The Britishisms that are taking over America

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19929249

I didn't even realise that 'cheeky' and 'fancy' weren't used in America and only recently discovered that Americans don't say 'queue'.

Poll!

There was a NYT article about this the other day, too:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/11/fashion/americans-are-barmy-over-britishisms.html

cool NEWSY WEWSIES

I heard blood sausage tastes lovely over the pond.

haha, xpost

only recently discovered that Americans don't say 'queue'.

Probably because they don't have to do it as regularly as we do

what do they say? line?

do Americans say Posh?

cheeky monkeys still won't make a bloody pineapple pizza though will they

mr queue

no we just call it a LINE because queue implies first-in-first-out which is not how waiting for things works in practice

Get your arse in queue, soldier

cool NEWSY WEWSIES

― buzza, Wednesday, October 17, 2012 11:41 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

do Americans say Posh?

― make like a steak and beef (dog latin), Wednesday, October 17, 2012 11:43 AM (17 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Americans say Rich.

"Posh" gets used but I'd wager 40% of the time it's immediately followed with "and Becks"

From that NYT article:
...via their iPad apps over “a coffee.”
Why the scare quotes around 'a coffee'? Is this a Britishism? What else could you call a coffee?

get your pippa's arse in queue

we would say "over coffee"; saying "over a coffee" is an affectation

I think I may have heard someone say "in hospital" recently.

i think it's referring to coffee being used as a collective noun instead of a singular one; "over coffee" vs "over a coffee"

hmmmm...

"The word 'chav' is starting to catch on in the US, thanks to YouTube videos. I overheard someone say, 'Nah I'm not buying those sneakers man, they are so chavvy' at a sports retailer." Jeff Bagshaw, US

devastating evidence

"Let's meet in a pub bar and discuss it over beer" ... doesn't sound right

no one in the US says "chav" unless it's an involuntary noise made after they've been kicked in the neck

Anyone who uses the word "chav" should be kicked in the neck

'taking a decision'

chat up some ilxors at a FAP

... uh, is that US or UK? (xp)

what. xxp

Americans increasingly use "queue" for queues that don't involve physically standing in line. (Or, as New Yorkers say, standing "on line.") For example, tech stuff like printer jobs or music playlists, but also more abstract uses, like "Roger Clemens next in queue to discuss Mitchell Report."

Well first of all it should be 'beers'. Who ever has but one while discussing anything of import?

let's hope we never start making band names plural

blur IS shite not blur ARE shite

No-one says 'taking a decision', do they?

henfab not nearly as glamorous sounding as henfap

I hear "queue" all the time but I work in software and that's a common data structure

Curious about "pub quiz." Feel like a lot of Americans have been saying that instead of "bar trivia."

I've referred to my list of pending requests at work as my "research queue" for years, but my old supervisor who got me saying that was from South Africa. Just now wondering if everyone thinks it's weird.

Queue was a perfectly fine American word in the 19th century when we used it disparagingly to refer to Chinese men's ponytails.

Holy shit. When you guys are talking about the "pub quiz", are you talking about these things?

http://thefuntimesguide.com/images/blogs/ntn_trivia_box.jpg

I had assumed that the British version somehow involved a flip chart or something.

Queueing - where else in the English language would you get 5 vowels in a row?

Have said "pub quiz" forever because the only one I went to was in an Irish bar and that's what they called it. "Bar trivia" has the feel of those tv screen games where you push a button for your answer.

xp!

i recently referred to going on vacation as going on holiday, but i've also been watching a lot of peep show and inspector morse lately so yeah

I don't know what that thing is (xxxp)

"Pub quiz" in no way refers to blue plastic children's electronic toys.

blur IS shite not blur ARE shite

Would you say 'Blur was and remains shite' too? Because THAT'S AWFUL

fortnight 3 thumbs up

A night of drinking that consists of drinking only a forty oz. bottle of beer, usually when the person cannot have a hangover the next day but wants to have a good buzz.
I have an exam tomorrow at 8AM, so let's just have a fortnight.

Discussing it over a beer vs talking about it over coffee vs debating over tea

Coffee and beer are interchangeably singular/plural, but tea is always tea.

E.g. "dude, you want any beer?" Vs "hey, we only got like 10 beers left in the fridge!"

"Pub quiz" in no way refers to blue plastic children's electronic toys.

― ledge, Wednesday, October 17, 2012 11:55 AM (8 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

So you guys shout out the answers over one another or what?

"Shite" is a Britishism, yes?

tbf using the weird single character as your u/n is nagl

Our house - in the middle of our thread...

I just noticed/read in this thread that Americans don't say 'over a coffee'.

My world has just been turned upside down.

We dont? "Let's discuss this over a coffee" doesn't exist in AmEn?

I would say over coffee.

But I wouldn't.

"a beer" is used. never heard "a coffee"

so awful interpreting that as a dayo post

been using shite regularly, especially to make puns for things that rhyme with it. To me, "Shit" can be good or bad... shite has no contextual confusion.

Surely 'shit' is bad and 'the shit' is good... You're right though, 'the shite' would still be shite.

but..."that's some good shit"

or "shit is NICE"

Never mind Americans, when did the English start using shite? I mean, apart from the North East.

I am glad we haven't changed to _a_ coffee, even if single-serving starbucks-style stores are becoming a norm

In the US the traditional model for speaking with someone over coffee is the diner where you get a cup and someone walks by topping it off every so often. It's not singular, it's a never-ending flow of coffee.

Been going on since at least the 80s, Tom.

I'm not sure I get the divide between coffee and a coffee. If I invited you out for a coffee I'd probably mean 'a short sit and sup and then we go our separate ways', if I invited you out for coffee I'd probably mean 'lets hang out in a café for a while, drinking who knows how much coffee'. It's a pretty basic connotational difference involved in the singular vs the plural. So I use both, depending.

And obviously if I invited you into my house for a coffee I mean 'hubba hubba let's do some sexing' (okay, maybe not).

Shame, I don't drink coffee

^ joking

^__^

If I invite any of u over for coffee please be assured it will be because I need you to bring me coffee

Might be a long wait before "You'll have had your tea?" takes off in the US

would you invite someone for "a tea"

come on over for a tea

No

Friend who should know better (British parent) invites people over for 'a tea' but in this case she means 'half a dozen people having high tea'.

Whenever I ask whether someone wants to go for "a beer" I really mean "three to five beers". But maybe that's another level of euphemism.

Come on now, who goes out for one pint?

I do, but mostly because I don't enjoy drinking at all and it's purely for social convenience

yeah, "a beer" is a nudge-nudge wink-wink proposition

No wait, I'm sure someone clued me in on this after I was asked out one time without me realising. "Do you want to go for a drink?" is a date, "do you want to go for a beer?" is not a date. Right?

would you invite someone for "a tea"

― mh, Thursday, February 6, 2014 6:14 PM (1 hour ago)

I'd invite them for "a cuppa".

A brew

A delicate infusion

You say that to all the girls

*aghast*

No wait, I'm sure someone clued me in on this after I was asked out one time without me realising. "Do you want to go for a drink?" is a date, "do you want to go for a beer?" is not a date. Right?

No, it's more nuanced than that.

I tend to apply the definitions retrospectively; if I go for drink with a girl and end up kissing her it is a date, if I don't end up kissing her it is just a drink. Hey presto, turns out I have never been on an unsuccessful date.

^that's ridiculous

TS: unsuccessful dates v unsuccessful drinks

i guess all terms are open to deconstruction. i would quibble your interpretation of 'date' in this instance because it's invalidating - if you'll excuse the pun - of experiences that are ambiguously romantic, or contain romantic possibility, but don't necessarily feature kissing

oh ffs like he meant "kissing or nothing" as a qualifier

I'm a very impatient man when it comes to romance. Also my post may not have been entirely serious.

fair enough - it's your logic

i thought standard drinking logic was 'a pint' = two pints, 'a couple of pints' = 3-5 pints, 'a few pints' = cancel any plans you had for tomorrow.

admittedly i can't remember the last time i only had two pints.

what's more bothersome is that the American "pint" isn't even a properly sized pint.

everything's bigger in america

except for our pints.

Watching a Tonight Show episode from the other night, and Jimmy Fallon just made a joke about "gingers."

I feel like I almost never heard people in the US use that term until 10-15 years ago? South Park probably went a long way to popularizing it here.

Conan embraced it for a long while too no?

Oh yeah, that's right.