Words that have roughly the same definition but used differently between cultures

[PatrickLondon]

@markn_1

The strangest part of the frown discovery to me was that some of the British commenters on the SBACL blog made the claim that a downturned mouth is not a natural human facial expression! It’s like the lack of a word for the expression made them unable to see it. Very strange.

I think the British expression is “like a bulldog chewing a wasp”, or more graphically “like a bulldog licking piss off a nettle”.

[Nava]

@zimaane

A minor English Spanish one is orquestra/orchestra. A Spanish orquestra can play any type of music (pop, salsa, jazz) whereas an English orchestra is strictly for Classical music.

While the usage does differ, it’s not quite that extreme: google jazz orchestra, for example. The difference lays somewhere in the area between band and orchestra: the meaning of band/banda is somewhat narrower in Spanish than in English, the meaning of orchestra/orquesta is somewhat wider in Spanish than in English.