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25 English words that mean very different things in Britain and America

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Jennifer Forbes
Jennifer Forbes  Identity Verified
Local time: 13:50
French to English
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In memoriam
Two more to watch out for Sep 6, 2016

Two more expressions with very different meanings in the UK and the US could cause confusion:

1. Slated
2. Pissed

1.In the UK, if a show is "slated" it has received appalling reviews. In the USA, if a show is "slated" it simply appears on a list of forthcoming events.

2. In the UK, if someone is "pissed", they're drunk. In the USA, they're annoyed.
In the UK, "annoyed" can be conveyed by "pissed OFF", not "pissed" on it's own.

Bewar
... See more
Two more expressions with very different meanings in the UK and the US could cause confusion:

1. Slated
2. Pissed

1.In the UK, if a show is "slated" it has received appalling reviews. In the USA, if a show is "slated" it simply appears on a list of forthcoming events.

2. In the UK, if someone is "pissed", they're drunk. In the USA, they're annoyed.
In the UK, "annoyed" can be conveyed by "pissed OFF", not "pissed" on it's own.

Beware!
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Angela Malik
Angela Malik  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 13:50
German to English
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pissed (US) Sep 6, 2016

Jenny Forbes wrote:

2. In the UK, if someone is "pissed", they're drunk. In the USA, they're annoyed.



Mostly agree with you, except I would say "pissed" is much stronger than just annoyed. I think it's closer to "seething" or "spitting" in terms of level of anger/outrage/inclination towards violence.


 
Lingua 5B
Lingua 5B  Identity Verified
Bosnia and Herzegovina
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English to Croatian
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It would complicate economical/business relations? Sep 6, 2016

Tom in London wrote:

The thing about American English is that it began some time around 1600 as the British English spoken at that time (very different from how it is spoken now) and then went off on its own merry way, mixing with German, Italian, French, and all the other languages that were brought from Europe. It's amazing they still speak English in America at all. Why didn't a completely autochthonous American language come about?

[Edited at 2016-09-06 10:32 GMT]


It didn't happen in order not to complicate international trade even further.


[Edited at 2016-09-06 12:36 GMT]


 
Eva Stoppa
Eva Stoppa  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 14:50
English to German
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It would have become the language of business then. Sep 6, 2016

[quote]Lingua 5B wrote:
It didn't happen in order not to complicate international trade even further.
If the US had already been the super power by the time, this language would have developed, everybody would be using this language now, I guess.


 
Lingua 5B
Lingua 5B  Identity Verified
Bosnia and Herzegovina
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Member (2009)
English to Croatian
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UK and US Sep 6, 2016

[quote]Eva Stoppa wrote:

Lingua 5B wrote:
It didn't happen in order not to complicate international trade even further.
If the US had already been the super power by the time, this language would have developed, everybody would be using this language now, I guess.


UK and US had stronger business relations in the beginning than US and Europe. If the US had developed their own language, it would have become more complicated for UK-US trade.

Not sure what you are referring to and how it is related to my input.

Btw, English IS the international language/lingua franca of trade, science, medicine and business.


 
Eva Stoppa
Eva Stoppa  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 14:50
English to German
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The dominant position the US have in the world Sep 6, 2016

[quote]Lingua 5B wrote:


Not sure what you are referring to and how it is related to my input.

I am referring to the position the US are having in the world now. Don't know when this started, but if, by the time it had started, this US language had already been developed, I guess, English wouldn't be so widely used now.


 
Tom in London
Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 13:50
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Not in my world Sep 6, 2016

In some countries I know well, such as Italy, the English language is completely foreign to most people and is not spoken widely; there is an attitude of resentful subservience to it. In more than 20 years of observation, I have come to the conclusion that in Italy there is a feeling that English is an imposition and most people are not keen to either learn it or make use of it: "refusing to speak English" as a form of resistance. I wonder if that is the feeling in other countries too?
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In some countries I know well, such as Italy, the English language is completely foreign to most people and is not spoken widely; there is an attitude of resentful subservience to it. In more than 20 years of observation, I have come to the conclusion that in Italy there is a feeling that English is an imposition and most people are not keen to either learn it or make use of it: "refusing to speak English" as a form of resistance. I wonder if that is the feeling in other countries too?

I say this on the basis of my "Proz discussion topics Rule no.1": that all discussions must stray away from the initial topic by the time they have moved on to the second page.



[Edited at 2016-09-06 14:42 GMT]
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Riccardo Schiaffino
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United States
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English to Italian
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Deprecated Sep 6, 2016

Tom in London wrote:

This one is for IT nerds.

In the IT world, it is very common to see that a piece of code has been "deprecated".

In my world, that means that large numbers of people have disapproved of it, and have said so.


That is also what "Deprecated" means in the IT word. "Deprecated" applies mostly to some obsolescent feature or keyword. A Deprecated feature is a feature that a group of developers has decided should no longer be used, but that still works, and still is used by others... or is still included in programs in current use. A god example of "deprecated" in the IT word would be the "GOTO" keyword -- still present in most programming languages, although its use has been deprecated for dozens of years.


 
Tom in London
Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 13:50
Member (2008)
Italian to English
That was my point Sep 6, 2016

Riccardo Schiaffino wrote:

Tom in London wrote:

This one is for IT nerds.

In the IT world, it is very common to see that a piece of code has been "deprecated".

In my world, that means that large numbers of people have disapproved of it, and have said so.


That is also what "Deprecated" means in the IT word. "Deprecated" applies mostly to some obsolescent feature or keyword. A Deprecated feature is a feature that a group of developers has decided should no longer be used, but that still works, and still is used by others... or is still included in programs in current use. A god example of "deprecated" in the IT word would be the "GOTO" keyword -- still present in most programming languages, although its use has been deprecated for dozens of years.


That was my point- the correct meaning of "deprecated" has been forgotten. Indeed in the IT world, it seems that many people never even knew the correct meaning. I certainly deprecate that.


 
Tom in London
Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 13:50
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Beware the errant apostrophe Sep 6, 2016

Jenny Forbes wrote:

In the UK, if someone is "pissed", they're drunk. In the USA, they're annoyed.
In the UK, "annoyed" can be conveyed by "pissed OFF", not "pissed" on it's own.

Beware!


And beware the errant apostrophe! You're not quite right. Listen to Angie Stone sing "So pissed off" and then "ticked off" which in British English means "scolded" and then "you're pissing me off" etc...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx-cD_5WAH4


[Edited at 2016-09-06 16:11 GMT]


 
Angela Malik
Angela Malik  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 13:50
German to English
+ ...
Huh? Sep 7, 2016

Tom in London wrote:

Jenny Forbes wrote:

In the UK, if someone is "pissed", they're drunk. In the USA, they're annoyed.
In the UK, "annoyed" can be conveyed by "pissed OFF", not "pissed" on it's own.

Beware!


And beware the errant apostrophe! You're not quite right. Listen to Angie Stone sing "So pissed off" and then "ticked off" which in British English means "scolded" and then "you're pissing me off" etc...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx-cD_5WAH4


[Edited at 2016-09-06 16:11 GMT]


Not sure what your point is here, Tom. Jenny is right. In American English, "pissed" can be used on its own and means "angry" (it's much stronger than annoyed, IMO). Americans also say "pissed off" and that would be used as a synonym for "pissed" on its own. But both are acceptable in American English and both are used an equal amount of the time (i.e. one version is not preferred over the other). Although in general conversation I would probably avoid using them because a lot of Americans consider "pissed" and "pissed off" to be fairly strong words and some people might be offended by them (we are very Puritanical still, in many ways).

And neither "pissed", "pissed off" or "ticked off" mean "scolded". "Ticked off" means "annoyed" and is a more generally socially acceptable way to express "pissed". I could tell my grandmother I was "ticked off" when my sister lied to me, but not that I was "pissed off" because then she would scold me for using strong language.


 
Jennifer Forbes
Jennifer Forbes  Identity Verified
Local time: 13:50
French to English
+ ...
In memoriam
Oops! Sep 7, 2016

Tom has (rightly) ticked me off (UK meaning) about my careless misuse of the apostrophe, but I'll try not to get pissed off (or, indeed, pissed) about it (UK meanings).
Yes, I realise (UK spelling) that "it's" should have been "its" in that context.
(Exit, blushing).


 
Tom in London
Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 13:50
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Ticked Sep 7, 2016

I'm not scolding anyone (i.e. giving them a ticking off) but if I tell an American that I'm ticked off, they will understand that I'm angry. http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/ticked-off

Here’s a list of various British words and expressions together with their American equivalents:
<
... See more
I'm not scolding anyone (i.e. giving them a ticking off) but if I tell an American that I'm ticked off, they will understand that I'm angry. http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/ticked-off

Here’s a list of various British words and expressions together with their American equivalents:

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/british-and-american-terms

[Edited at 2016-09-07 08:12 GMT]
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Kay Denney
Kay Denney  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 14:50
French to English
nappy! Sep 7, 2016

Angela Rimmer wrote:

I hate these lists -- and for some reason the ones that I, at least, end up seeing floating around are always put together by a British speaker. (Full disclosure: I'm based in the UK, have spent 12 years here, but grew up American, went to American schools, have American parents -- in fact my entire family is American)

I take issue with this article's American definition for "nappy". That is definitely the "white" definition of the word. And it very much ignores the racial and cultural connotations that come with it, and the history behind it. I can't speak for the US as a whole, but my understanding of it, having grown up in the South, is that it is very much a "black" word meaning "natural Afro hair" (as opposed to permed, straight hair or weaves). After it was used as an insult by slave owners and white supremacists to describe Afro hair, it was sort of "reclaimed" by the African American community. When I was growing up, "nappy" was derogatory because natural Afro hair was looked down on in professional and educational environments, and every black girl I knew would get their hair fried into straight, smoothed and sculpted "white" styles or braided into cornrows with colourful beads worked into them. And if their hair was getting a bit wild because they were due for another hair cut or perm, you'd hear their aunties or mothers complaining about how "nappy" their hair was getting and scolding them for letting their hair get wet in the rain or whatever (undoing some of the effects of the perm).

Nowadays natural hair is more acceptable (even though it's still considered a "statement" of sorts). But that derogatory meaning is still important because when white girls suddenly started appropriating it, they used it to describe their own hair when it was frizzy and unwashed, and it was ALWAYS a negative thing (and still is). A lot of black people find it offensive when white people use that word, and sometimes I've seen strong negative reactions even when blacks use the word.

My reaction might seem like an over-analysis, but I just found the definition in the article really simplistic and kind of dismissive of all the strong connotations behind the word. It's certainly a word to be used with caution if you decide to visit the US!

On another note, re: "peckish" -- I've never heard that word in the US at all in any context, and when I've used it myself, Americans ask me what I mean. So my understanding is that that word just doesn't exist in the US.


thank you for this insight. I'll remember to talk about diapers only with Americans from now on. It's not a word I like but I don't want to confuse and offend at the same time.

I didn't know "peckish" was unknown across the Atlantic either. Similarly, I remember an American colleague falling in love with the word "gormless" once (meaning someone who doesn't have a clue, is slow on the uptake and generally dim-witted). She kept coming back to it, asking whether "gorm" was a thing, or if someone who was quick-witted could be "gormful" or "gormy". Induced a whole new level of respect for the term in me!


 
cranium
cranium
French to English
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Touché Sep 7, 2016

Angela Rimmer wrote:

I hate these lists -- and for some reason the ones that I, at least, end up seeing floating around are always put together by a British speaker.


Thank you, or should I say "ta"? (Another list contender - we Canadians say "ta" to babies when prying something out of their wee hands.)

With the staggering number of UK dialects, surely a list could be compiled without even leaving the British Isles.

How about "25 words that mean very different things in Yorkshire and the Hebrides"?


 
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25 English words that mean very different things in Britain and America







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