British slang that has crossed the Atlantic

even a cute girl trying to kiss you?

sub-thread: Is there a difference?

I would love to see "tickety boo" and "... and Bob's your uncle" get worked into the American lexicon, btw. Oh yeah, and "butcher's" and "titfer", you know, for "look" and "hat", respectively.

That's just completely wrong, the opposite is true, wherever did you get that idea?!

can somebody explain to me the meaning behind "sod that for a game of soldiers"? is it a chess reference? context and usage plz?

It means, "fuck that shit", crudely put

ha. it's a good question. nothing to do with chess, i think.

a variant is "sod this for a lark"

but it means "i am done with this"

(would) snog that for a game of soldiers

sodomize that, it purports to be much like a harmless fun activity for children but in fact is no such thing.

it's a reference to the ban on homosexuality in the armed forces though?

I'd quite like to know its origins too. Maybe something to do with boys "playing soldiers"?

yeah i just think it means "playing soldiers" is more fun that whatever

than

nah i think it refers to the game of soldiers as specifically the troublesome activity.

blow this for a lark anyway

Oh my gosh, I thought that "sod" referred to like "turf", "grass", "lawn". So back in San Diego I used to go to an Irish-owned bar called the Ou1d S0d. Was I going to the Old Buttfuck?

the sheer quantity of bumsex used to persuade our battalions into the Scrabble tent cannot be overstated

I thought that "sod" referred to like "turf", "grass", "lawn".

well it does, yeh

but it is also short for 'sodomize' i guess

like 'bugger' i'd say it's lost most of its 'literal' meaning, but not all. depends on context.

Was I going to the Old Buttfuck?

Depends on the bar

uhmmm ftr I will never accompany any one of you into the Scrabble tent

I used to go to an Irish-owned bar called the Ould Sod

That's yer Irish humour in operation there

You Americans are so wide-eyed and naive!

arah no the auld sod refers to the motherland, no pun intended

the motherland is kind of like an old butt fuck though tbh

Come on, there's bound to be a pun intended there, Jimmy Joyce will be spinning in his grave otherwise

If there was a pun there then the esteemed JJ would have written to everyone he knew making sure they knew about it, so I'm saying no.

Sod to describe an individual comes from SODOMITE not sodomy.

Ye Olde Brittish Slange = HUZZAH

don't forget that we cut up our ground and burn it in 'sods' so the word is a lot more prevalent here in that term than as a shortening of a legal term for bumwhoopsies

xp i stand corrected by suzy, i'd have assumed sodomite/sodomy shared a root?

okay now you have to explain 'bumwhoopsies'

that isn't actually a thing except if you're a Soho actor with a penchant for surprising castmates

it's when you pretend to get ur aim wrong while having drunk sex ime. 'whoops'

still wonder what the people of gomorrah got up to.

facials iirc

it's the noise you make when it gets in your eye

oh that kind of facial

'I gomorrah that if you want some'

sodom & gomorrah, it's in order and everything

Terrible trouble can be had by wandering unsuspectingly into The Ou1d S0d, you want to head to diaspora lumberjack bar The Aul Feller

i don't know what comes over me happens to me on this type of thread. maybe it's the late afternoon slump or something.

Sodom and Begorrah

ye olde brittiſh ſlange

'bumwhoopsies' is the new 'mulligan' as in 'my bad, let me try that again'

'bumwhoopsies' is an amazing and precious word and I am honoured to have been present at its ILX broaching

yeah and also in that, as with whenever you try to get away with an actual mulligan, your partner is v apt to hit you with a club

twee bastard

xpost

You know who else was a sod? Aqualung.

I have questions about the British vocabulary. Or lexicon. I'm never sure of the distinction.

Do Brits use the words

- guy
- cookie
- awesome

I was watching That Mitchell and Webb Look and in one sketch they used the word "guy" quite a bit. Do you blokes and birds say "guy" instead of "bloke" without sounding like a "douche"? What about the other two words?

Also, in the show, a woman said "chill out" and it sounded weird hearing "chill out" in an English accent, like when an American Anglophile writes "innit" or says "what are you on about" or "I'm going flat-hunting on the weekend, pip-pip, oi oi oi!!" Are there British jerks who try to sound like Americans?

Thank you.

Also, Robert Webb just said "double entendre" but pronounced it "doob-luh." I was surprised to hear a borrowed French phrase not Anglicized.

Also, "loanword" is a misnomer. Are we going to give them back? If we do, it's usually going to be in horribly damaged condition, and besides, does the originating language not have use of the word while it's on loan? Stupid.

guy, cookie and awesome are all used. guy especially. that's very common. double entendre is generally pronounced more or less correctly.

Guy - yes, all the time. I thought it was one of ours, actually. I'd feel more self-conscious about saying 'bloke' myself.
Cookie - no, it's 'biscuit'. 'cookie' is coming, though - you hear it on tv, presumably on shows hoping to sell to America.
Awesome - yes, but it feels like a conscious Americanism.

British jerks who try to sound American - staple of life since WWII I'd imagine.

Double entendre - hold on, how do Americans pronounce the second word then? 'double en-tender'?

What do you mean "correctly"?

U.S.-ians: "duh-bull on-tawn-druh."

It's really weird to think of Brits (Aussies and New Zealers included) affecting American talk b/c while we are awesome, British is far cooler. Even Eliza Doolittle sounds brighter than the typical American.

your pronounciation sounds right.

there is no "british". since towns 20 miles apart can differ wildly, but there is a thing here that our "regional" accents are shameful and working class. was having the discussion tonight, my friend's flatmate thought that i had a broader accent than him, but basically all it was is that i'm actually more middleclass than him and have overcompensated more.

yeah cookie is defoes encroaching on biscuit in Australia

what about movie? people say that now too, like guy cookie and awesome

in the west of scotland movie has had some success. but people will still talk about going to "the pictures", and ask if you've seen any good "films" recently etc.

they say dude now also

"guy" and "awesome", all the time, to the point where i forget that they were ever americanisms. "dude" is a weird one in that people use it but it sounds so different in a british accent that it's almost like a separate word, far more exclamatory and less laid-back. like a british person would never do that surfer drawl of "duuuuuude". there's a definite tinge of sarcasm too.

no one really says "cookie" but cookies are sold in shops, usually they're like xxl biscuits? so it's like they're a definite separate thing. no one would ever say "cookie" to describe a digestive biscuit.

lol mcvitties cookies

use "dude" all the time without thought or emphasis but this occasionally generates funny looks. i feel like at my age it's okay to use outdated slang from all over the place cos it confuses people as to how old you actually are and what meds you're taking

i encounter more and more americans using "cheers" and they never do it right ;_;

Oh yeah that's one of life's capital pleasures, daddio

cheers me newsies wewsies, 'av a bit o' the ol' blood sausage, innit?

'zounds!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im3Zj9ZBsyU

Xpost People use 'dude' all the time although I know one or two people who react very violently if you call them that. A cookie is a very specific type of biscuit in the uk. Like 'candy' - we use this word, but only to refer to candy-cane and similar sweets.

I'm always confused about the word 'mean'. I grew up to believe it meant the same thing as 'stingey', but very quickly it started getting used to describe anyone with bad character traits. Is this an americanism?

at least in its current incarnation, yep

my friend's flatmate thought that i had a broader accent than him, but basically all it was is that i'm actually more middleclass than him and have overcompensated more.

― you've got male (jim in glasgow), Sunday, 21 August 2011 07:51 (7 hours ago)

lol

"Mean" means cruel or nasty, but not general "bad character traits."

Lex educated the Americans in the gay thread on "vest" and "waistcoat." That was terribly confusing. Summary:

What Brits call "waistcoat," USA calls "vest"
What Brits call "vest," USA calls "tank top" or "wife-beater" (this blew. my. mind.)

But we never addressed a very important point: What do Brits call the outer layer of this top? in the USA it's a sweater vest, but in Britland....a jumper waistcoat??

http://i.imgur.com/0NoaM.gif

let's try another

http://www.im-embroidery.com/Merchant2/graphics/00000001/SW276.jpg

tank top

Pullover.

what about movie? people say that now too, like guy cookie and awesome

― Lophar Andreusz DeLeone (admrl), Sunday, August 21, 2011 8:18 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark

you what? nothing unusual about 'movie'

this is a british book from 1937:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Romance-Movies-1937-1ST-ED-VINTAGE-hc-dj-/290290318279

Cookie - no, it's 'biscuit'. 'cookie' is coming, though - you hear it on tv, presumably on shows hoping to sell to America.

Disagree with this. Cookie is a type of biscuit, the two terms aren't interchangeable.

Also, would call that item of clothing a tank top. Though I'm not the best person to ask about apparel nomenclature.

Cookie is a type of biscuit, the two terms aren't interchangeable.

Yah I would agree with this but I'm not sure I could satisfactorily describe the characteristics of a cookie that make it a "type".

I mean, these are cookies:
http://www.thebitchtroll.com/images/bens-cookies.jpg

As are these:
http://www.nicecupofteaandasitdown.com/biscuits/media/chocchips.jpg

What is the common link between them?

oops. image tag cock-up. You get the idea.

In the US, is there a difference between a biscuit and a scone?

The thing that still confuses me when talking to Brits is the different meanings of the word "pants".
And that "snogging" sounds far dirtier than it actually is, when somebody says "snog" I picture something more grotesque than, uh, necking

Necking sounds like vampire terminology to me. What's wrong with "shifting"?

'Snog' has kinda weird, almost desperate, very teenagey connotations IMO.

i encounter more and more americans using "cheers" and they never do it right ;_;

― lex pretend, Sunday, August 21, 2011 8:55 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark

/\/\/\/\

that's a tank top but it's not a very common item of clothing is it? not here, anyway.

a biscuit and a scone are completely different things.

pants is only ever used to describe underwear except in the north east (unless someone can tell me otherwise. although some silly people say pants to mean bad, i suppose.

not crazy about "necking" or "snogging" AS WORDS NO OUT-OF-CONTEXT but "snogging" is worse yeah

are people in the north east are the only uk people to call trousers "pants"?

never heard it "pants" used for trousers at all except by kids who've picked it up from TV

In shops quite often you will see some trousers labelled as pants. We do say 'cargo pants', at least, 'cargo trousers' sounds wrong.

when i lived in newcastle everyone said pants for trousers. i worked in a clothes shop at that time.

'snogging' is a funny word, like 'bonking'

What did they call pants?

funny like "oh god my libido has just curled up and died"?

"underpants" implies that even in UK English "pants" may have widely referred to trousers at some point

I just watched 'night and the city' and Richard Widmark (american) says something like "you just sit there and count your quids" eliciting a huge cringe. They wouldn't have had him say "count your bucks" would they?

I cringed at the bit (well, and every other line of dialogue) in "Closer" where Natalie Portman goes "do you still fancy me?" Just wrong.

When people here in the US say "cunt" I find it truly shocking (and misogynistic, of course), but at home it's just something I call my friends

lawl

American's saying 'cunt' always sounds oddly stilted; good example being the 'what a cunt!' poker game but in CYE.

a biscuit and a scone are completely different things.

Really? One is a buttery unsweetened pastry and the other is...?

xp the way that "cunt" implied an homo-accusation in that episode of CYE was o_O

Where did "knickers" come from, I'm sure it's a UK word but I don't want to seem silly.

how is anyone confusing scone and biscuit?

neither of them are a buttery unsweetened pastry in the UK sorry i think you may have been asking north americans though.

Wikipedia has a nice insert explaining the difference between American biscuits and every other English speaking nation's biscuits:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/60/BiscuitsAmerican%26British.png/682px-BiscuitsAmerican%26British.png

"American biscuit (left) and one variety of British biscuits (right). The American biscuit is soft and flaky; these particular British biscuits have a layer of chocolate filling between two hard wafers."

french biscuits. bis-cuits yo.

lol j/k apparently bourbon biscuits are... not french

a biscuit in the US is like a savoury pastry thing, i think. but a scone isn't made of pastry in the UK or anywhere as far as i know.

i was pretty surprised the first time a friend said "newsy-wewsies", but i've gotten used to it now

Do Americans say scown instead of scon btw?

I am British and no one has ever said "newsy-wewsies" to me.

me neither but i have been offered a length of blood sausage

newsy-wewsies is happening without your permission

air bickie

'knickers' is such a sexy word when written down.

a biscuit in the US is like a savoury pastry thing, i think. but a scone isn't made of pastry in the UK or anywhere as far as i know.

biscuits are a type of quickbread, not a pastry! scones are more flaky than biscuits I think?

There is basically no similarity between a biscuit and a scone and anyone who can't tell the difference is insane.

I have only ever heard Americans say "pip pip"

well I've never eaten a scone tbh

What does it mean?

I have never heard a human being/non-cartoon character say "pip pip" tbh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBR0icBnUfs

Hold on a minute, i take that back. The American "biscuit" essentially seems to be a scone. I give up

i encounter more and more americans using "cheers" and they never do it right ;_;

― lex pretend, Sunday, August 21, 2011 8:55 AM (8 hours ago)

there is no right way to say cheers

I say "innit" sometimes, I think it's funny

isn't it

Do Americans say /scown/ instead of /scon/ btw?

Y

Hold on a minute, i take that back. The American "biscuit" essentially seems to be a scone. I give up

Nope

In the United States it is a small soft leavened bread, somewhat similar to a scone.

and they do look very similar

Scones in the UK or in a Starbucks are denser than say a biscuit you'll get at Popeye's but they're essentially the same thing.

thanks, buzza

Scowns own but are a little diff than biscuits. They are similar but biscuits are slightly less dense and a lot more buttery. It's too bad UK KFCs don't do bus it's cause they're delicious. LOL @ yr fried chicken and baked beans.

Lol I meant to type scone there ha.

lol @ fried chicken and baked beans

Isn't that what KFCs serve over there? It's just not right.

idk i have never been to kfc i was just lolling at them separately though tbrr fried chicken is not in the same level of shittiness as baked beans

none of this has to do with SLANG so much as divergent traditions of culinary shite

man you really need some good fried chicken wtf

and some good baked beans ffs

none such

;_;

shit though, food

shit is dope imo, provides like so many nutrients that u can't get in solid form via any other product category

i think ilx needs to talk abt food more

whilst i agree with yr thrust i cannot endorse a purely utilitarian response to food

so you're not actually english after all

I can confirm that UK KFC serves portions of baked beans in little tubs. In Asia KFC comes with rice, which I find more bizarre.

great username

Me? Ta!

In China I learned that KFC is viewed as the biggest threat to indigenous cuisine.

Can we talk about "flapjack"?

Flapjack may refer to

A thick pancake, referred to as this particularly in United States and Canada
Flapjack (oat bar), a sweet bar made from oats and golden syrup in British cuisine

Our flapjacks are yum.

brtish "flapjacks" sound pretty gross

"british cuisine" in general looks pretty disgusting tbh

What we call cereal bars in the UK (crunchy type things like Tracker) are called granola bars in the US, and what the US calls cereal bars are like Nutri-Grain. At least that's how I understand it. I found it very confusing to start with.

"british cuisine" in general looks pretty disgusting tbh

― my own private kanyes west (The Brainwasher), Sunday, August 21, 2011 8:21 PM (24 seconds ago) Bookmark

http://images.pictureshunt.com/pics/r/roast_beef-6576.jpg

http://images.pictureshunt.com/pics/r/roast_beef-6576.jpg

On any Sunday I would swap all your american cuisine for a proper British pub lunch.

well I don't really like American food either but it is way better than bangers & mash or shepherd's pie or whatever it is you people eat.

though I will say Scones are awesome

scones are definitely the britishes greatest contribution to the world

I made awesome shepherd's pie the other day! what on earth is bad about a shepherd's pie?!

^^^

Blood sausages are very difficult to find in American supermarkets, and are often made at home, especially by the older generations. Wisconsin, Brussels and Sturgeon Bay are all home to local grocers who produce blood sausage, due to their large Belgian American populations. Supermarkets throughout Maine also carry locally produced blood pudding due to the state's large French Canadian population. In southeastern Michigan, Polish-style kiszka can be found in supermarkets throughout the year, but more so during Easter. This is largely due to the sizable Polish ancestry throughout the region.

An Italian-American version of black pudding in the San Francisco Bay area is called biroldo and has pine nuts, raisins, spices, pig snouts and is made using either pig’s or cow's blood.

Anyway back on topic, people in the US say 'posh' quite a lot and sometimes it makes sense and sometimes not. There's an online clothes store I look at quite often and it's always calling things 'posh' when it's just a skirt or something.

wish we brits could call stuff 'toney'

"Wicked" is pretty common in the States now, is it not? Though I believe it's mainly used as an intensifier rather than an adjective.

Someone laughed at my Welsh friend for saying 'brilliant' :(

I don't think Americans would use 'wicked' to modify another adjective unless they were consciously/ironically going for a Boston accent.

But that's a normal word.

xpost

'wicked' is pretty much a new england thing, but hardly recent

not to particularly defend ~traditional~ british cuisine but at least we don't seem to have the more perturbing neon additive variants of basic groceries eg froot loops

yeah I saw neon Cheerios here. Cheerios!

So what do you think of suet pudding?

as in, steak and kidney? suet pastry is great and would eat any pie or DUMPLINGS! made with.

Including that, but also ranging to sweet puddings like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotted_dick

I always think of steamed suet puddings as being the Englishest of foods, possibly for no good reason.

can't remember the last time i had spotted dick - if ever! this seems like a huge error on my part. i'm sure it is delicious.

what actually constitutes non-regional american cuisine? the sort of thing that alton brown spends two minutes apologising for whenever he shows you how to make it? -- green bean casserole?

http://www.poisonappleshirts.com/ohsofat/071508wendys1.jpg

green bean casseroles et al, those things are almost always Midwestern in origin iirc

yup. tho I've always been alarmed by how ~French~ the word "casserole" looks.

cf "booyah" getting served up by Lutheran church fundraisers.

"Real" British cuisine is A++++ IMO, shame most British chefs don't know how to make it

This is obv something that irks me personally, but I wish Americans would retire all the shit about British food, teeth, whatever which hasn't really been the case for close to 30 years, and people in UK can stop calling Americans fat and ignorant (also deeply simplistic, of course)

I mean, get some new joeks

OTM

you first

It sounds like British cooking was made shit by the War and rationing, and took a long time to recover. But it has now.

Also possible anti-French sentiment leading to distrust of "haute cuisine", although seemingly this hasn't hurt the US...

...who figured out how awesome everything tastes when u put sugar in/on it

joeks ;)

I hate yr teeth

no really britain is a country with a preponderance in crap food guys

the teeth bit i find deeply irritating and weird, though

I think it has its basis in actual historical fact fwiw, something to do with the water supply

and rationing

http://acapella.harmony-central.com/showthread.php?1497848-Why-do-all-americans-think-the-British-have-bad-teeth

bad diet / the whole 'limey' thing

does the 'british people have bad teeth' meme predate americans having orthodontic treatment on a big-ish scale?

yeah that's one of the aspects that i find curious about it

It's funny because many Americans don't seem to actually be able to afford dentistry. I have some friends who haven't been to one in years

but that's an upper-middle-class thing, right? like i suspect that americans actually do have better teeth in the income bracket $60k and up

ha xpost

You do not have to pay for NHS dental treatment if, when the treatment starts, you are:
aged under 18
under 19 and receiving full-time education
pregnant or have had a baby in the previous 12 months
staying in an NHS hospital and your treatment is carried out by the hospital dentist
an NHS hospital dental service outpatient (however, you may have to pay for your dentures or bridges).
You also do not have to pay if, when the treatment starts, you are receiving:
Income Support
Income-related Employment and Support Allowance
Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance
Pension Credit guarantee credit
or
you are named on a valid NHS tax credit exemption certificate or you are entitled to an NHS tax credit exemption certificate
you are named on a valid HC2 certificate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slKNd22GGaQ

It sounds like British cooking was made shit by the War and rationing, and took a long time to recover. But it has now.

― Inevitable stupid samba mix (chap), Monday, August 22, 2011 12:36 AM (35 minutes ago) Bookmark

orwell reckoned the food was good pre-war, but that it never made it into restaurants, where they favoured faux-french and italian. guess we wanted something different when we went out? also seems to be of a piece with our anti-hospitality culture, closing pubs early etc. anyway, this essay does seem to predict st john, anchor and hope, dinner by heston etc:

http://orwell.ru/library/articles/cooking/english/e_dec

i think of britain as having amazing food but actually only cuz london offers so much cuisine from all over the world, ie not british

Ginger (enough already)

You do not have to pay for NHS dental treatment if, when the treatment starts, you are:
aged under 18
under 19 and receiving full-time education
pregnant or have had a baby in the previous 12 months
staying in an NHS hospital and your treatment is carried out by the hospital dentist
an NHS hospital dental service outpatient (however, you may have to pay for your dentures or bridges).
You also do not have to pay if, when the treatment starts, you are receiving:
Income Support
Income-related Employment and Support Allowance
Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance
Pension Credit guarantee credit
or
you are named on a valid NHS tax credit exemption certificate or you are entitled to an NHS tax credit exemption certificate
you are named on a valid HC2 certificate

― thomp, Sunday, August 21, 2011 11:47 PM (Yesterday)

well what this can mean is that we have 'quirky' teeth that are yet good and strong for eating and such. i don't think i know any brits who've gone hardcore cosmetic dentistry in the way that seems almost default for americans, though i do only know middle-class americans.

has anyone ever dined at Simpson's on the Strand?

I am going to go there and have a nice dinner ALL ALONE

Anyone who thinks British food is shit hasn't been there since 2003, imo
It's gotten, uh, LOADS better

Also we have, yes, quirkier teeth than Americans ie normal person teeth which don't blind you with their radiance. Like fucking salt flats or something.

The Orwell article starts We have heard a good deal of talk in recent years about the desirability of attracting foreign tourists to this country. It is well known that England’s two worst faults, from a foreign visitor’s point of view, are the gloom of our Sundays and the difficulty of buying a drink.

What does "the gloom of our Sundays" mean? Is it the same thing Morrissey sang about in "Every Day is Like Sunday"?

sunday opening hours were highly restricted until very recently

also bylaws against unclouded sunday sun sunshine in some regions

Flapjack (oat bar), a sweet bar made from oats and golden syrup in British cuisine

My god, I subsided on these when I lived in the UK when I was 19.

*subsist, not subside