I have come across a useful list of terms that I post herewith for the benefit of our US readers. For more insults regarding the common language which divides us, please click on the link. 
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British biscuit scone lump of dough fag homo gay socialist whig tory right-wing tory green bloke< sod oops oh jolly very really quite guy bloody darn , . ! nude nudity flat lift chemists loo complain chips maize corn coffee tepid water cold water tipsy drunk pissed annoyed irate nice cool cold snow drizzle rain light breeze windy foreign weather brolly telly umpire bowler football | American cookie biscuit scone cigarette fag happy communist socialist democrat republican tree-hugging buddy fuck fuck fuck fucking fucking fucking fucking motherfucker motherfucking motherfucking , you know , know what I mean , man! pornographic porn apartment elevator drug store rest room sue fries corn grain espresso coffee beer drunk plastered dead drunk pissed postal cool cold freezing snow storm rain storm flood warning wind storm hurricane sunshine umbrella TV referee pitcher soccer |
Via Monkeyfarts.
As an editor, MommaBear would only suggest that some adjustments be made in line-justifying those equivalancies for comprehension; other than that, jolly good little listing !!
Hmm… looks fine at my end. I have looked as Samizdata using a Mac OS X (Netscape 7 and IE 5.2) and a PC Win98SE (Netscape 7 and IE 6) and they line up perfectly.
What about fanny and knickers?
You forgot one:
British: Guinness
American: Motor oil
American: Dentist
British: No translation
American: Ankle-biting poodle
British: France
American : Shoebox
British: House
…All in good fun.
Another good site
Dude, you know, fucking, you know, fucking funny, man!
America: Superpower in every sense of the word.
Britain: Floating along the back water of history
America: Economic powerhouse
Britain: Powerless to affect world events in anyway (without your big brother)
America: man on the moon
Britain : May figure out toothbrush operation soon.
America 1980’s: Won the cold war
Britain without America 1980’s : Smallest province of the Soviet Union
America: Defeats Iraq (with token help from “allies”)
Britain: Barely managed to take Falklands back from Argentina
America: Hollywood
Britain: Stonehenge
Methinks “rick” failed to understand…
In his vein:
Britain: fights valiantly alone against would-be world conquerors
America: turns up late
Britain: invents civil liberties
America: nicks the Bill of Rights from Common Law
… but that would be pointless nationalism.
My main emendation:
Britain: too cold/hot to work. Isn’t there a law against this?
America: Winter/Summer.
ISM
I have been promulgating a google tag for these kinds of cultural translation exercises, so I’ll insert one her:
AlienAid – language – UK to US.
Let me add a few:
Seems like the snow/snow storm is reversed. Anybody qualified to comment on the differences / similarities between British and Midwestern winters?
In any case, you “blokes” certainly do say things in a “bloody” strange way.
Don’t forget the phrase, “I could murder an Indian”
UK: Journey to nearest rubyhouse for tongueburning sensations.
US: Probably just a literal phrasing.
Not certain I’m qualified to compare English weather as I’m in Ireland, but I’d say the seasons are basically cool and wet or cold and damp with brief interludes of sun upon intensely beautiful landscapes…
Basically, in the Midwest US sense of the word, we don’t have weather here:
Belfast to US weather:
Belfast — US
rain — mist
downpour — rain
(no way!) — storm
(getchyerself on!) — thunderstorm
snow storm — light dusting
————— snow storm
————— blizzard
In 14 years I can only remember getting more than an
inch of snow 2 or 3 times; and perhaps once every other
year a rainstorm worthy of the name, and nothing, ever,
like a June thunderstorm Niagara-from -the-heavens Pittsburgh style.
The weather here is gentle, like the landscape.
“Britain: fights valiantly alone against would-be world conquerors”
Alone? You mean with America supplying you everything from bullets to tea? (not too mention a lot of American volunteer pilots and the like )
Or do you mean just barely holding onto your island under the clouds until we showed up?
Or do you mean, like most Brits I talk to, that you had the whole war won and our help was not needed? This incidently is the view held by many Chinese.
Britain: invents civil liberties
America: nicks the Bill of Rights from Common Law
You could follow this logic all the way back to Rome or Greece. Both of who are credited with inventing democracy. Not Britain.
“Don’t forget the phrase, “I could murder an Indian”
Are you talking about British rule in India? Or are you yet another european trying to make Americans feel guilty over a defeated race of warring tribes? How ironic since it was Britain and europe that practically invented colonialism and imperialism.
There was silly me thinking empires and colonialism existed before the birth of Christ. Stay civil when you leave remarks or we will find a way to live without you.
Slight amendment
Irish :: Guinness
British :: Coffee
America :: Motor Oil
What a convenient way to win an argument/debate. If you defend yourself from being called an Indian killer you are dubbed as not being “civil”.
Typical European rationalization. Why not just forego the pretense of open discussion, call your site yank-bashers.com and ban anyone who would disagree with you?
Ban me if you like, I will miss the excitement, but I am sure I will get over it.
Rick: You seem to have confused an injunction to homicide with a colloquiallism describing the ingestion of curry. An Indian is another way of describing a curry, a dish from the Indian subcontinent.
I’d put it down to two countries divided by a common tongue. So, you’ve taken the phrase literally and proved my original comment.
Chalk this one up to misunderstanding or was it all a wind-up?
Maybe it was a misunderstanding of your meaning. But anyway, I am just having fun and don’t really mean to piss anyone off. (translation: make angry)
I notice a lot of yank-bashing on a lot of British websites and I have to say it disapoints me a lot. Before 9/11 I thought we were all the tightest of allies. I served with british soldiers in Desert Storm and they were great people to be with. But if I am to believe what I read on most websites, Europeans have nothing but disdain for us and generally make the US out to be the focus of evil in the modern world. What makes it worse is I hear the same garbage fom Brits living and working over here. This kind of talk makes me wish for the day when America walls up it’s borders and lets the rest of the world get along as best it can.
Probably off topic but maybe it will explain my over- zealous defense of my country.
I’d add this:
American: refrigerator British: (No translation)
I do prefer Chinese tea to the assortment of floor-scrapings we pack into teabags. I’ve never tried what you Brits are drinking. Other than that I think you’ve pretty much gotten it. Don’t you people use “tarmac” frequently, too? I think we use “asphalt” for that one, which makes for a lot of obvious and rather juvenile jokes.
I do think we Americans should use Reuters-like punctuation when referring to the beverage we drink composed of a little bit of barley, a lot of rice and some badly mistreated hops: “beer”.
What about clotted cream? (No american translation I recall).
On the “, know what I mean?” 2 lines, my IE 5.5 adds a line on the right (like MommaBear?), so they don’t line up … until “foreign weather” 2 lines on the left.
pitch – (soccer) field
bowler – pitch (cricket vs baseball?)
bonnet – hood (on a car, not neighborhood)
I understand Rick’s dissatisfaction at many Euro web-sites, but do NOT understand how he could read much “libertarian war-mongers” here and think it’s similar to the Guardian (for instance).
And of course, the majority Europeans aren’t so different from Babwa Streisand loving Demos; who are a registered plurality in the US. (Perhaps explaining why UK lib types are so happy the Demos did lousy?)
But a blog & comments isn’t really a good forum for a flame war — I’m kinda glad about that.
On the other hand, more audiance thread interation on “some” subjects, perhaps in a Samizdata Forum, might be a good addition–and I don’t bother with (or have time for) most Euro sites.
I LIKE Perry’s idea to duplicate/ quote enough of a link so if the link goes inactive, the quote remains.
(I don’t believe I’m a guest on private “property” — perhaps “virtual property”? But I wouldn’t want to be a roach.)