Americanisms that will never, ever cross over into the UK

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

i don't think quarter of is more common than quarter to, necessarily

haha I was never sure what "quarter of" meant either. Hm, that's interesting, gabbneb.

I say "quarter of" and "quarter past" all the time.

well, like i said, some americans do use them. i think they're more common in new enland?

Maybe as I do live there although I was raised in New York. I have no idea why I find this thread so fascinating but I love it.

i'm pretty sure my great aunt and uncle use them and they're originally from brooklyn, but by way of pittsburgh and the military

Ooooh - my Mom is from Pittsburgh and since she was one of the two people who taught me how to talk, I might have picked it up from her! Maybe it's a Pittsburgh thing!

do any british people ever say "good lookin' out"? because I use that one all the time. also: "good call", "good on ya" (that's more of an australian thing, right?)

I say "good shout" rather than "good call", but "good call" is in fairly regular use over here, I think? "Good on ya" is pretty standard too, same as "good for you" (I use the former, my mum uses the latter, maybe it's an age thing?)

never heard "good lookin out" but "good call" and "good on ya" are used. "good call" feels quite american.

a lot of americanisms come in through business-speak.

'good looking out' is black american afaik (we also use 'hard' to say tough, if maybe not in the same way as scots et al. "he think he hard..."

Interesting. FWIW, I don't think I've ever heard "good lookin out" (or "suitcase" or "shitty" to mean drunk. I know "shitfaced" though.)

Gabbneb, you're really saying that the norm in America is to say "three forty-five" or "four fifteen?" I'm not sure I've heard those around here much at all.

yeah three forty five etc. is normal, my parents do the quarter past thing but not too many people my age and younger.
is the use of the word 'tin foil'(for aluminum foil) still common? This girl called me a grampa for using it, which was news to me.

'good looking out' is black american afaik

I say tin foil but the again I also do the quarter past thing as I said earlier. I guess at nearly 30 I'm not that young anymore so maybe that's why! Also, when i was in college in upstate NY, people said shitty to mean shitfaced all the time.

really? I don't know when or where I picked it up, but I had no idea! is it "black" enough that it would be kinda weird to hear a white guy using it?

heh the only reason i said afaik(which i wouldn't for millions of other black expressions) is because it seems it could easy be a regionalism that black folks happened to pick up.

Girl in my office just said "on the weekend". Still grates.

delicious

pizza

Why does saying "So Co" for "Southern Comfort" upset people so much? We Americans just like to nickname our liquor. It's a sign of affection.