Differences in culture
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So over the last few days/nights, I have been talking to a few Americans and some poms. I didnt realise just how different the phrases and sayings we all have are. For instance, one of the people I was talking to had said he had tried to call me but I didnt answer. I told him that "I was on the road at the time" as in I was driving at the time. In the most puzzled voice, he asked me why I was on the road. I thought in this age of world wide communications this would not be as big an issue
"There are three sides to every story. Yours, mine and the truth" ~ unknown "All things good to know are difficult to learn" ~ Greek Proverb "The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary" ~ Vidal Sassoon
One that bugs me is the US's "I could care less", which makes no sense against the UK's "I couldn't care less". The UK one means that you already care so little that you couldn't care any less, whereas the US one...doesn't (taken literally anyway).
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It's the differences that make us interesting. I'm amazed we have so much of the language in common anyway. When I talk to people from the north of England there seem to be a lot more differences than someone from the other side of the globe!
The tragedy of your times is that you may get exactly what you want!
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Heh, yeah - there's certainly enough of that just going from state to state here... i'll not forget the look of disappointment on my wife's face the first time i told her i was making "barbecues"... and then proceeded to fill rolls with a ground hamburger mixture. :-\ BTW - i haven't encountered the non-fowl "grouse"; what's that then?
Citizen 20.1.01
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'
A famous grouse[^] is a decent Scotch Whiskey
"Every time Lotus Notes starts up, somewhere a puppy, a kitten, a lamb, and a baby seal are killed. Lotus Notes is a conspiracy by the forces of Satan to drive us over the brink into madness. The CRC-32 for each file in the installation includes the numbers 666." Gary Wheeler "You're an idiot." John Simmons, THE Outlaw programmer "I realised that all of my best anecdotes started with "So there we were, pissed". Pete O'Hanlon
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There's a huge list of words these yanks don't know. chook ute tip lolly you name it. The other day my business partner was incredulous when I said something was 'just like a bought one'
Christian Graus Please read this if you don't understand the answer I've given you "also I don't think "TranslateOneToTwoBillion OneHundredAndFortySevenMillion FourHundredAndEightyThreeThousand SixHundredAndFortySeven()" is a very good choice for a function name" - SpacixOne ( offering help to someone who really needed it ) ( spaces added for the benefit of people running at < 1280x1024 )
That reminds me of when I was traveling through Yellowstone National Park on a photographic expedition and I met a nice older American couple. I was explaining to them that I had to "get up at a sparrows fart" to get the dawn shots that I wanted. All of a sudden their eyes glazed over (as if staring off into the distance), eyebrows furrowed in and a general blankness crept across their face, as if all the colour had been drained. Needless to say it killed the conversation, and when I left a few minutes later they were still standing there trying to figure out if I had said something meaningful, insightful or insulting.
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It's is - and I'm from the North East, where we know a thing or two about wacky vernicular. Have ya fixed that kludgie yet?? ;)
Anna :rose: Having a bad bug day? Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "If mushy peas are the food of the devil, the stotty cake is the frisbee of God"
Anna-Jayne Metcalfe wrote:
Have ya fixed that kludgie yet??
You must have esp also! The MD and I tried to fix it but all we managed to do was break the cistern lid (or rather he did). I tried to tell him that plumbing was not in my arsenal.
The tragedy of your times is that you may get exactly what you want!
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There's a huge list of words these yanks don't know. chook ute tip lolly you name it. The other day my business partner was incredulous when I said something was 'just like a bought one'
Christian Graus Please read this if you don't understand the answer I've given you "also I don't think "TranslateOneToTwoBillion OneHundredAndFortySevenMillion FourHundredAndEightyThreeThousand SixHundredAndFortySeven()" is a very good choice for a function name" - SpacixOne ( offering help to someone who really needed it ) ( spaces added for the benefit of people running at < 1280x1024 )
I'd think 'lolly' would be 'lollipop' — other than that, I have no idea what the words you used mean. :p
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There's a huge list of words these yanks don't know. chook ute tip lolly you name it. The other day my business partner was incredulous when I said something was 'just like a bought one'
Christian Graus Please read this if you don't understand the answer I've given you "also I don't think "TranslateOneToTwoBillion OneHundredAndFortySevenMillion FourHundredAndEightyThreeThousand SixHundredAndFortySeven()" is a very good choice for a function name" - SpacixOne ( offering help to someone who really needed it ) ( spaces added for the benefit of people running at < 1280x1024 )
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Anna-Jayne Metcalfe wrote:
Have ya fixed that kludgie yet??
You must have esp also! The MD and I tried to fix it but all we managed to do was break the cistern lid (or rather he did). I tried to tell him that plumbing was not in my arsenal.
The tragedy of your times is that you may get exactly what you want!
Member 4604561 wrote:
You must have esp also!
That'll be the stotty cakes, then. ;P
Anna :rose: Having a bad bug day? Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "If mushy peas are the food of the devil, the stotty cake is the frisbee of God"
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So over the last few days/nights, I have been talking to a few Americans and some poms. I didnt realise just how different the phrases and sayings we all have are. For instance, one of the people I was talking to had said he had tried to call me but I didnt answer. I told him that "I was on the road at the time" as in I was driving at the time. In the most puzzled voice, he asked me why I was on the road. I thought in this age of world wide communications this would not be as big an issue
"There are three sides to every story. Yours, mine and the truth" ~ unknown "All things good to know are difficult to learn" ~ Greek Proverb "The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary" ~ Vidal Sassoon
I part time moderated in a small international chat room. The list of mutually misunderstood or unique words is pretty large. But my favorite is "shag" :laugh: . Particularly since where I lived , it's beach dancing. So asking a lady to shag is not quite the same in the UK. :doh:
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So over the last few days/nights, I have been talking to a few Americans and some poms. I didnt realise just how different the phrases and sayings we all have are. For instance, one of the people I was talking to had said he had tried to call me but I didnt answer. I told him that "I was on the road at the time" as in I was driving at the time. In the most puzzled voice, he asked me why I was on the road. I thought in this age of world wide communications this would not be as big an issue
"There are three sides to every story. Yours, mine and the truth" ~ unknown "All things good to know are difficult to learn" ~ Greek Proverb "The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary" ~ Vidal Sassoon
I part time moderated in a small international chat room. The list of mutually misunderstood or unique words is pretty large. But my favorite is "shag" :laugh: . Particularly since where I lived , it's beach dancing. So asking a lady to shag is not quite the same in the UK. :doh: ........
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leckey wrote:
they were trying to call my cat with "PUSS PUSS PUSS PUSS!"
Why is that strange? We say that in South Africa. Pussy cat, pussy, puss. My friends cat was named Puss Puss.
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Fernando A. Gomez F. wrote:
At least he achieved immortality for a few years.
"Pussy" has two negative meanings in the US. One is slang about the lower part of the female anatomy. You hear in in US pornos a lot. The second is calling a man a "pussy" means he's basically a girl or a weakling. If you used the term in school you would get sent to the front office.
Holidays! (June 13th) http://craptasticnation.blogspot.com/[^]
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"Pussy" has two negative meanings in the US. One is slang about the lower part of the female anatomy. You hear in in US pornos a lot. The second is calling a man a "pussy" means he's basically a girl or a weakling. If you used the term in school you would get sent to the front office.
Holidays! (June 13th) http://craptasticnation.blogspot.com/[^]
Ah sure, that has crossed over to Europe but when you are using it to talk about a cat most mature people don't have a problem. Kids snigger of course :)
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Fernando A. Gomez F. wrote:
At least he achieved immortality for a few years.
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Heh, yeah - there's certainly enough of that just going from state to state here... i'll not forget the look of disappointment on my wife's face the first time i told her i was making "barbecues"... and then proceeded to fill rolls with a ground hamburger mixture. :-\ BTW - i haven't encountered the non-fowl "grouse"; what's that then?
Citizen 20.1.01
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'
That is NOT barbecue ... geez Did you slap some ketchup on it and call that sauce ;-) :-D I thought it was interesting when I first traveled north (in the US) and in the restaurant's the first thing all the waitresses ask was "You-all-set" (as if it was one word) ... I thought to myself all set for what? Now with the "normalization" of America (everything, everywhere is beginning to look the same) you have to ask for "sweet tea" in restaurant's in the south ... it use to be all you had to ask for was tea and people had sense enough to bring you a glass of tea flavored sugar syrup over ice. Now you have to ask for "sweet tea" and still sometimes a waitron will say "we have sugar on the table" (they just don't get that whole super saturation thing). Well tuck em in if they are hanging out and keep your head down and your tail up and never ask an American if he's packing a fag because it won't end well.
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There's a huge list of words these yanks don't know. chook ute tip lolly you name it. The other day my business partner was incredulous when I said something was 'just like a bought one'
Christian Graus Please read this if you don't understand the answer I've given you "also I don't think "TranslateOneToTwoBillion OneHundredAndFortySevenMillion FourHundredAndEightyThreeThousand SixHundredAndFortySeven()" is a very good choice for a function name" - SpacixOne ( offering help to someone who really needed it ) ( spaces added for the benefit of people running at < 1280x1024 )
Ha! Chook... wasn't he the guy in Muriel's wedding that got, er, uh, nevermind.
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That reminds me of when I was traveling through Yellowstone National Park on a photographic expedition and I met a nice older American couple. I was explaining to them that I had to "get up at a sparrows fart" to get the dawn shots that I wanted. All of a sudden their eyes glazed over (as if staring off into the distance), eyebrows furrowed in and a general blankness crept across their face, as if all the colour had been drained. Needless to say it killed the conversation, and when I left a few minutes later they were still standing there trying to figure out if I had said something meaningful, insightful or insulting.
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"Pussy" has two negative meanings in the US. One is slang about the lower part of the female anatomy. You hear in in US pornos a lot. The second is calling a man a "pussy" means he's basically a girl or a weakling. If you used the term in school you would get sent to the front office.
Holidays! (June 13th) http://craptasticnation.blogspot.com/[^]
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One that bugs me is the US's "I could care less", which makes no sense against the UK's "I couldn't care less". The UK one means that you already care so little that you couldn't care any less, whereas the US one...doesn't (taken literally anyway).
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That is NOT barbecue ... geez Did you slap some ketchup on it and call that sauce ;-) :-D I thought it was interesting when I first traveled north (in the US) and in the restaurant's the first thing all the waitresses ask was "You-all-set" (as if it was one word) ... I thought to myself all set for what? Now with the "normalization" of America (everything, everywhere is beginning to look the same) you have to ask for "sweet tea" in restaurant's in the south ... it use to be all you had to ask for was tea and people had sense enough to bring you a glass of tea flavored sugar syrup over ice. Now you have to ask for "sweet tea" and still sometimes a waitron will say "we have sugar on the table" (they just don't get that whole super saturation thing). Well tuck em in if they are hanging out and keep your head down and your tail up and never ask an American if he's packing a fag because it won't end well.
Speaking of Sauce. In California where I grew up and worked the first part of my twenties, I could go to any fast food place (or dennys style restaurant like place) and order a burger (or chicken sandwich) with no sauce and the employees of said establishment would know that meant no ketchup, mustard, mayo, tartar sauce or anything like that. Now, I live in Arizona and nearly every time I ask for no sauce, I get a puzzled look and a typical reply of "um, so, no tomato?" or "so, plain?". I almost always have to explain exactly what it is I mean by no sauce. Another reply is "we don't put sauce on it, only mustard and ketchup". Then, my reply to their reply would be "so, what do you consider sauce" and their reply would be another puzzled look. It's been a frustrating transition. If I do get someone who seems to understand what I mean by no sauce, then my sandwich usually comes completely plain (no lettuce, tomato, pickles or anything else).
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That is NOT barbecue ... geez Did you slap some ketchup on it and call that sauce ;-) :-D I thought it was interesting when I first traveled north (in the US) and in the restaurant's the first thing all the waitresses ask was "You-all-set" (as if it was one word) ... I thought to myself all set for what? Now with the "normalization" of America (everything, everywhere is beginning to look the same) you have to ask for "sweet tea" in restaurant's in the south ... it use to be all you had to ask for was tea and people had sense enough to bring you a glass of tea flavored sugar syrup over ice. Now you have to ask for "sweet tea" and still sometimes a waitron will say "we have sugar on the table" (they just don't get that whole super saturation thing). Well tuck em in if they are hanging out and keep your head down and your tail up and never ask an American if he's packing a fag because it won't end well.
grgran wrote:
Well tuck em in if they are hanging out and keep your head down and your tail up and never ask an American if he's packing a fag because it won't end well.
DON'T SMOKE AROUND ME! ZOMFG!! A SMOKER!! A SMOKER!! DON'T YOU KNOW HOW BAD SMOKING IS ON EVERYONE AROUND - What? You're just looking for gay guys? Oh, no problem, let's go. Just don't ask them for a fag.
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Speaking of Sauce. In California where I grew up and worked the first part of my twenties, I could go to any fast food place (or dennys style restaurant like place) and order a burger (or chicken sandwich) with no sauce and the employees of said establishment would know that meant no ketchup, mustard, mayo, tartar sauce or anything like that. Now, I live in Arizona and nearly every time I ask for no sauce, I get a puzzled look and a typical reply of "um, so, no tomato?" or "so, plain?". I almost always have to explain exactly what it is I mean by no sauce. Another reply is "we don't put sauce on it, only mustard and ketchup". Then, my reply to their reply would be "so, what do you consider sauce" and their reply would be another puzzled look. It's been a frustrating transition. If I do get someone who seems to understand what I mean by no sauce, then my sandwich usually comes completely plain (no lettuce, tomato, pickles or anything else).