crunch: graham crackers snap like a twig (and are great for dunking), while digestives have that nice crumbly thing going on. Once in a blue moon, I treat myself to those chocolate-covered digestives—mm mmm good!

Neither one is too sweet, which is a major win in my book. American cookies? Way too sugary for me. If they dialed down the sugar by half, my taste buds and my pancreas would throw a party! That’s the way the cookie crumbles. :cookie::cookie::cookie:

I used to put a slice of bread in the graham crackers/ginger snaps containers so they would mellow out and be less crispy. I like a soft cookie.

I’m the same way with breakfast cereal. I let it soak in milk for a while so it turns to mush.

Which brings me to something I’ve been wondering about: the word “guy”.

All my life, I’ve assumed that Americans say “guy”, while the British say “chap” or “bloke”. And yet, in recent years I’ve noticed, watching British TV, that the word “guy” has completely taken over, and the more British (to my ears) alternatives have more or less disappeared. Did the British always call people “guys”? I’m assuming that it’s British originally (probably from Guy Fawkes), but I don’t know if it remained popular in its home country. Is it another Americanism that modern Brits have re-adopted?

I feel very fortunate that Tempe has the only Ted’s location outside upstate New York. I usually have the Polish dog, though.

I go there at least once a year. It works. Never through about trying their Polish. Maybe next time.

And to me (Texan) “I had got my vaccines” sounds weird

That sounds weird to me too. (New York.) It’s the “had got” that sounds wrong.

Funny I was actually just writing an email earlier today where I used the word “gotten” and didn’t even realize til after when I noticed it because of this thread.