Americanisms that will never, ever cross over into the UK

"you want that i" vs "do you want me to"

i love this construction, fav: "you want i should" but i wasn't sure if it was just old NY gangster movie talk. out of bounds for a californian in any case. Has "twat" crossed over into the US?

The Isle of Man has its own legislature that's why it's not included politically

The Leprechauckney Islands

Ditto the Channel Islands (xp)

I always thought it was a geographical term , Great Britain is the greatest (in size) of the British Isles, which is why it's irritating when right wing twats go on about "Making Britain Great again!"... you mean it's shrunk or something?

-- Tom D., Friday, June 29, 2007 10:59 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

i thought: britain is wales, england, scotland; and 'great britain' was that plus all the other bollocks. but that's probably wrong.

isle of man is a crown dependency, not part of the union.

IoM legislature older than poxy anglos'.

Up the "Celts"

yeaaaaaah bwoyeeee (that's what we say in douglas)

IoM has best flag

They've got Norman Wisdom too

I think "you want I should" is at base a Yiddish thing that crossed over into "tough" talk at some probably gang-related point. Or maybe it was part of the old old Brooklyn or Bronx dialect and was rolled up with a "partly geographic, partly class" distinction.

"Twat" has SORT OF crossed over but you know that Americans rhyme it with "hot" instead of with "fat".

Also apparently I cannot square-bracket the uppercase T up there so bear with me.

we got it all

xpost

"Twat" has SORT OF crossed over but you know that Americans rhyme it with "hot" instead of with "fat".

they quite often say 'twot' in 'the sopranos'.

I think "twot" is an old pronunciation of it anyway

So typical of Americans to be talking like geezers from the 17th century

do you guys ever use "fellow" or "fella" anymore?

You hear it every now and again

You even hear "chap" occasionally!

Hey, buddy, we're keeping the 17th century alive for you; when you run out of useful words you'll thank us later.

hey, i thought of a few canadianisms that will never make it to the uk, do those count?

double-double (a coffee w/ 2 creams, 2 sugars)
bunny hug (a hoodie)
buddy (means "that guy" ie. Hey, did you see buddy's hat? Lame)

bunny hug (a hoodie)

????

xxxxxxxposts.. but isn't the england/wales/scotland landmass called Albion?

Saskatchewan, don't ask me.

I'm from "midwestern Ontario," where we drop the letter T from a lot of things. I lived in Tiverton (Tiver'n) in Bruce County (Cowny) for eight years. We have no fun words. Although I do remember the word "kife" meaning steal, but this may have been more than a regional thing?

holy shit, that was a UK thing?! why the fuck did we use it in the Bruce?

I had no idea "twat" could rhyme with "fat," I've actually corrected someone who said it that way

To be fair the Brit vowel is a sort of in-between sound that I don't know the official marks for, but it's not the midwestern twangy "feeyat" either.

I had no idea "twat" could rhyme with "fat," I've actually corrected someone who said it that way

man alive!

a few people in the US use it that way, but no one in the US pronounces it that way

to be fair I checked this before correcting them

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/twat

In my understanding, the United Kingdom used to refer to England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. When (most of) Ireland became independent in the early 20th century, the United Kingdom began to refer to everything except for that area. Great Britain is pretty much the same thing, except it doesn't include Northern Ireland. I have no fucking idea how the Isle of Man and Jersey and Guernsey and whatever other random islands you have factor into this.

Shetland! Orkney!

One of the best Canadianisms is "toque," since there's not really any equivalent word in the US (we just say, like, "winter hat").

I had no idea "twat" could rhyme with "fat," I've actually corrected someone who said it that way

"you fackin' twat"
"i think you mean 'twot', my good sir"

Really? Toque isn't used elsewhere? I feel so ethnocentric, not knowing that.

people in the US use "toque" to refer to chefs' hats; I wasn't aware there was any other use

whaaaaaaaaaat! chef's hat!

ok my mind is now blown along with everyone else's. a toque is a (usually) wool winter hat!

it's just 'chef hat' to 99% of Americans though, although we all suspected it had a french fancy name.

WTF do kids call winter knit hats? For the life of me I can't think of the slang-y term for them.

Beanies.

This confusion is all just a matter of Ireland being grouchy about imperialism, though, right? Cuz the objection doesn't seem to have much merit any other way, per the way I've always understood this:

- coherent group of islands = British Isles / Britain
- the biggest island among them = Great Britain

So the Irish grouchiness seems based on allowing the "Great Britain" designation to turn the people on it into the "British," as opposed to the Irish, until eventually Irish people are like "fuck no we're not part of Britain" -- i.e., kinda mussing up the political/geographical senses of the word and rolling them together? But of course at present the UK doesn't claim full ownership of the "Britain" word -- it's "the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (and miscellaneous islands)," isn't it?

Beanies.

Nah, I'm thinking of something else. Besides beanie really means a smaller, usually more rigid, hat. Rather than the knit ones which can roll down past your ears.

Granted, it would be annoying if your island were not THAT much smaller than the next one, and history was still like "this one is GREAT Britain, and they are going to come take all your stuff and call you savages, but don't worry, you're part of Britain too!"

I HAVE HEARD PLENTY OF AMERICANS USE THE WORD TOQUE TO REFER TO A SPECIFIC TYPE OF WINTER HATS.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toque

also used: toboggan, which i had no idea what was being referred to the first time someone accused me of wearing one.

Canadian variant
Main article: tuque
In Canadian English, "toque" is also a common alternative spelling of tuque (IPA: (tuk)), a knit woollen winter hat, originally worn by French-Canadians but now a staple of the Canadian winter wardrobe. This "fashion" originated when coureurs des bois kept their woollen nightcaps on for warmth during cold winter days. The Canadian Oxford Dictionary regards the use of toque for this hat to be assimilated from the etymologically unrelated French word tuque

i.e. there's something very canadian about that word

I have only ever heard "toque" from Canadians and then actually it was pronounced "tuke". We called knit winter hats uh stocking caps? Or just winter hats. XP yes!

lol cold people

I had no idea "twat" could rhyme with "fat," I've actually corrected someone who said it that way

"you fackin' twat"
"i think you mean 'twot', my good sir"

-- That one guy that quit, Friday, June 29, 2007 12:55 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

I don't get British humor