English converted to English

[wingsandsword]

I remember a friend telling me someone was asking him to pop the trunk, but I can't remember the Brittish term for it. I want to say Kit, but I'm not sure. Anyway, he thought the guy was hitting on him.

I think the British term for a car trunk is "boot".

I know
Truck = Lorry
Apartment = Flat
Cigarette = Fag (a source of endless immature culture-clash humor, given what Fag means in American English)

 

[Bront]

Boot, that was it. The guy asked if he could open up so he could "Put his bag in his boot" and realy threw him for a second.

 

[GentleGiant]

Having grown up with mostly American English (ahhh, the influence of American TV) it's quite fun to have an English girlfriend and discover all the "quirky" little phrases.
I had never heard the word "fib" before, but I don't know if it's inherently British.
To fib (fibbing, be a fibber) = to lie (or, as my GF puts it, to "tell porky pies")
Take the Mick out of someone = to tease them/make fun of them
Phwoar! = "wow!" - "wauw!" - often used if something is pleasing to the eye (as in, the opposite sex (or same sex for some ))

Sod off = f*ck off, p*ss off etc., in other words, "please leave... NOW"

Also, snogging is, as far as I know, just another word for French kissing or even just kissing passionately.

 

[Ranger REG]

Carefull. Copping of doesn't mean snogging, at least round my way, it refers to what comes later...

glass.

In America, that's "getting to second base."

Don't ask me why we used baseball analogy, though I'm sure my fellow Americans have naughty thoughts when it comes to bats and balls.

So, is British "shagging" an American "third base" or "home run"?

 

[MonsterMash]

I remember a friend telling me someone was asking him to pop the trunk, but I can't remember the Brittish term for it. I want to say Kit, but I'm not sure. Anyway, he thought the guy was hitting on him.

I had always thought Snogging was mostly just another term for french kiss (Tonsil scraping, tongue tag, Tonsil Hockey, tongue wrestling, etc), but apparently it's a bit more than that.

It would be open the boot in the UK, which I could see causing confusion!

Snogging is often usually tonsil hockey.

Bugger is often used as a fairly mild swear word like bloody - also bleeding or bleedin' is often used instead of bloody, depending on context e.g. 'bloody hell' or 'bleedin' thing'

 

[Jonny Nexus]

So, is British "shagging" an American "third base" or "home run"?

Shagging's a home run.

 

[Jonny Nexus]

'pissed' means drunk (not angry), as does 'wankered'

There's a hilarious moment in a documentatary about a 1960s Bob Dylan tour of the UK where, at an after-gig party, he angrily approaches a fan who he (mistakenly) thinks has just thrown a bottle out of a window (the manager has come to complain) leading to an exchange along the lines of:

Dylan: [Screaming] Are you pissed?

Fan: [Indignant, pretty angry, and shouting] No I ain't pissed, I only just bloody arrived!

Dylan: [Confused... and then just shouting anyway] Well I'm pissed!

Fan: [Says nothing... but from the expression on his face you can tell that he's wondering the hell kind of point Dylan's trying to make]

 

[Staffan]

I like British phrases. "Bloody" is a common one that seems to be as versatile as the F word, but more acceptable.

I want to know what "Sod Off" means. I hear it on British shows, and it seems to really offend the target person. It usually ends most conversations.

Basically, "F--- off". Some people think it comes from the word "sod" which means "dirt", but it's rather an abbreviation for an activity named after a city that God nukes in Genesis, and it's not Gomorrah.

 

[johnsemlak]

Somewhat extensive notes here on the subject.

http://www.scit.wlv.ac.uk/~jphb/american.html

Ah, a topic of endless discussion in TEFL teaching rooms.


I have a theory that runs like this--British and American English are the most different in areas of vocabulary that developed in the late 1800s and early 1900s, when geography separated the countries a bit more than it does in the modern world. At that time a lot of new technology appeared (particularly household items and other various consumer goods) and words needed to be invented to describe them. And often different words were used on either side of the ocean. For example, much of hte common vocabulary that describes a car is diffenerent. Also, most vocabulary describing sports is rather different (most popular sports became organized around the world in the late 1800s spurred by urbanization). E.g. 'pitch' rather than 'field'; Football 'kit' rather than 'uniform', etc.

Vocabulary from before this period tends to be more similar, since most of it was created before the colonists arrived in the Americas. And since WWII, increasing globalization and in particular the global mass media/entertainment (especially the worldwide popularlity of American film, and perhaps more important, TV) and now the internet are making the languages more similar again, and thus we're seeing fewer different words (outside of slang, perhaps).

 

[Zander]

Somewhat extensive notes here on the subject.

http://www.scit.wlv.ac.uk/~jphb/american.html

Ah, a topic of endless discussion in TEFL teaching rooms.


I have a theory that runs like this--British and American English are the most different in areas of vocabulary that developed in the late 1800s and early 1900s, when geography separated the countries a bit more than it does in the modern world. At that time a lot of new technology appeared (particularly household items and other various consumer goods) and words needed to be invented to describe them. And often different words were used on either side of the ocean.... Vocabulary from before this period tends to be more similar, since most of it was created before the colonists arrived in the Americas. And since WWII, increasing globalization and in particular the global mass media/entertainment (especially the worldwide popularlity of American film, and perhaps more important, TV) and now the internet are making the languages more similar again, and thus we're seeing fewer different words (outside of slang, perhaps).

An interesting theory. It seems plausible and I'm not saying that it's categorically wrong but off the top of my head I can think of a couple of post-WWII exceptions:
1. "Mobile phone" or simply "mobile" (UK) vs "cell phone" or simply "cell" (US)
2. "Telly" (UK) vs "TV" (US although increasingly UK too)

I know that television was in fact developed before WWII but it didn't become popular until afterwards.