Americanisms that will never, ever cross over into the UK

I've definitely heard "beer" used as a singular plural but it's certainly not universal.

That sounds like it's less about a singular/plural issue and more just omitting "cans of" or "bottles of."

Also it sounds like "deer."

The "university"/"college" thing is interesting. They're two very separate things in Canada (where "college" = "community college" by and large) but a college can be the local campus of a state university in India so I'd assumed it was like that in the UK as well.

it's not unproblematic here -- i went to 'sixth form college', and there are also further education colleges and whatnot, but my current "university" is called b1rkb3ck college and the ancient universities are really federations of independent colleges...

Ooh Suzy I forgot about the "Oxford" designation! Good catch. But technically AGAIN and sorry to bore the fuck out of everyone, but Oxford refers to a weave of cotton where threads in one direction are a yarn-dyed color and threads in the other direction are white, producing a lighter version of the dyed color with a slightly variegated appearance. So the totally traditional preppy standards in pink and blue and yellow are Oxford cloth, but the "novelty" ones sold by Lands' End in blue-and-white windowpane, for example, while everyone would understand you if you called them an Oxford shirt, are really getting a pass in colloquial use.

*Denim is also traditionally made this way but the weave picks up two warp threads at a time, instead of warp & weft being 1-to-1 ratio.

I mean obv it's not boring to me, but I am being Chief Pedant here and I'm at least slightly sorry about it.

Hella,hella,HELLA!

I'm American, worked in England for three months, and told a co-worker I had gone to public school. I think he took it the wrong way.

Hey, out of curiosity, does anyone in the UK still use terms like "lorry" and "tiffin" and "nought" (to mean the number zero) or have those become exclusively Indian?

If we extend this beyond linguistics, I expect/hope that the insane month/day/year date format and 'American'/Imperial measurement system will never spread/spread back?

Hey, out of curiosity, does anyone in the UK still use terms like "lorry" and "tiffin" and "nought" (to mean the number zero) or have those become exclusively Indian?

my fam still does (at least 'lorry' and 'nought,' never heard 'tiffin' before)

rad

^^^ Yes, this has already been suggested

"can you break this please"? = change from a large bill

The zee/zed one is interesting because as a kid, I went around saying "zee" all the time thanks to Sesame St. I remember mum telling me off constantly. "Stop talking like an american. Its ZED."

I also thought Oscar's name was "ask her the grouch" because of the accent. =D

(you have to say "ask her" in an aussie accent for that to make sense)

There was a Canadian Sesame St but not an Australian one? Too bad you didn't get ours. At least the last letter of the alphabet would have been intact.

Nup, we had the american one! Ah, the 70s Sesame Street ruled. It was completely bonkers.

For some reason, I was a little surprised that South Park was so huge in the UK.

The geographical argument: it's really all very simple. Ireland is part of the British Isles, geographically. Geographers and archaeologists who don't want to upset the IRA use the term "Atlantic Archipelago" instead.

Cadburys make a "tiffin" chocolate bar.

I still say "nought".

I gave up nought a long time ago, but still say lorry, and, indeed, bin lorry to refer to the lorry that collects the bins.

Hey, out of curiosity, does anyone in the UK still use terms like "lorry" and "tiffin" and "nought" (to mean the number zero) or have those become exclusively Indian?

Everyone says 'lorry'. Most people still say 'nought' (but it depends on the situation, you could also say 'zero' or 'oh'). I'm not even sure what 'tiffin' means, but it sounds like something from an Enid Blyton novel. (xp)

bin lorry to refer to the lorry that collects the bins

Ah, nice one. I have a gaping hole in my vocabulary for that thing. You put your rubbish in a dustbin, and it gets collected once a week by a dustman (or possibly a binman), and he chucks it into a.....thing. 'Dustcart' sounds crazily old-fashioned, 'dustlorry' doesn't really work, and I would never say something like 'Council Refuse Collection Vehicle'.

http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B0001ACJR6.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

Ah, nice one. I have a gaping hole in my vocabulary for that thing.

Well, don't necessarily take my word for it. Irish people also say "press" when they mean cupboard (and "hot press" for airing cupboard) and will say "message" instead of errand. So "I have to run an errand" becomes "I have to do a message".

Another Americanism I can't see catching on is the use of "through" when talking about dates. Monday through Friday, funding authorized through fiscal 2008. That kind of thing.

I think I have heard that already. Maybe I have even said it! I quite like annoying anti-Americans by using Americanisms, I'm afraid.

"Messages" is a Scottish thing too.

Mmm, when I first moved to Scotland the two Scots words that confused me most were "messages" and "greeting"

No one says tiffin, but you can get tiffin carriers. Personal beef: "Brit" makes you sound like a wanker, British is fine, English/whatever is best.

I can't imagine it but do any foreigners use any of the following:

"soz" for sorry

"hard" for tough ("well ard", or best "soz ard")

"pure" for good or as an intensive

"right" as an intensive ("you've made a right mess of this")

"class" for good

Is "taxed" as in nicked still used anywhere in the UK?

Dude is pretty widely used in the UK. Bro used occasionally sort of joking/self-conciously, like a lot of US slang.

Also (xpost re:confusing Scottishisms) 'bucket' for 'bin' and 'how (no)?' for 'why (not)?'

("you've made a right mess of this")

I think Australians and Kiwis do.

Another Americanism I can't see catching on is the use of "through" when talking about dates. Monday through Friday, funding authorized through fiscal 2008. That kind of thing.

So how would a UKer say it?

From Monday to Friday

Is "taxed" as in nicked still used anywhere in the UK?

I use it.

My Scottish friend used to live in Albany and said that Americans don't use "quarter past" or "quarter to" when talking about the time. Is this true?

Ah, nice one. I have a gaping hole in my vocabulary for that thing. You put your rubbish in a dustbin, and it gets collected once a week by a dustman (or possibly a binman), and he chucks it into a.....thing. 'Dustcart' sounds crazily old-fashioned, 'dustlorry' doesn't really work, and I would never say something like 'Council Refuse Collection Vehicle'.

See, when I was growing up, the person who collected your bins (actually, as pointed out upthread, that would be the person collecting the buckets, I very rarely refer to them as bins) was a scaffy, and his lorry would be the scaffy van, or scaffy lorry. I was exceptionally surprised to find this wasn't in common parlance down here in west central Scotland. I think it must be a purely Invernessian thing.

Lorries are what dodgy goods fall off the back of.

From Monday to Friday

To me "to Friday" implies that whatever event is occuring during that timespan stops when it reaches Friday. Whereas "through Friday" would indicate the event continuing until Friday was over.

I'm not claiming that as an Americanism, by the way. It's just how I would understand it. I get confused a lot though.

My Scottish friend used to live in Albany and said that Americans don't use "quarter past" or "quarter to" when talking about the time. Is this true?

I say it, and I others do too, but it's not as common as saying "four fifteen" or "three forty-five."

Is saying "real" instead of "really" becoming more prevalent in the UK? I always took that to be, um, real(ly) American.

It's REAL fucking stupid.

And we do say "half past a monkey's ass and a quarter to his balls." I've never figured that one out either,.

"right" as an intensive ("you've made a right mess of this")

Ack, I've known people from the Atlantic Canadian provinces who do this. "I ran right fast," "He's right weird," etc.

My Scottish friend used to live in Albany and said that Americans don't use "quarter past" or "quarter to" when talking about the time. Is this true?

Seems blatantly false to me. If anything, I'd kind of imagined that saying "quarter to four" instead of "3:45" was an Americanism.

(I'd actually assumed the "right" was an Eastern Canadian thing of possible Scottish or Irish origin.)

"hard" for tough ("well ard", or best "soz ard")

well of course hard means tough, but we're much less likely than you are to use it alone as a general descriptor for an individual's personality (as opposed to their body/muscle definition). we'll get close with infrequent (semi-outmoded?), more-specific colloquialisms like "hardass" (a tough taskmaster) or "hard case" (tough to rehabilitate/crack). to the extent someone might get described as a "hard(, hard?) man," i think it's used in a sort of ironic way that theoretically pays tribute to the "hard" character but ultimately dismisses its value in the grand scheme of things.

"pure" for good or as an intensive

this doesn't seem at all out of the ordinary, but then i'm not exactly sure what sort of usage you're referring to, so maybe not

My Scottish friend used to live in Albany and said that Americans don't use "quarter past" or "quarter to" when talking about the time. Is this true?

some (often middle-aged/older?) Americans use it, but it's not common the way it is across the pond; the standard is "three-thirty" rather than "half-past-three"

i thought they said "quarter of..."?

i never know if it means 'to' or 'past'.

'to'

quarter to - quarter of, quarter 'til
quarter past - quarter after

but again, i think times are more common

and i think 'quarter to' is more common than 'quater past'?

i think we just don't like using 'past'; manifest destiny and all that