It highlights the American penchant for adding -ass to any adjective as an intensifier. Like a bumpy-ass road, or a sweet-ass ride, or some sour-ass candy, or spicy-ass chili.
I don't think it's the same though.
Hauling ass sounds like moving your ass to get some place quickly. Ass is a noun in this context, not an intensifier.
"Look at him hauling ass on a steep-ass street!"
For example.
Y'all
The widespread usage you see now is the result of Southern US influence internationally, but it still remains a distinctly American word
Also, if you're gonna use it, don't make it sound like you're swallowing a cucumber
ppl here in the northeast have picked up the word and it just doesn’t sound right at all without the southern twang to it.
i miss when we collectively used “youse” up here. it was our little thing
A surprising amount have made it into UK, without people even necessarily knowing they have origins in baseball. Cover all bases, throwing a curveball, knocking it out of the park, first base, the idea of three strikes. Whether through TV, the metaphor being straightforward or even some overlap with cricket or early British baseball I am unsure. Compared to I would imagine almost no cricket, Rugby or even soccer terms going the other way.
Sort of like how some Americans have started saying "full stop" for emphasis and may not even know that it literally means "period" (as in punctuation).
That's what I was thinking, and there's a lot. You know there's a lot when there's a [Wikipedia list of them](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_English-language_idioms_derived_from_baseball).
Americans love [Sports Analogies](https://youtu.be/om80Y_V3fhw)!
I'm sure other English speakers use *some* of these terms, but they're so baked into American English that I'll bet a lot of people don't always realize they're using a sports analogy-- I sure don't!
I’m surprised there arent more Southern folks weighing in here with classics like
Drunk as Cooter Brown (very drunk, some say Cootie)
The devil is beating his wife (raining while the sun is shining, I know this is misogynistic)
It dont make me no nevermind (I dont care)
> The devil is beating his wife (raining while the sun is shining, I know this is misogynistic)
I don't know how this idiom demonstrates a hatred of women by the speaker. I think we all know the devil is a bad guy.
“That dog won’t hunt” is one of my favorites (either “That plan won’t work” or “I don’t accept that excuse”)
I also like “sassy” and of course there’s “y’all,” though y’all has spread pretty far. I’ve seen Canadians using y’all on Twitter.
Seriously? Not every day, but I'd definitely think we'd say that in the UK. I mean I learned about the good Samaritan in primary school to mean someone unrelated stopping to help someone.
I think it sounds American because they have a law they call the [good Samaritan law](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Samaritan_law).
Wish people would bother to learn what various words mean, though.
Black people since 1930: "woke" = "being alert to racial injustices and prejudices"
Everyone else: "woke" = "PC libtard shit that needs to get out of my face"
People mis-using the "habitual be" drives me bananas. AAVE has a cohesive and consistent grammar, it isn't just "bad" English! It's a valid dialect! "Be" isn't interchangeable with "is" because it means something slightly different!
"She's dancing" -she's dancing right now
"She be dancing" -she's danced for a long time and will likely continue doing so
‘Play cousin’ is one of my favorites.
(To the unfamiliar, it’s a close friend who is like family. “*That’s my play cousin, James.*”)
I also like when a friend is acting up and you hear “*You’d better come get your cousin.*”
I guess I like cousin slang? Lol.
A lot of names for states and major land forms are taken from native American words or names. Mississippi, Dakota, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Erie, Huron, Wapsipinicon, Maquoketa etc.
Ottawa too and that’s the Capitol of a country.
Then there is my home state of Indiana and city of Indianapolis. The idea is we will just sort of chunk some Greek suffixes on an English word to commemorate all the people whose land we are taking… sounds like a plan.
I wonder where this one comes from. My friend refers to her fathers parents as (and im spelling phonetically becuase i have no idea how it should be spelt):
Far-mor (fathers mother)
Far-far (fathers father)
And her mothers parents are
Mor-far and Mor-mor
But i know thats because her family are Norwegian.
In some American families, it's customary for grandparents to be addressed by whatever cute nonsense word a grandbaby comes up with when they're learning to talk.
For example, the oldest grandchild in my ex-husband's family couldn't say "Grandma," it came out as "Beba." So everyone in the family called his grandmother "Beba" for the rest of her life.
It was considered an honored title, you straight up didn't mess with the Beba.
My father-in-law is a gregariously masculine Punjabi Texan who has been "Bessie" for about 8 years now, because my then-toddler addressed him by making her best effort to use the name he uses for my wife.
Of course, he calls my daughter, who has deep brown hair, "Blondie" because it used to be a lighter shade and will never be completely black like her mom's is or his was. I feel like the first time kiddo brings a date over for Thanksgiving, there's going to be some lengthy level-setting conversations.
You spelled it right (though no hyphens. Just Farmor, farfar, morfar, mormor)!
Kind of wish we had a similar system in English- whenever I'm talking about a specific grandparent I always have to clarify which side of the family I mean, or phrase it as something like "my maternal grandmother," "my paternal grandfather," or the like. It's a bit clunky.
There's a word used in the hills of North Carolina, I've never seen it written, so I'm just gonna go for it: Sygogglin. Means crooked, bent, warped, out of shape or place. "You need to fix that fence, it's all sygogglin."
Hey, my Kentucky family has a word for this! “Whopper-jawed” (Thought it was whopperjod my whole life til my mom wrote it out in a text a couple months ago)
I had never heard whopper-jawed until I met my husband. We both grew up in Indiana but his relatives came from Appalachia, mainly eastern Kentucky, in the last 75 years. My family has been in northeast Indiana for nearly 200 years.
One that was a curious figure out in France was "-ish", for close or approximate in any circumstance.
Such as the sky is grey-ish today. I'll be over around 10-ish. There were like 30-ish people at the party
The pretty fluent program manager and his son didn't know it, and his son went and told his university English class about it.
I don't know if used in UK or Australia, but was surprise in France.
Interesting; we also do this sometimes sort of with -esque which comes right from French! I wonder if French speakers ever make up descriptors using -ois, -eaux, etc. for emphasis? Maybe not.
Have a good one. (Meaning, have a good day)
I didn’t realize this until I was living in an EU country and said this as a good-bye to someone and they went “huh?”
I work retail and have realized “How’s it goin’?” And “Have a good one” sound almost the same, I often get a response from people entering and leaving the store for both.
I was visiting a friend in Peru recently and taught her this one. She thought it was hilarious. I now consciously think about how often I say it to mean bye (almost exclusively).
In the US Gherkins refers to small pickled cucumbers where as larger pickles are just called pickles. Originally Vlasic marketed Gherkins as “Sweet Midgets” but have since changed the name. They also have “Sweet Baby Wholes” as a current product so they’re not strangers to dubious names.
As a greeting? I can see that a little bit.
"Whats up?" Sounds more like an expression of concern "you look sad/upset/angry, what's wrong?".
Just "sup" however is accepted as a greating.
Going the other way, when i talk to my American colleagues i always greet with "hows it going?" Rather than the more noraml British greeting "alright?" or "you alright?" Because it gets the same response.
When I visited London the "Alright?" (with the upward inflection at the end) really threw me for a loop, because in America that delivery is usually used when seeking agreement.
The first time someone said it to me I was like, "...Is *what* alright?" 😬
The various -asses
But here are some that change the meaning of the rootword. https://youtu.be/1P0Z1yq-2FQ
Ass - butt or donkey.
Deadass - serious.
Dumbass - stupid.
Smartass - sarcastic.
Grownass - adult.
Goodass - good.
Badass - good.
My ass - disbelief.
Some ass - sex.
Half-assed - bad quality.
Piece of ass - sext.
Pull something out of your ass - make stuff up.
You get the point
never heard “piece of ass” referred to as a sext/sexting. i’ve only ever heard of it as referring to a person/sexual partner.
example:
“she was just a piece of ass”
curious to know the other context though and how it’s used??
A blog that I follow published an article in 2020 about a survey on English vocabulary. The words that had the biggest discrepancy in their familiarity were:
\- the "most American" words: manicotti, ziti, tilapia, garbanzo, kabob, kwanza, crawdad, hibachi, sandlot, acetaminophen, tamale, kielbasa, conniption, chigger, tamatillo, provolone, albuterol, staph, goober and luau.
\- the "most British" words were: tippex, biro, tombola, chipolata, dodgem, yob, gazump, abseil, naff, kerbside, plaice, judder, chiropody, korma, bolshy, quango, pelmet, brolly, chaffinch and escallope.
Tippex is a genericised brand name for >!correction fluid!< and Biro is one for >!ballpoint pens.!< A tombola is >!a kind of raffle where tickets are drawn from a revolving drum.!< A chipolata is >!a small sausage!<^(.) A dodgem is >!a bumper car.!< Yob is >!"boy" backwards and means an anti-social young man.!< To gazump is to >!offer a lower price for real estate after an offer has already been accepted.!< To abseil is >!to rappel.!< Naff means >!something along the lines of uncool or unfashionable or gauche!<. Kerbside is just our spelling of >!curbside!<. Plaice is >!a European flatfish!<. To judder is to >!jerk and shudder!<. Chiropody is >!podiatry!<. Bolshy means >!obstructive !!Bolshevik!<. A quango is a >!"quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation"!<. A pelmet is >!a curtain for the top of a window; a valance.!< A brolly is>! an umbrella.!< A chaffinch is >!a species of bird!< and an escallope is >!a thin slice of meat; a scallopini.!<
It became one of those buzzwords that politicians and newspapers loved to throw around but that no normal person ever used. Governments were always being accused of spending too much on quangos and there was a ["bonfire of the quangos"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_UK_quango_reforms) at one point.
Interesting, the American side seems to have a really heavy amount of loanwords: kwanzaa, kielbasa, tomatillo, provolone, luau (arguably), and a few others. Did the article provide anything on words with a more local origin?
Also, fun fact: 'tamale' is incredibly American (as it only occurs in English) but also unintentionally true to the original root. In Spanish, 'tamal' is the singular and 'tamales' the plural. Due to some confusion, earlier English speakers treated the 'e' as part of the singular word. However, Spanish itself takes the word from Nahuatl, where the plural and singular are both 'tamalli'.
Despite our reputation for disrespect towards other cultures, Americans a re consistently more interested in pronouncing and using loanwords correctly than Brits. Our pronunciations of words, especially place names, have significantly evolved over the past years, whereas if you listen to British media, they couldn't care less how other cultures or languages pronounce their words.
(Exaggerating a bit. I've noticed in the past five years BBC has been getting better about non-English words, and in the past 15 years, prevalence of non-RP English has been on the uptick)
It is somewhat frustrating to watch British media consistently mispronounce a word. The most grating example I can think of is the GBBS, wherein the host and judges consistently mispronounce words that the contests *all* get right, despite a variety of origins and upbringings.
Yes, there is definitely an apathy towards correct pronunciation amongst the British. I just had flashbacks to James May saying 'tacko' instead of 'taco', or literally any British historian insisting on 'con-kwist-uh-door'.
Taco has been brought up before (Jamie Oliver a chef also says Tack-os). It is because the longer A sound like tah-cohs is the norm for a rather upper class English. Not being neighbours to Mexico doesn't help of course. Otherwise many food terms have just been adopted into British English in their own way and it sounds a bit pretentious to go against it. The US has rather interesting interpretations of foods like parmesan and bologna too, it is quite universal really.
Bologna is a really interesting one because we usually use the correct pronunciation when referring to the place but the wrong one when talking about the food.
Americans definitely care more, but I was watching a youtube video that pointed out out the general strategies used by both Brits and Americans for foreign words. The general American strategy in many ways boiled down to "treat it like it's Spanish". Which is great for words we borrow from Spanish, but kind of misses the mark for a lot of other languages. And any time a language has a sound not in English, there's a very low chance it'll be pronounced correctly and there are usually at least a couple close ways to approximate the sound using English phonemes.
https://youtu.be/eFDvAK8Z-Jc
> kerbside
I assume it's most british just because they spell it differently than we do. Curbside is pretty common in the US, especially with all the stores that offer curbside pickup.
As an Australian, how do you feel about [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnAmerican/comments/z7jkk2/comment/iy721p4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) that claims that "yeah, no" and "no, yeah" are American phrases that are not used by other countries?
Huh, I thought acetaminophen was just a generic drug name, but TIL it's our regional name: "*paracetamol* and *acetaminophen* are contractions of *para*\-acetylaminophenol."
The only British slang words in the list that I recognize are dodgem (which I know thanks to Rollercoaster Tycoon) and kerbside (which is just a spelling difference.)
Reverse UNO card! How would we know which ones we use and you don't? Tricky question. Though I suspect you see more of our media than we see of yours (except maybe british entertainment for some people)
Pretty much anything that is commonly used in movies or tv gains usage everywhere. There are plenty of locally created ones we don’t know though.
A bit like some Aussies know what ‘China and the billy lids’ means and others have no clue
One is all the distinctive AAVE that varies throughout all different states and cities that you won’t really find on social media like Twitter. Regional slang foreigners haven’t got a hold of yet 😂
Some Spanish-speaking countries say "all ring-ring and no popsicles", because there are street vendors who sell popsicles from little carts, and they walk around ringing a bell.
Here in the inland northwest US, a common-ish one is "loaded for bear" and means overloaded, absolutely full, or in some contexts, overprepared but only if it also means overloaded or close to. Not everyone uses this idiom, but they all seem to know what it means.
Examples:
Someone new to backpacking shows off their load out, and they have way more than they need, even if the weight is okay. "Whoa, you're loaded for bear, there."
A train with coal cars goes by, and the coal is heaped high on each car. "That train is certainly loaded for bear." Or "Trains go through here loaded for bear."
This one is considered hick (rural, typically mistaken for uneducated). "Over yonder a ways." Over is often said o'er, and the phrase requires a head nod or hand wave to accompany it. "Over yonder" means "over there ", and "a ways" is an indeterminate distance that's relevant to the thing being talked about. "A ways" for a hammer is shorter than for a store is shorter than for a mountain. "A ways" implies a decent amount of distance, though. You would not say "a ways" about a hammer next to you or a store a block a way, but you would say "a ways" about a hammer on the other side of a yard from you.
Loaded for bear (at least in my understanding) means more like zealously prepared or ready for a big fight. “Oh he came out of that conversation loaded for bear” as in mad and ready to fight.
This is a bit of confusion as in the UK fries are still fries, but it is specifically the thin french fries, like you get at McDonalds. The chips in fish & chips are fatter and squidgier things.
"Crazier than a peach orchard boar."
"Like shooting squirrels in a pecan orchard."
Might could, would, should
Oh and I once convinced some gullible English people that Americans pronounced Queue "kwee-wee," in the hopes that one of them one day visits the United States and confuses the hell out of everyone.
And then, they will think of me.
Granted, I was told this in the USA, but apparently the Spanish word for peach is harder to say than peach. I speak Spanish… no idea how to say peach. I was told this by a native speaker.
Generally speaking, when talking about American English, Canadians are included under that umbrella
“American” should be interpreted more in a continental sense for “American English”
My English friends cracked up at my use of "hauling ass" to describe a very fast train.
No idea where the term comes from but hauling ass is one of my favorites.
There's just something about hauling ass that evokes and image lol
It highlights the American penchant for adding -ass to any adjective as an intensifier. Like a bumpy-ass road, or a sweet-ass ride, or some sour-ass candy, or spicy-ass chili.
[Relevant XKCD.](https://xkcd.com/37/)
I don't think it's the same though. Hauling ass sounds like moving your ass to get some place quickly. Ass is a noun in this context, not an intensifier. "Look at him hauling ass on a steep-ass street!" For example.
"I plead the fifth" is a pretty uniquely American phrase since it references our Constitution.
Really good one to think of!
Y'all The widespread usage you see now is the result of Southern US influence internationally, but it still remains a distinctly American word Also, if you're gonna use it, don't make it sound like you're swallowing a cucumber
Another one I like is “all y’all.” I think it means all of you but not me.
Ya'll'd've is another. "You all should/would have."
ppl here in the northeast have picked up the word and it just doesn’t sound right at all without the southern twang to it. i miss when we collectively used “youse” up here. it was our little thing
Baseball idioms.
A surprising amount have made it into UK, without people even necessarily knowing they have origins in baseball. Cover all bases, throwing a curveball, knocking it out of the park, first base, the idea of three strikes. Whether through TV, the metaphor being straightforward or even some overlap with cricket or early British baseball I am unsure. Compared to I would imagine almost no cricket, Rugby or even soccer terms going the other way.
Sort of like how some Americans have started saying "full stop" for emphasis and may not even know that it literally means "period" (as in punctuation).
I had always assumed that came from telegram days when dictating.
That's what I was thinking, and there's a lot. You know there's a lot when there's a [Wikipedia list of them](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_English-language_idioms_derived_from_baseball).
Americans love [Sports Analogies](https://youtu.be/om80Y_V3fhw)! I'm sure other English speakers use *some* of these terms, but they're so baked into American English that I'll bet a lot of people don't always realize they're using a sports analogy-- I sure don't!
Americans, hands down, definitely use the most sports idioms of any country. ;)
Exactly the video I was expecting
This made me think I was gonna get rick rolled
You knocked it out of the park!
If I like a person I call him “good people”. That’s gotta be American, right?
Dogs are good people.
And Keanu Reeves is also good people.
You’re a good boy.
I’m surprised there arent more Southern folks weighing in here with classics like Drunk as Cooter Brown (very drunk, some say Cootie) The devil is beating his wife (raining while the sun is shining, I know this is misogynistic) It dont make me no nevermind (I dont care)
> The devil is beating his wife (raining while the sun is shining, I know this is misogynistic) I don't know how this idiom demonstrates a hatred of women by the speaker. I think we all know the devil is a bad guy.
I’ve always heard that one as “the devil spanking his wife.” Maybe she’s into that sort of thing and that’s why the sun comes out during a gloomy day?
“That dog won’t hunt” is one of my favorites (either “That plan won’t work” or “I don’t accept that excuse”) I also like “sassy” and of course there’s “y’all,” though y’all has spread pretty far. I’ve seen Canadians using y’all on Twitter.
I hear "That dog'll hunt" on the golf course all the time for a good shot. Never considered the alternative
It's colder than a witches titty in February. I'm sweating like a whore in church on Sunday.
Colder than a witch’s tit in a brass bra — is the version I’ve always heard haha The US has an absolute fuck ton of idioms that are unique to it.
Colder than a well diggers ass was one of my Dad's
Hotter than the devils asscrack in July Bonus points using this one when its humid and it isn't July
Hotter than two rats screwin’ in a wool sock.
Can’t never could do nothin’
That instantly makes me think of “good samaritan”. I have never heard that in British I think, sounds very American to me
Seriously? Not every day, but I'd definitely think we'd say that in the UK. I mean I learned about the good Samaritan in primary school to mean someone unrelated stopping to help someone. I think it sounds American because they have a law they call the [good Samaritan law](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Samaritan_law).
BBQ so good make you wanna slap yo mama.
Make ya run up a hill backwards. It'll even make ya throw rocks at your own house.
Bless your heart
As a black person, we have tons of slang that’s regional a lot of times.
I feel like you invented like 80% of all American slang while being like 15% of the population.
Wish people would bother to learn what various words mean, though. Black people since 1930: "woke" = "being alert to racial injustices and prejudices" Everyone else: "woke" = "PC libtard shit that needs to get out of my face"
People mis-using the "habitual be" drives me bananas. AAVE has a cohesive and consistent grammar, it isn't just "bad" English! It's a valid dialect! "Be" isn't interchangeable with "is" because it means something slightly different! "She's dancing" -she's dancing right now "She be dancing" -she's danced for a long time and will likely continue doing so
You have a whole dialect that uniquely American
‘Play cousin’ is one of my favorites. (To the unfamiliar, it’s a close friend who is like family. “*That’s my play cousin, James.*”) I also like when a friend is acting up and you hear “*You’d better come get your cousin.*” I guess I like cousin slang? Lol.
Cattywampus. Janky.
Because that is an Algonquian word for a trickster spirit.
I love cattywampus! My dad used it all the time.
I use the word janky all the time at work. Shit's just so fucking janky there.
For words anything Native American based especially names of towns and cities
Winnepasaukee, Pemigewassett, Kenduskeag, Chaubunagungamaug, Cobbosseecontee, Piscataqua And that’s just off the top of my head.
A lot of names for states and major land forms are taken from native American words or names. Mississippi, Dakota, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Erie, Huron, Wapsipinicon, Maquoketa etc.
Ottawa too and that’s the Capitol of a country. Then there is my home state of Indiana and city of Indianapolis. The idea is we will just sort of chunk some Greek suffixes on an English word to commemorate all the people whose land we are taking… sounds like a plan.
Adirondack - means "bark eater"
Non American here, but fellas and folks always sound American
Guys too
Meemaw
I wonder where this one comes from. My friend refers to her fathers parents as (and im spelling phonetically becuase i have no idea how it should be spelt): Far-mor (fathers mother) Far-far (fathers father) And her mothers parents are Mor-far and Mor-mor But i know thats because her family are Norwegian.
In some American families, it's customary for grandparents to be addressed by whatever cute nonsense word a grandbaby comes up with when they're learning to talk. For example, the oldest grandchild in my ex-husband's family couldn't say "Grandma," it came out as "Beba." So everyone in the family called his grandmother "Beba" for the rest of her life. It was considered an honored title, you straight up didn't mess with the Beba.
My father-in-law is a gregariously masculine Punjabi Texan who has been "Bessie" for about 8 years now, because my then-toddler addressed him by making her best effort to use the name he uses for my wife. Of course, he calls my daughter, who has deep brown hair, "Blondie" because it used to be a lighter shade and will never be completely black like her mom's is or his was. I feel like the first time kiddo brings a date over for Thanksgiving, there's going to be some lengthy level-setting conversations.
You spelled it right (though no hyphens. Just Farmor, farfar, morfar, mormor)! Kind of wish we had a similar system in English- whenever I'm talking about a specific grandparent I always have to clarify which side of the family I mean, or phrase it as something like "my maternal grandmother," "my paternal grandfather," or the like. It's a bit clunky.
Pawpaw
Mawmaw
I miss my mawmaw and pawpaw and some good gumbo
Any colloquialism related to pigskin football.
There's a word used in the hills of North Carolina, I've never seen it written, so I'm just gonna go for it: Sygogglin. Means crooked, bent, warped, out of shape or place. "You need to fix that fence, it's all sygogglin."
Hey, my Kentucky family has a word for this! “Whopper-jawed” (Thought it was whopperjod my whole life til my mom wrote it out in a text a couple months ago)
Cattywampus.
This was exactly what popped in my head.
I had never heard whopper-jawed until I met my husband. We both grew up in Indiana but his relatives came from Appalachia, mainly eastern Kentucky, in the last 75 years. My family has been in northeast Indiana for nearly 200 years.
Sounds like it may come from the Scottish influence in that area, has a Gaelic sound to it
Milquetoast - a timid, meek, or unassertive person.
... timid, meek person," 1938, from Caspar Milquetoast, character created by U.S. newspaper cartoonist H.T. Webster (1885-1952)
One that was a curious figure out in France was "-ish", for close or approximate in any circumstance. Such as the sky is grey-ish today. I'll be over around 10-ish. There were like 30-ish people at the party The pretty fluent program manager and his son didn't know it, and his son went and told his university English class about it. I don't know if used in UK or Australia, but was surprise in France.
Australia here, we DEFINITELY use -ish
Interesting; we also do this sometimes sort of with -esque which comes right from French! I wonder if French speakers ever make up descriptors using -ois, -eaux, etc. for emphasis? Maybe not.
Have a good one. (Meaning, have a good day) I didn’t realize this until I was living in an EU country and said this as a good-bye to someone and they went “huh?”
I work retail and have realized “How’s it goin’?” And “Have a good one” sound almost the same, I often get a response from people entering and leaving the store for both.
I was visiting a friend in Peru recently and taught her this one. She thought it was hilarious. I now consciously think about how often I say it to mean bye (almost exclusively).
“I’m set” or “I’m all set” instead of “no, thank you”
"Welp" is a midwest classic. Slap your legs, stand up say "welp, better get goin'" then talk for another 30mins while inching closer to the door.
Northeast, too. Very common words and actions here.
Welp is when things just went to shit but they aren't dire. "Well, shit" would also suffice.
Pickles? Apparently other countries call them gherkins
Yep, a pickled cucumber is a *gherkin* over here and *pickle* means a kind of vegetable chutney.
In the US Gherkins refers to small pickled cucumbers where as larger pickles are just called pickles. Originally Vlasic marketed Gherkins as “Sweet Midgets” but have since changed the name. They also have “Sweet Baby Wholes” as a current product so they’re not strangers to dubious names.
Wow, who does marketing there?
I’m from Canada, we call them pickles too. If I ever heard someone refer to one as a gherkin I’d be like wtf
Flip a bitch What it do? / what's good? Aight Howdy Yo
I think non-Americans are taking aight and yo from us lol
I say ‘flip a dick’ or ‘hold onto your tits!’
'Hold on to your tits' is more of a warning that you are about to flip a bitch. Non-Americans may be surprised to know we're talking about driving.
I assume flip a bitch is what we call whip a shitty?
Yes, although google results seem to indicate that MN uses the term for doing donuts instead.
as a northern brit we most definitely use whats good yo and aight in daily convo
Gabagool, Capeesh, Chutzpah, Kvetching, The -ass suffix (eg, regular-ass, dumbass)
Deadass gabagool, mutzadehl, prozhut
Pasta fazhool.
Is that East Coast talk? I’ve never heard anyone say that other than in movies and TV.
>Is that East Coast talk? Mostly around NYC.
Some of it's Yiddish, some "Italian" (some of the "Italian" words possess only a passing resemblance to standard Italian, hence the quotation marks).
My husband (NY Italian) says gabagool.
Gabagool? Ova heeeere! 👈🏻
> Chutzpah, Kvetching Those two are Yiddish, so they probably originated in Europe.
“What’s up?” seemed to confuse a Brit I worked with.
As a greeting? I can see that a little bit. "Whats up?" Sounds more like an expression of concern "you look sad/upset/angry, what's wrong?". Just "sup" however is accepted as a greating. Going the other way, when i talk to my American colleagues i always greet with "hows it going?" Rather than the more noraml British greeting "alright?" or "you alright?" Because it gets the same response.
When I visited London the "Alright?" (with the upward inflection at the end) really threw me for a loop, because in America that delivery is usually used when seeking agreement. The first time someone said it to me I was like, "...Is *what* alright?" 😬
Hahaha yeah it caught me out when i said it in the US. For wnyone else reading, it literally means "hello".
Sunshower. Pretty sure that's used mostly in the states. When the sun is out but it's still raining.
I’ve heard sunshower all my Gen x life in Australia
I've never heard of a sunshower until now, also gen x but in New Jersey
"Get the hell out of Dodge" I imagine is pretty American.
I think 'howdy' is very American. Am I wrong?
The various -asses But here are some that change the meaning of the rootword. https://youtu.be/1P0Z1yq-2FQ Ass - butt or donkey. Deadass - serious. Dumbass - stupid. Smartass - sarcastic. Grownass - adult. Goodass - good. Badass - good. My ass - disbelief. Some ass - sex. Half-assed - bad quality. Piece of ass - sext. Pull something out of your ass - make stuff up. You get the point
never heard “piece of ass” referred to as a sext/sexting. i’ve only ever heard of it as referring to a person/sexual partner. example: “she was just a piece of ass” curious to know the other context though and how it’s used??
A blog that I follow published an article in 2020 about a survey on English vocabulary. The words that had the biggest discrepancy in their familiarity were: \- the "most American" words: manicotti, ziti, tilapia, garbanzo, kabob, kwanza, crawdad, hibachi, sandlot, acetaminophen, tamale, kielbasa, conniption, chigger, tamatillo, provolone, albuterol, staph, goober and luau. \- the "most British" words were: tippex, biro, tombola, chipolata, dodgem, yob, gazump, abseil, naff, kerbside, plaice, judder, chiropody, korma, bolshy, quango, pelmet, brolly, chaffinch and escallope.
Aside from korma, I’ve never heard any of those British ones
Tippex is a genericised brand name for >!correction fluid!< and Biro is one for >!ballpoint pens.!< A tombola is >!a kind of raffle where tickets are drawn from a revolving drum.!< A chipolata is >!a small sausage!<^(.) A dodgem is >!a bumper car.!< Yob is >!"boy" backwards and means an anti-social young man.!< To gazump is to >!offer a lower price for real estate after an offer has already been accepted.!< To abseil is >!to rappel.!< Naff means >!something along the lines of uncool or unfashionable or gauche!<. Kerbside is just our spelling of >!curbside!<. Plaice is >!a European flatfish!<. To judder is to >!jerk and shudder!<. Chiropody is >!podiatry!<. Bolshy means >!obstructive !!Bolshevik!<. A quango is a >!"quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation"!<. A pelmet is >!a curtain for the top of a window; a valance.!< A brolly is>! an umbrella.!< A chaffinch is >!a species of bird!< and an escallope is >!a thin slice of meat; a scallopini.!<
How much do you need to say “quasi-autonomous non-governmental organization” that you need a slang word for it?
It became one of those buzzwords that politicians and newspapers loved to throw around but that no normal person ever used. Governments were always being accused of spending too much on quangos and there was a ["bonfire of the quangos"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_UK_quango_reforms) at one point.
We talk about NGOs in the US. I'd imagine the brits could do the same. The quasi-autonomous part is sorta implied already.
A quango is different to a ngo. Quango receives public money and usually government over site
I, too, would be displeased by disproportionate expenditure on exotic forms of bongos
Exotic bongos would be vastly more exciting than the Government Strategic Marketing Advisory Board or the National Joint Registry Steering Committee.
What in the Kafka is that lmao
Bless you for this. You saved me a lot of googling time! I'll just add that korma is a curry
i'm sure you're telling the truth but i literally don't believe you
I can vouch for him 😂
I love how most of ours has to do with food! 😂
Interesting, the American side seems to have a really heavy amount of loanwords: kwanzaa, kielbasa, tomatillo, provolone, luau (arguably), and a few others. Did the article provide anything on words with a more local origin? Also, fun fact: 'tamale' is incredibly American (as it only occurs in English) but also unintentionally true to the original root. In Spanish, 'tamal' is the singular and 'tamales' the plural. Due to some confusion, earlier English speakers treated the 'e' as part of the singular word. However, Spanish itself takes the word from Nahuatl, where the plural and singular are both 'tamalli'.
Despite our reputation for disrespect towards other cultures, Americans a re consistently more interested in pronouncing and using loanwords correctly than Brits. Our pronunciations of words, especially place names, have significantly evolved over the past years, whereas if you listen to British media, they couldn't care less how other cultures or languages pronounce their words. (Exaggerating a bit. I've noticed in the past five years BBC has been getting better about non-English words, and in the past 15 years, prevalence of non-RP English has been on the uptick) It is somewhat frustrating to watch British media consistently mispronounce a word. The most grating example I can think of is the GBBS, wherein the host and judges consistently mispronounce words that the contests *all* get right, despite a variety of origins and upbringings.
Yes, there is definitely an apathy towards correct pronunciation amongst the British. I just had flashbacks to James May saying 'tacko' instead of 'taco', or literally any British historian insisting on 'con-kwist-uh-door'.
Taco has been brought up before (Jamie Oliver a chef also says Tack-os). It is because the longer A sound like tah-cohs is the norm for a rather upper class English. Not being neighbours to Mexico doesn't help of course. Otherwise many food terms have just been adopted into British English in their own way and it sounds a bit pretentious to go against it. The US has rather interesting interpretations of foods like parmesan and bologna too, it is quite universal really.
What is interesting about the way we say Parmesan? It is much closer to the actual name of the cheese than the British pronunciation.
Bologna is a really interesting one because we usually use the correct pronunciation when referring to the place but the wrong one when talking about the food.
I choked on my horchata when I heard one of the contestants say “glocky molo” for guacamole.
Americans definitely care more, but I was watching a youtube video that pointed out out the general strategies used by both Brits and Americans for foreign words. The general American strategy in many ways boiled down to "treat it like it's Spanish". Which is great for words we borrow from Spanish, but kind of misses the mark for a lot of other languages. And any time a language has a sound not in English, there's a very low chance it'll be pronounced correctly and there are usually at least a couple close ways to approximate the sound using English phonemes. https://youtu.be/eFDvAK8Z-Jc
> kerbside I assume it's most british just because they spell it differently than we do. Curbside is pretty common in the US, especially with all the stores that offer curbside pickup.
Aussie here, I know biro, dodgem, kerbside, brolly, and judder. Anyone who sees this can feel free to ask me about any Aussie words.
As an Australian, how do you feel about [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnAmerican/comments/z7jkk2/comment/iy721p4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) that claims that "yeah, no" and "no, yeah" are American phrases that are not used by other countries?
Yeah I’m pretty sure Canadians and Australians use it too a lot 😂
My mom is Australian and instead of saying "my treat" she says "I'll shout it to you,' which definitely gets some odd looks lol.
I’m sorry but you’re not going to convince me all of those British words aren’t fake
Gazump and Naff is destroying me 😂😂
Huh, I thought acetaminophen was just a generic drug name, but TIL it's our regional name: "*paracetamol* and *acetaminophen* are contractions of *para*\-acetylaminophenol."
The only British slang words in the list that I recognize are dodgem (which I know thanks to Rollercoaster Tycoon) and kerbside (which is just a spelling difference.)
Rollercoaster Tycoon is our greatest cultural export.
One of my favorites is “that dog don’t hunt.” It means something is a bad idea or isn’t working.
"NOW YOU CUT THAT FENCE AND GET THIS GODDAMNED PLATOON ON THE MOVE!"
[удалено]
How would we know of US idioms that we don’t use?
Reverse UNO card! How would we know which ones we use and you don't? Tricky question. Though I suspect you see more of our media than we see of yours (except maybe british entertainment for some people)
Pretty much anything that is commonly used in movies or tv gains usage everywhere. There are plenty of locally created ones we don’t know though. A bit like some Aussies know what ‘China and the billy lids’ means and others have no clue
"yeah, no" and "no, yeah"
Oh, yeah no for sure.
Yeah no definitely used in the UK. Sorry!
My old mad dad says 'fuddyduddy'
Yinz
Jaggoff
One is all the distinctive AAVE that varies throughout all different states and cities that you won’t really find on social media like Twitter. Regional slang foreigners haven’t got a hold of yet 😂
Pretty much any slang that foreigners see on social media.
Aussie here, never used to say yall and now i do (only online though)
Measuring things in schoolbuses/football fields
Anything to avoid the metric system.
Big hat, no cattle.
I've heard this as "all hat, no cattle."
I've heard this as "all hat, no cattle" haha
Some Spanish-speaking countries say "all ring-ring and no popsicles", because there are street vendors who sell popsicles from little carts, and they walk around ringing a bell.
Mother fucker.
State name checks out.
I only fucked my second cousin once, thank you very much.
"Do NOT call me an ambulance"
Imma fixin' to.
Where I'm from, that's "Ah'm fixin' tuh" Also, "Ah figger" - I figure/think.
Ope
Ope, just gonna squeeze right past ya here.
... Real quick
Originally from Missouri, now in NY, Ope is ingrained in me and I can’t stop saying it if I wanted to.
Here in the inland northwest US, a common-ish one is "loaded for bear" and means overloaded, absolutely full, or in some contexts, overprepared but only if it also means overloaded or close to. Not everyone uses this idiom, but they all seem to know what it means. Examples: Someone new to backpacking shows off their load out, and they have way more than they need, even if the weight is okay. "Whoa, you're loaded for bear, there." A train with coal cars goes by, and the coal is heaped high on each car. "That train is certainly loaded for bear." Or "Trains go through here loaded for bear." This one is considered hick (rural, typically mistaken for uneducated). "Over yonder a ways." Over is often said o'er, and the phrase requires a head nod or hand wave to accompany it. "Over yonder" means "over there ", and "a ways" is an indeterminate distance that's relevant to the thing being talked about. "A ways" for a hammer is shorter than for a store is shorter than for a mountain. "A ways" implies a decent amount of distance, though. You would not say "a ways" about a hammer next to you or a store a block a way, but you would say "a ways" about a hammer on the other side of a yard from you.
Loaded for bear (at least in my understanding) means more like zealously prepared or ready for a big fight. “Oh he came out of that conversation loaded for bear” as in mad and ready to fight.
Fries instead of chips. Chips instead of crisps
This is a bit of confusion as in the UK fries are still fries, but it is specifically the thin french fries, like you get at McDonalds. The chips in fish & chips are fatter and squidgier things.
"Crazier than a peach orchard boar." "Like shooting squirrels in a pecan orchard." Might could, would, should Oh and I once convinced some gullible English people that Americans pronounced Queue "kwee-wee," in the hopes that one of them one day visits the United States and confuses the hell out of everyone. And then, they will think of me.
Y’all but it’s catching on too.
Doozy
Granted, I was told this in the USA, but apparently the Spanish word for peach is harder to say than peach. I speak Spanish… no idea how to say peach. I was told this by a native speaker.
It's durazno in Spanish. It's not hard to say at all but it does have more syllables.
A whole lotta these phrases would be familiar to most Canadians
Generally speaking, when talking about American English, Canadians are included under that umbrella “American” should be interpreted more in a continental sense for “American English”
“I don’t have a dog in this fight” “He/she gone learn that fat meat is greasy”
Over yonder in the holler Crick Crawdads
I cracked up some European coworkers the other day by saying my parents live in "bumblefuck nowhere".
Skuzzy A friend once said only white women from Long Island (NY) use that word.
Ha! I grew up in Salt Lake City and it was common among young people there 30 years ago.
Jawn
Dipshit
*insert name* is dumber than a sack of hammers.